Building Bridges, Not Walls, Between Latinx Immigrant Parents and Schools

As a teacher educator and former bilingual teacher, I have encountered many teachers who have negative misconceptions about immigrant parents. These misconceptions prevent teachers from forming reciprocal and meaningful relationships with parents and even with children (Colegrove, forthcoming). Negative misconceptions impact teachers’ abilities to be equitable as well as their willingness to offer high-quality learning experiences to children (Adair, 2015; Crosnoe, 2006) or to include parents in meaningful, educational decision-making (Doucet, 2011, 2008). This essay addresses some of these misconceptions as they were articulated during a large video-cued ethnographic study of Latinx immigrant parents of young children in Texas and California. As part of the larger Agency and Young Children study (Tobin, Arzubiaga, & Adair, 2013), Dr. Jennifer Keys Adair and I interviewed 116 Latinx immigrant parents. I focused specifically on 55 Latinx immigrant parents who were from México, Perú, Guatemala, Venezuela, and Chile. I conducted group or individual interviews with all the parents after they watched a twenty-minute film about a first-grade classroom comprised mainly of children of Latinx immigrants. Parents were asked to respond to the practices in the film. The majority of the parents wanted to talk about their frustration about not being taken seriously by schools and teachers. The essays looks at the parents’ reactions to the film and their understanding of the negative misconceptions of themselves and other Latinx parents. It then offers some strategies for teachers to overcome these misconceptions and to work with Latinx parents to create reciprocal and meaningful relationships between them and schools

Preparing Bilingual Pre-Service Teachers to Foster Equitable and Open Communication With Latinx Immigrant Parents en la Enseñanza de Matemáticas

We examine how bilingual pre-service teachers developed a practice of communicating to parents their children’s mathematical thinking and how the teachers invited parents to participate in instructional practices in the mathematics classroom. We argue that these practices are knowledge-intensive, in that bilingual pre-service teachers draw on both their knowledge of children’s mathematical thinking and their own experiences as bilingual students, and that communicating this to parents reflects this knowledge. We conceptualize this knowledge as situated in, and integrated with, the practice of teaching. We therefore consider it necessary to support the development of this knowledge early in pre-service teacher education

Multisite video-cued ethnography

Abstract: The purpose of this ethnographic study was to better understand how Latino immigrant parents describe, view and conceptualize learning in the early primary grades. I looked to answer the following questions: (1) What are the thoughts and ideas that Latino immigrant parents have about the education their children are receiving in U.S. schools and learning settings? (2) What are Latino immigrant parents’ thoughts and ideas about the type of teaching and learning best for their children? (3) What do Latino immigrant parents’ believe is important for their children to learn in school and what should be learned at home? I used three theoretical frameworks for this dissertation study, funds of knowledge (Gonzalez, Moll & Amanti, 2005), social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1977) and subaltern (Spivak, 1988) theories. Together, these theories helped me to listen and understand the Latino immigrant parents’ thoughts and ideas about the education of their children in the United States as they navigated and experienced the school system. This study was part of a larger comparative, video-cued, ethnographic project called the Agency and Young Children Project, modeled after Joseph Tobin’s research design. The research was conducted in two major phases. Phase 1 included selecting a site, observing and filming. Phase 2 involved taking the film to the new research sites for focus group interviews. This dissertation study involved data from Phase 2, which including conducting focus group interviews in schools located in urban and rural areas. Participants were then selected from convenience samples, through access gained from personal and professional networks. I used ethnography for this dissertation study to gather the cultural knowledge and perspectives of a social group. I used video-ethnography in particular because although the videos are not part of the data, the method uses the video/s to generate discussion and reflection about issues occurring in various contexts. My research study revealed that Latino immigrant parents articulate the rationale for the thoughts and ideas they hold about their children’s learning. Understanding the rationale immigrant parents hold about education is meant to aid in valuing the marginalized voices of Latino immigrant parents (Tobin, Arzubiaga & Mantovani, 2007).Curriculum and Instructio

Frustration-induced eta inversion in the S=1/2 bond-alternating spin chain

We study the frustration-induced enhancement of the incommensurate correlation for a bond-alternating quantum spin chain in a magnetic field, which is associated with a quasi-one-dimensional organic compound F5PNN. We investigate the temperature dependence of the staggered susceptibilities by using the density matrix renormalization group, and then find that the incommensurate correlation becomes dominant in a certain range of the magnetic field. We also discuss the mechanism of this enhancement on the basis of the mapping to the effective S=1/2 XXZ chain and a possibility of the field-induced incommensurate long range order.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, replaced with revised version accepted to PR

Difficulties nurses face in clinical practice in supporting consensus decision-making by cancer patients and their families.

【目的】日々臨床で行われている患者・家族と医療者間の合意形成による意思決定支援における看護師の困難を明らかにし，その上で看護師が合意形成による意思決定支援に積極的に取り組めるようにしていくための今後の課題を検討した．【方法】がん診療連携拠点病院２病院に勤務する看護師12名を４グループに分け，フォーカスグループインタビューを実施し，質的帰納的に分析した．データ収集期間は2015年10月～2016年３月であった．【倫理的配慮】大分大学医学部倫理審査委員会（承認番号979）と大分県立病院研究倫理委員会（受付番号28-4）の承認を得た．【結果】がん患者と家族の意思決定支援を行う上で看護師が抱えている困難は，【家族の意向が重視され患者の主体的な意思決定が阻害される】【患者や家族の心情や意向を把握できず合意形成による意思決定支援に踏み出せない】【患者が主体的な意思決定をしたのかわからないまま治療が進むことに悩む】【終末期患者が家族や医療者との合意形成のないまま治療することが良い選択だったのか悩む】【BSCの状況での治療選択において医療者と患者・家族の合意を得ることが難しい】【患者・家族と医療者間のコミュニケーションが十分に図れず合意形成による意思決定支援が成り立たない】【看護ケアチームとして継続的に合意形成による意思決定支援ができない】【スキル不足で変化する患者の状況に合わせて合意形成による意思決定支援のプロセスが辿れない】の８カテゴリーであった．【考察】看護師は，がん患者の権利や意向が尊重されていない状況に疑問を感じたり悩んだりしているが，問題解決に向けてアプローチできない現状が見いだされた．がん医療における意思決定支援の質を向上させるためには，看護師自身が担う役割があることを認識し，実践を積み重ねて，患者や医師が看護師の役割を認知できることが重要であると考えられる．The purpose of this study was to clarify the difficulties nurses face in consensus decision support between patients/families and health care providers, and to examine the implications for education to enable nurses to actively engage in consensus decision support. Focus group interviews were conducted with 12 nurses working at two cancer treatment base hospitals. Respondents were divided into four groups and analyzed qualitatively and inductively. The difficulties nurses face in providing decision support to cancer patients and their families were classified into eight categories: ［Family intentions are emphasized and patient's independent decision-making is hindered］, ［Unable to grasp the feelings and intentions of the patient and family and unable to step forward to support decision-making through consensus building］, ［Distressed that treatment proceeds without knowing whether the patient has made an independent decision］, ［Wonder if it was a good choice for a terminally ill patient to be treated without consensus by family and healthcare providers］, ［Difficulty in obtaining agreement between healthcare providers and patients/families on treatment choices in BSC situations］, ［Communication between patients/family members and medical staff is not sufficient, and decision-making support through consensus building cannot be established］, ［As a nursing care team, we cannot continuously support decision-making through consensus building］, and ［Lack of skills makes it impossible to follow the process of decision support through consensus building in accordance with the changing patient's situation］. We found that nurses are concerned about situations in which the rights and intentions of cancer patients are not respected, but they are unable to approach patients to solve the problem. To improve the quality of decision-making support in cancer care, it is important for nurses to recognize that they themselves have a role to play, to accumulate practice, and to make patients and physicians aware of the role of nurses

Swapping Labeled Tokens on Graphs

Consider a puzzle consisting of n tokens on an n-vertex graph, where each token has a distinct starting vertex and a distinct target vertex it wants to reach, and the only allowed transformation is to swap the tokens on adjacent vertices. We prove that every such puzzle is solvable in O(n [superscript 2]) token swaps, and thus focus on the problem of minimizing the number of token swaps to reach the target token placement. We give a polynomial-time 2-approximation algorithm for trees, and using this, obtain a polynomial-time 2α-approximation algorithm for graphs whose tree α-spanners can be computed in polynomial time. Finally, we show that the problem can be solved exactly in polynomial time on complete bipartite graphs.Japan. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science ELC Project Grant 24.3660)Japan. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science ELC Project Grant 24106010)Japan. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science ELC Project Grant 24700130)Japan. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science ELC Project Grant 25106502)Japan. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science ELC Project Grant 25106504)Japan. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science ELC Project Grant 25330003

Charge- and parity-projected Hartree-Fock method for the strong tensor correlation and its application to the alpha particle

We propose a new mean-field-type framework which can treat the strong correlation induced by the tensor force. To treat the tensor correlation we break the charge and parity symmetries of a single-particle state and restore these symmetries of the total system by the projection method. We perform the charge and parity projections before variation and obtain a Hartree-Fock-like equation, which is solved self-consistently. We apply the Hartree-Fock-like equation to the alpha particle and find that by breaking the parity and charge symmetries, the correlation induced by the tensor force is obtained in the projected mean-field framework. We emphasize that the projection before the variation is important to pick up the tensor correlation in the present framework.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figure

Effect of Resveratrol Dimers and Tetramers Isolated from Vitaceous and Dipterocarpaceous Plants on Human SIRT1 Enzyme Activity

SIRT1 is a mammalian ortholog of the yeast enzyme Sir2, which is an NAD+-dependent deacetylase of histones, p53, FOXO, NF-κB, PGC-1α, and other transcription factors. The Sir2 protein is reported as a longevity protein in yeast. Resveratrol, a polyphenol isolated from various types of plant families, particularly the Vitaceae family, is a known naturally occurring SIRT1 activator. In this study, we evaluated the effects of four types of resveratrol dimers and four types of tetramers isolated from vitaceous plants, and one type of resveratrol tetramer isolated from a dipterocarpaceous plant on purified human SIRT1 enzyme activity. Of the resveratrol dimers examined, (+)-ε-viniferin and pallidol exhibited no effect on SIRT1 enzyme activity, whereas (+)-ampelopsin B and (-)-ampelopsin F showed inhibitory activity on SIRT1. However, all the resveratrol tetramers examined, i.e., (+)-vitisin A, (-)-vitisin B, (+)-hopeaphenol, (-)-hopeaphenol, and (-)-isohopeaphenol markedly inhibited the human SIRT1 enzyme activity. (+)-Hopeaphenol exhibited the most potent inhibitory activity, which was comparable with that exhibited by a known SIRT1 inhibitor suramin. Since SIRT1 inhibitors reportedly possess anticancer activity, (+)-hopeaphenol and other resveratrol oligomers can be used as a seed compound for anticancer drugs