Mothers' beliefs about children's learning in Hong Kong and the United States: Implications for mothers' child-based worth

Chinese and American mothers’ beliefs about children’s learning and parents’ role in it were examined using notions salient in Chinese culture. Mothers from Hong Kong (n = 66) and the United States (n = 69) indicated their endorsement of the ideas that children’s learning reflects children’s morality, and parents’ support of children’s learning reflects parents’ love and duty. Mothers also reported on the extent to which their worth is based on children’s performance. Chinese (vs. American) mothers believed more that children’s learning reflects morality and parents’ support of children’s learning reflects love; these differences accounted for their feelings of worth being more dependent on children’s performance. Chinese (vs. American) mothers believed less that parents’ support is a duty.postprin

The differential contribution of maternal and paternal values to social competence of preschoolers

Multivariate analyses were conducted to clarify the nature of the influences of parental values on social behaviours of kindergarteners in the context of sociodemographic variables and sex of participants. This study included 217 mothers and 172 fathers from the same families, who completed a socio-demographic questionnaire and a new Q-sort that assesses parental values on Individualism (IND)/Collectivism (COL) and Horizontal (HOR)/Vertical (VER) continuums.To test the hypothesis of an association between parental values and children’s behaviours, teachers also provided information about each child’s social competence, anger-aggression, and anxiety-withdrawal in kindergarten using the Social Competence and Behavior Scale. Parents shared a greater proportion of IND/COL than VER values and mothers were more likely to emphasise IND and COL values than fathers. Mothers within IND and COL groups had more socially competent kindergartners as reported by teachers. Considering the mixed results found in the literature regarding sex differences in parenting and behaviours of children, the present results suggested that examining more closely the system of parental values might offer valuable avenues for uture research on early childhood socialisation

Structure, sequon recognition and mechanism of tryptophan C-mannosyltransferase.

C-linked glycosylation is essential for the trafficking, folding and function of secretory and transmembrane proteins involved in cellular communication processes. The tryptophan C-mannosyltransferase (CMT) enzymes that install the modification attach a mannose to the first tryptophan of WxxW/C sequons in nascent polypeptide chains by an unknown mechanism. Here, we report cryogenic-electron microscopy structures of Caenorhabditis elegans CMT in four key states: apo, acceptor peptide-bound, donor-substrate analog-bound and as a trapped ternary complex with both peptide and a donor-substrate mimic bound. The structures indicate how the C-mannosylation sequon is recognized by this CMT and its paralogs, and how sequon binding triggers conformational activation of the donor substrate: a process relevant to all glycosyltransferase C superfamily enzymes. Our structural data further indicate that the CMTs adopt an unprecedented electrophilic aromatic substitution mechanism to enable the C-glycosylation of proteins. These results afford opportunities for understanding human disease and therapeutic targeting of specific CMT paralogs

Parenting and child adjustment: a comparison of Turkish and English families

The links between parenting and child behaviour in cultural context have received increasing research attention. We investigated the effect of parenting on child adjustment using a multi-method design, comparing English and Turkish families. The socioeconomically diverse samples included 118 English and 100 Turkish families, each with two children aged 4–8 years. Mothers completed questionnaires as well as parent–child interaction being assessed using a structured Etch-a-Sketch task with each child separately. Children were interviewed about their relationships with their mothers using the Berkeley Puppet Interview. Multiple-group Confirmatory Analysis was used to test Measurement Invariance across groups, and a multi-informant approach was used to assess parenting. We found partial cross-cultural measurement invariance for parenting and child adjustment. Strikingly, the association between parenting and child adjustment was stronger among English families than Turkish families. Culturally distinct meanings of both parenting and child behaviour must be considered when interpreting their association

Speech and Language Outcomes in Low-SES Spanish-English Bilingual Preschoolers: The Role of Maternal Education

This paper presents a longitudinal examination of Spanish and English phonological, lexical, and morpho-syntactic abilities in 20 low-SES bilingual preschoolers with mothers who had either completed primary or secondary education in Spanish in their country of origin, Mexico. We focused on the link between maternal education and the following spontaneous production measures: 1) phonological accuracy as measured by Percent of Consonants Correct-Revised, 2) lexical variety as measured by Number of Different Words, and 3) utterance length as measured by Mean Length of Utterance in words; the relation between maternal education and spontaneous production was examined both a) at preschool entry, when children were on average 3;6 and dominant in Spanish, and b) a year later, after one year of exposure to the majority language (English) and culture. The results showed that although children of more educated mothers performed significantly better on all English measures than children of less educated mothers, maternal education was not related to Spanish outcomes. The same differences persisted a year later. These results suggest that maternal education may play a different, but long-lasting role in English compared to Spanish development possibly due to language input differences attributable to distinct cultural values and practices associated with different languages

The challenges experienced by parents when parenting a child with hearing loss within a South African context

The purpose of the current study was to explore the challenges experienced by hearing parents when parenting a child with hearing loss. Using a qualitative purposive sampling design, interviews were conducted with 13 parents (9 mothers, 4 fathers) residing in Cape Town, South Africa. Four salient themes emerged, namely: 1) communication is difficult, hard, and frustrating; 2) lack of knowledge and information about hearing loss makes it difficult to parent; 3) little or no support makes for a lonely journey; and 4) support identified by parents for parents. The findings of the study have important implications for collaboration and partnerships between parents and health and family practitioners within South Africa for the design and development of supportive interventions for parents parenting a child with hearing loss

How well do European child-related leave policies support the caring role of fathers?

Our chapter analyses the extent to which European countries (1) recognize the caring responsibilities of fathers toward their children and (2) value fathers' caring role. To do so, we analyze the designs of individual leave policies and reflect on them by assessing available data on leave uptake by fathers in 13 European countries. Our results show that there is great variation in child-related leave designs across Europe. Our findings, in line with previous work, underscore the importance of generous individual non-transferable leave entitlements. Moreover, our findings bring forward aspects of leave designs that are rarely discussed when considering fathers' leave uptake. Our results indicate that generous non-transferable leave rights should be paired with (a) clearly defined leave periods for fathers, (b) individual entitlement to benefits, and (c) greater scope for flexibility to increase the attractiveness of child-related leave and to strengthen fathers' position when negotiating their childcare leave.</p

In-lecture learning motivation predicts students’ motivation, intention, and behaviour for after-lecture learning: Examining the trans-contextual model across universities from UK, China, and Pakistan

This paper presents a cross-cultural examination of the trans-contextual model in University education setting. The purpose of the study was to test the effect of students’ perceived autonomy support and in-lecture learning motivation on motivation, intention, and behaviour with respect to after-lecture learning via the mediation of the social cognitive variables: attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control. University students from UK, China, and Pakistan completed the questionnaires of the study variables. Results revealed that in-lecture perceived autonomy support and autonomous motivation were positively associated with autonomous motivation and intention to engage in after-lecture learning activities via the mediation of the social cognitive variables in all samples. After controlling for the effect of past behaviour, relations between intention and behaviour were only observed in the Chinese sample. In conclusion, the trans-contextual model can be applied to University education, but cultural differences appear to moderate the predictive power of the model, particularly for the intention-behaviour relationship