Teaching Strategies and Adaptations of Teachers in Multiculturally Diverse Classrooms in Seventh-day Adventist K-8 Schools in North America

The purpose of this study was to describe the experiences of Adventist teachers—their training, their use of instructional strategies, and the challenges they encounter when teaching students of different cultures. Banks' multicultural paradigms was the theoretical framework from which a survey was developed and sent to all K-8 Adventist teachers in the United States and Canada. Strategies relating to the self-concept development and ethnic additive paradigms were used most frequently by Adventist teachers while those associated with the language paradigm were used the least. Almost half of the teachers subscribed to the goal that “students are individuals with distinct personalities regardless of their background” while about 10% of the teachers considered the goals relating to “protection of diverse groups” the most important. Their strategy use was not related to their most important goals (Nels) for multicultural education. Forty percent of the teachers had no training in multicultural education and the study recommends training so that Adventist teachers will have more effective strategies for relating to diverse students.     

The stability of structural measures derived from repertory grids

Although the use of repertory grids in psychological research has proliferated, studies of their psychometric properties are relatively rare. For this reason, we studied the reliability and convergence of several measures of cognitive structure derived from grids, including intensity, percentage of variance accounted for by the first component, cognitive complexity, ordination, extremity of ratings, self-ideal discrepancy, and self-other discrepancy, as well two measures of rating stability, construct consistency and factor loading consistency. Eighty-two Spanish (Catalan) and American participants completed small and large grids on each of four occasions, which enabled exploratory analyses of the impact of grid size and subject characteristics on the structural scores obtained. Results indicated that the majority of scores showed impressive test-relest reliability (modal r = .85 for periods up to 1 month), but also suggested a gradual tightening effect across subsequent administrations. In general, scores intercorrelated in theoretically anticipated ways, converging on the assessment of cognitive differentiation and discrimination of elements within construct dimensions. The results have implications for the reactivity of structural scores to variations in grid format, as well as for use of grids in the study of sex differences and cross-cultural comparisons.     

Book Review: Rethinking the Trauma of War

Abstract

In this article I will adopt the viewpoint that current social issues, concerns and preoccupations are mirrored to some extent in films, and indeed culture in general - a view which has been expressed by many people in one form or another (see, for example, Caldwell [1996] or Sekoff [1989: 148] who says that ‘film must be understood as potentially embodying, disguising, challenging, containing, exploring, producing and so on the conditions of our cultural and personal lives, as well as the meanings we weave around them’). For example, the depression, unemployment and political polarization of the 1920s and 1930s produced two types of film. There were those which directly mirrored the political developments and social hardship of the times - such as the Charlie Chaplin films - and those which created a fantasy world of make-believe in order to escape the harsh realities of the day - for instance, the Hollywood Busby Berkeley musicals. So what are films telling us about society today?     

A Meta-Theoretical Framework for Counselling People of African Ancestry: An Ecologically Oriented Response to the Special Section Articles

This article is a review of the preceding six articles included in the Special Section related to the subject of counselling people of African ancestry. The major objective was to ascertain whether any recurring themes might be identified, and whether these might contribute to developing a meta-theoretical perspective for counseling people of African ancestry. Two theoretical strands common to the six articles have been identified: (a) the ecological-transactional model and (b) the self-determination theory. A multicultural perspective appears to best characterize effective counseling practice in African settings.     

The creative skills of culturally and linguistically diverse gifted students

The purpose of this study was to explore the creative abilities of culturally and linguistically diverse students. The relationships among creativity and achievement, intelligence, nonverbal reasoning, and instructional climate were also examined. For the pupils in this study, moderate correlations were found between creativity and intelligence and between creativity and reading achievement. A low correlation was found between creativity and nonverbal‐reasoning skills. Significant relationships were found between creativity and several classroom variables. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of identifying gifted youth from culturally and linguistically different backgrounds.     

How Outgroup Salespeople Fit in or Fail to Fit in: A Proposed Acculturation Effects Framework

The findings of several research studies suggest that gender, culture, and ethnic group are associated reliably with differences in workplace behaviors. This paper looks beyond demographic differences to a broader concept of group-based differences and addresses how differences in the behavioral reactions of outgroup sales trainees affect sales managers' attempts to socialize them into the organization. It is important for sales managers to be able to understand how differences are related to workplace behavior as sales forces become increasingly diverse. A framework and research propositions are offered based on theories of socialization, acculturation, and person—organization fit. In addition, interviews were conducted with salespeople to assess the viability of the proposed framework. Several areas of future research emerge as a result of this exploratory discussion.     

Empathy and contextual social cognition

Empathy is a highly flexible and adaptive process that allows for the interplay of prosocial behavior in many different social contexts. Empathy appears to be a very situated cognitive process, embedded with specific contextual cues that trigger different automatic and controlled responses. In this review, we summarize relevant evidence regarding social context modulation of empathy for pain. Several contextual factors, such as stimulus reality and personal experience, affectively link with other factors, emotional cues, threat information, group membership, and attitudes toward others to influence the affective, sensorimotor, and cognitive processing of empathy. Thus, we propose that the frontoinsular-temporal network, the so-called social context network model (SCNM), is recruited during the contextual processing of empathy. This network would (1) update the contextual cues and use them to construct fast predictions (frontal regions), (2) coordinate the internal (body) and external milieus (insula), and (3) consolidate the context–target associative learning of empathic processes (temporal sites). Furthermore, we propose these context-dependent effects of empathy in the framework of the frontoinsular-temporal network and examine the behavioral and neural evidence of three neuropsychiatric conditions (Asperger syndrome, schizophrenia, and the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia), which simultaneously present with empathy and contextual integration impairments. We suggest potential advantages of a situated approach to empathy in the assessment of these neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as their relationship with the SCNM.     

Hormonal changes of intimate partner violence perpetrators in response to brief social contact with women

This study investigated whether men with a history of real-life aggressive, dominant behavior show increases in testosterone and cortisol levels after brief social contact with women. Furthermore, we tested the prediction that such changes in hormones would be larger than those observed previously in young male students. Sixty-seven male participants convicted of intimate partner violence (IPV) either had brief social contact with a female confederate (experimental condition) or a male confederate (control condition). We also performed meta-analyses to investigate whether IPV perpetrators' hormonal responses were larger than the typical responses of young male students in prior studies. All statistical analyses were preregistered. Change in testosterone did not differ across experimental conditions, and testosterone in the IPV perpetrators actually declined from baseline in the female confederate condition. Our meta-analysis showed that this testosterone decrease was different from the testosterone increase typically observed in young male students. The cortisol levels of IPV perpetrators did not change in response to contact with women. This result was consistent with our meta-analysis since young male students also did not experience a cortisol change in response to interactions with women. In sum, our findings provide no evidence that male IPV perpetrators exhibit larger hormone increases to brief interactions with women, although it is possible that the men in this sample did not perceive the social contact period as a courtship opportunity. These results suggest that hormone reactivity to social encounters may differ across subject populations and depend on how subjects perceive social situations within laboratory settings.     

Use of the "Mental Health Inventory - 5" with Portuguese 10-15 years old

The present study describes the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the Mental Health Inventory-5 for use with young adolescents. A sample of 367 Portuguese students (aged 10-15 years) completed the Portuguese-language versions of Mental Health Inventory-5 (MHI-5; Berwick et al., 1991), Children's Hope Scale (CHS; Snyder et al., 1997), Students' Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS; Huebner, 1991a), and Global Self-Worth Sub-scale (Harter, 1985). Analysis of readability, reliability (internal consistency and 1-year stability), factor structure, and criterion-related validity suggested that the MHI-5 can be appropriately used in this age group. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Dissonance et engagement : comparaison de deux voies d’intervention visant à réduire les ressources énergétiques au sein d’une collectivité territoriale

This Action Research was ordered by the Energy Department's head of a southern France local authority who wanted to reduce civil servant's overconsumption behaviors in public swimming pools. The aim was to compare two methods coming from psychosocial theories: cognitive dissonance implemented by induced hypocrisy paradigm, and commitment implemented by submission without pressure paradigm. Both methods and a “classical” condition, were assigned to three independent groups of swimming pool employees (n = 21). The processes targeted the level of behavioral intentions and the effective behavioral change, as dependant variables. These elements were measured through the type of behavioral intention, and the swimming-pools’ consumption bills. Results show that induced hypocrisy reveals a higher behavioral intention's level than a classical condition, whereas the effective behavioral change is higher in the commitment condition. Moreover, we can see a decisive role of context's organizational characteristics beyond the experimental variables induction. Theoretical and managerial consequences of the results are discussed relatively to the methodological limits enforced by the characteristics of the field.