Educating for sociability and learning for citizenship: developing communicational skills and mediation in educational contexts

This text concerns a program about the Promotion of Social and Communicational Skills and Mediation (PSCSM) developed with children aged between 10 and 13 years in a non-formal educational institution. The program of intervention had, as its purpose, the promotion of social and communicational competencies and mediation, thus enabling the children involved to have a healthy and responsible sociability in the different contexts in which they find themselves: family, school, peer group, amongst others. It was developed over 13 sessions with objectives and activities intentionally planned with the view of promoting competencies of communication, co-operation, responsibility, a critical spirit, solidarity, autonomy, respect, integration, inclusion and the recognition of rights and duties. This work was carried out with an action-research methodology that resorted to various techniques and instruments to gather and record information. The results obtained showed the impact and benefits of the program and they also revealed the necessity of educational institutions investing in the promotion of an ethical literacy and the empowerment of the children and young people for healthy sociability and active citizenship.

Management Framework Agreement between the Department of Education and Skills and City of Dublin ETB

Management Framework Agreement between the Department of Education and Skills and City of Dublin ETB. Provided by the Department of Education and Skills, Ireland.

Medical students' skills and needs for training in breaking bad news.

This study assessed medical students' perception of individual vs. group training in breaking bad news (BBN) and explored training needs in BBN. Master-level students (N = 124) were randomised to group training (GT)-where only one or two students per group conducted a simulated patient (SP) interview, which was discussed collectively with the faculty-or individual training (IT)-where each student conducted an SP interview, which was discussed during individual supervision. Training evaluation was based on questionnaires, and the videotaped interviews were rated using the Roter Interaction Analysis System. Students were globally satisfied with the training. Still, there were noticeable differences between students performing an interview (GT/IT) and students observing interviews (GT). The analysis of the interviews showed significant differences according to scenarios and to gender. Active involvement through SP interviews seems required for students to feel able to reach training objectives. The evaluation of communication skills, revealing a baseline heterogeneity, supports individualised training.

Relationship between the users' contact time in educational programs on diabetes mellitus and self-care skills and knowledge

Abstract OBJECTIVE Check the relationship between the users' contact time in educational programs and self-care and knowledge variables in diabetes mellitus. METHOD A longitudinal study with a quantitative approach with the participation, in the initial phase, of 263 users linked to Basic Health Units in Belo Horizonte, Brazil during the years 2012 and 2013. The data were collected with respect to the total contact time of the users' participation in the educational program as regards knowledge and self-care in acquired diabetes mellitus. The data were analyzed using the Student t-test for comparison of means, considering a 0.05 significance level. RESULTS The final sample included 151 users. The analysis showed that the improvement in self-care scores was statistically higher during an educational intervention of eight hours or more (p-value <0.05). In relation to the scores for knowledge, there was a statistically significant improvement at the end of the educational program. It was not possible to identify a value for the contact time from which there was an increase in mean scores for the ability of knowledge. CONCLUSION To improve the effectiveness of the promotion of skills related to knowledge and self-care in diabetes mellitus, it is necessary to consider the contact time as a relevant factor of the educational program.

Weight status and gender-related differences in motor skills and in child care - based physical activity in young children.

Over the last decades, a decline in motor skills and in physical activity and an increase in obesity has been observed in children. However, there is a lack of data in young children. We tested if differences in motor skills and in physical activity according to weight or gender were already present in 2- to 4-year-old children. Fifty-eight child care centers in the French part of Switzerland were randomly selected for the Youp'là bouge study. Motor skills were assessed by an obstacle course including 5 motor skills, derived from the Zurich Neuromotor Assessment test. Physical activity was measured with accelerometers (GT1M, Actigraph, Florida, USA) using age-adapted cut-offs. Weight status was assessed using the International Obesity Task Force criteria (healthy weight vs overweight) for body mass index (BMI). Of the 529 children (49% girls, 3.4 ± 0.6 years, BMI 16.2 ± 1.2 kg/m2), 13% were overweight. There were no significant weight status-related differences in the single skills of the obstacle course, but there was a trend (p = 0.059) for a lower performance of overweight children in the overall motor skills score. No significant weight status-related differences in child care-based physical activity were observed. No gender-related differences were found in the overall motor skills score, but boys performed better than girls in 2 of the 5 motor skills (p ≤ 0.04). Total physical activity as well as time spent in moderate-vigorous and in vigorous activity during child care were 12-25% higher and sedentary activity 5% lower in boys compared to girls (all p < 0.01). At this early age, there were no significant weight status- or gender-related differences in global motor skills. However, in accordance to data in older children, child care-based physical activity was higher in boys compared to girls. These results are important to consider when establishing physical activity recommendations or targeting health promotion interventions in young children.

Counselor motivational interviewing skills and young adult change talk articulation during brief motivational interventions.

The process of eliciting client language toward change (change talk [CT]) is implicated as a causal mechanism in motivational interviewing (MI) and brief motivational interventions (BMI). We investigated the articulation of counselor behaviors and CT during BMI with young men. We coded 149 sessions using the Motivational Interviewing Skill Code and summarized these codes into three counselor categories (MI-consistent [MICO], MI-inconsistent [MIIN], other) and three client categories (CT, counter CT [CCT], follow/neutral [F/N]). We then computed immediate transition frequencies and odds ratios using sequential analysis software. CT was significantly more likely following MICO behaviors, whereas MIIN behaviors only led to CCT and F/N. This strongly supports the use of MI skills to elicit CT during BMI with young men, whose speech also predicted counselor behaviors (particularly CT to MICO and CCT to MIIN). Additional analyses showed that among MICO behaviors, reflective listening may be a particularly powerful technique to elicit CT.

Constructive thinking skills and impulsivity dimensions in conduct and substance use disorders: differences and relationships in an adolescents' sample.

Impact of conduct disorder (CD) and substance use disorder (SUD) on constructive thinking skills and impulsivity was explored. 71 offending adolescents were assessed for CD and SUD. Furthermore, the constructive thinking inventory, the immediate and delayed memory tasks and the UPPS impulsive behaviour scale were administered. Results showed that youths with CD, independently from SUD, presented higher personality impulsivity (urgency) and altered constructive thinking skills (categorical thinking and personal superstitious thinking). Furthermore, trait-impulsivity explained variation in constructive thinking skills. The implications of these results were discussed.

Cities, skills, and regional change

One approach to urban areas emphasizes the existence of certain immutable relationships, such as Zipf's or Gibrat's Law. An alternative view is that urban changereflects individual responses to changing tastes or technologies. This paper examinesalmost 200 years of regional change in the U.S. and finds that few, if any, growth relationships remain constant, including Gibrat's Law. Education does a reasonable jobof explaining urban resilience in recent decades, but does not seem to predict countygrowth a century ago. After reviewing this evidence, we present and estimate a simple model of regional change, where education increases the level of entrepreneurship.Human capital spillovers occur at the city level because skilled workers produce moreproduct varieties and thereby increase labor demand. We find that skills are associatedwith growth in productivity or entrepreneurship, not with growth in quality of life, atleast outside of the West. We also find that skills seem to have depressed housing supplygrowth in the West, but not in other regions, which supports the view that educatedresidents in that region have fought for tougher land-use controls. We also present evidence that skills have had a disproportionately large impact on unemployment duringthe current recession.

Entrepreneurial skills and over-education five years later. A comparison between Spain and the Netherlands

[cat] El fenòmen de la sobre-educació és freqüent i persistent a molts països. En aquest article estudiem el paper de les habilitats emprenedores en evitar la sobre-educació a la primera feina, i en sortir d’una situació de sobre-educació cinc anys després. Comparem els resultats d’Espanya i Holanda, dos països que difereixen en el seu sistema educatiu i mercat de treball. Els resultats mostren que les habilitats emprenedores ajuden a evitar i/o sortir de la sobre-educació només a Espanya, on el sistema educatiu és més flexible i menys vinculat amb el mercat de treball. En general, els nostres resultats recolzen les polítiques que promocionen el desenvolupament d’habilitats emprenedores al sistema educatiu espanyol.

Entrepreneurial skills and over-education five years later. A comparison between Spain and the Netherlands

[cat] El fenòmen de la sobre-educació és freqüent i persistent a molts països. En aquest article estudiem el paper de les habilitats emprenedores en evitar la sobre-educació a la primera feina, i en sortir d’una situació de sobre-educació cinc anys després. Comparem els resultats d’Espanya i Holanda, dos països que difereixen en el seu sistema educatiu i mercat de treball. Els resultats mostren que les habilitats emprenedores ajuden a evitar i/o sortir de la sobre-educació només a Espanya, on el sistema educatiu és més flexible i menys vinculat amb el mercat de treball. En general, els nostres resultats recolzen les polítiques que promocionen el desenvolupament d’habilitats emprenedores al sistema educatiu espanyol.

Structural Brain Connectivity in School-Age Preterm Infants Provides Evidence for Impaired Networks Relevant for Higher Order Cognitive Skills and Social Cognition.

Extreme prematurity and pregnancy conditions leading to intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) affect thousands of newborns every year and increase their risk for poor higher order cognitive and social skills at school age. However, little is known about the brain structural basis of these disabilities. To compare the structural integrity of neural circuits between prematurely born controls and children born extreme preterm (EP) or with IUGR at school age, long-ranging and short-ranging connections were noninvasively mapped across cortical hemispheres by connection matrices derived from diffusion tensor tractography. Brain connectivity was modeled along fiber bundles connecting 83 brain regions by a weighted characterization of structural connectivity (SC). EP and IUGR subjects, when compared with controls, had decreased fractional anisotropy-weighted SC (FAw-SC) of cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical loop connections while cortico-cortical association connections showed both decreased and increased FAw-SC. FAw-SC strength of these connections was associated with poorer socio-cognitive performance in both EP and IUGR children.

Overeducation, skills and wage penalty: Evidence for Spain using PIAAC data

The literature on educational mismatches finds that overeducated workers suffer a wage penalty compared with properly educated workers with the same level of education. Recent literature also suggests that individuals’ skill heterogeneity could explain wage differences between overeducated and properly matched workers. The hypothesis is that overeducated workers earn less due to their lower competences and skills in relative terms. However, that hypothesis has been rarely tested due to data limitations on individuals’ skills. The aim of this paper is to test the individuals’ skill heterogeneity theory in Spain using microdata from PIAAC, because it is one of the developed countries supporting the highest overeducation rates and where its adult population holds the lowest level of skills among a set of developed countries. Our hypothesis is that the wage penalty of overeducation in Spain is explained by the lower skill level of overeducated workers. The obtained evidence confirms this hypothesis but only to a certain extent as skills only explain partially the wage penalty of overeducation.