Early childhood teachers' sense of community and work engagement: Associations with children's social, emotional, and behavioral functioning.

Teachers' capacity to cultivate children's social, emotional, and behavioral functioning in early childhood settings could depend on how connected they feel to their workplace as well as to their work. However, the role of teachers' perceptions of their workplace in their work engagement, as well as children's functioning (i.e., anger-aggression, anxiety-withdrawal, social competence, behavioral self-regulation), remains to be understood. Within this interdisciplinary study, we used self-determination theory and the Job Demands-Resources Model of Burnout, which propose that when teachers perceive a supportive workplace that enables them to feel capable of handling their responsibilities, they perform better in their role, and thus, could more positively contribute to children's development. The present study utilized a sample of 329 preschoolers and their 53 teachers. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we examined associations between teachers' sense of community (as measured by collegiality and involvement-influence), their work engagement as a moderator, and children's social, emotional, and behavioral functioning in early care and education (ECE) settings. As expected, we found that collegiality was negatively associated with children's anger aggression (ß = -1.79, SE = 0.86). Also, work engagement was negatively associated with children's anxiety-withdrawal (ß = -0.29, SE = 0.07). Unexpectedly, involvement-influence was positively associated with children's anger-aggression (ß = 1.78, SE = 0.67). Relationships in the workplace are valuable to teachers, including how they engage with their work duties and children. However, more responsibilities in the workplace may present challenges that contribute to a less positive response to children or a less positive classroom environment. We discuss implications and potential workplace interventions for ECE educators.

Child-care chaos and teachers' responsiveness: The indirect associations through teachers' emotion regulation and coping.

Teachers in early child-care settings are key contributors to children's development. However, the role of teachers' emotional abilities (i.e., emotion regulation and coping skills) and the role of teacher-perceived environmental chaos in relation to their responsiveness to children are understudied. The current study explored the direct and indirect associations between teachers' perceptions of child-care chaos and their self-reported contingent reactions towards children's negative emotions and challenging social interactions via teachers' emotional regulation and coping strategies. The sample consisted of 1129 preschool-aged classroom teachers in day care and public pre-K programs across the US. We first found that child-care chaos was directly associated with teachers' non-supportive reactions after controlling for multiple program and teacher characteristics. In addition, teachers in more chaotic child-care settings had less reappraisal and coping skills, which in turn, was associated with lower levels of positive responsiveness to children. Teachers reporting a higher degree of chaos used more suppression strategies, which in turn, was associated with teachers' non-supportive reactions and fewer expressive encouragement reactions to children's emotions. Results of this exploratory study suggest that it is important to prepare teachers to handle chaotic environments with clear guidelines and rules. In order to encourage teachers' supportive responses to children, intervention programs are needed to address teachers' coping and emotion regulation strategies in early childhood education.

Hosting Non-University Guests and Party-Related Drinking Behaviors of College Students.

BACKGROUND: Hosting non-university guests is common among college students, especially during sports and traditional party weekends. However, the effect of non-university guests - a common social reference group - on host-students' drinking behaviors is not well understood. METHOD: Data was drawn from a cross-sectional survey conducted at a public Midwestern university (N=2,951; Mage=20 years) from 2005-2007. Results: Participants who hosted non-university guests tended to be younger in age, male, of white racial background, members of athletic teams, had younger ages of drinking onset, and were more likely to reside off-campus as compared to non-hosts. Host-students also had significantly elevated risk for engaging in heavy party-related drinking while hosting non-university guests, and were more likely to report similar risky drinking behaviors among other party-attendees. Conclusions: Preliminary evidence from this study suggests that college-based prevention efforts would benefit from specifically targeting students who are more likely to host non-university guests.

Family and neighborhood disadvantage, home environment, and children's school readiness.

The purpose of this study was to examine associations between family socioeconomic risk, neighborhood disadvantage, and children's school readiness. A sample of 420 children from 48 early childcare programs yielded multi-informant data. The average age was 55.3 months (SD = 6.4), with 38% of children being Black, non-Hispanic, Hispanic, or other minority race (American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander). One third (32.4%) of the parents had annual incomes less than $30,000. We used multilevel structural equation modeling to test direct and indirect associations among family socioeconomic risk and neighborhood disadvantage and children's cognitive and social-emotional development through home learning environment and parental depression. Children with a greater number of family socioeconomic risks and a higher level of neighborhood disadvantage demonstrated lower scores on cognitive skills. The degree of family socioeconomic risk was indirectly associated with children's cognitive ability through parents' cognitive stimulation at home. Parents who had more family socioeconomic risks and neighborhood disadvantage reported more depressive symptoms, which, in turn, suggested children's greater probability of having social-emotional problems. In other words, home learning environments explained associations between family socioeconomic disadvantage and children's cognitive skills, while parental depression explained associations between family/neighborhood disadvantages and children's social-emotional problems. Results suggest the importance of intervention or prevention strategies for parents to improve cognitive stimulation at home and to reduce depressive symptoms.

Pathways from teacher depression and child-care quality to child behavioral problems.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to examine the associations among teacher depression, global child-care quality, and child internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems in early child-care settings. METHOD: We analyzed data from 3-year-old children (N = 761) and their mothers, primarily of disadvantaged socioeconomic status in urban areas, in the late 1990s using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. We also had data from the children's teachers, who reported their own depressed moods. Child behavioral problems were reported by both teachers and parents, and global environmental quality of child care was observed. Path analysis tested direct and indirect effects of teacher depression on children's behavioral problems via global child-care quality. RESULTS: Teacher depression was directly and indirectly linked to teacher-reported externalizing and internalizing problems through observed global child-care quality, whereas for parent-reported outcomes, teacher depression was only directly related to children's internalizing problems. CONCLUSIONS: Results of this study suggest that teachers' depressive symptoms can be a contributor to global environmental child-care quality and to child externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems. Practical implications are that programs and policies must take into account effects of teacher depression on child-care quality and young children's school readiness regarding behavioral problems. Future research should further explore these relationships.

The ties that bind: bonding versus bridging social capital and college student party attendance.

OBJECTIVE: This study explored the relationship between bonding and bridging social capital and college student attendance at alcohol-present parties, a common method for building informal social networks. METHOD: A random sample of students (n = 6,291; 52% female) from a large public midwestern university completed a survey regarding their alcohol use and party-related behaviors on targeted weekends. The survey also included questions regarding students' living arrangements, romantic relationships, and membership in student and community organizations. RESULTS: Based on a dichotomous logistic regression analysis, we concluded that the act of attending parties largely serves as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, more conventional and formal social capital. Membership in bonding groups is associated with increased odds of party attendance, and bridging exerts no direct effect on party attendance. However, bridging capital does mitigate the effect of bonding capital, reducing its apparent tendency to promote or contribute to partying. CONCLUSIONS: Off-campus parties may offer an informal supplement to more conventional social capital as students establish themselves in their new context. These findings may have implications for structural decisions (e.g., number of roommates) as well as the design of context-based prevention programs that address students' need to quickly build social capital without exposing both themselves and the students around them to the harms associated with high-risk drinking.

Drinking at college parties: examining the influence of student host-status and party-location.

The present research focuses on the party related drinking behaviors of college students and explores the differences in these behaviors based on students' host status (i.e. party host vs. party attendee). Furthermore, we examine if the differences in party hosts and attendees' drinking behaviors vary as a function of the party location (on-campus vs. off-campus). Multiple regression analyses were conducted using data from 3796 undergraduates at a Midwestern University. Findings revealed a significant interaction between host status and party location, such that student party hosts reported significantly greater drink consumption and related consequences as compared to party attendees, only when the party was organized off-campus. For parties organized on-campus, student hosts reported lower drink consumption as compared to attendees. College-based preventive interventions should target students likely to host off-campus parties due to their high risk for involvement in heavy drinking.

Perceptions of alcohol policy and drinking behavior: Results of a latent class analysis of college student drinkers.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to extend the limited research on college student support for alcohol control policies by using a latent class analysis to examine the shared characteristics of drinking students who support or oppose such policies. METHODS: We used data from a sample of 2393 students drawn from a larger study on high risk drinking at a mid-western university. Data was collected between October 2005 and May 2007. We conducted a latent class analysis to identify sub-groups of drinking students based on relevant variables. RESULTS: The results of the latent class analysis yielded a model which could correctly classify 90% of the students taking the survey into one of four "classes" based upon their response to four items on the questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: Interventions would benefit from approaches that target both student perceptions and specific policies that are most conducive to student support and engagement.

High-risk versus low-risk football game weekends: differences in problem drinking and alcohol-related consequences on college campuses in the United States.

UNLABELLED: Collegiate football games provide multiple social opportunities for alcohol use by students over the course of the weekend. The goal of this study was to examine alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences on football game weekends to determine differences based on characteristics of the game. METHODS: A random sample of students from two large, public universities in the United States completed a survey on the Sunday-Friday following a high-risk weekend (HRW, important, home game) and low-risk weekend (LRW, no home game or game of importance) (N = 3,238 total). The survey measured the number of days students drank (0-3) and got drunk (0-3) over the weekend and whether 1+ consequences were experienced due to one's own drinking (yes/no) and due to others' drinking (yes/no). RESULTS: Ordinal logistic regression analyses revealed greater odds of drinking alcohol (OR = 1.70, CI = 1.46-1.97) and getting drunk (OR = 1.49, CI = 1.27-1.76) on HRW versus LRW. Logistic regression analyses revealed greater odds of experiencing 1+ consequences as a result of one's own drinking (OR = 1.38, CI = 1.16-1.63) and experiencing 1+ consequences as a result of others' drinking (OR = 1.52, CI = 1.30-1.78) on HRW versus LRW. DISCUSSION: These findings suggest that additional prevention efforts aimed at reducing risky drinking are needed over HRW and have implications for campus administrators, law enforcement, and substance abuse program coordinators.

Development of a student engagement approach to alcohol prevention: the Pragmatics Project.

UNLABELLED: Significant involvement of students in the development and implementation of college alcohol prevention strategies is largely untested, despite recommendations by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and others. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the Pragmatics Project was to test a student engagement model for developing and implementing alcohol intervention strategies. PARTICIPANTS: The Pragmatics Project involved 89 undergraduate students on a large Midwestern university campus in the design and implementation of projects focused on reducing harm associated with high-risk drinking and off-campus parties. RESULTS: The engagement model used an innovative course piloted in the Human Development and Family Science department. The course successfully involved both students and the community in addressing local alcohol issues. CONCLUSIONS: The course design described would fit well into a Master of Public Health, Community Psychology, Health Psychology, or interdisciplinary curricula as well as the service learning model, and it is applicable in addressing other health risk behaviors.

Toward conceptual development and empirical measurement of global risk indicators in the lives of court-involved youth.

This paper reports work related to the conceptual development and empirical use of global risk indicators meant to measure rapidly and reliably potential threats to the overall development and well-being of adolescents in the juvenile justice system. The development of these indicators and initial data regarding their use with court involved samples are presented. Analysis of data gathered from a sample containing 248 families of adolescents who participated in a family-based diversion program identified a seven-factor structure that corresponded to theoretically derived dimensions of risk in domains associated with prior offenses, family/parenting, education/work, peers, substance use, personality/behavior problems, and attitudes/orientation. Analysis of data gathered from a second sample containing 373 families of adolescents who came into contact with the intake/diversion department of a county juvenile court confirmed the original seven factors of the battery and generated support for an eighth dimension composed of items that reflected leisure activities. The use of these global risk indicators are discussed as part of a practical and effective assessment battery for professionals working with court-involved youth and their families.