The authors present a conceptual framework for cross-cultural investigation of alcohol and other drug (AOD) issues, including attitudes, values, and behaviors. Elements include cultural views of using alcohol and other drugs, life problems, seeking help, relapse, and recovery. Acculturation, subgroup identity, and migration are critically important variables in the framework. The framework can be used to view a single culture or to compare several and can help clinicians explore clients' earliest exposure to alcohol and other drugs, family and community messages regarding AOD use, and stigma and shame. It can stimulate clinicians' thinking about culturally specific intervention methods and family and community supports for recovery.
COnTEmPORARY RESEARCH HAS FOCuSED on the imperatives for social competence in young children. This work has explained the diverse ways this complex construct is defined and the implications for social and academic outcomes for children. As a result of this research, social competence has become an embedded feature of early childhood curriculum frameworks at both an international and national level, the most recent of which is Australia's Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF). Underpinning these frameworks are both implicit and explicit expectations that educators have, in fact, the capacity to support children's development and competence in this area. This paper explores the imperatives for the inclusion of social competencies within contemporary curriculum frameworks. It will be argued that an understanding of the influences that shape educator capacity is critical in supporting effective professional practice.
THE INTENT OF THIS PAPER is to explore the ways in which educational documentation—one of the many important key principles that challenge and sustain the educational theories and teaching practice of the Reggio Emilia Educational Project in Italy—supports the practice, principles and pedagogy of early years educators. In this particular context, documentation is positioned as both a strategy and a tool for examining the work of the individual and of the group, for both children and educators, with the aim of questioning the role documentation might play in supporting educators' professional learning. This commentary paper will examine the concept of documenting as a process that enables an educator's work to become visible and therefore support their evolving capacity as an educator, through ongoing reflective practice, as indicated in the Australian Early Years Learning Framework (DEEWR, 2009).
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