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Multilevel models are often used to account for the hierarchical structure of social data and the inherent dependencies to produce estimates of regression coefficients, variance components associated with each level, and accurate standard errors. Social network analysis is another important approach to analysing complex data that incorporate the social relationships between a number of individuals. Extended linear regression models, such as network autoregressive models, have been proposed that include the social network information to account for the dependencies between persons. In this article, we propose three types of models that account for both the multilevel structure and the social network structure together, leading to network autoregressive multilevel models. We investigate theoretically and empirically, using simulated data and a data set from the Dutch Social Behavior study, the effect of omitting the levels and the social network on the estimates of the regression coefficients, variance components, network autocorrelation parameter, and standard errors.

LaGuardia Community College in Queens, New York is known for its leadership in assessment practices aimed at improving teaching and learning. Its practices to improve student outcomes include remedial math and composition pathways reforms and establishing signature general education core competencies and communication abilities. Combined together, such practices have helped double the graduation rate over a decade. Until recently, however, assessment data had not been disaggregated for different student demographics. In this article, we describe how we transformed our traditional means of analyzing outcomes data toward one that utilized an equity-driven index for two cohorts of students across major racial and ethnic populations. We examined the data for representational equity and equitable performance. In a key finding, we discovered our ongoing assessment practices do not reflect our student population on both counts, especially as a designated Hispanic Serving Institution. Further, we found other under- and over-representation of racial populations in our general education assessment samples. We conclude by suggesting further areas of inquiry with equity-based assessment and note ongoing challenges to systematizing this approach.

Much is unknown about those who do not finish high school and there is a need to understand who enters and completes alternative high school completion programs, such as the HiSet (High School Equivalency Test), GED (General Education Development Test), or growing number of state sponsored high school equivalency programs. The purpose for conducting the study was to describe the perceptions of adult education program coordinators about how to best categorize potential high school credential alternative completers. Using a phenomenological framework and semi-structured interviews, 12 adult education program administrators were interviewed about who enrolls in and completes their programs. A thematic analysis of these responses indicated distinct categories of individuals including opportunists (those looking for better opportunities), exceptionals (those with exceptionalities such as a disability that prevented the individual from completing a traditional high school diploma), immigrants (those validating learning in another country or language learners), and those who have been reformed in some way (e.g., those with a history of difficulty with legal situations). By identifying these initial categories of adult learners taking part in high school equivalency programs, recruitment efforts as well as the programs themselves might be better structured to correspond to learner needs.

Disruptive events such as economic recessions, natural disasters, job loss, and divorce are highly prevalent among American families. These events can have a long-lasting impact when experienced during childhood, potentially altering academic achievement, socioemotional well-being, health and development, and later life socioeconomic status. Much research has considered the overall impact of disruptive events on children's lives, but the consequences of disruption also vary across groups. The same event may have profound negative consequences for some groups, minor or no impact for others, and even be a generative or positive turning point for other groups. This issue focuses on the disparate consequences of disruptive events on children. We consider theoretical approaches accounting for effect heterogeneity and methodological challenges in identifying unequal impacts. We also review an emerging multidisciplinary literature accounting for variation in the impact of disruption across several widely studied domains that affect children's life chances, including economic, household, educational, health, and environmental events.

Autism is heterogeneous, which complicates providing tailored support and future prospects. We aim to identify subgroups in autistic adults with average to high intelligence, to clarify if certain subgroups might need support. We included 14 questionnaire variables related to aging and/or autism (e.g., demographic, psychological, and lifestyle). Community detection analysis was used for subgroup identification in an original sample of 114 autistic adults with an adulthood diagnosis (autism) and 58 non-autistic adults as comparison group (COMP), and a replication sample (N[subscript Autism] = 261; N[subscript COMP] = 287), both aged 30-89 years. Next, we identified subgroups and assessed external validity (for cognitive and psychological difficulties, and quality of life [QoL]) in the autism samples. To test specificity, we repeated the analysis after adding 123 adults with ADHD, aged 30-80 years. As expected, the autism and COMP groups formed distinct subgroups. Among autistic adults, we identified three subgroups of which two were replicated. One of these subgroups seemed most vulnerable on the cluster variables; this subgroup also reported the most cognitive and psychological difficulties, and lowest QoL. Adding the ADHD group did not alter results. Within autistic adults, one subgroup could especially benefit from support and specialized care, although this must be tested in future studies.

The network scale-up method (NSUM) is a survey-based method for estimating the number of individuals in a hidden or hard-to-reach subgroup of a general population. In NSUM surveys, sampled individuals report how many others they know in the subpopulation of interest (e.g. "How many sex workers do you know?") and how many others they know in subpopulations of the general population (e.g. "How many bus drivers do you know?"). NSUM is widely used to estimate the size of important sociological and epidemiological risk groups, including men who have sex with men, sex workers, HIV+ individuals, and drug users. Unlike several other methods for population size estimation, NSUM requires only a single random sample and the estimator has a conveniently simple form. Despite its popularity, there are no published guidelines for the minimum sample size calculation to achieve a desired statistical precision. Here, we provide a sample size formula that can be employed in any NSUM survey. We show analytically and by simulation that the sample size controls error at the nominal rate and is robust to some forms of network model mis-specification. We apply this methodology to study the minimum sample size and relative error properties of several published NSUM surveys.

To estimate the distribution of the number of acquaintances of the members of a society, the network scale-up method asks survey respondents about the number of people they know with features for which national statistics are available. While many features have been used for this purpose, first names have been suggested to produce particularly low levels of transmission error and recall bias. For this method to be precise, a set of names needs to be selected for the survey that jointly represents the population in relevant variables such as gender or age. This article provides a solution approach to finding the optimal set of names. This can be applied to any population for which a joint distribution of first names and relevant variables is available. We show that our approach successfully provides sets of names closely mirroring the population distributions for six countries with different name statistics.

Student socialisation into the norms and environment of their institution is a crucial process during their college experience. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these processes were disrupted, and little published research exists exploring comparisons of these student socialisation processes before and during the pandemic. Accordingly, we report on a quantitative study conducted at a large mid-western university in the United States, which compared survey data from 2018 to data collected in 2021. We operationalised student socialisation processes using Ashford and Black's proactive behaviours scale to explore how these behaviours and relevant socialisation outcomes changed from before to during the pandemic. The primary socialisation outcomes of interest were engineering identity and social capital. During the COVID pandemic, students reported lower levels of social capital. However, we simultaneously observed higher ratings of students' engineering identity. Next, using multivariate linear regression, we examined which proactive behaviours best predicted socialisation outcomes in both datasets. We found all proactive behaviours were significant predictors of social capital. Proactive behaviours did not influence student's sense of engineering identity. This study contributes to the growing literature on the pandemic's impact on engineering undergraduate students and how proactive behaviours are related to their socialisation outcomes.

This longitudinal study serves as a model for examining and understanding the role of editing and its contributing factors in writing center tutorials. The study quantifies the frequency of and time devoted to editing in over 4,000 writing center tutorials and finds these quantities differ in statistically significant ways when broken down by user groups (gender, student standing, course level, and primary language); tutoring modes (face-to-face, synchronous-online, and asynchronous); and time of student visit relative to project due date. Analysis identifies contributing factors that influence frequency of and time spent on editing in tutorials by these groups, including group membership and their associated editing practices and tutorial habits. The study's findings fill an important gap in our understanding of what takes place in writing center tutorials and have significant implications for tutor training and marketing of writing center services.

Objective: Over the past three decades, cultural competence has been widely promoted in the health disciplines, including in health education and promotion, as a tool to address health disparities and promote health equity among diverse populations. Cultural intelligence (CQ), or the individual's capability to adjust to cultural situations based on multiple factors including cognitive, metacognitive, motivational and behavioural characteristics, can be another useful tool when addressing the needs of diverse groups. The goal of this study was to assess the level of CQ among health education specialists and its relationship with cultural competence skills (CCS) among members of this group. Design: Five hundred and forty randomly selected health education specialists in the USA completed an online survey. The survey included questions to assess CQ, CCS and demographic information. Descriptive statistics and analysis of variance were used to analyse the data. Results: Results from the study showed that there was a significant variation in CQ among health education specialists based on race/ethnicity, education, the percentage of cultural/racial/ethnic diverse people they serve, and participation in professional development training. There was also a positive correlation between CQ and CCS, and between each of the CQ capabilities and CCS. Finally, both CQ metacognitive and cognitive capabilities were significant predictors of the overall CCS score. Conclusion: Findings from this study showed that CQ is associated with CCS among health education specialists. The results of the study suggest that health education specialists should consider CQ a useful tool with which to increase CCS.

The focus of this study is to use the mixture item response theory (MixIRT) model while implementing the no-U-turn sampler as a technique for investigating the presence of latent classes (i.e., subpopulations) among eighth-grade students who were administered TIMSS 2019 mathematics subtest in paper format from the gulf cooperation council (GCC) countries. One-, two-, and constrained three-parameter logistic MixIRT models with one to four classes were used to fit to the data, where the model data fit was assessed using Bayesian fit indices. The results indicate that multiple latent classes or subpopulations can better reflect the mathematical proficiency of eighth graders from the four GCC countries, and specifically the two-class constrained three-parameter MixIRT model provides a relatively better fit to the data. The results also indicate that when a mixture of several latent classes present, the conventional unidimensional IRT model is limited in providing information for multiple latent classes and shall be avoided. In addition to adding to the existing literature on MixIRT models for international large-scale assessments such as TIMSS on its heterogenous subpopulations from a fully Bayesian approach, this study sheds light on the limitation of conventional unidimensional IRT models and subsequently directs attention to the use of the more complex MixIRT model for such assessments.

Transfer stigma refers to a type of stigma associated with students' transfer status and/or their community college background. It plays a significant role in post-transfer adjustment and may negatively impact post-transfer outcomes such as retention and obtaining a baccalaureate degree. This study focused on quantitatively measuring transfer stigma among transfer students attending a four-year institution. Drawing from previous studies, we developed a 13-item transfer stigma measure and included it in a transfer student survey. The survey data was collected from 450 current transfer students at a public, flagship four-year university in Louisiana. Through an exploratory factor analysis and a confirmatory factor analysis, we revealed a four-factor structure of transfer stigma measures: internalized self-stigma, perceptions about community colleges, lack of support, and perceived judgment. Subsequent statistical analyses examined group differences in the degree of transfer stigma across various transfer student subgroups defined by transfer type, gender, race/ethnicity, age, and major.

There is wide variability in the special education eligibility criteria for deafblindness across the United States. This study was a novel examination of variations in state factors, including eligibility criteria for deafblindness, to identify potential relationships between state factors and the number of students who are deafblind during the 2018-2019 school year. No state factors correlated to the OSEP Child Count population data. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed factors primarily relating to sensory disability professionals, which correlated to the National Center on Deaf-Blindness population data. Implications for students, personnel, and professional development offerings are discussed.

In Canada, the Black population is the third-largest racially visible group, yet students of African descent continue to face inequities in Canadian school systems. Students of African descent can benefit from learning from an Africentric perspective that cultivates their well-being and achievement while centring their lived experience as a person of African descent. As research demonstrates the significance of parental involvement in Africentric education, the purpose of this study was to explore an Africentric High School Cohort from the perspective of parents of the students of African descent in this Cohort. Based on the conceptual framework of Nguzo Saba, the theoretical framework of Africentric education, and critical race theory, a thematic analysis of the findings was conducted. The findings are discussed under the themes of parental engagement, positive youth development, and addressing challenges. Recommendations are suggested for future Africentric cohorts.

This paper addresses the current educational rights of the Roma community (in the Czech Republic). The aim of the paper is to present the educational system, its advantages and disadvantages and the ways in which the legal system supports educational rights. The second part of the paper focuses on the exercising and negotiation of rights in the contemporary social context. The work is based on ethnographic research conducted since 2005 by the Levinska, Bittnerova, & Doubek team in socially excluded localities. The data analysis is based on the theoretical concept of cognitive anthropology and the cultural models theory (D'Andrare, & Strauss, 1992). Cultural models and the ways in which parents, students and teachers negotiate rights are presented. The tension between rationality and morality (Bateson, 1958) is demonstrated by the models' endurance; communication, cognitive and material support; and independence. Although the system itself provides equal opportunities, the prospects that education affords are a fundamental problem. One obstacle is racial bias, which influences members of the dominant group. Another significant obstacle is poverty and the costs of higher education, which are beyond the financial capacity of poor families. A third obstacle is knowledge, which is insufficient in excluded localities and poor families, and that families are unable to give students adequate support in navigating the full scope of student responsibilities.

This paper enquires into how disadvantaged Hungarian Roma youth make decisions concerning their educational and early career trajectories, who guides them, and whether the main guidance agents and services are available to them particularly at the time of their school-to-work transition (STWT). Data was collected in a Hungarian city and its surroundings among 35 Roma young people between the ages of 18 and 30 through life-course interviews. In this paper, I analyse respondents' life trajectories in respect of three forms of guidance they received, aiming to describe the mix of 'substitute guidance' Roma young people obtain, and its influence on their choices with respect to STWT. Findings suggest that the messy set of formal and informal guidance agents, services, and activities in Hungary tends to be contingent, discontinuous, segmented, non-specialized, and biased.

Numerous articles and textbooks advise qualitative researchers on accessing "hard-to-reach" or "hidden" populations. In this article, I compare two studies that I conducted with justice-involved women in the United States: a yearlong ethnography inside a state women's prison and an interview study with formerly incarcerated women. Although these two populations are interconnected--and both are widely deemed hard-to-reach--the barriers to access differed. In the prison study, hard-to-reach reflected an issue of "institutional legitimacy," in which researchers must demonstrate themselves and their proposed study as legible, appropriate, and worthy to organizational gatekeepers. In the reentry study, hard-to-reach reflected an issue of "structural precarity," in which researchers must navigate the everyday vulnerabilities of research participants' social position to ensure the study is inclusive and feasible. Juxtaposing these two experiences, I propose greater nuance to the term hard-to-reach such that researchers may proactively address institutional and structural barriers to access.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of an intervention using indirect intergroup contact for improving intergroup attitudes in schools, in particular anti-Roma prejudice. Vicarious contact--a form of indirect intergroup contact--can be experienced through fictional book characters, who can serve as positive role models in terms of intergroup attitude improvement. A vicarious contact experiment was conducted with sixth grade students (N = 177) from three Slovak elementary schools, using passages from the Harry Potter series. A "three-group pretest-posttest design" was adopted; experimental condition 1 involved reading passages without subsequent discussion, experimental condition 2 involved reading the same passages followed by a discussion, while the control group was not involved in any activities. There was a significant improvement of intergroup attitudes in experimental condition 2 compared to the control group, while condition 1 did not show any such improvement. The first contribution of the study is in tackling conceptually distinct mediators of the intervention's effect--perspective taking and narrative transportation. The second contribution is in demonstrating the added value of discussion in interventions focused on prejudice reduction in schools.

Past studies of the relation between teacher-student relationship (TSR) and students' academic achievement (SAA) yielded mixed results, so this study determined the overall link between TSR and SAA, along with their moderators. This three-level meta-analysis of 90 independent effect sizes in 74 empirical studies of 233,961 students showed an overall positive link between TSR and SAA in China (r = 0.259, 95% CI = [0.227; 0.290]). This relationship was higher in: (a) China's central region (0.305) than its eastern (0.238) or western regions (0.166); (b) senior high school (0.345), followed by junior high school (0.251), then primary school (0.221); (c) English (0.302), followed by math (0.272), Chinese (0.269), and science (0.202); and (d) females (B = 0.507) than males. These results suggest the value of improving teacher-student relationships in policies and practices.

Minimum discriminant information adjustment (MDIA), an approach to weighting samples to conform to known population information, provides a generalization of raking and poststratification. In the case of simple random sampling with replacement with uniform sampling weights, large-sample properties are available for MDIA estimates of population means and related functions of such means. This research report provides large-sample properties of MDIA estimates under complex sampling designs, such as stratified and two-stage sampling. Cases are considered for both sampling with replacement and sampling without replacement. MDIA is one case of calibration weighting, and this report includes results showing that sample calibration weights can exist only if MDIA weights exist, and MDIA weights can exist in situations where other calibration weights do not. Similarly, results in the report show that calibration weighting does properly generalize MDIA for populations. To illustrate results and explore the use of large-sample approximations in samples of moderate size, an application from Florida middle schools is examined for several sampling procedures to evaluate MDIA estimates for the prevalence of literacy coaches in those schools.

Purpose: Teachers' ability attributions play an important role in students' educational outcomes. Perceptions of academic abilities, however, are subject to biases. This study aims to examine ethnic biases in homeroom teachers' ability attributions in Hungarian primary schools. Design/methodology/approach: Using a unique database combining survey data collected among teachers with administrative data on students' standardised test scores, the author compares ability attributions towards equally competent minority and majority classmates (Nstudents = 604, Nclasses = 34 in Grade 6; Nstudents = 420, Nclasses = 27 in Grade 8). Findings: The author finds that Roma students are less likely to be perceived as smart by their homeroom teachers than their non-Roma classmates with similar standardised achievement scores in Grade 6, but not in Grade 8. The ethnic difference in being perceived as smart is substantially reduced after controlling for students' socioeconomic status and cultural resources. On the other hand, homeroom teachers perceive Roma students to be similarly hardworking and "good students" than equally competent non-Roma students. Originality/value: This study highlights an important mechanism that can contribute to educational inequalities. The findings suggest that previously found differences between equally competent Roma and non-Roma students' teacher-given school grades might arise due to biases in ability attributions rather than differences in perceived efforts. It is important to make teachers aware of potential biases in student assessment and evaluation.

The trend toward continuous expansion of U.S. post-secondary enrollments was reversed in the 2010s. Using pooled state-level data in between-within models, we examine public higher education enrollment trends during the 2009-2019 period. We emphasize variation in the net associations of covariates by tiers. State economic conditions showed stronger net associations with regional comprehensive and community college enrollments than with research university enrollments. The proportion of 19-25 year-olds in the state population showed stronger net associations on research university enrollments than on enrollments in other sectors. The effects of state-level inequality, under-represented group populations, and Republican-controlled states also varied by tier in ways that align with the dominant orientations among conservative elites. Inequality and Republican Party preferences showed net negative associations with community college enrollments, while the proportion of under-represented groups in the 19-25 population showed net negative associations with research university enrollments.

Objective: Persons with high-risk for severe COVID-19 illness require special attention when considering university operations during the novel coronavirus pandemic. The objective of this study was to determine the number of students who fall within a high-risk category according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines using linked databases. Participants: Students enrolled at a large public University and who accessed the student health center between 2016 and 2020. Methods: Clinical data were linked with both university student enrollment and disability services databases to provide a comprehensive, de-identified dataset of students at higher medical risk of severe COVID-19 illness. Results: 1902 unique students (14% of the student health center population) were identified as having one or more high-risk condition. Conclusions: Utilizing a large and longitudinally linked student database provides universities with valuable information to make critical administrative decisions about how best to accommodate high-risk students to reduce their medical risk when returning to in-person instruction.

We evaluated the success of a best practice alert (BPA) in recruiting underrepresented families into an autism spectrum disorder research cohort by comparing BPA-response outcomes ("Interested," "Declined," "Enrolled," "Dismissed") in pediatric primary care practices (TCPs) serving diverse communities with those of subspecialty clinics. Compared to subspecialty clinics, TCPs had higher proportions of Interested responses for patients with private insurance (60.9% vs. 46.2%), "Dismissed" responses for patients with public insurance (30.1% vs. 20.0%), and "Interested" responses for non-white patients (47.7% vs. 33.3%). A targeted BPA can help researchers access more diverse groups and improve equitable representation. However, select groups more often had their alert dismissed, suggesting possible selection bias among some pediatricians regarding who should receive information about study opportunities.

Today, digital technologies are used extensively in all areas of life, so education has important role to raise individuals who are researching, questioning, and constructing the knowledge. Digital storytelling; Written, visual, audio tools that work together, providing information in a digital environment is a method that allows students to learn with fun. The aim of the study is to compile the studies related with digital story (2005-2019) in Turkey. Descriptive scanning model was used in the study which is one of the qualitative research methods. The studies were examined in terms of their population, sample, years of publication, their universities, the indexes of the journals, their findings and the courses and disciplines that they are preferred most. Also, by including recommendation of the studies, the researchers aims to help teachers to shape their teaching process, experts to to improve program features, Ministery of National Education to develop projects on digital storytelling. As a result of the study, it was found that 2017 is the year that the most thesis were published whereas this situation is valid for 2018 in articles. Qualiative methods were preferred in articles generally, and in theses, researchers used quantitative methods. In sample choice, students were the most included group in the studies. When we look at the findings, the most encountered ones were "digital storytelling increases students' motivation, creative and critical thinking skills and problem-solving skills ". The recommendations of the studies were generally was "digital storytelling can be used in different areas and disciplines", "digital stories can be applied to students in different level and examine different variables". As a result, the study revealed the increasing importance of digital storytelling with the digital age. Also, it display that digital storytelling enables students learn actively by exploring, help to develop creative and critical skills, and give opportunity to learn by doing. [This study was presented as an oral presentation in 17th Primary Teacher Education Symposium.]

The aim of this research is to examine the trends of the studies that address the education-training dimension of creativity in Turkey. The research was conducted using a qualitative research pattern. The data was collected and analyzed through document analysis. In the analysis of the data, the thesis analysis form developed by the researchers was used. One hundred and forty-five graduate theses studied between 2005 and 2019 in the field of education, which were allowed access by their authors, constitute the study group of this research. 114 of these works consist of graduate theses and 31 of them consist of doctoral theses. The graduate theses in the Council of Higher Education database were examined under a total of 10 titles according to their distribution over the years-educational levels, university distributions, institute distributions, branch distributions, methods and sub-methods, data collection tools, sampling/study groups, sampling methods, education level of the study group and thesis titles. As a result of the research, it was observed that although studies addressing the educational-educational dimension of creativity have increased at a certain level over the years, they are not at the desired point and have not been studied adequately. In addition, it was determined that the studies carried out in terms of the discipline, the methods used and the variety of topics studied had similarities, that no studies on creativity were conducted in some departments, that the study group usually consists of a single level of education, that this situation does not allow to look at creativity from a broad perspective, and that there are many aspects of creativity that have not been studied for those who will work in the educational dimension.

The purpose of this study is to examine the abstracts in 6th International Preschool Education Congress abstract book in terms of research subject, method, model, sample type, data collection tools, data analysis techniques, validity and reliability. This study is a qualitative study and was conducted using document analysis, which is one of the qualitative research methods. 295 papers in the abstract book of the 6th International Preschool Education Congress held in Kars, Turkey were included in this study. Each abstract consists of at least 500 words in the 1206 pages abstract book. Descriptive analysis, one of the qualitative data analysis techniques, was used in data analysis. The data obtained in the study were visualized through graphics. As a result of the study, it was determined that child development, teacher training, educational environments, education programs and family participation were most studied in the abstract of the papers. It was concluded that quantitative and qualitative methods were preferred in the studies, but the mixed method was not preferred by the researchers. Preschool children, teachers, parents and prospective teachers were most studied as sample groups. It was observed that there are a few studies conducted with faculty members and administrators. The quantitative research mostly used the screening/descriptive design; the experimental designs were very low and longitudinal studies are not preferred. In qualitative research, case study design is generally preferred. Scale and interview forms were the most used data collection tools. It was concluded that correlational analysis and content analysis are the most used data analysis techniques. It was determined that the use of advanced statistical techniques is very low. Also the validity and reliability information is generally not available in the abstracts. It was concluded that ¼ of the abstracts in the congress abstract book do not include any results and conclusion.

Richard Kerridge and Helen Snelson present a brief sequence of lessons using the life of the Gypsy woman Mary Squires as a way into the changes of industrialising Britain. More significantly, they also present a compelling rationale for why history teachers should be slotting in the stories of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people to broaden inclusive representation and challenge intolerance. The authors provide useful links and resources for this specific area of inclusive teaching, as well as broader suggestions for how to portray the history of all the people in Britain in the history classroom.

When a population exhibits collective cognitive alignment, such that group members tend to perceive, remember, and reproduce information in similar ways, the features of socially transmitted variants (i.e., artifacts, behaviors) may converge over time towards culture-specific equilibria points, often called cultural attractors. Because cognition may be plastic, shaped through experience with the cultural products of others, collective cognitive alignment and stable cultural attractors cannot always be taken for granted, but little is known about how these patterns first emerge and stabilize in initially uncoordinated populations. We propose that stable cultural attractors can emerge from general principles of human categorization and communication. We present a model of cultural attractor dynamics, which extends a model of unsupervised category learning in individuals to a multiagent setting wherein learners provide the training input to each other. Agents in our populations spontaneously align their cognitive category structures, producing emergent cultural attractor points. We highlight three interesting behaviors exhibited by our model: (1) noise enhances the stability of cultural category structures; (2) short 'critical' periods of learning early in life enhance stability; and (3) larger populations produce more stable but less complex attractor landscapes, and cliquish network structure can mitigate the latter effect. These results may shed light on how collective cognitive alignment is achieved in the absence of shared, innate cognitive attractors, which we suggest is important to the capacity for cumulative cultural evolution.

Conducting field research with a vulnerable population is difficult under the most auspicious conditions, and these difficulties only increase during a pandemic. Here, we describe the practical challenges and ethical considerations surrounding a recent data collection effort with a high-risk population during the COVID-19 pandemic. We detail our strategies related to research design, site selection, and ethical review.

Social scientists have frequently sought to understand the distinct effects of age, period, and cohort, but disaggregation of the three dimensions is difficult because cohort = period - age. We argue that this technical difficulty reflects a disconnection between how the cohort effect is conceptualized and how it is modeled in the traditional age-period-cohort framework. We propose a new method, called the age-period-cohort-interaction (APC-I) model, that is qualitatively different from previous methods in that it represents Ryder's theoretical account about the conditions under which cohort differentiation may arise. This APC-I model does not require problematic statistical assumptions and the interpretation is straightforward. It quantifies inter-cohort deviations from the age and period main effects and also permits hypothesis testing about intra-cohort life-course dynamics. We demonstrate how this new model can be used to examine age, period, and cohort patterns in women's labor force participation.

This paper provides the first population-based evidence on how much standardized test scores vary among public school districts within each state and how segregation explains that variation. Using estimates based on roughly 300 million test score records in math and English Language Arts (ELA) for Grades 3 through 8 from every U.S. public school district during the 2008-09 to 2014-15 school years, we estimate intraclass correlations (ICCs) as a measure of between-district variation. We characterize the variation in the ICCs across states as well as the patterns in the ICCs over subjects, grades, and cohorts. Further, we investigate the relationship between the ICCs and measures of racial and socioeconomic segregation. We find that between-district variation is greatest, on average, in states with high levels of both White-Black and economic segregation.

Roma have been described as the most hated minority in Europe. Particularly in Southeastern Europe (SEE), this bias is reflected in how Roma children are treated and segregated in schools. Anecdotal evidence shows that Roma parents may give permission for their children to be included in segregated programs in order to benefit from payments, food and other compensations. This pattern may explain the overrepresentation of Roma children in segregated settings for children with disabilities in the region. In this analysis of parent survey data from ten SEE countries, with oversampling of the Roma minority, we found that Roma parents were no more likely to report that their children had learning difficulties than non-Roma parents. Instead, books in the home was the strongest single predictor of whether parents in either group reported that their children had learning problems.

The term microaggression is defined and demonstrated from the viewpoint of graduate-level students. Using a classroom assignment, the students describe their personal experiences of being the recipient of a microaggression. The students describe the type of microaggression, theme, psychological dilemma, and recall how they reacted to the encounter. The physical and psychological impact of microaggressions on diverse populations is explained to provide insight on the outcomes. Implications are discussed as well as how the counselor or helping professional can use the client's experience as a tool for empowerment.

On the French Guiana-Suriname border, a hybrid space, members of the same population groups engage in circular mobility but little is known about the practices of these transnational communities. We explore how traditional emic social distinctions, modern states' language ideologies and emerging discourses in the urban context shape Maroon's practices and identities in the border zone. A survey of language repertoires and long-term ethnographic fieldwork, including recordings of situated multilingual interactions, allow us to explore people's alignment with national language ideologies and the nature of distinctive ideologies, identifications and practices that can be observed in the border zone. We show that the border zone constitutes a separate sociolinguistic area, in terms of both language use and ideologies. However, similarities do not preclude sharp differences at other levels because multiple identifications co-exist. The findings support a layered and dynamic perspective of identity and illustrate how contradictory perspectives simultaneously overlap on one or several scales.

U.S. national and state population-based estimates of adults living with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are nonexistent due to the lack of existing surveillance systems funded to address this need. Therefore, we estimated national and state prevalence of adults 18-84 years living with ASD using simulation in conjunction with Bayesian hierarchal models. In 2017, we estimated that approximately 2.21% (95% simulation interval (SI) 1.95%, 2.45%) or 5,437,988 U.S. adults aged 18 and older have ASD, with state prevalence ranging from 1.97% (95% SI 1.55%, 2.45%) in Louisiana to 2.42% (95% SI 1.93%, 2.99%) in Massachusetts. Prevalence and case estimates of adults living with ASD (diagnosed and undiagnosed) can help states estimate the need for diagnosing and providing services to those unidentified.

Understanding the development and structure of people's concepts of national groups can contribute to an understanding of their behavior in the political arena, including perhaps the recent rise in nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment. Here, we provide a developmental investigation of concepts of national groups in a sample of 5- to 8-year-old Canadian children (N = 79). Using an extensive battery of measures, we assessed the extent to which children conceive of national groups as socially constructed versus as having deeper, perhaps biological, "essences" that shape their members' physical and psychological makeup. At younger ages, Canadian children tended to essentialize national groups, including in a biological sense. At older ages, the biological conception of national groups subsided, but children continued to view these groups as meaningful and informative. A statistical comparison with 5- to 8-year-old American children's responses to the same measures (N = 70; using data from Hussak & Cimpian, 2019) revealed a great degree of overlap, despite substantial differences between the two countries in how national identity is conceived and described. These findings add an important piece to our understanding of the development of concepts of national groups.

This article discusses the estimation of a population proportion, using the auxiliary information available, which is incorporated into the estimation procedure by a probit model fit. Three probit regression estimators are considered, using model-based and model-assisted approaches. The theoretical properties of the proposed estimators are derived and discussed. Monte Carlo experiments were carried out for simulated data and for real data taken from a database of confirmed dengue cases in Mexico. The probit estimates give valuable results in comparison to alternative estimators. Finally, the proposed methodology is applied to data obtained from an immigration survey.