Susan D. Holloway

Concepts of Ability and Effort in Japan and the United States

Research on concepts of ability and effort in Japan and the United States is reviewed, and three major findings are reported. First, a growing body of research conducted in both countries suggests that effort is identified as the primary determinant of achievement in Japan, whereas it receives relatively less emphasis in the U.S. in comparison to ability. Second, the concepts of ability and effort appear to differ between the two countries, along dimensions that have implications for achievement motivation. Third, Japanese homes and families appear to foster task involvement by fostering interpersonal cooperation rather than competition, avoiding salient performance evaluation, and eschewing authoritarian forms of control. These social structural arrangements may be responsible for the attributional patterns found among Japanese children.

What is “appropriate practice” at home and in child care?: Low-income mothers' views on preparing their children for school

Abstract In this qualitative, longitudinal study, multiple interviews were conducted over 3 years with 14 low-income single mothers (4 White, 6 Black, and 4 Latino). The women talked about socialization goals for their preschoolaged children as well as their views concerning the role of mother and the role of child care providers in attaining those goals. A central objective for all mothers was preparing their children to succeed in school. Most of the women expected their childs provider to engage in didactic lessons aimed at teaching basic literacy and numeracy skills. However, they all viewed other teacher-structured activities as important (e.g., art, music, cooking, field trips, and book reading). Most did not see play as being related to learning, although they acknowledged the emotional and physical benefits of play. These womens views of learning were not entirely congruent with the constructivist position of many early childhood educators, nor were they narrowly defined solely in terms of academic skills. They were receptive to information from child care professionals and other “experts” when these perspectives furthered their own goals for their children. Their views about preschool learning were linked to other cultural models of childrearing including respecting authority, contributing to ones family or community, and differentially allocating responsibility for teaching to parents or to teachers.

What Makes Students Engaged in Learning? A Time-Use Study of within- and between-Individual Predictors of Emotional Engagement in Low-Performing High Schools.

Adolescents’ emotional engagement plays a critical role in promoting their academic performance as well as overall psychological wellbeing. As a part of a 3-year longitudinal study, this study drew upon self-determination theory to examine three psychological predictors of emotional engagement within specific learning contexts. Ninety-four, low socioeconomic status (SES), ninth grade students (49% male; 32 Blacks, 30 Whites, and 32 Latinos) rated the perceived fulfillment of their autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs and their emotional engagement in learning settings at multiple time points over a 1-week period. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that the students’ ratings of their psychological-need fulfillment and of their emotional engagement fluctuated over time and across contexts. After accounting for student gender, race/ethnicity, and prior achievement, we found that the fulfillment of each type of psychological need in a particular learning context was related to emotional engagement in that context (i.e., within-student level). The fulfillment of students’ need for autonomy also was related to their emotional engagement at the aggregated level (i.e., between-student level). These findings illustrate how the psychological affordances of particular learning settings are associated with emotional engagement within and between students from low SES backgrounds.

Parenting Self-Efficacy and Social Support in Japan and the United States

To understand the conditions that give rise to parenting self-efficacy in Japan and the United States, the authors have investigated its relation to the perceptions of support available to mothers of children in the final year of preschool (N = 235; n = 121 in United States, n = 114 in Japan). Hierarchical regression analysis indicates that in both countries, women who experience higher parenting self-efficacy report more positive childhood memories of parental support and greater satisfaction with husband’s and friends’ support. Mothers in the United States are significantly more self-efficacious than are mothers in Japan, even after controlling for the effects of the support predictors. A follow-up mediational analysis reveals that Japanese women’s lower levels of parenting self-efficacy are partially attributable to their low satisfaction with husband’s support.

Building and using a social network: nurture for low-income Chinese American adolescents' learning.

Little research has examined how low-income Asian American children are supported to achieve well in school. The authors used the notion of social capital to study higher versus lower achieving Chinese adolescents from low-income backgrounds. They found that families of higher-achieving adolescents built and used more effectively three kinds of social networks in lieu of direct parental involvement: (a) designating a helper in and outside the home for the child, (b) identifying peer models for the child to emulate, and (c) involving extended kin to guide the child jointly. These forms of social capital reflect Chinese cultural values applied to the challenges of immigrant adaptation.

Can Government Raise Child-Care Quality? The Influence of Family Demand, Poverty, and Policy.

The quality of child-care centers and preschools—situated in a mixed market—varies enormously. Advocates for higher quality urge higher subsidies and stricter central regulation. Market advocates argue instead that local demand and parental-choice remedies will spark quality gains while ensuring competitive prices. Federal and state governments have responded with an array of policy interventions: targeting subsidies on preschools serving low-income families; enacting statewide quality standards; creating tax credits and vouchers for the “working poor” and middle-class families. This article assesses the influence of these alternative policies on preschool quality, based on a national survey of 1,805 centers in 36 states. Discrete policy effects are assessed after taking into account the influence of contextual sources of family demand: statewide levels of wealth, maternal employment, and poverty rates. Contrary to K–12 patterns, we find that center quality is higher in centers receiving greater subsidies. However, the subsidy effect depends on the particular indicator of quality being observed; effects are also conditioned by state-level contexts. Statewide sources of family demand, antecedent to policy interventions, help to raise certain facets of preschool quality. Tax credits hold no discernible influence on quality. Implications for building policy strategies in “managed choice” school settings are discussed.

Assessing Child-Care Quality with a Telephone Interview.

Abstract As increasing numbers of children enter child-care environments that are subsidized by federal and state funds, the demand has risen from policy makers and activists for valid, cost-effective methods of assessing the quality of those environments. In this study we asked whether data on child-care quality obtained from a telephone interview with the provider can serve as an adequate proxy for data obtained from direct observation. Observations were conducted in 89 family child-care homes and 92 centers using the Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS) and the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale (ECERS-R), respectively. The target providers and teachers were subsequently interviewed by telephone using a protocol developed by the authors. For the family child-care providers, the 25 item telephone interview explained 49% of the variance (adjusted r 2 ) in the total FDCRS score. Discriminant analyses revealed that the telephone interview was able to predict accurately 92% of the homes in terms of three FDCRS-derived categories of quality: “poor,” “mediocre,” or “developmentally appropriate.” For the centers, the 22 item telephone interview accounted for 51% of the variance (adjusted r 2 ) in the total ECERS-R score. The telephone interview was able to predict the classification of 89% of the centers in terms of the ECERS-R derived categories of “poor,” “mediocre,” or “developmentally appropriate.” Shorter forms of the telephone interviews (12 items for family child-care; 13 items for center-based care) also demonstrated adequate predictive capability. These findings suggest that the telephone interview can be a valid source of data concerning the global quality of a child-care environment.

The Great Child-Care Experiment What Are the Lessons for School Improvement?

Child-care settings provide a national laboratory for testing questions related to parental choice in K-12 schooling. Operating in open-market conditions with little oversight by the government, the child-care field embodies many of the organizational characteristics advocated under certain school choice models. In fact, parents’ general satisfaction with child care suggests that they are unlikely to act as major catalysts of K-12 reform. Their definitions of excellence in child care are somewhat at odds with professional bench-marks, and their procedures for investigating child-care organizations are often cursory. The national child-care experiment also illustrates the tensions between crafting educational remedies at the local level and tightening the technology of teaching through bureaucratic oversight.

Receiving or believing in family support? Contributors to the life quality of Latino and non‐Latino families of children with intellectual disability

BACKGROUND Previous studies have identified the role of family support in mitigating the stress of parents caring for a child with intellectual disability. Less is known about families whose members are willing but unable to support each other because of geographical, structural and economic barriers. Our study examined the contribution to family quality of life (FQL) of family support beliefs, actual assistance from family members, as well as the moderating effects of ethnicity and household income. METHOD We conducted telephone interviews with 84 Latino and 61 non-Latino mothers. RESULTS Mothers who received more emotional support from partners and other family members reported a higher FQL, controlling for family characteristics. Familism beliefs were also associated with FQL, particularly for Latino mothers. Income was not a significant moderator. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that some predictors of FQL are partially moderated by ethnicity, while others may be powerful across diverse communities.

Attitudes toward prenatal testing and pregnancy termination among a diverse population of parents of children with intellectual disabilities

To determine how parents of children with intellectual disabilities view prenatal testing and pregnancy termination for their childs condition.