Investigating and facilitating children's graphic, geographic, and spatial development: An illustration of Rodney R. Cocking's legacy

Presented here is a case history of an interdisciplinary program of research on children's graphic, geographic, and spatial development that integrates approaches from developmental psychology, geography, and education. Some of the theoretical and historical roots of this work are discussed, with a particular emphasis on the roles that Rodney R. Cocking played in the evolution of this work. Described are findings from basic research on children's developing understanding of place representations, such as maps, educational interventions designed for public television and elementary school classrooms, and efforts aimed at national educational reform. Taken together, the work illustrates Rodney Cocking's profound, diverse, and continuing legacy to the scholarship of the academy and to the lives of children.     

School psychology: a public health perspective : I. Prevention, populations, and systems change

Concerns regarding American schools and mental health services for children abound, including inadequate educational achievement, school violence, over-referral to special education and disproportionate placement of minorities into special education, under-utilization of mental health services for children, and a poorly coordinated system of child mental health services. All of the above concerns share two common attributes: (a) they are statements regarding populations, rather than specific individuals; and (b) they are best addressed by changing system-wide elements of psychological service delivery. We argue that, although conceptualizing school psychology as primarily an indirect service specialty (e.g., J. Sch. Psychol. 28 (1990) 203) has advanced our thinking about effective service delivery, conceptualizing school psychological services from a public health perspective will provide an even broader framework that can increase both the efficacy and efficiency of school psychologists' work.     

“Everybody is an Artist”: Arts‐based Education and Formerly Incarcerated Young Black Men's Academic and Social–Emotional Development in an Alternative School

Although arts‐based programming is shown to positively influence the development of youth exposed to adversity, little is known about the influence these programs have on formerly incarcerated emerging adult Black men enrolled in an alternative school. With educational resilience as a guiding framework, this qualitative case study explored the ways in which an arts‐based program in the context of an alternative school designed for formerly incarcerated young people facilitates emerging adult Black men's academic and social–emotional development. Data collection consisted of observations and interviews with school personnel and formerly incarcerated Black male students. Analysis and interpretation included a range of inductive techniques (coding, constant comparisons, and memoing). Results indicate that offering arts‐based activities fostered an environment where students could build caring and supportive relationships with peers and school personnel. Instructional practices that integrated music and poetry provided meaningful opportunities for the young men to participate, which appeared to enhance their motivation and attitudes (self, others, learning, and school) and academic self‐efficacy, and lessen their psychological and emotional distress. Study findings provide insights into how an arts‐based program in an alternative school can improve healthy development and academic achievement among formerly incarcerated young Black men transitioning into adulthood.     

Art, authenticity and appropriation

It is often suggested that artists from one culture (outsiders) cannot successfully employ styles, stories, motifs and other artistic content developed in the context of another culture. I call this suggestion the aesthetic handicap thesis and argue against it. Cultural appropriation can result in works of high aesthetic value. While in China as a visiting scholar in the Department of Philosophy of Beijing Normal University, I gave a series of lectures at leading Chinese universities. This essay is based on a lecture that I gave at Renmin University of China on 17 April 2006.     

Students' complex problem-solving abilities: Their structure and relations to reasoning ability and educational success

Complex Problem Solving (CPS) is considered to be a promising candidate for capturing higher order thinking skills that are emphasized in new educational curricula but are not adequately measured by traditional intelligence tests. However, little is known about its psychometric structure and its exact relation to intelligence and educational success—especially in student populations. This study is among the first to use a large and representative sample of secondary school students (N = 563) to examine different measurement models of CPS—that conceptualize the construct as either faceted or hierarchical—and their implications for the construct's validity. Results showed that no matter which way it was conceptualized, CPS was substantially related to reasoning and to different indicators of educational success. Controlling for reasoning within a joint hierarchical measurement model, however, revealed that the impressive external validity was largely attributable to the variance that CPS shares with reasoning, suggesting that CPS has only negligible incremental validity over and above traditional intelligence scales. On the basis of these results, the value of assessing CPS within the educational context is discussed.     

Childhood intelligence and adult health: The mediating roles of education and socioeconomic status

The longitudinal relation between childhood intelligence and various health outcomes in adulthood is now well-established. One mediational model that accounts for this relation proposes that intelligence has cumulative indirect effects on adult health via subsequent educational attainment and adult socioeconomic status (SES). The aim of the present study was to examine whether and the extent to which educational attainment and SES mediate the impact of childhood intelligence on three dimensions of adult health in Luxembourg, a country with high-quality universal public health care. We used data from 745 participants in the Luxembourgish MAGRIP study. At the age of 12, participants completed a comprehensive intelligence test. At the age of 52, they reported their educational careers, SES, and functional, subjective, and physical health status. Using structural equation modeling, we investigated the direct and indirect effects (via educational attainment and adult SES) of childhood intelligence on adult health. We found that higher childhood intelligence predicted better functional, subjective, and physical health in adulthood. These effects were entirely mediated via educational attainment and SES. The mediational processes differed depending on the health dimension under investigation: Whereas SES was crucial in mediating the effect of intelligence on functional and subjective health, educational attainment was crucial in mediating the effect on physical health. These findings held up when considering adult intelligence and were similar for women and men. Our results suggest that even excellent public health care cannot fully offset the cumulative effects of childhood intelligence on adult health. Further studies are needed to investigate the relative importance of different mediators in the intelligence–health relation while including a broader set of objective health measures.     

Working with children with Asperger's Syndrome in the mainstream classroom: A psychodynamic take from the chalk face

There has been considerable discussion by those involved in teaching children with special educational needs (SENs) about how to appropriately categorize children with difficulties in learning. Increasingly, a social inclusion model of SEN has come to the fore in mainstream schools across the developed world. Asperger's Syndrome (AS), however, has presented a challenge to inclusionary approaches. This paper, based on the experiences of a teacher working with a child with AS in the mainstream classroom, explores the role of emotions in relation to the obsessional interests of children with AS. Particular reference is paid to the work of later object relations theorists on the emotional role of rigid patterns of thinking, behaviour and obsessional interest in AS. The possibility that an implicit deficit model may at times be relevant to the development of ‘live’ communication and learning for children with AS in the mainstream classroom is considered. Possible management strategies in the classroom in relation to obsessive interests are discussed.     

The educational therapy contribution to a family systems approach

This article draws on the experience of one specialist education unit to demonstrate the usefulness of engaging families directly in the treatment of children showing difficulty in managing tasks and relationships in school. It will look at the overlap of psychoanalytic and systemic ideas and show how theory and practice from both 'schools of thought' allow for a fuller understanding of blocks to school success and also support the family and child in their efforts to 'defeat' a difficulty. I look in particular at the way a psychodynamic focus on a child's inner world can work alongside the systemic focus on family structure, hierarchy and history.     

Focusing on Educational Outcomes

National education goals, content standards, and national tests are the hot topics of the day in educational reform. Special services personnel eventually will be faced with these issues, and can either be part of the discussion from the beginning, or wait and have to deal with someone else's decisions. In this article, we highlight some recent national and state educational reform activities and their probable implications for students with disabilities. We explain in brief the impetus behind the thrust toward an outcomesbased approach to education, and summarize the response of the National Center on Educational Outcomes for Students with Disabilities to this push. Possible ways in which special service providers can act to influence the focus on outcomes are described.