Teaching practices and the promotion of achievement and adjustment in first grade

The effects of teacher practices in promoting student academic achievement, behavioral adjustment, and feelings of competence were investigated in a prospective study of 257 children in 14 first grade classrooms. Using hierarchical linear modeling and regression techniques, observed teaching practices in the fall were explored as predictors of mean levels of student achievement, behavior, and self-perceived competence, as well as the percentage of students who met academic standards as measured in the spring. After controlling for child characteristics at school entry, in classrooms where teachers were observed to offer more instructional and social-emotional support (i.e., attending to students' interest and initiative, providing appropriately challenging learning opportunities, and creating positive social relationships), children on average acquired more math skills, made greater behavioral gains, and had more positive perceptions of their academic abilities. Further, a higher percentage of students in such classrooms met academic standards (two reading, one math). Implications for future research and educational practice are discussed.     

Subjectification

For Martin Heidegger the death that comes singularly for each of us summons us to exist on our own and speak in our own name. But Gilles Delueze and Félix Guattari argue that it is a specific social machinery that summons us to speak in our own name and answer for what we do and are. This summons is a death sentence. They enjoin us to flee this subjectification, this subjection. They do recognize that the release of becomings in all directions can become destructive and self-destructive. There are several weaknesses in their conception.

Academic achievement in first-year Portuguese college students: the role of academic preparation and learning strategies

This paper analyses the role of academic preparation and learning strategies in the prediction of first-year Portuguese college students' academic achievement, considering students' sex and academic field attended. A sample of 445 first-year college students (68.5% female) from the University of Minho (25.8% enrolled in economics, 35.3% in science/technology, and 38.9% in humanities degrees) participated in the study. Students answered a questionnaire on learning strategies in the classroom at the end of the first semester, which consisted of 44 items organized in five dimensions: comprehensive approach, surface approach, personal competency perceptions, intrinsic motivation, and organization of study activities. Academic achievement (grade point average at the end of first year) and academic preparation (students' higher education access mark) were obtained through the academic records of the university. Results showed that academic preparation was the strongest predictor of first-year academic achievement, and only marginal additional variance was explained by learning strategies as assessed by the self-reported questionnaire. There were sex and academic field differences, but these variables do not seem strong enough to affect the results, although the different percentages of variance captured by each model and the different weights associated to higher education access mark, stimulate the use of these and/or other personal and contextual variables when analysing the phenomenon.     

SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION AS THE AWAKENING OF GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS: A DIMENSIONAL SHIFT IN THE TECHNOLOGY OF MIND

Abstract. Great spiritual and philosophical traditions through the ages have sought to tap and articulate the grammar or logic of the fundamental unified field that is the common generative ground of our diverse worldviews, religions, cultures, ideologies, and disciplinary languages. I suggest that we are in the midst of a profound dimensional shift in our rational capacity to process reality, and I seek to articulate the implications of this evolutionary shift to global reason and awakened consciousness for all aspects of our human and rational enterprise. It is clear that we are in the midst of an unprecedented shift in the human condition—a global renaissance that affects every aspect of our cultural lives, self‐understanding, experience, and world making. This evolutionary transformation, when seen through the dilated global lens, has been emerging through the ages on a global scale. I suggest that this advance in our technology of mind is of an order of magnitude that is so radical and comprehensive that the very concept of a person, of what it means to be human, of our encounter with Reality, and of all our hermeneutical arts including the sciences are likewise taken to a higher, global, dimension. I explore this emergent grammar of spiritual transformation to global, dialogic, integral, and holistic consciousness, the global awakening of reason, scientific knowing, and the holistic worldview.     

Identity Mediators: Leadership and Identity Construction in Campaign Speeches of American Presidential Candidates' Spouses

We explore the nature and evolution of the role of candidates' spouses in U.S. presidential election campaigns through a lens of social psychological theorizing that sees leadership as emerging from activities of identity construction of leaders and followers. Our discursive analysis examines how aspiring First Lady speeches at party national conventions construct both their husbands and the particular national identity construction most presently politically relevant in a way that strategically aligns the two. Building on previous social identity work on leadership, we show how it is not only the leader or their followers who are active participants in leadership construction but that there may also be a role for “third parties” who link prospective leaders with followers. We propose that, as “entrepreneurs” of identity, leaders may use others as “identity mediators” to co‐construct and mediate both the leader's identity and the identity of those they seek to lead.     

Facial first impressions and partner preference models: Comparable or distinct underlying structures?

Given the frequency of relationships nowadays initiated online, where impressions from face photographs may influence relationship initiation, it is important to understand how facial first impressions might be used in such contexts. We therefore examined the applicability of a leading model of verbally expressed partner preferences to impressions derived from real face images and investigated how the factor structure of first impressions based on potential partner preference-related traits might relate to a more general model of facial first impressions. Participants rated 1,000 everyday face photographs on 12 traits selected to represent (Fletcher, et al. 1999, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 72) verbal model of partner preferences. Facial trait judgements showed an underlying structure that largely paralleled the tripartite structure of Fletcher et al.'s verbal preference model, regardless of either face gender or participant gender. Furthermore, there was close correspondence between the verbal partner preference model and a more general tripartite model of facial first impressions derived from a different literature (Sutherland et al., 2013, Cognition, 127, 105), suggesting an underlying correspondence between verbal conceptual models of romantic preferences and more general models of facial first impressions.     

Whorf reloaded: language effects on nonverbal number processing in first grade--a trilingual study

The unit-decade compatibility effect is interpreted to reflect processes of place value integration in two-digit number magnitude comparisons. The current study aimed at elucidating the influence of language properties on the compatibility effect of Arabic two-digit numbers in Austrian, Italian, and Czech first graders. The number word systems of the three countries differ with respect to their correspondence between name and place value systems; the German language is characterized by its inversion of the order of tens and units in number words as compared with digital notations, whereas Italian number words are generally not inverted and there are both forms for Czech number words. Interestingly, the German-speaking children showed the most pronounced compatibility effect with respect to both accuracy and speed. We interpret our results as evidence for a detrimental influence of an intransparent number word system place value processing. The data corroborate a weak Whorfian hypothesis in children, with even nonverbal Arabic number processing seeming to be influenced by linguistic properties in children.     

Predicting children's academic achievement after the transition to first grade: A two-year longitudinal study

The transition from kindergarten to first grade has been described as a critical period for children's academic development. Furthermore, research indicates that peer status is connected with academic adjustment, yet the underlying processes remain unclear. By means of a two-year longitudinal study during kindergarten and first grade (N = 153), we aimed to shed light on the antecedents of achievement at the end of first grade. Based on the parallel processes mediation model (Buhs, 2005), a comprehensive predictive model was constructed and tested. Results showed that (a) the parallel processes mediation model is partially valid during the transition from kindergarten to first grade; and (b) there is more support for an effect of academic self-concept on achievement than vice versa. This comprehensive model increases our insight in the factors that enhance children's academic development during the transition to first grade.     

The relationship of clients’ social class to early therapeutic impressions

Using case vignettes that differed in the presentation of the client's social class, the influence of social class on therapeutic impressions was studied in the context of just-world beliefs. Results suggested that (1) participants with higher levels of belief in a just world saw poor and working-class clients as more unpleasant to work with and more dysfunctional and (2) working-class vignettes were associated with the lowest predictions of session depth and smoothness. The findings suggest that counselors may respond differently to clients based on their social class, and in a way that negatively predisposes them toward work with poor and working-class clients.