Teachers’ Education and Outcomes: Mapping the Research Terrain

Background/Context: Questions about teacher quality, including how teachers ought to be educated and licensed, rank near the top of the educational agenda in the United States. These controversies persist because of lack of consensus about what “teacher quality” means, conflicting claims about the empirical evidence, and public skepticism about the need for formal teacher preparation. Because there has been relatively little research on the outcomes of preparation programs and pathways and because researchers work from diverging paradigms, there are few clear conclusions in this area. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The purpose of this article is to offer a conceptual analysis of empirical research on teachers’ education and outcomes that is linked to the political controversies and policy debates that shape it. Using the concept of research “genres,” the article addresses two questions: (1) How have researchers conceptualized and studied the connections between teachers’ education and its outcomes, consequences, or results? (2) What are the policy controversies and larger social and political factors that have shaped these genres? Research Design:This review focuses on research conducted in the United States since 1998 and published by peer-reviewed journals or centers with peer review procedures. The review includes only empirical research that explicitly examines connections between particular aspects of teachers’ education (e.g., certification status, academic background, pathways into teaching, program mission/curriculum, transitions to teaching, life experiences) and specific posteducation outcomes (e.g., teacher preparedness, beliefs, practice, retention, student achievement). Findings/Results: The review reveals that there are six distinguishable genres that examine connections between teachers’ education and posteducation outcomes: teacher certification and its correlates, teachers’ educational backgrounds and the teacher workforce, entry pathways into teaching and their consequences, teacher preparation programs and their graduates, teacher preparation and learning to teach in the early career years, and teachers’ life experiences and beliefs/practices. The article analyzes and critiques each genre, including its contributions/limitations and the controversies it addresses. Conclusions/Recommendations: The review concludes that there continue to be relatively few studies that connect aspects of teachers’ education to outcomes; some genres focus primarily on outcomes related to student achievement, whereas others focus primarily on outcomes related to teacher learning. These genres have grown up relatively separately from one another. The review recommends that all six research genres ought to be taken into account by policymakers, researchers, and practitioners in order to have a rich understandings of teachers’ education and outcomes

Teachers’ Education and Outcomes: Mapping the Research Terrain

Background/Context: Questions about teacher quality, including how teachers ought to be educated and licensed, rank near the top of the educational agenda in the United States. These controversies persist because of lack of consensus about what “teacher quality” means, conflicting claims about the empirical evidence, and public skepticism about the need for formal teacher preparation. Because there has been relatively little research on the outcomes of preparation programs and pathways and because researchers work from diverging paradigms, there are few clear conclusions in this area. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The purpose of this article is to offer a conceptual analysis of empirical research on teachers’ education and outcomes that is linked to the political controversies and policy debates that shape it. Using the concept of research “genres,” the article addresses two questions: (1) How have researchers conceptualized and studied the connections between teachers’ education and its outcomes, consequences, or results? (2) What are the policy controversies and larger social and political factors that have shaped these genres? Research Design:This review focuses on research conducted in the United States since 1998 and published by peer-reviewed journals or centers with peer review procedures. The review includes only empirical research that explicitly examines connections between particular aspects of teachers’ education (e.g., certification status, academic background, pathways into teaching, program mission/curriculum, transitions to teaching, life experiences) and specific posteducation outcomes (e.g., teacher preparedness, beliefs, practice, retention, student achievement). Findings/Results: The review reveals that there are six distinguishable genres that examine connections between teachers’ education and posteducation outcomes: teacher certification and its correlates, teachers’ educational backgrounds and the teacher workforce, entry pathways into teaching and their consequences, teacher preparation programs and their graduates, teacher preparation and learning to teach in the early career years, and teachers’ life experiences and beliefs/practices. The article analyzes and critiques each genre, including its contributions/limitations and the controversies it addresses. Conclusions/Recommendations: The review concludes that there continue to be relatively few studies that connect aspects of teachers’ education to outcomes; some genres focus primarily on outcomes related to student achievement, whereas others focus primarily on outcomes related to teacher learning. These genres have grown up relatively separately from one another. The review recommends that all six research genres ought to be taken into account by policymakers, researchers, and practitioners in order to have a rich understandings of teachers’ education and outcomes

Midlife Hypertension and 20-Year Cognitive Change: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Neurocognitive Study

Hypertension is a treatable potential cause of cognitive decline and dementia, but its greatest influence on cognition may occur in middle age

Feminist Economics, Setting out the Parameters

___Introduction___ Feminist economics has developed its position over the past decade, towards a firmer embeddedness in economic science and a source of inspiration for activists, policy makers, and social science researchers in a wide variety of fields of research. This development has come about in a relatively short period of time, as is reflected, for example, in the follow-up book of the feminist economic primer Beyond Economic Man (Ferber/Nelson 1993), published ten years later: Feminist Economics Today (Ferber/Nelson, 2003) The strengthened position of feminist economics also shows in the 10-year anniversary of the prize-winning journal Feminist Economics, the flourishing of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE), as well as the more regular demand for feminist economic policy advise by institutions like the UN, OECD and governments in developed and developing countries, and in well-established training courses in feminist economics, such as at the Institute of Social Studies and University of Utah . It is impossible to give a fair overview of the state of the art of feminist economics in the number of pages available, even when limited to issues pertaining to development and macroeconomics . As a consequence, this is a very sketchy and subjective overview of what I perceive to be recent developments in feminist economics that have relevance for feminist development analysis and policy. The next section recognizes three trends in feminist economics, in particular the engagement of feminist economists with heterodox schools of economics. The following sections will briefly review developments in methodology and methods in feminist economics. These will be followed by three sections on topics that have recently become key themes or areas of research in feminist economics, in particular in the area of development economics: unpaid labour and the care economy; the two-way relationship between gender and trade; and gender, efficiency and growth. Each of these topics will be introduced, with references to the main literature, and some links to policy recommendations. The paper will end with a conclusion

Fine-Scale Variation in Vector Host Use and Force of Infection Drive Localized Patterns of West Nile Virus Transmission

The influence of host diversity on multi-host pathogen transmission and persistence can be confounded by the large number of species and biological interactions that can characterize many transmission systems. For vector-borne pathogens, the composition of host communities has been hypothesized to affect transmission; however, the specific characteristics of host communities that affect transmission remain largely unknown. We tested the hypothesis that vector host use and force of infection (i.e., the summed number of infectious mosquitoes resulting from feeding upon each vertebrate host within a community of hosts), and not simply host diversity or richness, determine local infection rates of West Nile virus (WNV) in mosquito vectors. In suburban Chicago, Illinois, USA, we estimated community force of infection for West Nile virus using data on Culex pipiens mosquito host selection and WNV vertebrate reservoir competence for each host species in multiple residential and semi-natural study sites. We found host community force of infection interacted with avian diversity to influence WNV infection in Culex mosquitoes across the study area. Two avian species, the American robin (Turdus migratorius) and the house sparrow (Passer domesticus), produced 95.8% of the infectious Cx. pipiens mosquitoes and showed a significant positive association with WNV infection in Culex spp. mosquitoes. Therefore, indices of community structure, such as species diversity or richness, may not be reliable indicators of transmission risk at fine spatial scales in vector-borne disease systems. Rather, robust assessment of local transmission risk should incorporate heterogeneity in vector host feeding and variation in vertebrate reservoir competence at the spatial scale of vector-host interaction

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms