Optimizing Modern Family Size: Trade-offs between Fertility and the Economic Costs of Reproduction.

Modern industrialized populations lack the strong positive correlations between wealth and reproductive success that characterize most traditional societies. While modernization has brought about substantial increases in personal wealth, fertility in many developed countries has plummeted to the lowest levels in recorded human history. These phenomena contradict evolutionary and economic models of the family that assume increasing wealth reduces resource competition between offspring, favoring high fertility norms. Here, we review the hypothesis that cultural modernization may in fact establish unusually intense reproductive trade-offs in wealthy relative to impoverished strata, favoring low fertility. We test this premise with British longitudinal data (the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children), exploring maternal self-perceptions of economic hardship in relation to increasing family size and actual socioeconomic status. Low-income and low-education-level mothers perceived the greatest economic costs associated with raising two versus one offspring. However, for all further increases to family size, reproduction appears most expensive for relatively wealthy and well-educated mothers. We discuss our results and review current literature on the long-term consequences of resource dilution in modern families

What Do Teacher Candidates Know About Large-Scale Assessments? What Should They Know?

As states and provinces develop large-scale assessment programs linked to their curricula, teachers are increasingly expected to interpret the assessment results and to explain them to parents. The challenge for teachers is especially great in Ontario, which began developing an assessment program in 1996 after almost three decades without provincially mandated testing. Three hundred and sixty teacher candidates completed a questionnaire on their knowledge about, exposure to, and opinions of the assessments. Many teacher candidates held strong views, often negative, about the assessments. Even those who had little exposure to or knowledge of the assessments held predominantly negative opinions.Dans un contexte où les états et les provinces développent des programmes d'évaluation à grande échelle liés à leurs curriculums, on s'attend à ce que les enseignants interprètent les résultats de ces évaluations et qu'ils les expliquent aux parents. Le défi se pose tout particulièrement pour les enseignants en Ontario où l'on a entamé le développement d'un programme d'évaluation en 1996 après presque trente ans d'absence d'évaluations imposées par la province. Trois cent soixante stagiaires ont complété un questionnaire portant sur leurs connaissances et leurs avis des évaluations, ainsi que sur le contact qu'ils avaient eu avec de tels examens. Plusieurs d'entre eux ont exprimé des opinions fermes, et souvent négatives, au sujet des évaluations. Même ceux ayant peu de connaissances ou de contacts liés aux évaluations ont exprimé des avis surtout négatifs

Sustainable Procurement of Wood and Paper-Based Products: Version 3

Version 3 of this guide incorporates the most up-to-date developments on the legality of forest products, new technological developments to control wood and paper supply chains and increase their transparency, and an expanded chapter on the social implications of forest products.Decisions regarding the purchase and use of wood and paper-based products can have far-reaching, long-term impacts on the forests where they are harvested and the people and industries that depend on those forests for their livelihoods and raw materials.This joint WRI/WBCSD publication provides information about 10 key issues procurement managers might address as they develop and implement their procurement policies

Identification and Analysis of Selected Wellness Programs in Educational Institutions in the State of Texas

A Wellness Program Questionnaire was designed to survey educational institutions in Texas as to the definition, goals, components, and services of their wellness programs. Through the pilot study and full study, 11 independent school districts, 13 junior/community colleges, and 8 universities were identified as having wellness programs.Higher Educatio

A survey and evaluation of the professional literature on the over-aggressive primary school child, 1930-1948

The importance of the problem presented by the over-aggressive primary pupil can be justified by what the teachers generally talk about after the last school bus leaves, and they can take an easy breath. Almost invariably it is the over-aggressive behaviors of children, especially those who are always hitting and hurting someone else, pushing in line, destroying school materials, bullying, disobeying, quarreling, or having temper tantrums. It is believed that an up-to-date study to find what the authorities have said about the causes of over-aggression in the primary school child will be valuable to the teachers, and also indirectly helpful to the pupils themselves

Construction of difference and diversity within policy and classroom practice in England

Policy and practice responses to diversity and difference in pupil populations continue to challenge education systems around the world. This paper considers how teachers’ understandings of diversity and difference and their pedagogical responses at the local level are influenced by, and can be reconciled with, policy at the general level with its impulse for categorisation, normalcy and ‘ableness’. Two frameworks around orientations to diversity and types of pedagogic need are combined in order to examine this tension and develop possible responses. This is illustrated through the example of special educational needs as a type of difference. The paper argues that for critical, ethical and socially just pedagogies, policy needs to support teachers in acknowledging and troubling difference at the classroom level

Nonlocal effects in high energy charged particle beams

Within the framework of the thermal wave model, an investigation is made of the longitudinal dynamics of high energy charged particle beams. The model includes the self-consistent interaction between the beam and its surroundings in terms of a nonlinear coupling impedance, and when resistive as well as reactive parts are included, the evolution equation becomes a generalised nonlinear Schroedinger equation including a nonlocal nonlinear term. The consequences of the resistive part on the propagation of particle bunches are examined using analytical as well as numerical methods.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, uses RevTeX

A unified convention for biological assemblies with helical symmetry

A new representation of helical structure by four parameters, [n 1, n 2, twist, rise], is able to generate an entire helical construct from asymmetric units, including cases of helical assembly with a seam

Emotional interactions and an ethic of care: caring relations in families affected by HIV and AIDS

In the context of global processes of economic restructuring, the HIV and AIDS epidemic and socio-cultural constructions of care, many women and young people in low-income households have been drawn into caring roles within the family. Drawing on the literature on an ethics of care, emotional geographies and embodiment, this paper examines the emotional dynamics of the caring process in families affected by HIV and AIDS. Based on the perspectives of both ‘caregivers’ and ‘care-receivers’ from research undertaken in Namibia, Tanzania and the UK, we examine the everyday practices of care that women and young people are engaged in and explore how emotions are performed and managed in caring relationships. Our research suggests caregivers play a crucial role in providing emotional support and reassurance to people with HIV, which in turn often affects caregivers' emotional and physical wellbeing. Within environments where emotional expression is restricted and HIV is heavily stigmatised, caregivers and care-receivers seek to regulate their emotions in order to protect family members from the emotional impacts of a chronic, life-limiting illness. However, whilst caregiving and receiving may lead to close emotional connections and a high level of responsiveness, the intensity of intimate caring relationships, isolation and lack of access to adequate resources can cause tensions and contradictory feelings that may be difficult to manage. These conflicts can severely constrain carers' ability to provide the ‘good care’ that integrates the key ethical phases in Tronto's (1993) ideal of the caring process