Associations of social and emotional competencies,academic efficacy beliefs,and emotional distress among students in lower secondary school

Social Psychology of Education - This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate how perceived social-emotional competencies (SECs), relationship skills, emotional regulation, and the ability to...     

Ideological Views in Emerging Adulthood: Balancing Autonomy and Community

Ideological views of 140 emerging adults (ages 20–29) were explored, using the ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity. Two questions were asked as part of an interview: “When you get toward the end of your life, what would you like to be able to say about your life, looking back on it?” and “What values or beliefs do you think are the most important to pass on to the next generation?” Overall, emerging adults used Autonomy and Community in roughly equal proportions, whereas Divinity was used relatively infrequently. Use of Autonomy was negatively correlated with use of Community on both questions, but the correlations were modest, and some emerging adults were able to reconcile the two ethics. Qualitative examples are presented to illustrate the findings of the study, and the findings are discussed in the context of claims about American individualism.     

Pentecostals: The Power of the Powerless

Many researchers interpret Pentecostalism in terms of external factors such as European and North American history or economics. In this article Pentecostalism is examined from below, through qualitative interviews with women living in poverty in Santiago, Chile. The analysis shows how Pentecostalism led to a new theology where the believer became the subject of her own life. Social ascent was made through ecstatic experiences of the spirit in a caring community which directed the individual towards "a female ethos." This subjective change affected social changes in Chile under dictatorship but not in state politics because parts of the Pentecostal hierarchy collaborated with Pinochet.     

Early food refusal: Infant and family characteristics

This study compared infants who developed food refusal during the first year of life with a healthy control group concerning feeding, growth pattern, family situation, and infant behavioral characteristics. Infants with food refusal had a lower relative weight at inclusion in the study and at follow-up at the age of 2 years. Food refusal was also associated with weaning problems, parental reports of lower food consumption, a higher incidence of breast-feeding, a higher frequency of meals, psychosocial problems in the family, less positive perceptions of parenting, infant difficultness, and problematic behaviors. The findings have implications for identification and understanding of factors related to early food refusal.     

The Association Between Socioeconomic Status and Cognitive Development in Children Is Partly Mediated by a Chaotic Home Atmosphere

ABSTRACT

There are socioeconomic-status (SES) differences in cognitive development. Various factors have been proposed that might explain this association, and one of these factors is the home environment. The present study examined a chaotic home atmosphere as a potential mediator of the association between parental SES and cognitive development. A nationally representative sample of children in the United Kingdom was studied when children were 3 years (n = 15,590), 5 years (n = 13,802), and 7 years old (n = 12,661). At each wave, the children completed multiple cognitive tests, and parents provided information on their SES (income, education, and occupation) and the home atmosphere. Mediation effects were tested with longitudinal structural equation modeling. Direct relations between parental SES and cognitive ability were partly mediated by the home atmosphere. The proportion of mediation was 16% for the change in cognitive ability predicted by parental SES. This study suggests that a chaotic home atmosphere might partly explain the association between parental SES and cognitive development.     

‘If it makes you feel good it must be right’: Embodiment strategies for healthy eating and risk management

The following arguments are constructed around the encounter of embodied experiences and societal discourses. On the basis of an ethnographic study of 34 Danish consumers, we present different consumers' strategies in relation to their perception of healthy food and management of food‐related health risk. Drawing on a subsample representing particular subject positions in relation to healthy eating, we argue for an increased role of embodiment in consumers' risk handling. The study shows that because of the overload of information, consumers increasingly turn to personal experiences and bodily feelings as the instrument and strategy for evaluating possible health risk and benefit. Furthermore, the study shows how these evaluations are related to broader political and socio‐economic issues as well as closely intertwined with notion of trust and mistrust. Through embodied feelings, consumers navigate and negotiate their position in relation to social discourses of health and risk. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.