Emotional development among early school-age children: Gender differences in the role of problem behaviours

There has been an increasing focus on social and emotional development in educational programmes in early childhood as both variables are believed to influence behavioural outcomes in the classroom. However, relationships between social and emotional development and behaviour in early childhood have rarely been explored. This article sets out to investigate the conceptualisation of these variables and their inter-relationships. Structural equation models were used to assess if differences exist between boys and girls in relation to social and emotional competences, which could affect the relative success of such programmes. This article is based on cross-sectional data collected from 749 four- to six-year-olds and their teachers. The findings generally supported the hypothesised relationships between social and emotional development variables and prosocial behaviour (including internalising behaviour) for boys and girls. However, some gender differences were noted in externalising behaviour, which teachers often consider to be most significant due to its potentially disruptive nature in the classroom.

Engendering Hope: A person-centred reflection on technology and gender

This paper examines instances of recent musical and artistic works and asks to what extent it makes sense to regard certain practices and technologies as gendered. It looks at a number of strategies for making, suggesting that male gender stereotypes are as prevalent and unhelpful (to practitioners) as female ones. It looks at aspects of the working environments of practitioners to determine whether changes in such conditions might alleviate the gender mismatch in enrolment in higher education courses featuring ubiquitous technologies. The paper identifies historical precedents for technology gendering in which readings of such gendering have shifted radically, suggesting they offer scope for optimism in our longer-term reading of the gendered-ness of current practices. The paper also touches on the extent to which a ‘research’ ethos––the foregrounding of the essential human attributes of inquisitiveness and empathy––may contribute to our capacity to tell better, less binary stories of otherness in all its forms.

An Evidential Improvement for Gender Profiling.

CCTV systems are broadly deployed in the present world. To ensure
in-time reaction for intelligent surveillance, it is a fundamental task for real-world
applications to determine the gender of people of interest. However, normal video
algorithms for gender profiling (usually face profiling) have three drawbacks.
First, the profiling result is always uncertain. Second, for a time-lasting gender
profiling algorithm, the result is not stable. The degree of certainty usually varies, sometimes even to the extent that a male is classified as a female, and vice versa. Third, for a robust profiling result in cases were a person’s face is not visible, other features, such as body shape, are required. These algorithms may provide different recognition results - at the very least, they will provide different degrees of certainties. To overcome these problems, in this paper, we introduce an evidential approach that makes use of profiling results from multiple algorithms over a period of time. Experiments show that this approach does provide better results than single profiling results and classic fusion results.

Evidential Fusion for Gender Profiling

Gender profiling is a fundamental task that helps CCTV systems to
provide better service for intelligent surveillance. Since subjects being detected
by CCTVs are not always cooperative, a few profiling algorithms are proposed
to deal with situations when faces of subjects are not available, among which
the most common approach is to analyze subjects’ body shape information. In
addition, there are some drawbacks for normal profiling algorithms considered
in real applications. First, the profiling result is always uncertain. Second, for a
time-lasting gender profiling algorithm, the result is not stable. The degree of
certainty usually varies, sometimes even to the extent that a male is classified
as a female, and vice versa. These facets are studied in a recent paper [16] using
Dempster-Shafer theory. In particular, Denoeux’s cautious rule is applied for
fusion mass functions through time lines. However, this paper points out that if
severe mis-classification is happened at the beginning of the time line, the result
of applying Denoeux’s rule could be disastrous. To remedy this weakness,
in this paper, we propose two generalizations to the DS approach proposed in
[16] that incorporates time-window and time-attenuation, respectively, in applying
Denoeux’s rule along with time lines, for which the DS approach is a special
case. Experiments show that these two generalizations do provide better results
than their predecessor when mis-classifications happen.

Gender Equality under the Charter of Fundamental Rights - a new lease for positive action?

This paper, which was published as a chapter of a Festskrift for Professor Ruth Nielsen, analyses Article 23 CFREU, the new provision on gender equality. It argues that Article 23 adds to the notion of gender equality in EU law, and not only allows, but also demands positive action measures if necessary to ensure equality between women and men. The provision also demands that positive action measures are suitable to achieve their aim. This implies that the EU legislator has to adapt positive action measure to the specific needs of the sector. The paper offers a critique of the proposal to introduce women quotas in board rooms, as proposed by the EU Commission in late 2012. It argues that the Commission unimaginatively copied rules developed for the German public service into a different sector, although these rules have not proven particularly efficient even in the public service. Consequently, a proposal that is demanding, but adapted to the sector should be developed.

Gender and the Curriculum

Curriculum resides in relationship with the concept of gender in complex and multifaceted ways. Such a relationship acknowledges also the interconnectedness of curriculum, with assessment and pedagogy as well as with gender and demands that we look beyond gender as ‘sex-group differences’ to a deeper understanding of this notion as a cultural artifact, with more nuanced and complex understandings of boys and of girls and how gender affects young people’s identities as learners, as consumers of knowledge and skills, as well as differentially mediating their learning and ultimately their attainment. The chapter explores how we have moved from considerations of gender as a dichotomous variable (male/female) against which curriculum and assessment outcomes can be measured or evaluated, into considerations of gender as a culturally, fluid understanding of how boys and girls identify as individuals and as learners and how they differentially interact with subjects, subject knowledge and skills, as well as how these are taught and assessed.

Gender, religion, and sociopolitical issues in cross-cultural online education

Cross-cultural education is thought to develop critical consciousness of how unequal distributions of power and privilege affect people’s health. Learners in different sociopolitical settings can join together in developing critical consciousness – awareness of power and privilege dynamics in society – by means of communication technology. The aim of this research was to define strengths and limitations of existing cross-cultural discussions in generating critical consciousness. The setting was the FAIMER international fellowship program for mid-career interdisciplinary health faculty, whose goal is to foster global advancement of health professions education. Fellows take part in participant-led, online, written, task-focused discussions on topics like professionalism, community health, and leadership. We reflexively identified text that brought sociopolitical topics into the online environment during the years 2011 and 2012 and used a discourse analysis toolset to make our content analysis relevant to critical consciousness. While references to participants’ cultures and backgrounds were infrequent, narratives of political-, gender-, religion-, and other culture-related topics did emerge. When participants gave accounts of their experiences and exchanged cross-cultural stories, they were more likely to develop ad hoc networks to support one another in facing those issues than explore issues relating to the development of critical consciousness. We suggest that cross-cultural discussions need to be facilitated actively to transform learners’ frames of reference, create critical consciousness, and develop cultural competence. Further research is needed into how to provide a safe environment for such learning and provide faculty development for the skills needed to facilitate these exchanges.