Objectives: Evolution of human maternal investment strategies is hypothesized to be tied to biological constraints and environmental cues. It is likely, however, that the socioecological context in which mothers' decisions are made is equally important. Yet, a lack of studies examining maternal investment from a cross-cultural, holistic approach has hindered our ability to investigate the evolution of maternal investment strategies. Here, we take a systems-level approach to study how human life history characteristics, environments, and socioecology influence maternal investment in their children. Materials and methods: We test how infant age and sex, maternal age, parity, and child loss, and the composition of a child's cooperative breeding network are associated with maternal investment across three small-scale (hunter-gatherer, horticultural, and agropastoral), sub-Saharan populations (N = 212). Naturalistic behavioral observations also enable us to illustrate the breadth and depth of the human cooperative breeding system. Results: Results indicate that infant age, maternal age and parity, and an infant's cooperative childcare network are significantly associated with maternal investment, controlling for population. We also find that human allomaternal care is conducted by a range of caregivers, occupying different relational, sex, and age categories. Moreover, investment by allomothers is widely distributed. Discussion: Our findings illustrate the social context in which children are reared in contemporary small-scale populations, and in which they were likely reared throughout our evolutionary history. The diversity of the caregiving network, coupled with life history characteristics, is predictive of maternal investment strategies, demonstrating the importance of cooperation in the evolution of human ontogeny. K E Y W O R D S allomothers, cooperative breeding, human evolution, parental investment 1 | INTRODUCTION Bounded by menarche and menopause, women's reproductive windows are narrow, particularly considering the long-life spans of humans (Alberts et al., 2013; Hawkes & Smith, 2010). Human offspring are altricial, requiring extensive investment from pregnancy through weaning. Additionally, human mothers "stack" dependents, giving birth to additional children prior to earlier offspring becoming independent (Kramer, 2010). Consequently, maternal investment strategies are comprised of energetic tradeoffs between mating and parenting efforts (Trivers, 1972). Energy is finite; effort allocated to one category cannot be directed to another (Charnov, 1993;

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between parental involvement and students’ academic achievement in Model Primary and Secondary School of Haramaya University, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. Correlational research design was employed to carry out the current study. Questionnaire interview and document analysis were employed to was employed to collect the data from selected respondents. The sample consists of 52 parents and 60 students purposively selected. The students were selected by their academic rank which means 50% were high achievers whereas below50% were lower achievers from the 8th, 10th and 12th grades. Parents of 30 top scoring and 30 low scoring students were selected purposively. Parental involvement was measured by using self-developed questionnaire with 10 items and eight interview guide questions were used, and students’ academic achievement was measured by their recorded scores by their respective grades in the past three years four interview guide questions were employed. The first finding was that there was statistically significant positive relationship between parental involvement and students’ academic achievement, (r=0.64, p<0.01). The second finding was that the portrayed students who ranked from 1st to 10th from grades 8, 10 and 12 were highly involved, supported and followed by their parents on their education. The third finding was that students who were scored below 50% and ranked last 10’s from perspective grades were children whose families were less encouraged and involved. In general, parents’ involvement in supporting their students to boost their academic achievement is moderate. It is recommended that more detailed studies can be conducted in the future in different areas as well as country wide.

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This study aimed to critically examine the power sources and influences of school principals in secondary schools of Eastern Ethiopia. A descriptive survey research design was employed to carry out the study. The participants of the study were 145 teachers, 78 principals, and 41 supervisors who were selected by using stratified and random sampling techniques. The researcher adopted descriptive and inferential statistics to make sound interpretations of data. The results revealed that school principals were mostly used expert, legitimate, and reward sources of power. Likewise, school principals have predominantly exercised a positional basis of power rather than personal power. There was a significant statistical difference in power sources of school principals regarding positions, gender, and service years. The findings also showed that school principals dominantly practiced proactive influencing tactics. Moreover, findings indicated that subordinates carried out school principals' compliance to obtain a prize or avoid punishment by applied reactive influence tactics. The study further discovered that subordinates were inclined to resist school principals' influence. This study suggests secondary principals should rethink how power is managed and deployed to make sound influence over subordinates to assure quality education. Hence, the results of the study may serve as a springboard to improve secondary school leadership and equip novice teachers to bring them a principalship position. Plus, this study may provide a clear picture for policymakers, scholars, and government officials to support and retain principals for long-term school improvement, and it may also a theoretical benefit for future research on the area of study.

The research’s objectives were to assess the extent to which principals and supervisors practice ethical code of conduct in leading teachers in primary schools, identify differences among leaders related to their personal characteristics, and identify immoral practices leaders experience in the schools. The research participants were 120 principals, 63 supervisors, and 62 teachers selected using stratified and available sampling techniques. The quantitative data obtained through questionnaire were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings of the research reveal that school leaders are moderately ethical in their schools’ administration. There is no significant difference in the dimensions of ethical leadership practice with reference to positions and fields of study school leaders possess. However, there is a significant difference in experience in a leadership position and academic qualification as well as between males and females. Teachers perceive that school leaders use mainly deception, abuse, harassment of subordinates, diminished dignity of employees, and breach of the agreement. It is suggested that school leaders should have professional scaffolding and training in fostering ethical leadership behavior to lead schools successfully. Those interested may conduct more detailed research considering secondary schools.