Artefacts of not-knowing: the medical record, the diagnosis and the production of uncertainty in Papua New Guinean biomedicine

Anthropological and STS scholars of biomedical work have traditionally explored contexts where inconsistencies and lacunas in diagnostic knowledge-production are problematic for medical practitioners, and such scholars have consequently focused on the social and political processes by which such epistemic uncertainties are resolved. This article draws on ethnographic material from a Papua New Guinean hospital where diagnostic uncertainty is not rendered problematic and where the open-endedness of the diagnostic process gives rise to new forms of medical expertise and practice. The paper focuses on the medical record as an artefact of not-knowing that both documents and performs uncertainty as a valuable resource. It shows that medical records can operate as either technologies of 'opening' that multiply opportunities for pragmatic action within a hospital space or as technologies of 'closure' that move people and documents between spaces. Practices of not-knowing and knowing are therefore shown to be interdependent and interchangeable 'moments' of bureaucratic-biomedical work.     

A randomized controlled trial of Child FIRST: a comprehensive home-based intervention translating research into early childhood practice

This randomized, controlled trial was designed to document the effectiveness of Child FIRST (Child and Family Interagency, Resource, Support, and Training), a home-based, psychotherapeutic, parent-child intervention embedded in a system of care. Multirisk urban mothers and children, ages 6-36 months (N = 157) participated. At the 12-month follow-up, Child FIRST children had improved language (odds ratio [OR] = 4.4) and externalizing symptoms (OR= 4.7) compared to Usual Care children. Child FIRST mothers had less parenting stress at the 6-month follow-up (OR = 3.0), lower psychopathology symptoms at 12-month follow-up (OR = 4.0), and less protective service involvement at 3 years postbaseline (OR = 2.1) relative to Usual Care mothers. Intervention families accessed 91% of wanted services relative to 33% among Usual Care. Thus, Child FIRST is effective with multirisk families raising young children across multiple child and parent outcomes.     

Impacts of a Comprehensive School Readiness Curriculum for Preschool Children at Risk for Educational Difficulties

This article reports findings from a cluster‐randomized study of an integrated literacy‐ and math‐focused preschool curriculum, comparing versions with and without an explicit socioemotional lesson component to a business‐as‐usual condition. Participants included 110 classroom teachers from randomized classrooms and approximately eight students from each classroom (N = 760) who averaged 4.48 (SD = 0.44) years of age at the start of the school year. There were positive impacts of the two versions of the curriculum on language, phonological awareness, math, and socioemotional outcomes, but there were no added benefits to academic or socioemotional outcomes for the children receiving explicit socioemotional instruction. Results are discussed with relevance to early childhood theory, policy, and goals of closing the school readiness gap.     

Psychological Benefits of Participation in Three-dimensional Virtual Worlds for Individuals with Real-world Disabilities

One hundred and ninety-six individuals with real-world disabilities were administered a battery of psychological adjustment measures soon after joining the three-dimensional virtual world of Second Life^®. After three months, 61 participants who continued to be actively involved in Second Life were re-administered the adjustment measures and completed a survey about their virtual and real-life experiences during the interval between assessments. Participants’ scores significantly improved on measures of affective states (depression, anxiety, positive emotion, life satisfaction, and feelings of loneliness) and self-evaluation (self-esteem). An index of overall change was associated with the number of virtual friends and group affiliations in Second Life, as well as feelings about the self as a result of involvement in the virtual world. The current study provides initial empirical support that three-dimensional virtual worlds can serve as a psychologically beneficial context for individuals with real-life disabilities.     

EARLY TRANSFER: A CASE STUDY OF TRADITIONAL-AGED COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS

The traditional 2+2 path no longer reflects the general practice of student transfer between 2- and 4-year institutions. However, students continue to enroll in and complete a substantial number of credits at community colleges. Studies related to transfer most frequently have focused on gathering statistics to measure posttransfer academic performance or student perceptions regarding the transfer process. It is important to talk with students to understand why they transfer before completing the associate degree. This article presents a qualitative analysis of interviews with 103 students who transferred from a public community college to a public state university. Findings indicated that many students enrolled at the community college with a specific intent other than earning the associate degree. Faculty members and students at both the community college and the university also influenced the number of credit hours students completed before transfer.     

Early Learning in CRESPAR

The goal of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk (CRESPAR) Early Learning program is to ensure that young children reach the 1st grade with the necessary skills and competencies to be effective learners. This goal has been accomplished by 2 integrated areas of research. One area of research focuses on the development of effective practices that promote the development of language and literacy skills in young children. A 2nd area of research examines the systemic issues regarding school policies and teachers' beliefs and expectations that affect classroom practices. Over the past 5 years, the CRESPAR Early Learning Program has been conducting research in these areas, which has added to our understanding of how children learn and what teachers think that they can learn.     

Public Library,c 1926

Alice D. Donovan, teacher, poet and author, published dozens of stories and plays for children. Among her papers is this unpublished poem about the public library, probably written in 1926.     

Testing the Identifiable Victim Effect With Both Animal and Human Victims in Anti-Littering Messages

ABSTRACT

The identifiable victim effect is when people are more willing to help identified individuals than those who are unidentified, or statistical, victims. It has primarily been tested in experiments with humans as the victims. A lack of research exists testing whether animal victims could elicit the same level of help, or reactions, as human victims. This study tests the identifiable victim effect with both human and animal stimulus messages focused on the consequences of littering. A total of 198 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to view one of three messages (i.e., an identifiable human victim message, identifiable animal victim message, or a nonvictim control message). While the animal message elicited greater distress and empathy than the human message, the three messages did not differ on behavioral intention outcomes. This study fills a gap in the identifiable victim literature, and it provides insight about responses to risk messages aimed at increasing a prosocial behavior.     

Scaling-up successfully: Pathways to replication for educational NGOs

Non-government organisations (NGOs) are big players in international development, critical to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and constantly under pressure to ‘achieve more’. Scaling-up their initiatives successfully and sustainably can be an efficient and cost effective way for NGOs to increase their impact across a range of developmental outcomes, but relatively little attention has been paid in the education sector to how best this may be done and debates appear to have stalled. One approach to scaling-up is replication, on which this paper focuses. While there is no one universally applicable path through which an educational NGO can achieve successful replication, more can be done to support choice of the best path to follow, with respect to specific NGO circumstances and the context within which it operates – and hopes to operate in future. This paper presents four known paths to replication alongside new illustrative diagrams to explore their advantages and disadvantages, and highlights the need for a fifth approach that does not appear in current literature. ‘Network replication’ is proposed as new pathway that draws on known strengths of networks and offers a learning-oriented approach to scaling-up. While inevitably not without its potential problems, Network replication is a scaling-up option that deserves consideration.