Women in Science — Why so Few?

Traditionally science and technology have been fields in which almost no women were employed. In recent years increasing numbers of women have been attempting to enter these fields. Affirmative action, equal opportunity and similar legislation have been enacted in an attempt to facilitate the entry of women. One of the purposes of this paper is to report briefly on a study designed to evaluate the success of women pursuing scientific careers. Since the results of this study are not encouraging, we are led to question why. The answer is likely a combination of many factors. One argument, which is invoked in response to this question, is that which claims that innate differences, besides the obvious physical ones, exist between the sexes and account for women\u27s apparent inability to progress in scientific careers on a basis equal to that of men. The major portion of this paper will be concerned with this controversial issue

The priming effects of parental divorce on relationship attitudes

Past findings frequently reported that children with divorced parents exhibit negative behaviors at some time following the divorce, however, data have not consistently demonstrated attitudinal effects. In this study, 70 college undergraduates, half with divorced parents and half with intact families, were administered an original survey for recording ratings of relationship attitudes and eight semantic differential scales. Although adult children of divorced parents rated their parents relationships less positively than did those from intact families, there were no differences by parental history in their relationship fears. There were semantic differences in ratings of five constructs (FAMILY, FATHER, MARRIAGE, PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP, DIVORCE): Adult children of divorced parents rated evaluation, potency and/or activity dimensions of the first four constructs more negatively than did raters from intact families. DIVORCE was rated more positively on all three semantic dimensions by subjects with divorced parents. Ratings of FAMILY and WORK exhibited a crossover parental history X construct interaction: The divorce history group rated WORK higher than FAMILY; the intact history group rated FAMILY higher than WORK. Ratings of parental relationship correlated positively with ratings of MOTHER and FATHER for intact family subjects, but parental relationship ratings were unrelated to parent ratings by divorced-parents subjects. It appeared that the experience of parental divorce did produce priming effects on ratings of relationship constructs and work. Awareness of these effects may make assessment and counseling more effective for those with parental divorce histories

Reconstructing Colonization Dynamics of the Human Parasite Schistosoma mansoni following Anthropogenic Environmental Changes in Northwest Senegal

© 2015 Van den Broeck et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The attached file is the published version of the article

Parent and Family Engagement: The Missing Piece in Urban Education Reform

Parent and family engagement in the educational lives of children and youth positively influence student learning and achievement. While this connection may seem obvious, varying ideals of parent engagement limit the ways in which school communities understand, encourage, and benefit from meaningful school‐home‐community interactions. This is frequently the case in culturally diverse, urban communities where education reform has focused heavily on high‐stakes testing, teacher accountability, and school choice, but less on the fragile connections that often exist between schools and the families they serve. The purpose of this policy brief is to review selected research on parent involvement and expand existing understandings of parent and family engagement in ways that are culturally relevant and responsive to the diverse strengths and needs of families in urban communities. It concludes with specific recommendations for strengthening parent and family engagement