The Effect of Teacher-Child Interaction Training (TCIT) on Children who are Exhibiting Disruptive Behaviors within the Classroom Setting

The current study examined the impact of Teacher- Child Interaction Training (TCIT) on child behavior, teacher-student relationships, and teacher satisfaction within a general preschool setting utilizing a three-tiered approach. Participants included three preschool children without clinical diagnoses. A single subject nonconcurrent multiple baseline design was utilized across participants. Results suggest that TCIT is effective in reducing disruptive behaviors within the classroom and successful in improving the teacher-student relationship. TCIT is also considered socially valid based on teacher responses, which indicate that the intervention is acceptable and feasible within the general preschool classroom setting

Early Childhood Educators: The Forgotten Tier

Early childhood educators are often overworked, underpaid, stressed, and at risk for burnout (Wells, 2015). In addition to teaching early academic skills, early childhood educators are also tasked with teaching and supporting students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) in the classroom. Given the aforementioned limitations, it is imperative to examine how the social-emotional needs of early childhood educators are supported as they implement and sustain SEL. Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) are often implemented to promote SEL and meet the social-emotional needs of young children; however, MTSS is only effective if all components are implemented with fidelity. In contrast to school-aged MTSS, where there are often several stakeholders involved, the implementation of MTSS often falls on early childhood educators, as mental health consultants are not readily available or affordable to early childhood centers. Given the heavy load placed upon early childhood educators, it is critical to shift the focus of MTSS to include the social-emotional needs of the teacher. We argue that teachers’ social-emotional needs should be considered and supported within MTSS to prevent burnout and promote the fidelity of SEL programs. Teacher focused interventions such as mindfulness (Chin et al., 2019) and the Circle of Security (Cooper et al., 2017; Gray, 2015) may increase teacher’s feelings of well-being, reduce teacher stress and burnout, increase positive teacher-child interactions, and, therefore increase the effectiveness of the MTSS process. Ultimately, by supporting the social-emotional growth of early childhood educators, we are building their capacity to effectively support the SEL of young children

Profitable failure: antidepressant drugs and the triumph of flawed experiments

Drawing on an analysis of Irving Kirsch and colleagues? controversial 2008 article in PLoS [Public Library of Science] Medicine on the efficacy of SSRI antidepressant drugs such as Prozac, I examine flaws within the methodologies of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that have made it difficult for regulators, clinicians and patients to determine the therapeutic value of this class of drug. I then argue, drawing analogies to work by Pierre Bourdieu and Michael Power, that it is the very limitations of RCTs ? their inadequacies in producing reliable evidence of clinical effects ? that help to strengthen assumptions of their superiority as methodological tools. Finally, I suggest that the case of RCTs helps to explore the question of why failure is often useful in consolidating the authority of those who have presided over that failure, and why systems widely recognized to be ineffective tend to assume greater authority at the very moment when people speak of their malfunction

The Elusive Rentier Rich: Piketty's Data Battles and the Power of Absent Evidence

The popularity of Thomas Piketty?s research on wealth inequality has drawn attention to a curious question: why was widening wealth inequality largely neglected by mainstream economists in recent decades? To explore and explain that neglect, I draw on the writing of the early neoclassical economist John Bates Clark, who introduced the notion of the marginal productivity of income distribution at the end of the nineteenth century. I then turn to Piketty?s Capital in order to analyze the salience of marginal productivity theories of income today. I suggest that most of the criticism and praise for Piketty?s research is focused on data that are accessible and measurable, obscuring attention to questions over whether current methods for measuring economic capital are defensible or not. My overarching aim is to explore how ?absent? data in economics as a whole help to reinforce blind spots within mainstream economic theory

‘Stick them to the cross’:Anti-trafficking apps and the production of ignorance

There is a long history of ignorance production around trafficking in human beings. A proliferation of anti-trafficking apps plays an important role in the reinforcement of this ignorance. Anti-trafficking apps work in different ways to other (mis)information tools, but there is a lack of academic research on the topic. This paper addresses this gap through an agnotological approach: focusing on how ignorance is produced and becomes productive, rather than seeing ignorance as just a lack of knowledge. We investigate how anti-trafficking apps are used to manipulate (mis)understandings of and responses to human trafficking by enabling new types of awareness raising, user participation and ignorance production. The networking of ignorance that this allows – and the integration of this into new aspects of everyday life – illustrates de Goede’s (2012) warning that “the network is problematic as a security technique…because, ultimately, it has no outside” (p. 228)

The new global governors: Globalization, civil society, and the rise of private philanthropic foundations

One of the important drivers of change within contemporary global civil society is the growing power and influence of private philanthropic foundations (PPFs). In the analysis below, I consider the cases of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the Open Society Foundations (OSF), the largest and fourth largest PPFs in the world today by wealth or assets, and, especially, their founders. I consider their influence within global civil society, within the context of international development, and the consequences of their activities for a range of international actors. I do so in the context of debate within the literature on the activities of PPFs and I side with advocates of critical scrutiny. In developing my argument, I draw on a range of sources including the financial statements and audited accounts of PPFs, of other non-governmental organizations and of selected inter-governmental organizations. I argue that the BMGF and OSF are engines of neoliberalism and potent symbols of a second distinct ‘gilded age’ and that their influence must be restrained through anti-trust measures and through greater taxation and regulation

Do general practitioners and psychiatrists agree about defining cure from depression? The DEsCRIBE™ survey

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to document the outcome dimensions that physicians see as important in defining cure from depression. The study also aimed to analyse physicians' attitudes about depression and to find out whether they affect their prescribing practices and/or the outcome dimensions that they view as important in defining cure. METHODS: A 51-item questionnaire based on six validated scales was used to rate the importance of several depression outcome dimensions. Physicians' attitudes about depression were also assessed using the Depression Attitude Scale. Overall, 369 Belgian physicians (264 general practitioners [GPs]; 105 psychiatrists) participated in the DEsCRIBE survey. RESULTS: GPs and psychiatrists strongly agreed that functioning and depressive symptomatology were most important in defining cure; anxious and somatic symptomatology was least important. GPs and psychiatrists differed in their attitudes about depression (p <0.001). Logistic regression revealed that the attitudes of GPs - but not psychiatrists - were significantly associated with their rates of antidepressant prescription (p < 0.001) and that certain attitudes predicted which outcome dimensions were seen as important in defining cure. CONCLUSIONS: Belgian GPs and psychiatrists strongly agreed on which criteria were important in defining cure from depression but differed in their attitudes about depression. The outcome dimensions that were considered important in defining cure were influenced by physicians' attitudes - this was more pronounced in GPs than in psychiatrists

Researching underwater: a submerged study

This chapter explores the unknown territory of a lost project: an ethnography of a public swimming pool. The discussion is contextualised within my broader sociological theory of ‘nothing’, as a category of unmarked, negative social phenomena, including no-things, no-bodies, no-wheres, non-events and non-identities. These meaningful symbolic objects are constituted through social interaction, which can take two forms: acts of commission and acts of omission. I tell the story of how this project did not happen, through the things I did not do or that did not materialise, and how I consequently did not become a certain type of researcher. I identify three types of negative phenomena that I did not observe and document – invisible figures, silent voices and empty vessels – and, consequently, the knowledge I did not acquire. However, nothing is also productive, generating new symbolic objects as substitutes, alternatives and replacements: the somethings, somebodies and somewheres that are done or made instead. Thus finally, I reflect on how not doing this project led me to pursue others, cultivating a different research identity that would not otherwise have existed

The ethics of entrepreneurial philanthropy

A salient if under researched feature of the new age of global inequalities is the rise to prominence of entrepreneurial philanthropy, the pursuit of transformational social goals through philanthropic investment in projects animated by entrepreneurial principles. Super-wealthy entrepreneurs in this way extend their suzerainty from the domain of the economic to the domains of the social and political. We explore the ethics and ethical implications of entrepreneurialphilanthropy through systematic comparison with what we call customaryphilanthropy, which preferences support for established institutions and social practices. We analyse the ethical statements made at interview by 24 elite UK philanthropists, 12 customary and 12 entrepreneurial, to reveal the co-existence of two ethically charged narratives of elite philanthropic motivations, each instrumental in maintaining the established socio-economic order. We conclude that entrepreneurial philanthropy, as an ostensibly efficacious instrument of social justice, is ethically flawed by its unremitting impulse toward ideological purity