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The Society continues to flourish with more members, a successful journal, a busy website and a high profile conference. Details of these activities are covered in the minutes of the most recent committee meeting published in this newsletter. You will also find here an update on the website contents and a listing of dev-europe email addresses. Soliciting copy for this publication is hard! Perhaps this is not a serious problem as the Society has chosen to make the internet its main medium of communication - and a good amount of Society news and correspondance is concentrated there.
The Society Conference is to be held in Spetses, Greece September 1-5th 1999
Full details on website URL: http://www.dp.uoa.gr/conferences/eurocdp9/
Email: eurocdp9@dp.uoa.gr
Tel: +30-1-72777529
Fax: +30-1-7277334
Grantholders: David Warden, Donald Christie, Bill Cheyne.
Research Staff: Helen Fitzpatrick, Katie Reid.
Summary: This project examines the relationship between young children's gender, interpersonal awareness, and prosocial and antisocial behaviour.Using peer nomination techniques, samples of 9/10 year old children (N=160), from 14 primary schools in the West of Scotland, have been identified by their proial behaviour.
Using peer nomination techniques, samples of 9/10 year old children (N=160), from 14 primary schools in the West of Scotland, have beenmidentified by their proclivities to various forms of social behaviour, namely, prosocial children, bullies, victims of bullying, and neutral ormnon-nominated children. Experimental and control samples of these groups are being assessed on a variety of measures of interpersonal awareness, including social problem-solving skills, empathy, perspectiveeing introduced to the experimental classrooms on a regular basis over a two month period. Control classrooms will engage in peer interaction tasks relating to road safety.Subsequent to these interventions, immediate and delayed (4 months) measures of interpersonal awareness will again be taken. It is intended tht this research will contribute to our understanding of the characteristics of male and female prosocial children, bullies and victims, and of the relationship between interpersonal awareness and social behaviour, and will provide an effective and enjoyable set of classroom activities which will help to foster children's prosocial behaviour.
A Project entitled 'The causes and nature of bullying and social exclusion in schools, and ways of preventing them', has been funded by the European Commission under it's Training and Mobility of Researchers (TMR) programme. The Project is underway and will continue until 2001. It links 9 teams across Europe, in England (Goldsmiths College, London; Roehampton Institute London), Italy (Universita di Firenze; Universita della Calabria), Spain (Universidad de Sevilla, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid), Portugal (Universidade do Minho, Braga; Universidade Technica de Lisboa), and Germany (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit_t, M¸nchen). It is coordinated by Professor Peter K Smith at GoldsmithsCollege.
The aim of the Project is to understand more about the nature of bullying and social exclusion in schools, and ways of preventing them. There are six objectives within this overall aim:
The nature and definition of the phenomenon.
The use and integration of different methods of study.
The causation of bullying problems in different societies, using recent theoretical perspectives.
The longerñterm consequences of school bullying and social exclusion in the workplace and adult life.
The collation of examples of successful interventions and their evaluation.
Planning and evaluation of short-term longitudinal intervention studies on a networkñenriched basis.
The Project aims to make a report of findings suitable for wide dissemination to schools and educational institutions, ministries of education and of employment, workplace organisations, trades unions, etc; dissemination will make use of the existing website, and in addition it is hoped to host an international conference on the topic in 2001.
Currently, the first aim has nearly been completed, using a series of cartoons describing 'possibly bullying' situations. The correspondence with words in different languages (e.g. Eng: 'bullying', It: 'prepotenze', Port: 'violencia', Ger: 'schikanieren', etc) has been established with 8 and 14 year old children, similar work is being concluded with adults. Besides the Project team languages, data are being or have been gathered in Norway, Greece, Slovenia, Thailand, China and Japan.
The teams are now part way through the second aim, of examining the use and integration of different methods of study, with working subgroups reporting on different topics (survey questionnaires, retrospective instruments, measures for adult bullying, semi-structured interviews and qualitative methods, theory of mind, moral and emotional issues, cartoons, observational methods).
The exchange and employment of young researchers in the various teams is an important activity for the Project. Each of the 9 teams will be employing young (normally Under 35 years) postgraduate or post doctoral researchers. The length of employment for researchers will be variable. Researchers must come from an EC
member or associated state, different from the state of the team they are working with.
Such work will be primarily in the disciplines of psychology and education. Training aspects include advanced
statistical and computing skills as relevant, theoretical issues relevant to the topic, and an evaluation of existing methodologies, plus the design, implementation, assessment and critical evaluation of intervention studies.
The specific vacancies will be advertised on the Project website. The Project has had a Website since March, 1998 at URL hyperlink
including details of team leaders, a summary of the aims and methods of the Project, and job vacancies.
The international conference Longitudinal Studies in Children At-Risk (LSCR) was held at the University of Vienna, from 18-20 September, 1998. The LSCR-Conference was a Satellite Meeting of the 8th International Child Neurology Congress which was held in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The conference was organized by Georg Spiel, child-neurologist and child-psychiatrist, and Christiane Spiel, developmental psychologist and methodologist, in cooperation with the Society for Interdisciplinary Research in Neurology, Psychiatry, and Psychology.
It was the intention of the LSCR-Conference to bring together researchers from different disciplines e.g., developmental psychology, neuropsychology, child-neurology, pediatry, physiotherapy, interested in long-term outcome of children with various biological risks.
At the LSCR-Conference ten invited papers and 50 posters were presented on long-term effects of risks on various outcome variables, such as sensory-motor behavior, perception, cognitive competence, emotional, and social behavior. The presentations mainly focused on the interaction between biological and psychosocial risks and on outcome prediction.
The conference was opened by the keynote lecture of Heinz F.R. Prechtl (Groningen, the Netherlands) and Christa Einspieler (Graz, Austria) titled "Early prediction of later neurological deficits". The method presented by Prechtl and Einspieler focuses on the so-called general movements which emerge in the fetus at an age of 9 to 10 weeks gestation. These movements are videotaped and qualitatively assessed. Neurological outcome at two years showed both high specificity and high sensitivity of the prediction based on general movements.
The topic of the keynote presented by Bernhard Z. Karmel and Judith M. Gardner (New York, USA) was on "Neurotoxic (cocaine) versus neurostructural abnormalities". The authors emphasized the importance of both early differentiation and later predictions to standardized evaluations over the first three years. Based on their data Karmel and Gardner hypothesized that early differential diagnosis of CNS pathology and neurotoxicity are related to arousal-modulated attention and neurobehavioral performance.
Harel and colleagues (Tel Aviv, Israel) presented a keynote focusing on "Children with intrauterine growth retardation: A longitudinal developmental follow-up at 3 and 6 years of age". Their results show that at younger age the biological parameters (cephalization index, perinatal complications, somatic growth) have a greater impact on neurodevelopment, while at the age of six years environmental influences such as maternal education appear to gain importance in cognitive development.
The topic of the keynote lecture given by Christiane Spiel (Graz, Austria) and Georg Spiel (Klagenfurt, Austria) was on "The mediating effect of compliance on the developmental outcome of risk children". The data of two longitudinal studies on children with slight biological risks which differ in sample selection and treatment of risk children showed that being a compliant member in a risk study is an important protective factor for cognitive development and achievement. Therefore, long-term effects of biological risks are often underestimated. In addition, the keynote given by Alexander von Eye (Lansing, USA) and Christof Schuster (Ann Arbor, USA) focused on methodological issues. Their lecture was titled "Studying risk longitudinally - issues of design and analysis".
The LSCR-Conference was closed by the keynote lecture presented by Dieter Wolke (Hatfield, Great Britain) on "The psychological development of children born too early". The data stem from a geographically defined sample of very low birthweight (VLBW) infants. Findings showed that subjects with long durations of intensive care requirements who showed early developmental delay and growth retardation had longterm cognitive deficits in up to 60% of cases. Social factors made little contributions on outcome prediction of VLBW infants.
Additional invited papers were presented by Milivoj Velickovic Perat and Anamarija Kavcic (Ljubljana, Slovenia) on "The long term follow-up of children with cerebral palsy", Magda Kalmar (Budapest, Hungary) on "Patterns and correlates of mental development in preterm children", Martin Schmidt (Mannheim, Germany) on "Motor-cognitive and behavioral development in a cohort of risk children", and Brigitte Rollet and Harald Werneck (Vienna, Austria) on "Difficult temperament - a risk factor? Results of a longitudinal study".
The posters were organized in seven posterworkshops focusing on birthweight/ prematurity/ perinatal risks, intervention, drug effects, chronic deseases, multiple risks/ twins, and methodology/ neuropsychology. In sum, about 120 scientists from more than 30 countries all over the world participated at the LSCR-Conference.
The social programme included a reception given by the Major of Vienna in the Wappensaal of the Viennese Rathaus, a guided tour of the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, and an unofficial dinner at a traditional Vienna Heurigen. The LSCR-Conference was supported from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Youth, and Family Affairs, the Federal Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs, from various scientific societies, pharmaceutical companies, etc. According to the comments of the participants, the conference was a great success.
Christiane Spiel
12-15 July 1999
Contact: Daan Brugman, on d.brugman@fss.uu.nl; Dept of Developmental Psychology, University of Utrecht
MOSAIC: Moral and Social Action Interdisciplinary Colloquium - is an international, multi-disciplinary network of people working in moral values and moral development. Its annual workshop conferences are open and lively discussions based on pre-circulated papers.
In 1999, we will be in Utrecht, the beautiful and historic Dutch city. The conference topic is moral values, character development, and personal functioning Papers are circulated in advance, leaving the conference free for discussion. There is also the opportunity to present posters, particularly on empirical data. The workshop style is designed to facilitate full involvement by everyone - from graduate students to professors. Utrecht is an enchanting city of canals and pedestrian wharves, as well as churches, museums and historic buildings. It is easily accessible.
For more information about joining MOSAIC, receiving or contributing to the MOSAIC Monographs Series, please contact
Helen Haste, Professor of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY England
tel: +44 1225 420230 OR 826745
fax: +44 1225 482046
"Learning and Development"
6-9 September 1999: University of Nottingham
Invited Speakers
Charlie Lewis (Lancaster)
David Wood (Nottingham)
Terezinha Nunes (Institute of Education)
Charles Desforges (Exeter)
Michelene Chi (to be confirmed)
Contact: Deveopmental Psychology Conference Organiser,
School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD
Tel: 0115 9515151 ext.8343
Fax: 0115 9515324
http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/research/credit/conference.html
Email: bpsconf@psychology.nottingham.ac.uk
12-16 September 1999
Contact: Conference Secretariat EPSY/ PÄDPSY 99, Department Erziehungs-
wissenschaften, 2, rue Faucigny, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
tel. +41 26 300-9711
e-mail epsy99@unifr.ch
7th Conference on Pedagogical Psychology
12-16 September 1999
Contact: Tagungssekretariat EPSY / PÄDPSY 99,
Department Erziehungs-wissenschaften, 2, rue Faucigny, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
tel. +41 26 300-9711
e-mail epsy99@unifr.ch
11-13 November 1999
Contact: Prof. Urs Baumann
University of Salzburg, Hellbrunngerstra. 34, A-5020 Salzburg, Austria
tel. +43 622 8044 5103
Fax: +43 662 8044 5126
7-9 September 1999
Psychology Dept., University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK.
Organisers : Professors David Messer & Dieter Wolke
Invited Speaker, Professor Robert Plomin.
Invited Symposium, Post-Natal Depression: From Theory to Practice
Visit the Society's web-site www.srip.ac.uk for further information about the Conference, Submissions, the Society, the Journal, membership details and for future conference updates.
Contact: David Messer at: d.j.messer@herts.ac.uk
3-4 December 1999
Contact: Prof. K.W. Kallus
Department of Psychology, University of Graz
Universitaetsplatz 2, A-8010 Graz, Austria
(tel. +43 316 380 5122, Fax.: 43 316 380 9807)
16-20 July 2000
New conditions of knowledge production, Globalisation and social pratices
Convened by the Society for Sociocultural Studies
Campinas - São Paulo, Brazil - July 16 - 20, 2000.
For more information please check our homepage: http://fae.unicamp.br/br2000/
St John's College, Cambridge, 9 - 11 September 1999
The final meeting of the European Concerted Action (COST-A8) on Learning Disorders as a Barrier to Human Development with special reference to dyslexia will be held in Cambridge, England, at St. John's College, from 9 -10 September 1999. The final meeting is intended to inform a wider audienceabout the achievements of the Action, and there are places for 70 - 80 non-COST delegates to attend. As significant interest is expected, places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis after 15 March. The meeting will comprise presentations from COST delegates from across Europe on research carried out within the Action, complemented by presentations from key researchers outside the Action who are addressing similar research
issues. Speakers include Heikki Lyytinen, Heinz Wimmer, Philip Seymour, Uta Frith, Peter Bryant, Carsten Elbro, Sven Stromquist, Rebecca Treiman, Keith Stanovich, Ake Olofsson, Joseph Torgesen, Dorothy Bishop and Susan Gathercole. The meeting will adopt a workshop format, as we would like to involve the audience in informal discussion concerning the themes of the Action outside of the presentations themselves. Prospective delegates are thus asked to attend the entire workshop. We apologise for the fact that, due to our accommodation being College-based, payment for the workshop must be made in full when a place is reserved, and credit cards cannot beaccepted. Further details can be obtained after 15 March from Jennifer
Smith, Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford St., London WC1N 1EH,
e-mail j.smith@ich.ucl.ac.uk, tel. 0171 831 0975.
Present: George Butterworth (Chairman) Grazia Attili, Elias Besevegis, Charles Crook, Berit Hagekull, Sandy Jackson (Secretary/Treasurer), Magda Kalmar, Jacqueline Nadel, Adam Niemczynski, Scania de Schonen and Christiane Spiel.
Apologies: Michel Deleau and Jesus Palacios
1. The Chairman formally opened the meeting. He welcomed newly elected members and specifically Jacqueline Nadel who was attending for the first time.
2. The minutes of the previous meeting held at Rennes in September, 1997 were accepted.
3. The Chairman gave a broad overview of progress over since the last meeting. He pointed out that the Rennes conference had been a major success. There were 652 participants from virtually all of the European countries and also from outside Europe. The quality of the contributions had been very high. He thanked Michel Deleau and his team for their work in ensuring the conference's success. Since Rennes, the Society had made progress on a number of fronts. The preparations for the 1999 conference were going well and a good attendance was expected. Arrangements had been made with Blackwell's to produce the journal and following its successful launch in 1998, it had already been decided to proceed to 4 issues per year. The first elections had been arranged with the result that one third of the committee now consisted of elected members. He thanked Georg Rudinger, who had not stood for re-election, for his contribution to the work of the Society. The membership of the Society continued to grow steadily and now stood at more than 300. Finally, the Society web-site had been set up thanks to the efforts of Charles Crook. The Chairman then proceeded to list the benefits which the Society can offer her members: participation in the European e-mail network (Dev-Europe); the web-site with its data base of members; the Newsletter - three had already been published, a fourth is in the pipeline; the option to subscribe to Developmental Science at a very favourable price; a reduction in registration costs for the biennial conferences which corresponds to a significant proportion of the annual membership fee.
4. The Sec./Treasurer reported on the election of new executive committee members carried out in the first half of 1998. George Butterworth had been elected as President, Michel Deleau as President-Elect and Jacqueline Nadel, Scania de Schonen and Christiane Spiel as ordinary members. The respective periods of office will be: President - until the biennial meeting at the Uppsala conference and thereafter for 2 years as Past-President and a further 2 years as ordinary member; President-Elect - becomes President at the biennial meeting at Uppsala for 2 years and thereafter President-Elect until 2003 and Past-President until 2005; ordinary members from 1999 until 2005. Since there were only five valid nominations for the five positions available, all were declared elected unopposed. The hope was expressed that there would be a wider selection of nominations for the next electoral round which will take place prior to the Uppsala conference and will be for approximately one third of the places on the executive. On the financial front, the Society's position is healthy. The Savings Account stands at £7078 and the Current Account at £2632. Almost £4000 of this money had been obtained from non-member sources, namely: £1573 from the Rennes conference, £1500 from Blackwells and £750 from advertisements in the Newsletter. Total outgoings were confined to £952 which had been used for clerical, postage and Barclaycard charges in almost equal amounts. The Journal Account stands at £1985. Income from Blackwells specifically to run the journal in 1998 totalled £3660 and expenditure was £2764. The balance carried forward from 1997 was £1090.
5. Paid-up membership of the Society at the end of November 1998 was 300. As can be seen from the appendix,certain countries (UK, France, Italy) are fairly well represented. This is also true of several others, if population differences are taken into account (Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Sweden,Switzerland). More than 20 members come from non-European countries. Many countries have less than 3 members and there was some discussion about how this situation could be improved. Several courses of action were agreed.
Consideration was also given to position of lapsed members who decide to rejoin the Society. Some people in this situation have not paid membership fees for more than a year. It was decided that they should be treated as new members, i.e. not asked to pay back charges. Possible problems of East European members in paying membership fees were also discussed. Most of the countries involved now have no problems in paying via Visa. The only countries with transfer problems appear to be Russia and the Ukraine. It was concluded that there are, at present, no good reasons for changing the payment arrangements for East European members.
6. The foregoing discussion touched on many issues regarding publicity. In discussing means of giving the Society a higher profile several concrete measures were agreed.
7. Members of the committee provided a short overview of arrangements for Developmental Psychology within their region. Most countries have some sort of national Society for developmentalists or arrangements whereby they meet on at least an annual basis, but there is no consistent pattern. The close proximity of the developmental conference for German speakers to the Society's conference presents some problems. This situation occurs elsewhere (e.g. UK), however, and does not seem to lead to major difficulties. It was agreed that contacts with national Societies or conferences should be used to provide information concerning the Society, membership etc. This could be done through direct personal contact or via "fliers" enclosed with information sent to members/ particpants. Individual committee members will be responsible for making the necessary contacts/arrangements.
8. Further consideration was given to the results of the 1998 election and to arrangements for the next election. The fact that all of the new members had been elected on an "unopposed" basis, i.e. without a voting procedure was regarded as somewhat unsatisfactory but not as a problem. On the positive side, it had meant a considerable saving in postal costs. Formally, the 1998 election covers the period from 1999 to 2005. The next electoral round (between the Spetses and Uppsala conferences) will be for the period 2001 to 2007. With it, as with the previous election, account will be taken of regional representation and committee responsibilities. It was decided that Sandy Jackson will be responsible for making arrangements for the election. That the election should cover the position of Secretary/Treasurer on the committee and three regions: the Iberian peninsula, south east Europe (Greece/Turkey etc.) and one of the two East European regions.We would hope to fill the post of membership secretary.
9. Publications: With reference to the forthcoming Newsletter the amount of incoming material is not great. In general the type of information appearing in the Newsletter is of a routine nature rather than serious news. The present level of material suggests that we are better to think in terms of an annual rather than a more frequent publication. It was agreed that committee members should encourage others to make more active use of the Newsletter via reports, book reviews etc. Some discussion also took place concerning possible further development of the Newsletter. Other Societies (SRCD, ACPP) produce a range of different publications and this could also be the case for the ESDP. For example, the Newsletter might start to publish short articles, a Monograph series might be considered or a European Journal of Reviews produced. It was decided not to follow up these possibilities for the time being but to continue to give them active consideration as the society develops. Web-site: Charles Crook is happy to continue to collate and otherwise publish material. New measures to be introduced include: an area available only to members; a monthly message to members giving details of new information; a system of prompts concerning important items of news. Journal: The first year of publication had proved very successful and this had already led to a decision to move from two to four issues per year. So far (end 1998), there are 112 subscriptions of which 23 are from libraries and 63 from ESDP members. Blackwells reported a high level of "hits" for the new Journal on their web-site. Members should be encourage to ask their libraries to subscribe. At present, some East-European University librariesobtain the Journal gratis. There had been a high number of good quality submissions to the Journal and this had also led to the decision to extend to 4 issues per year. The possibility of combining the Journal subscription with membership fees was discussed. It was agreed that it was not appropriate to do this at present. However, it was also decided to review this decision at the next meeting of the committee. The high number of articles submitted and the consequent change to 4 issues per year were leading to problems at editorial level. Original financial arrangements with Blackwells had been made on the basis of 2 issues. It was decided to re-open financial discussions with Blackwells in order to try to obtain secretarial help.
10. Conferences: Retrospect on Rennes conference: Michel Deleau sent details of the conference. Participants totalled 631 and there were 764 submissions accepted for the programme. The conference had also been successful financially and the conference profits had been shared equally between the University of Rennes and the Society. This had led to a sum of o1573 being provided for the Society. The Chairman again registered his appreciation of Michel's work in making the conference such a great success. Preparations for Spetses conference: Elias Besevegis reported on the current situation. The total number of submissions had exceeded 1000 and based on the work of the Scientific committee, it looked as if the rejection rate would be around 5%. He regretted having to report that the Johan Jacobs Foundation would not be able to support attendance by east Europeans. He planned to send responses to submissions by the 20th of February and expected to have the programme ready by June. Paid-up members of the Society would qualify for a reduction in registration costs. It was agreed to publish details of the conference, abstracts, etc. on the Web-site. Preparations for Uppsala conference: Berit Hagekull reported that arrangements were well in hand. The conference would take place slightly earlier than usual - in late August. Hotels had agreed to reserve places and early arrangements had been made with Tourist offices and with the Congress Office of the University. Steps has also been taken to obtain financial help and it was likely that some help would be available to East Europeans. Fliers giving details of the conference would be available for Spetses and a reception would be planned for the final Sunday morning of the Spetses conference. Arrangements for the 2003 conference. To date, no concrete offer had been made. It was decided to explore possibilities in Germany, Britain and Portugal. Financial assistance: In the light of the decision by the Johan Jacobs Foundation not to provide support for East European participants at the conference, the committee considered possible ways of arranging financial support. It was decided that a levy on the membership fee or the conference registration would not be appropriate. Details of possible sources of support (e.g. Soros Foundation or ACCESS) would be provided via the web-site.
11. The organisation of regional conferences under the auspices of the Society was considered. It was agreed that summer schools, small workshop type conferences and regional conferences would be good developments. The idea that as far as possible these should arise from initiatives of members was stressed. Where appropriate, such events could be linked to the possible future production of a monograph series.
12. Following discussion about the introduction of Society prizes/awards, it was agreed to introduce a prize for the best publication on Developmental Psychology published between conferences. The first award would be made at the Uppsala conference. A sub-committee would be formed to consider those proposed by members as possible receipients of such an award. It was also decided to maintain the idea of a Symposium in Honour introduced at the Rennes conference.
13. There was no other business and the Chairman thanked everyone who had participated and closed the meeting.
EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY MEMBERSHIP as at 27.11.98
Australia 1 3 members or less
Austria 6 Belgium 3
France 45 Brazil 3
Germany 13 Bulgaria 1
Greece 12 Canada 2
Hungary 12 Croatia 1
Italy 23 Cyprus 1
Denmark 1 Estonia 1
Netherlands 14 Finland 3
Poland 6 Israel 3
Russia 10 Japan 2
Spain 7 Latvia 1
Sweden 15 Lithuania 1
Switzerland 11 Norway 2
U K 78 Portugal 1
Romania 1
U S A 12 Slovenia 3
Turkey 4 Ukraine 1 Total = 300
