The Cost of the Veil: Visual Communication Impacts of Hijab on News Judgments

Using disposition theory as a framework, this 2 (headscarf vs. no headscarf) by 2 (US citizen vs. refugee) experiment sought to elucidate the impact of visual and verbal cues in mediated messages on conclusions drawn from a television news package about a woman accused of consorting with a known terrorist group in the US, in terms of parochial empathy for and perceived innocence of the woman. Parochial empathy measures the difference between ingroup and outgroup empathy; higher levels indicate ingroup empathy is greater than outgroup empathy, meaning the individual’s empathy is very narrow in scope or “parochial.” Political identity was a measured independent variable. The data supported a model in which political identity was a significant moderator of the headscarf’s effect on parochial empathy, and that parochial empathy mediated the relationship between the manipulated and measured predictor variables on perceived innocence. Details of the relationships among variables are reported and the implications for theory and journalism practice are discussed.     

Rethinking Our Mobility: Supporting Our Patrons Where They Live

This article describes initiatives undertaken by one academic medical library to support patrons using handheld mobile devices. These initiatives included efforts to assist patrons with installation and use of mobile information resources, educate librarians regarding content and navigation of mobile apps and websites, and leverage tools to promote the library in a mobile environment.     

Engaging students in active learning: use of a blog and audience response system

Librarians provide instruction to medical students as part of a core course in the medical school curriculum. Instruction was provided, in part, through didactic sessions covering professional-level medical information resources, PubMed search skills, psychosocial information, and evidence-based medicine. Librarians redesigned instructional sessions with the goals of increasing student engagement and minimizing the lecture format, maximizing the number of students receiving feedback on their search and evaluation skills, and permitting students to see a variety of possible responses as well as engage in peer- and self-evaluation. Librarians integrated the use of a blog and an audience response system (ARS) into the instruction to help accomplish these goals.     

Veränderungen in der sozialen und ethnischen Zusammensetzung der Schülerschaft aus demografischer Perspektive

In this paper, we examine current changes in the ethnic and social composition of the preschool and school aged population as well as the consequences these changes may have for educational participation and thus for overall educational attainment in the near future. Based on the micro-census 2008 survey, we identify groups of migrants by region of parents’ origin where children – despite low levels of parents’ education and comparatively few socioeconomic resources – have greater chances of upward educational mobility than non-migrant children. By contrast, children from less educated, nonmigrant families show a much lower tendency to be upwardly mobile, and educational choices are more closely tied to the economic and social background. Thus, our analysis provides evidence that educational background and socio-economic resources in the students’ families are of greater importance for the overall development of educational attainment in Germany than characteristics of migration and ethnicity.     

Cosmo girls: configurations of class and femininity in elite educational settings

In this paper we offer a unique contribution to understandings of schooling as a site for the production of social class difference. We bring together the rich body of work that has been conducted on middle-class educational identities, with explorations of the centrality of the feminine in representations of class difference from the field of critical girlhood studies. This is done in order to explore how young femininities mediate the representation of class difference in the environment of the private girls’ school. Drawing from our two research studies, located in private girls’ schools in Australia and the United Kingdom, we argue that the notion of ‘disgust’, commonly used in recent engagements around class, has only limited purchase in understanding the representation of class difference in these schools. It is the inconsistencies and complexities in how class and class relations are produced that we wish to illuminate.     

Learning about friction: group dynamics in engineering students’ work with free body diagrams

In educational research, it is well-known that collaborative work on core conceptual issues in physics leads to significant improvements in students’ conceptual understanding. In this paper, we explore collaborative learning in action, adding to previous research in engineering education with a specific focus on the students’ use of free body diagrams in interaction. By looking at details in interaction among a group of three engineering students, we illustrate how they collectively construct a free body diagram together when learning introductory mechanics. In doing so, we have focused on both learning possibilities and the dynamic processes that take place in the learning activity. These findings have a number of implications for educational practice.     

Examining the effects of hegemonic depictions of female bodies on television: a call for theory and programmatic research * This article was accepted by the previous CSMC editor,Dr. James W. Chesebro

Although the media effects literature was precocious in its development, appearing almost as soon as the object of its study, researchers have focused on a relatively narrow array of effects. Examples include the effects of violent, pornographic, and sexual content in the media and minority stereotyping. This review demonstrates the need for researchers to construct stronger theories and conduct more programmatic research on another important, yet often ignored, media effect–the effect of ideal televised images on females' perceptions of, and satisfaction with, their own bodies. To accomplish its purposes, the paper begins with a review of the body image literature, including a discussion of current televised representations of female bodies and their effects on body satisfaction. Next, the paper argues that researchers should refer to two prominent media effects theories (cultivation theory and social cognitive theory) to better understand the process by which television influences body image. This latter review leads to ethical considerations and conclusions regarding probable effects of television on women's body satisfaction.     

Parental Involvement and Risk for School Failure

Abstract

Since a significant percentage of students facing the risk of school failure, educational systems struggle to improve equity in education. Researchers argue that the missing link in establishing educational equity is parental involvement (PI). Τhis study examines three dimensions of PI (home-based, school-based, parental dispositions) as to effects on risk for school failure across two competencies (language and mathematics), while controlling for other variables, e.g. prior achievement and demographic factors. Data is drawn from the national ‘Program for Functional Literacy’ involving 6865 Year 6 students from 226 Cyprus public primary schools. Logistic multilevel modeling analyses, with students nested within schools, lead to interesting findings. Parental dispositions appear to relate significantly to the risk for failure in language and mathematics, confirming that this dimension holds the strongest impact. In addition, from the home-based PI dimension, the availability and number of books at home have statistically consistent effects on the risk across both competencies. Other dimensions or components of these dimensions relate significantly to risk for one competency only. These findings are further discussed in the context of future policy and research directions.