The role of pre-school quality in promoting resilience in the cognitive development of young children

The study reported here investigates the role of pre-school education as a protective factor in the development of children who are at risk due to environmental and individual factors. This investigation builds upon earlier research by examining different kinds of 'quality' in early education and tests the hypothesis that pre-schools of high quality can moderate the impacts of risks upon cognitive development. Cognitive development was measured in 2857 English pre-schoolers at 36 and 58 months of age, together with 22 individual risks to children's development, and assessments were made of the quality of their pre-school provision. Multilevel Structural Equation Modelling revealed that: the global quality of pre-school can moderate the effects of familial risk (such as poverty); the relationships between staff and children can moderate the effects of child level risk (such as low birth weight); and the specific quality of curricular provision can moderate the effects of both. Policy makers need to take quality into account in their efforts to promote resilience in young 'at risk' children through early childhood services

The influence of different forms of early childcare on children's emotional and behavioural development at school entry

Background: Over the past few decades there has been a dramatic increase in maternal employment and, as a result, an increase in the use of non-maternal childcare in the early years. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine, in a large representative English sample, the influence of different forms of childcare on children's behavioural and emotional development around the age of school entry. Methods: A sample of 991 families, originally recruited when the children were 3 months old, was assessed around school entry age at 51 months. The main outcome variable was the children's emotional and behavioural functioning, measured by questionnaire completed by both mothers and teachers. A range of repeated assessments were carried out at different time points, including direct observation of the quality of maternal caregiving and observations of the quality of non-parental care, and amount of time spent in different forms of care. Results: The strongest and most consistent influences on behaviour and emotional problems were derived from the home, including lower socio-demographic status, poorer maternal caregiving, parental stress/maternal mental health problems, as well as child gender (being a boy). Non-parental childcare had small effects on child outcome. One finding that did emerge was that children who spent more time in group care, mainly nursery care, were more likely to have behavioural problems, particularly hyperactivity. Conclusions: These findings suggest that interventions to enhance children's emotional and behavioural development might best focus on supporting families and augmenting the quality of care in the home

Optimising a nonlinear utility function in multi-objective integer programming

In this paper we develop an algorithm to optimise a nonlinear utility function of multiple objectives over the integer efficient set. Our approach is based on identifying and updating bounds on the individual objectives as well as the optimal utility value. This is done using already known solutions, linear programming relaxations, utility function inversion, and integer programming. We develop a general optimisation algorithm for use with k objectives, and we illustrate our approach using a tri-objective integer programming problem.Comment: 11 pages, 2 tables; v3: minor revisions, to appear in Journal of Global Optimizatio

Critical current anisotropy in Fe(Se,Te) films irradiated by 3.5 MeV protons

Irradiation effects are often used to improve the effective pinning insuperconductors, but sometimes they can reveal detrimental for superconducting properties.Fe(Se,Te) has been proven to be a very robust material against irradiation, in particular proton irradiation, thus configuring as an ideal material to work in harsh environments such as particle accelerators or fusion reactors. Anyway, the study of the pinning activation energy in Fe(Se,Te)thin film irradiated by 3.5 MeV protons suggests that this treatment can modify the anisotropy of the films pinning. Thus here we present the result of further investigation analyzing the effect of proton irradiation on the critical current and the pinning force both for the magnetic field applied parallel and perpendicular to the sample surface. We find that, although a slight effect on the critical current anisotropy is observed, the pinning landscape is not affected bythe irradiation process. This confirms that Fe(Se,Te) can be considered for devices working in harsh environments

The limits of social class in explaining ethnic gaps in educational attainment

This paper reports an analysis of the educational attainment and progress between age 11 and age 14 of over 14,500 students from the nationally representative Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE). The mean attainment gap in national tests at age 14 between White British and several ethnic minority groups were large, more than three times the size of the gender gap, but at the same time only about one-third of the size of the social class gap. Socio-economic variables could account for the attainment gaps for Black African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi students, but not for Black Caribbean students. Further controls for parental and student attitudes, expectations and behaviours indicated minority ethnic groups were on average more advantaged on these measures than White British students, but this was not reflected proportionately in their levels of attainment. Black Caribbean students were distinctive as the only group making less progress than White British students between age 11 and 14 and this could not be accounted for by any of the measured contextual variables. Possible explanations for the White British-Black Caribbean gap are considered

Subseafloor microbial communities in hydrogen-rich vent fluids from hydrothermal systems along the Mid-Cayman Rise

© The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Environmental Microbiology 18 (2016): 1970–1987, doi:10.1111/1462-2920.13173.Warm fluids emanating from hydrothermal vents can be used as windows into the rocky subseafloor habitat and its resident microbial community. Two new vent systems on the Mid-Cayman Rise each exhibits novel geologic settings and distinctively hydrogen-rich vent fluid compositions. We have determined and compared the chemistry, potential energy yielding reactions, abundance, community composition, diversity, and function of microbes in venting fluids from both sites: Piccard, the world's deepest vent site, hosted in mafic rocks; and Von Damm, an adjacent, ultramafic-influenced system. Von Damm hosted a wider diversity of lineages and metabolisms in comparison to Piccard, consistent with thermodynamic models that predict more numerous energy sources at ultramafic systems. There was little overlap in the phylotypes found at each site, although similar and dominant hydrogen-utilizing genera were present at both. Despite the differences in community structure, depth, geology, and fluid chemistry, energetic modelling and metagenomic analysis indicate near functional equivalence between Von Damm and Piccard, likely driven by the high hydrogen concentrations and elevated temperatures at both sites. Results are compared with hydrothermal sites worldwide to provide a global perspective on the distinctiveness of these newly discovered sites and the interplay among rocks, fluid composition and life in the subseafloor.National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant Number: NNX09AB756; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; NSF Grant Number: OCE10618

Exploring the pedagogic culture of creative play in early childhood education

We present a conceptual analysis, grounded in empirical data, of how young children's creative play is framed by the 'pedagogic culture' within which the child is playing. Drawing on data from a research study with the broad aim of documenting children's creative play in Western play-based early childhood education, we gathered exploratory qualitative observations, self-initiated iPad video diaries and researcher-led activities to describe children's creative play. We adapted the Analysing Children's Creative Thinking Framework as a starting point for coding and the analyses focused on three contextual cues within the pedagogic culture – space, interpersonal collaborations and materials. We ground our discussion in a contextualist theoretical frame to demonstrate that in isolation, each contextual cue presents a degree of framing to children's creative play. When analysed as a synergy of contextual cues, however, we begin to see that the dynamic make-up of each of the contexts, and the interplay among them, create a 'pedagogic culture' that transforms children's creative play. We present 'stories' of each pedagogic culture that we observed, to describe how children's creative play manifested within each culture

The type and frequency of interactions that occur between staff and children outside in Early Years Foundation Stage settings during a fixed playtime period when there are tricycles available

This study reports on an investigation into adult and child interactions observed in the outdoor play environment in four Local Authority early years foundation stage settings in England. In this instance the common two features across the settings were the presence of tricycles and a timetabled outdoor play period. In total, across the four schools, there were 204 children. The study aimed to gain an understanding of the nature of the dialogues between staff and children, that is, the types of exchange that occurred when either the child approached an adult or the adult approached a child. The most frequent type of utterance was also analysed. The study concludes that adults in these settings spoke more than children and the greatest type of utterance was that of the adult about domestic matters. When the child initiated the conversation there were more extended child utterances than domestic utterances. This may suggest that children wish to be involved in conversations of depth and meaning and that staff need to become aware of how to develop this conversational language with children

Investigating child participation in the everyday talk of a teacher and children in a preparatory year

In early years research, policy and education, a democratic perspective that positions children as participants and citizens is increasingly emphasized. These ideas take seriously listening to children’s opinions and respecting children’s influence over their everyday affairs. While much political and social investment has been paid to the inclusion of participatory approaches little has been reported on the practical achievement of such an approach in the day to day of early childhood education within school settings. This paper investigates talk and interaction in the everyday activities of a teacher and children in an Australian preparatory class (for children age 4-6 years) to see how ideas of child participation are experienced. We use an interactional analytic approach to demonstrate how participatory methods are employed in practical ways to manage routine interactions. Analysis shows that whilst the teacher seeks the children’s opinion and involves them in decision-making, child participation is at times constrained by the context and institutional categories of “teacher” and “student” that are jointly produced in their talk. The paper highlights tensions that arise for teachers as they balance a pedagogical intent of “teaching” and the associated institutional expectations, with efforts to engage children in decision-making. Recommendations include adopting a variety of conversational styles when engaging with children; consideration of temporal concerns and the need to acknowledge the culture of the school

The quality of different types of child care at 10 and 18 months. A comparison between types and factors related to quality.

The quality of care offered in four different types of non-parental child care to 307 infants at 10 months old and 331 infants at 18 months old was compared and factors associated with higher quality were identified. Observed quality was lowest in nurseries at each age point, except that at 18 months they offered more learning activities. There were few differences in the observed quality of care by child-minders, grandparents and nannies, although grandparents had somewhat lower safety and health scores and offered children fewer activities. Cost was largely unrelated to quality of care except in child-minding, where higher cost was associated with higher quality. Observed ratios of children to adults had a significant impact on quality of nursery care; the more infants or toddlers each adult had to care for, the lower the quality of the care she gave them. Mothers' overall satisfaction with their child's care was positively associated with its quality for home-based care but not for nursery settings