Policy Brief #1: Child Care Assets: What are 14 Key Assets of Child Care Providers that Support Quality?

In 2000, university researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Iowa State University, University of Kansas and the University of Missouri and state child care and early education program partners in four states (Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska) initiated the Midwest Child Care Research Consortium (MCCRC). The focus of the Consortium’s work is to conduct a multiyear study on a range of issues associated with child care quality and conditions. Across the four states, a stratified random selection of 2,022 child care providers participated in a telephone survey conducted by the Gallup Organization, representing licensed child care centers, licensed family child care homes, registered child care homes, and subsidized care license exempt family and (in one state) license exempt center care. Providers responded to questions about background and practices often associated with quality. Of the providers responding to the phone survey, 365 were randomly selected for in-depth observations to assess quality, using conventional measures of child care quality (see back of this brief). This report shows the relation between observed quality and many provider characteristics and professional improvement efforts

Women and Small Apparel Business Ownership:A Cross-cultural Exploration of the Entrepreneurial Experience

Women-owned small businesses are making increasingly important contributions to the global economy and are developing at a faster pace than those of men (Langowitz & Minniti, 2007). Indeed, it is estimated that women-owned enterprises comprise approximately 30% of the total number of small businesses in most countries (Minniti & Naudé, 2010). Within the entrepreneurship literature, women and small business ownership has primarily been studied from a motivational perspective

Nebraska Child Care Workforce and Quality: Summary Policy Brief #7

The study showed the average child care provider in Nebraska is female, married and a parent. This provider had some training or education beyond high school but not an advanced degree, was active in child care training, had a First Aid/CPR certificate, considered child care her profession or calling, had been in the child care field for over 5 years and planned to remain a provider. The average provider was observed to provide minimal quality child care. In Nebraska, using well-established observational measures of quality, center-based preschool care averaged 4.16 on the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R); 4.49 on the Infant Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS); and family child care averaged 4.46 on the Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS). A “5” is considered “good” quality. There was great variability across all types of care. · Family child care quality was higher in Nebraska and Missouri than in Iowa and Kansas. · In center-based care, there were no differences between providers who cared for children receiving government child care subsidies and those who did not but in family child care there were differences. Quality, training, education and professionally-oriented attitudes were lower among subsidy-receiving family child care providers than for non-subsidy receiving counterparts. · Providers in Early Head Start/Head Start partnerships offered higher quality care and received more training than other child care providers. Nebraska like two other states invested training funds to enable Early Head Start/Head Start programs to partner with programs to follow the Head Start Performance Standards and these partnerships did appear to result in higher quality than average

Collaborative Development of Curriculum Designed to Foster Global Competence: A Report on Project Products, Results and Outcomes

The primary goal of this collaborative project was to create learning opportunities that foster global competence and cultivate problem-solving skills among students in textile and apparel programs

Identifying the Skills that Students Need to Succeed: Perspectives of US and Global Apparel Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners

Textile and apparel graduates entering the workforce must understand the role that small business plays within the industry and overall economy

Modeling Entrepreneurial Career Intentions of Textile and Apparel Undergraduates: An Examination of the Moderating Role of Entrepreneurial Knowledge and Skills

The purpose of this study was to empirically develop a comprehensive model of textile and apparel students\u27 entrepreneurial career intention that combines both cognitive and behavioral decision making processes

Two Bee-Pollinated Plant Species Show Higher Seed Production when Grown in Gardens Compared to Arable Farmland

Background Insect pollinator abundance, in particular that of bees, has been shown to be high where there is a super-abundance of floral resources; for example in association with mass-flowering crops and also in gardens where flowering plants are often densely planted. Since land management affects pollinator numbers, it is also likely to affect the resultant pollination of plants growing in these habitats. We hypothesised that the seed or fruit set of two plant species, typically pollinated by bumblebees and/or honeybees might respond in one of two ways: 1) pollination success could be reduced when growing in a floriferous environment, via competition for pollinators, or 2) pollination success could be enhanced because of increased pollinator abundance in the vicinity. Methodology/Principal Findings We compared the pollination success of experimental plants of Glechoma hederacea L. and Lotus corniculatus L. growing in gardens and arable farmland. On the farms, the plants were placed either next to a mass-flowering crop (oilseed rape, Brassica napus L. or field beans, Vicia faba L.) or next to a cereal crop (wheat, Triticum spp.). Seed set of G. hederacea and fruit set of L. corniculatus were significantly higher in gardens compared to arable farmland. There was no significant difference in pollination success of G. hederacea when grown next to different crops, but for L. corniculatus, fruit set was higher in the plants growing next to oilseed rape when the crop was in flower. Conclusions/Significance The results show that pollination services can limit fruit set of wild plants in arable farmland, but there is some evidence that the presence of a flowering crop can facilitate their pollination (depending on species and season). We have also demonstrated that gardens are not only beneficial to pollinators, but also to the process of pollination

Encouraging critical thinking in the classroom: An example from Aesthetics

Abstract: This paper illustrates how critical thinking techniques could be used in teaching aesthetics. Exploring unfamiliar territory and moving freely between reflective and active thought processes are components important to both aesthetics and critical thinking. In keeping with the objectives of critical thinking, a classroom exercise titled "Getting Outside of Your Own Skin" was designed to help students acknowledge and address assumptions and biases they may hold about older consumers and the aging process. Students were encouraged to move beyond personal experiences to broaden their thinking about individuals unlike themselves. By working through the project, students were given the opportunity to examine their perceptions and attitudes toward the aging process and to consider their effect on this growing market. Key Words: aesthetics, critical thinking, age stereotypes, pedagogy Article: Many perceptions about our world become fixed due to the limited nature of our personal experiences. This makes it difficult to be understanding or empathetic to the needs of those individuals who are different from us. Students studying the design, production, or distribution of clothing need to develop the ability to transcend their own experiences and preferences to understand those individuals they will serve. They need the skills to perceive and interpret changing markets. Bass, The classroom provides an ideal setting for helping students learn critical thinking skills to move outside of their personal experiences, and thereby broaden their thinking. We developed an exercise which combined concepts from critical thinking theory and aesthetic theory, where students would encounter their own perceptions and attitudes and thereby explore personal assumptions. In this exercise, students were asked to transcend their current age and life

Constructing Knowledge for the Future: Exploring Alternative Modes of Inquiry from a Philosophical Perspective

Abstract: Clothing and textiles research is examined within a futuring framework to discuss potential avenues for development of thought within the field. A philosophical perspective linking ontology, epistemology, and methodology is posited as important to exploring assumptions that guide the research process. The material culture studies perspective, the feminist social science perspective, and the critical science perspective are discussed as three potential ways of approaching the subject matter in need of mainstreaming as we look to the future of knowledge production within clothing and textiles. Based on this discussion, ideas and implications for scenario-building in the traditional futures sense are presented