Jacqueline Reilly

Gender differences in self-estimated IQ: the need for care in interpreting group data.

Abstract This study sought to examine differences between estimated intelligence and measured IQ among males and females. Forty-six male and 80 female participants were asked to estimate their own IQ and to complete the Digit Symbol and Vocabulary tests from the WAIS. Analysis of group data revealed a significant gender difference in self-estimated IQ, with male self-estimates higher on average than those of females. Moreover, male self-estimates were found to be significantly higher overall than their measured IQs and female self-estimates were lower than measured IQ, although not significantly. Consideration of these results at individual level, however, indicated that, for the majority of subjects, the overall pattern of results for males and females was strikingly similar and that statistically significant group differences were due to a few ‘outliers’ who displayed large discrepancies between estimated and measured IQ. It was concluded that speculation about the causality of inaccurate self-estimates of IQ should not be based on the assumption that gender differences at group level represent a generalized tendency on the part of either sex to either over-confidence or lack of confidence with regard to their own intelligence.

Women’s Experiences of Appearance Concern and Body Control across the Lifespan: Challenging accepted wisdom

This study adopted a lifespan approach to women’s experiences of appearance concern and body control. Thirty-two women (aged 16 to 77) were interviewed about their exercise and food regulation. Results of the grounded theory analysis challenge social constructions of appearance concern as associated principally with the reproductive years, and of the body as malleable, and highlight the complexity of the relationship between appearance concern and body control. Despite frequent persistence of (or increase in) appearance concern beyond young adulthood, ‘healthier’ responses to appearance concern occurred due to changing priorities and increasing awareness. Findings highlight the utility of an inclusive and qualitative approach, and the absence of simple and sovereign factors determining an individual’s levels of appearance concern or body control.

Education for global citizenship in a divided society? Young people's views and experiences

Global citizenship education has been suggested as a means of overcoming the limitations of national citizenship in an increasingly globalised world. In divided societies, global citizenship education is especially relevant and problematic as it offers the opportunity to explore identities and conflict in a wider context. This paper therefore explores young peoples understandings of global citizenship in Northern Ireland, a divided society emerging from conflict. Results from focus groups with primary and post-primary pupils reflect some theoretical conceptualisations of global citizenship, including an awareness of global issues, understandings of environmental interdependence and global responsibility, though other elements appear to be less well understood. We argue that global citizenship education will fail to overcome engrained cultural divisions locally and may perpetuate cultural stereotypes globally, unless local and global controversial issues are acknowledged and issues of identity and interdependence critically examined at both levels.

Global citizenship as education for peacebuilding in a divided society: structural and contextual constraints on the development of critical dialogic discourse in schools

In post-conflict and divided societies, global citizenship education has been described as a central element of peacebuilding education, whereby critical pedagogy is seen as a tool to advance students’ thinking, transform their views and promote democratic behaviours. The present study investigates understandings of and attitudes to global citizenship and the challenges faced in its implementation. Teacher interviews highlight lack of time and resources for critical reflection and dialogue. Where opportunities for relevant training are provided, this can benefit critical engagement. Boundaries of educational systems and structures also influence pupils’ understandings of the issues as evidenced in questionnaire findings. We argue that critical pedagogies may be limited unless criticality and activism transcend local and global issues and are applied to schools themselves. Emotional engagement may be required for teachers to claim the space to critically reflect and share with colleagues within and beyond their sectors in order to enable critical discourse amongst pupils.

Applying Social Psychology

Introduction The Environment Work Health and Illness The Community Communication and the Media Education Economic Life and Consumerism Crime and the Law Sport, Exercise and Leisure

PMS: Moods, measurements and interpretations

While many women themselves associate the premenstrual phase of the menstrual cycle with mood disturbance, this association has not been consistently confirmed by research evidence. This inconsistency is, in part, due to methodological variations, a problem which is compounded by the effects of individual mood variability which are rarely controlled for when statistical techniques are applied. Participants (213 women and 73 men) completed a questionnaire which included the PANAS (Positive and Negative Affect Schedules), to establish levels of positive and negative mood both generally and on that day. Women also established the date of onset of their last menstrual period with the help of a diary listing recent events. Following Cooper & McConville (1990), data were analysed at a categorical level to take into account individual levels of mood variability. Results indicated that while 86% of women reported some degree of PMS, there was no evidence of mood disturbance consistent with PMS in the data. Result...

School library staff perspectives on teacher information literacy and collaboration

Pupils need to develop information literacy (IL) skills in schools in order to be active members of a skilled workforce, for lifelong learning and digital citizenship. However, there has been little focus on the extent to which this happens in a classroom setting and on information competencies of teachers. As part of a broader study of teachers’ knowledge and perceptions of IL, librarians in schools in Northern Ireland were interviewed. Findings reveal low levels of collaboration with teachers. Recommendations are made regarding how to overcome challenges involved in developing teachers’ IL so that they can better support learners.

Face-to-Face Contact in Blended Learning for Intercultural Education: The Role of Teachers.

In societies experiencing or emerging from conflict, teachers often deliver educational programmes designed to build community cohesion. We report on research which examined teachers’ views of the implementation of a programme involving both face-to-face and online contact between pupils. Findings suggest that this blended approach is highly motivational, enhancing online work and relationship building. The research underlines the importance of the political, educational and historical context for work of this sort and the impact this has on the particular blend of online and face-to-face interaction. Implications for policymakers and teachers include value for money and sustainability of blended intercultural education in similar contexts.

History Teaching to Promote Positive Community Relations in Northern Ireland: Tensions Between Pedagogy, Social Psychological Theory and Professional Practice in Two Recent Projects

In this chapter, the role of history teaching in promoting positive community relations in Northern Ireland is considered with specific reference to two publicly funded projects. The Northern Ireland context for history teaching is outlined, followed by an overview of relevant social psychological theory, concepts and research. Educational responses to the conflict and post-conflict situations are explored including development of the history curriculum. The extent to which history teachers might employ ideas from social psychology to contribute to improved relationships between young people is examined. We conclude that history teachers may privilege disciplinary outcomes and curriculum over other project aims, therefore outcomes in relation to promoting community relations may be less consistent than discipline-related outcomes without additional input from social psychologists.

Premature Menopause: A Multidisciplinary Approach Whurr

have been heavily informed by feminist conceptions of liberation of the political in the personal, and by ‘psychoanalytical/therapeutic narrative’ styles, which highlight the private world of the barely articulated. Crossley criticizes her own earlier interpretation (Davies, 1995) of one such autobiographical account as emphasizing too much how psychotherapeutic narrative medicalized and depoliticized abuse, because her own analysis lost sight of ‘any concept of the lived nature of such experiences’ (p. 131). Such selfcriticism makes this book a valuable contribution to the development of a human science psychology, because it makes present the reflexivity of the researcher, who does not have an ‘objective’ distance. Crossley’s presentation of her research with people who have been HIV-positive for more than 5 years presents some of the narrative genres with which such individuals deal with the initial trauma of losing a future: conversion/growth stories, normalizing stories and stories of loss. This is an existential analysis at its best, addressing the temporality at the heart of our lives. At the heart of this book, its ultimate strength, are the recurring questions that bring in ethical dimensions of narrative and psychology. Are the therapeutic narratives essentially depoliticized, narcissistic accommodations of social reality? Do they, perhaps, open up new possibilities for action by their enhanced reflexivity? Do the ‘restitution’ narratives, in which the search for a remedy and a normal life come to the fore, ‘border on denial’ (p. 170)? Crossley asks these questions and others in the final chapter, asking the ultimate question: ‘what this notion of a good story means’ (p. 175). Her answer, ‘questions of “the good” can be defined only in relation to the “interchange of speakers” in a “defining community”, of which one forms a constituent part’ (p. 176) is certainly consonant with the assumption of the loss of frameworks of meaning that transcends the here-and-now, and with modernist assumptions about the individuation process and creation of value. However, this conclusion raises a question about the relationship between psychology and ethics that goes beyond this book. The sentence just cited about the relativity of the good makes sense especially if one equates the ethical with ‘value’, the assignment of worth. However, it does not if the ethical means the good, which for Plato and Levinas (1969), is outside ‘being’, beyond our communities of discourse. If this position were granted, then the good story and the good life necessitate an outward turn.