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This year the Research Institute for Higher Education in Hiroshima University hosted an international conference in close collaboration with Hijiyama University. The main purpose of the 2008 conference was to enable the participants to give preliminary country/regional reports based on their national/regional surveys. This publication reports the proceedings of the conference. The following papers are presented at the conference: (1) International Implications of the Changing Academic Profession in Japan (Akira Arimoto); (2) The Context for the Changing Academic Profession: A Survey of International Indicators (William K. Cummings); (3) The Changing Academic Profession in Canada: Exploring Themes of Relevance, Internationalization, and Management (Amy Scott Metcalfe); (4) The Changing Academic Profession in the United States: 2007 (Martin Finkelstein and William Cummings); (5) The Academic Profession in England: Still Stratified after All These Years? (William Locke); (6) Changes in the Finnish Academic Profession Reflect Reforms in Higher Education (Timo Aarrevaara and Seppo Holtta); (7) Academic Staff in Germany: "Per Aspera Ad Astra?" (Ulrich Teichler); (8) The Changing Academic Profession in Italy: Accounts from the Past, First Insights from the Present (Michele Rostan); (9) The Australian Academic Profession: A First Overview (Hamish Coates, Leo Goedegebuure, Jeannet Van Der Lee and Lynn Meek); (10) Governance and Decision-Making Related to Academic Activities: The Case of Higher Educational Institutions in Malaysia (Muhammad Jantan and Morshidi Sirat); (11) A Preliminary Review of the Hong Kong CAP Data (Gerard A. Postiglione and Hei Hang Hayes Tang); (12) Progress of the Academic Profession in Mainland China (Hong Chen); (13) Analyses of the Educational Backgrounds and Career Paths of Faculty in Higher Education Institutions in Beijing Municipality, China (Yan Fengqiao and Chen Yuan); (14) The Changing Academic Profession in an Era of University Reform in Japan (Tsukasa Daizen and Atsunori Yamanoi); (15) Brazilian Academic Profession: Some Recent Trends (Elizabeth Balbachevsky, Simon Schwartzman, Nathalia Novaes Alves, Dante Filipe Felgueiras dos Santos, and Tiago Silva Birkhoz Duarte); (16) Mexican Academics at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century: Who Are They and How Do They Perceive Their Work, Institutions and Public Policies (A Preliminary Analysis) (Jesus Francisco Galaz-Fontes, Laura Elena Padilla-Gonzalez, Manuel Gil-Anton, Juan Jose Sevilla-Garcia, Jose Luis Arcos-Vega, Jorge Martinez-Stack, Sergio Martinez-Romo, Gabriel Arturo Sanchez-de-Aparicio-y-Benitez, Leonardo Jimenez-Loza and Maria Elena Barrera-Bustillos); (17) The Academic Profession in Argentina: Characteristics and Trends in the Context of a Mass Higher Education System (Monica Marquina and Norberto Fernandez Lamarra); and (18) The Academic Profession in South Africa in Times of Change: Portrait from the Preliminary Results of the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) Research Project (Charste C. Wolhuter, Philip Higgs, Leonie G. Higgs, and Isaac M. Ntshoe). Appended are: (1) CAP Questionnaire; (2) Conference Program; and (3) List of Participants. Individual papers contain figures, tables, references and footnotes.

This study examined the psychometric characteristics of a 62-item parenting questionnaire completed by parents from the United States, Australia, China, and Russia. Factor analyses yielded three global parenting dimensions for each culture which were consistent with D. Baumrind's (1971) authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive typologies. The global parenting dimensions were subsequently analyzed to assess their internal structures. For each of the three global dimensions, a number of specific parenting practice factors were identified and compared cross-culturally. The internal factors for the authoritative style were: (1) warmth and involvement; (2) reasoning/induction; (3) democratic participation; and (4) good natured/easy going. The factors for the authoritarian style were: (1) verbal hostility; (2) corporal punishment; (3) non-reasoning, punitive strategies; and (4) directiveness. The factors for the permissive style were: (1) follow through; (2) ignoring misbehavior; (3) and self-confidence. Quite similar parenting practice factors were found for authoritative parenting across cultures; for authoritarian and permissive styles there were substantial cross-cultural differences among the specific parenting practices. Factor scores of the global parenting styles and specific practices were correlated with preschool behavioral problem outcomes to assess the validity of the instrument's cross-cultural use. For the United States and Australian families, mother and father authoritativeness and authoritarianism were related to child preschool behavioral problem outcomes. (KDFB)