The role of social support in fostering school engagement in urban schools characterised by high risk of early leaving from education and training

Tackling early leaving from education and training (ELET) is one of the main education policy targets of the European Union and many of its member states. This paper offers new insights on this issue by studying how so-called at-risk students develop their educational trajectory by embedding their attitudes towards and engagement in schooling within the various support networks they navigate. We argue that the concept of school engagement, operationalized within the broader theoretical framework of the self-system model of motivational development, is crucial for better understanding ELET. The structural equation modelling is based upon survey data from 1401 students in grade 10 and 12 of vocational tracks across 26 different urban school locations in Flanders, Belgium. The results show that parental, peer and in particular teacher support directly and indirectly strengthen students’ academic and behavioural engagement. We argue that universal and targeted support by educators can positively impact pro-school attitudes and school engagement of so-called at-risk students and may be one of the most important strategies in addressing ELET.

     

Gettier Across Cultures1

In this article, we present evidence that in four different cultural groups that speak quite different languages (Brazil, India, Japan, and the USA) there are cases of justified true beliefs that are not judged to be cases of knowledge. We hypothesize that this intuitive judgment, which we call “the Gettier intuition,” may be a reflection of an underlying innate and universal core folk epistemology, and we highlight the philosophical significance of its universality.     

Parenting and Adolescent Adjustment in Mexico: Initial Evidence of Validity for the Mexican Parenting Questionnaire for Adolescents (MPQ-A)

The present study examined the validity of a self-report parenting instrument for use with Mexican adolescents. The 13-item measure was adapted from the Mexican Parenting Questionnaire. The sample included 1123 adolescents (M age?=?15.07, SD?=?1.52) from Puebla, Mexico. Adolescents self-reported on six subscales of parenting (i.e., affection, verbal guidance, monitoring, communication, physical punishment and verbal punishment), as well as on measures of school grades, life satisfaction, familism, depressive and anxiety symptoms. Using confirmatory factor analyses, the original constructs were found to be a good fit with the data. Most subscales consisted of moderate levels of internal consistency and predicted several measures of adolescent adjustment in expected directions. Girls were more likely to report higher levels of monitoring, affection, and communication than boys. Adolescents who were younger and who reported lower school grades were more likely to report greater levels of physical punishment. Familism was positively associated with five of the six parenting dimensions (i.e., affection, verbal guidance, monitoring, physical punishment, and communication). Findings advance understanding on families and adolescent well-being in Mexico and may inform culturally competent services for clinicians who work with Mexican families.     

退步原来是向前

从契此的“手把青苗插满田,低头便见水中天,六根清净方为道,退步原来是向前”偈中,反映了退让并不是完全的消极,有时反而是一种积极的进取,从而揭示出丰富的人生哲理。     

苏辙“示疾而病”的禅学思想

＂多病则与学道者宜,多难则与学禅者宜＂,苏辙却因有＂喜汝因病悟,或免终身著＂的示疾而病的禅学思想。＂示疾而病＂的苏辙以维摩自喻,在深层意义上,是他借维摩诘而表现其忧以天下、以乐天下的人格理想。     

Prediction of university students' academic achievement by linear and logistic models

University students' academic achievement measured by means of academic progress is modeled through linear and logistic regression, employing prior achievement and demographic factors as predictors. The main aim of the present paper is to compare results yielded by both statistical procedures, in order to identify the most suitable approach in terms of goodness of fit and predictive power. Grades awarded in basic scientific courses and demographic variables were entered into the models at the first step. Two hypotheses are proposed: (a) Grades in basic courses as well as demographic factors are directly related to academic progress, and (b) Logistic regression is more appropriate than linear regression due to its higher predictive power. Results partially confirm the first prediction, as grades are positively related to progress. However, not all demographic factors considered proved to be good predictors. With regard to the second hypothesis, logistic regression was shown to be a better approach than linear regression, yielding more stable estimates with regard to the presence of ill-fitting patterns.     

The Spacing Effect: Enhancing Memory for Repeated Marketing Stimuli

We explore the extent to which repeating a brand‐attribute association will have a greater effect on recall when the 2 repetitions occur at different points in time rather than immediately after each other. Cued recall is generally better when the repeated items are separated. However, this depends on the extent to which information is organized by brand as well as by attribute, the number of attribute items presented about the brand, and the relatedness of the attributes.     

Emotion and rationality: The characterisation and evaluation of opposition to renewable energy projects

Opposition to wind farm developments has been seen as a significant threat to climate change mitigation policies in the UK. This paper considers the complex of different factors that may lie behind such oppositional activism and the role of emotion within these. Drawing on a programme of interviews it then explores in detail the ways in which industry and policy actors construct the role of emotion in wind farm opposition and in decisions on planning permission, often as an unwelcome intrusion into a supposedly rational process. The consequences of such understandings of opposition for the shaping of public engagement practices and for the nature and quality of public debate are examined.     

试论卫生与法律的关系

卫生是人类重要的社会实践活动。卫生也是保护人体健康的重要社会事业,需要法律的保护和导向。卫生法为卫生发展提供了良好的社会环境,并控制医药卫生无序、失控及异化带来的社会危害性,造福人类,促进经济发展和社会进步。