Romaphobia Among Serbian Adolescents: The Role of National In‐group Attitudes and Perceived Threat

This study employed the integrated threat theory to examine Serbian adolescents' attitudes towards the Roma. The sample consisted of 687 secondary school students (mean age 17), of whom 53% were females. In a survey‐based study, we assessed adolescents' national in‐group attitudes (i.e., nationalism), their feelings toward the Roma, and their perception of economic and symbolic threat. Findings suggest that perceived threat to either real resources or worldviews of the dominant group was related to more negative attitudes towards the Roma minority. Further, Romaphobia was positively related to adolescents' nationalism and this relationship was partially mediated by perceived economic and symbolic threat. The theoretical and educational implications are discussed.     

The relationship between the quality of cooperative learning, students' goal preferences, and perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom

This study examined relationships between the quality of cooperative learning (CL) and students' goal preferences and perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom. Subjects were 1,920 students in secondary vocational schools. The study focused on four different types of goals: social support, belongingness, mastery, and superiority goals. It was found that social support goals had the strongest relation with the quality of CL. Further we found that the quality of CL was best predicted by a combination of social support goals, evaluations of the extent that students were taught cooperation skills, perception of teacher monitoring behavior, and the availability of academic and emotional peer support. Female students' preferences for mastery and social goals were stronger than those of male students, whereas male students had a stronger preference for superiority goals. Program type functioned as a moderator variable within the relation of students' superiority/ individuality goals and the quality of CL.     

Socioeconomic Status and Psychopathic Traits in a Community Sample of Youth

The current study aims to address socioeconomic status (SES) as a moderating variable between psychopathic traits and conduct problems in a sample of 2432 Dutch adolescents (M_age?=?14.50 years, SD?=?1.67, 56% male). Both family and neighborhood SES were measured, with income as a proxy for the level of SES. There were small but significant positive correlations between the behavioral and interpersonal dimensions of psychopathy and family SES, a small but significant negative correlation between the affective dimension and neighborhood SES, and a small and significant positive correlation between neighborhood SES and the behavioral dimension of psychopathy. Results further showed that the relations between youth psychopathic traits were moderated by neither family SES nor neighborhood SES. The results suggest that the relations between psychopathic traits and conduct problems are equally strong for lower and higher SES youth. Taken together, these findings warrant the conclusions that SES does not play a role as a moderator in the relation between psychopathy and conduct problems.     

Swedish primary school pupils' inter-ethnic relationships

The aim of the Swedish educational policy is educional participation and academic achievement for all children, irrespective of ethnic backgroud. Majority lauguage instruction is an imortant tool used to achieve this goal. We argue that taking lessons in Swedish-as-a-second-lanuage (S2) sets children apart in their class and limits their possibilities to interact with Swedish children and the immigrant children, who do not receive S2-lessons. In accordance with the contact hypothesis, we assumed that this limitation would have a negative impact on peer evaluation of these pupils' social competence. 394 children in ethnically mixed classes (grades 4–6) participated in the study reported in this article. As hypothesized, S2-children's sociability was evaluated significantly lower than that of Swedish children. Immigrant children, who do not have S-2 lessons, do not have significantly lower scores. These findings were confirmed, using teachers' evaluations of children's social competence. It is suggested that more research is needed to investigate whether communicative skills, academic competence, or, perhaps, the organizational consequences of extra language lessons play a role in children's assessments of peer social competence.     

Religion and hermeneutic philosophy

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Classroom climate and students' goal preferences: a cross-cultural comparison

Goal preferences indicate intentions to achieve or avoid particular states. We examined whether Curacaoan and Dutch students differ in goal preferences related to school and whether goal preferences are associated with students' evaluation of the classroom climate. Measurement invariance of the instruments was also tested between samples. Participants attended vocational high schools in Curacao ( N = 276) or in the Netherlands ( N = 283). Both the classroom climate and goal preferences differed between the samples. In the Netherlands the preference for individuality, belongingness, and recognition was stronger, whereas in Curacao mastery, satisfaction, self-determination, and material gain were more frequently endorsed. The two variables were modestly correlated. Schools do have a globalizing effect on students' school experiences and hardly adapt to goal preferences. The latter seem to be affected by non-school related cultural factors.