Supporting and measuring current and future educators' preparedness to facilitate wellbeing of displaced children in schools

IntroductionImmigrant and refugee children face multiple challenges in accessing education. To help facilitate the educational success and wellbeing of these children, teachers need to have self-efficacy in creating a supportive learning environment for them.MethodsBased on a set of highly interconnected competences identified through a literature review and empirical research, the study developed a measurement instrument to assess teachers' generalized perceived self-efficacy in the domain of working with refugee children: the Newcomer's Teacher's Self-Efficacy (NTSE) scale. The scale was tested for validity and internal consistency with 154 practicing and prospective teachers enrolled at three different teacher education institutions in Belgium and the Netherlands, 42 of whom also underwent newcomer education courses.ResultsThe study examined the factorability, reliability, and validity of the NTSE scale and showed that the scale is reliable (a = 0.97) and has good convergent and criterion validity. The results also demonstrated that participation in a study module for newcomer educators corresponded with an increase in partakers' NTSE scores, and the extent of the module was related to the degree of increase.DiscussionThe proposed scale performed well in the context where it was tested, but further international research is needed to determine its generalizability to different countries and time frames

Charged particle irradiations in the United States Breeder Reactor Program

Charged particle irradiations used as a means of studying radiation damage in materials of interest in the US Breeder Reactor Program are reviewed

Grain-boundary, glassy-phase identification and possible artifacts

Specimen artifacts such as grain boundary grooving, surface damage of the specimen, and Si contamination are shown experimentally to arise from the ion milling used in the preparation of transmission electron microscopy specimens. These artifacts in polycrystalline, ceramic specimens can cause clean grain boundaries to appear to contain a glassy phase when the dark-field diffuse scattering technique, the Fresnel fringe technique, and analytical electron microscopy (energy dispersive spectroscopy) are used to identify glassy phases at a grain boundary. The ambiguity in interpreting each of these techniques due to the ion milling artifacts will be discussed from a theoretical view point and compared to experimental results obtained for alumina

The social and emotional dimensions of schooling : a case study in challenging the ‘barriers to learning’

The educational landscape in England and Wales is shaped by demands made on head teachers, teachers and pupils to perform within a ‘field of judgement’ dominated by clearly defined outcomes of academic success (Ball 2003). This puts schools from challenging socio-economic contexts where there are potentially ‘barriers to learning’ at a considerable disadvantage. This paper draws on case study data from an English secondary school in an area of considerable deprivation. The empirical focus revolves around school participants’ perceptions and understandings of the social and emotional dimensions of schooling. The emphasis on the relational and emotional work undertaken by teaching staff underpins the case study school’s approach to challenging the barriers to learning. A number of themes and concerns are reported in this paper including relational work in school which extends into the community, the school as a sprawling network of communication and the heighted role of the emotions at a number of levels in school. In drawing on interview data from teachers, school managers, pupils and parents we are developing a model of schooling that approximates to Fielding’s (2006) conception of a ‘people oriented learning community’

Ion Implantation and Annealing of Oxides

Ion implantation damage and annealing results are presented for a number of crystalline oxides. In Al2O3, the amorphous phase produced by ion bombardment of the pure material first crystallizes in the (crystal-line) Y phase. This is followed by the transformaiton of Y-Al2O3 to a-Al2O3 at a well defined interface. The activation energy for of a alumina from y is 3.6 eV/atom. In CaTiO3, the implantation-induced amorphous phase transforms to remain crystalline even after high implantation doses at liquid nitrogen temperatures. The near surface of KTaO3 is transformed to a polycrystalline state after inplantation at room temperature or liquid nitrogen temperature.Physic

Individual differences in puberty onset in girls: Bayesian estimation of heritabilities and genetic correlations

We report heritabilities for individual differences in female pubertal development at the age of 12. Tanner data on breast and pubic hair development in girls and data on menarche were obtained from a total of 184 pairs of monozygotic and dizygotic twins. Genetic correlations were estimated to determine to what extent the same genes are involved in different aspects of physical development in puberty. A Bayesian estimation approach was taken, using Markovchain Monte Carlo simulation to estimate model parameters. All three phenotypes were to a significant extent heritable and showed high genetic correlations, suggesting that a common set of genes is involved in the timing of puberty in general. However, gonadarche (menarche and breast development) and adrenarche (pubic hair) are affected by different environmental factors, which does not support the three phenotypes to be regarded as indicators of a unitary physiological factor. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc

The Role of Emotional Intelligence in the Maintenance of Depression Symptoms and Loneliness Among Children

Identifying factors that predict the maintenance of depression and loneliness in children is important for intervention design. Whilst emotional intelligence (EI) has been identified as a predictor of mental health, research examining how both trait and ability EI contribute to long-term patterns of symptomatology in children is markedly absent. We examined the impact of both TEI and AEI on the maintenance of loneliness and depressive symptoms over 1 year in children aged 9–11 years. Two hundred and thirteen children (54% male) completed the TEIQue-CF and the MSCEIT-YV at the first time point of the study, and the Child Depression Inventory and the Loneliness and Aloneness Scale for Children and Adolescents at Time 1 and, again, 1 year later. Findings indicate that emotional skills (AEI) are important for predicting the maintenance of depressive symptoms and loneliness in children over 1 year; emotional self-competency (TEI) is less influential, only contributing to long-term loneliness in girls. Moreover, whilst deficiencies in the ability to perceive and understand emotions were predictive of prolonged symptomatology, so, too, were proficiencies in using emotion to facilitate thinking and emotion management. Those findings carry important implications for EI theory and future research. They also indicate that EI interventions tailored to groups of “at risk” school children may be useful for reducing specific profiles of internalizing symptoms. Programs targeting AEI skills may be universally helpful for reducing the likelihood that depressive symptoms and loneliness will be maintained over time in middle childhood; girls at risk for prolonged loneliness would additionally benefit from opportunities to bolster TEI

Global citizenship and the notion of moral emotions

In the past, little attention has been paid to the socio-psychological dimension of the phenomenon of severe poverty in Africa. Despite the institutional nature of the global economic order, including policies of the European Union, the World Trade Organisation, and the International Monetary Fund, it is people who design, support, and maintain this system, and individual constructions of the world and structural inequalities that reinforce one another. This also finds its expression in different ways, e.g. people " s social representations of severe poverty in Europe " s former colonies (Park, 2008, 2011). This article investigates, how we, members of the European middle class, construct ourselves as ethical beings in the context of African poverty: What is the link between our social representations, identity construction and (in)action with regard to severe poverty in Africa? What are the discursive mechanisms we apply in the construction of an ethical self and what is the notion of the " African Other " ? In a nutshell: What do our social representations make us do