The University of Southern California's process for revising maternity leave to include fathers and adoptive parents is chronicled, including separate changes in staff and faculty policies. Proposed policies are outlined. Status of the proposed changes during a period of administrative change and future prospects for policy development are…

Compared parenting and children's (n=136) social, psychological, and academic adjustment across family structures. Biological/adoptive parents in intact families showed more positive parenting and coparenting practices than did parents in other family configuration; children in intact families showed higher levels of adjustment. Found differences…

Questions the legitimacy of transferring educational models and materials between countries. Reviews recent trends in educational management development in Western and less developed countries and assesses the cross-cultural transfer of "school-based management self-development." Suggests that indigenization of models may be most appropriate, but…

Universities and colleges are investing millions of dollars in information technology infrastructure to support teaching, research, and service, and thousands of dollars annually in faculty training programs. And yet, many college graduates entering the workforce lack adequate technology skills. To ascertain the frequency of faculty adoption of…

Background: Research suggests that institutional care has long-lasting effects on children. However, no study has longitudinally studied infants in an institution and their subsequent development at age four. Methods: Sixty-one adopted children aged four years who had spent their first two years of life in an institution were compared to 39…

Background: As infant disorganized attachment is a serious risk factor for later child psychopathology, it is important to examine whether attachment disorganization can be prevented or reduced. Method: In a randomized intervention study involving 130 families with 6-month-old adopted infants, two attachment-based intervention programs were…

The stages of life are now many, each having its own boundaries, logic, and a prescribed perspective of appropriate relations amongst and between members of the many stages. Just as there is a developing curriculum for the young, there is a developing curriculum in the area of elder care. Within the paradigm of staged human development, the end…

This report summarizes the findings of a study of court files relating to care proceedings involving parents with an intellectual disability. The authors found that 15.3% of all children subject to care applications in the year 2000 in the courts studied had at least one parent with an intellectual disability. They also found that these children…

The present study provides information on the reliability and validity of the Transracial Adoption Parenting Scale (TAPS), a multidimensional 36-item Likert-type scale that measures cultural competence among transracial adoptive (TRA) parents. The TAPS was theoretically developed and refined through feedback from experts in TRA adoption. A…

The main goal of this study is to estimate the extent to which perceived innovation characteristics are associated with the probability of task related ICT use among secondary school teachers. The tasks were categorized as teaching preparation, teaching delivery, and management. Four hundred and sixteen teachers from secondary schools in Turkey,…

In today's societal landscape, "adoption," the legal process by which a child becomes a full and permanent member of a new family, is becoming commonplace. Even though most people have had a personal experience with adoption in some capacity, those most closely associated with adoption (birth parents, adoptees, and adoptive parents) continue to be…

The circumscription process developed by Gottfredson (1981, 1996) has shown much promise in understanding the development of the vocational self-concept in U.S. samples. Little is known about the application of this process to cross national samples. This investigation studied the circumscription process with a large sample of 733 South Korean…

The State of the Science conference was held in May, 2007 as part of the ongoing series of national conferences, "Building on Family Strengths," conducted by the Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health at Portland State University. The theme of this State-of-the Science conference was "Effective…

Major changes are taking place in western families which affect the way professionals interact with families. Drawing on a multidisciplinary team of scholars, this book presents a synthesis of the demographic, theoretical, and research data on the various permutations of the single parent family. Topics include economics, single custodial or…

Adopting and adapting electronic networks for classroom instruction requires refining and redeveloping. Teachers must discern which potential element or elements (for example, classroom projects, databases, or e-mail) operates best in their classrooms, for their students, and with their teaching styles. Teachers develop individual processes of…