Student finance, information and decision making

Since the recent changes in the system of student finance in England, studies focusing on the impact of increased debt and the effect of the bursary system have concluded that the chances of achieving stated policy objectives in relation to widening and increasing levels of participation have been reduced. This study considers the full financial package rather than particular elements, using survey data collected soon after students are expected to apply to university. The study finds that many students do not take into account the ‘financial package’ when making decisions on whether to apply and which university to apply to. They appear to be just as ignorant of grants and loans as bursaries; a large proportion of students with a perceived family income that would have entitled them to a full or partial maintenance grant did not consider themselves eligible (42 and 53% respectively). Students seem to have got the message that going to university is costly and will leave them in debt, but in many cases they do not have the information on what may moderate the costs for them. It will only be possible for policy to work if support can be provided that effectively influences the decision heuristics of students.     

Relationships Among Self-Concealment,Mindfulness and Negative Psychological Outcomes in Asian American and European American College Students

Research on Asian Americans and their psychological adjustment is limited. Consisting of two cross-sectional studies, the present investigation examined the relationships among self-concealment, mindfulness, emotional distress in stressful interpersonal situations, and general psychological ill-health in Asian American college students, and in comparison with European American counterparts. In the Asian Americans, self-concealment was found to be positively related to general psychological ill-health and negatively related to mindfulness. In both ethnic groups, mindfulness was found to be negatively related to general psychological ill-health. Findings suggest that, as seen with European American counterparts, both self-concealment and mindfulness may be important concepts in understanding the psychological adjustments of Asian American college students.     

Feminist struggles to mobilise progressive spaces within the ‘boy‐turn’ in gender equity and schooling reform

This article presents the stories of two Australian feminist educators, ‘Kath’ and ‘Kim’. Drawn from a small‐scale interview‐based study, the stories highlight these women’s struggles to mobilise progressive spaces within the current boy‐focused equity and schooling agenda. Such struggles are located within the new possibilities for feminist intervention enabled by current educational trends in Australia. The stories focus on Kath and Kim’s experiences leading the professional development of teachers from several schools in Queensland (Australia) as part of the $19.4 million national initiative, Success for Boys. The article draws on feminist understandings of ‘progressive’ spaces and highlights the requisite conditions necessary for mobilising such spaces. In particular, Kath and Kim’s stories bring to light the powerful role emotions continue to play in both enabling and constraining gender reform and the continued significance of attending to, and working with, such emotions to enhance the pursuit of gender justice in schools.     

Can’t get there from here: The decision to apply to a selective college

In an attempt to increase applications from low-income students, some selective 4-year colleges are developing programs to target and attract low-income students. However, relatively little research has looked at factors important in the college application process, and in particular, how these factors differ for low-income students. This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) to analyze factors influencing students’ college application decisions, with a focus on the decision to apply to a selective 4-year college. We hypothesize that distance from a student's home to selective colleges may play a role in the application decision and differentially impact low-income students. Our results suggest that distance does matter, although the effects do not vary by family income level.     

National gender equity and schooling policy in Australia: Struggles for a non-identitarian feminist politics

This paper tracks the development of gender equity and schooling policy in Australia from theNational Policy on the Education of Girls in 1987, to current policy concerns with boys’ educational underperformance. The paper’s key focus is on the ways in which feminist informed equity policy has been undermined by broader imperatives of economic rationalism and anti-feminist discourses. Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s understandings of distributive and cultural gender justice and her notion of a nonidentitarian feminist politics, the paper critically examines the ways in which such imperatives have re-articulated equity and schooling concerns. Through these lenses, the limitations of the affirmative gender binary politics and remedies that have dominated gender and schooling reform in Australia are highlighted. The paper concludes with an illumination of the gender justice spaces currently being mobilised in Australian schools. Such spaces, it is argued, fostered within a context of increasing autonomy and self-management for schools, are providing avenues for creative and disruptive (pro)feminist activism.     

Search is a verb: systematic review searching as invisible labor

Invisible labor is a term used by labor economists to describe work that contributes, and is often even necessary, to the economy but largely goes unrecognized and unpaid. Despite the fact that systematic review searching is a significant task for many librarians and knowledge professionals, the search process can be considered a form of invisible labor because it often goes without recognition. This occurs sometimes through not granting authorship to the librarian who performed the intellectual contribution of search development and sometimes through a devaluing of the search process by the choice of language used to describe the search. By using the term search as a passive verb or noun, authors devalue the real intellectual labor involved in searching, which includes decisions related to search terms and combinations, database selection, and other search parameters. This commentary explores the context of how searching is described through the concept of invisible labor.     

Semantics and the medical web: a review of barriers and breakthroughs in effective healthcare query

This paper provides an overview of the research into current medical vocabularies and their impact on searching the Web for health information. The Web provides growing opportunities for laypersons to gain knowledge about specific health conditions, though research to date has been incomplete. Many studies have examined aspects of controlled medical vocabularies. Other studies have examined aspects of medical Web searching vocabularies. In this context, there is a growing need to examine more closely laypersons' Web queries using controlled medical vocabularies that were designed to serve the needs of medical professionals. It may be the case that the average consumer of Web health services is not able to use correct medical terminology, and may not be able to choose analogous or synonymous terms from a search result list. Our review suggests a growing need for studies to examine the current applicability of controlled medical vocabularies as well as alternatives to semantic query by Web search engine users.     

“Say something instead of nothing”: Adolescents’ perceptions of memorable conversations about sex-related topics with their parents

This study examined adolescents’ (n?=?389) perceptions of parent–adolescent communication about sex, including what their parents say about sex, what types of conversations adolescents report as memorable, the degree to which messages are perceived as effective, and how parental messages predict adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behaviors. Six conversation types emerged: underdeveloped, safety, comprehensive talk, warning/threat, wait, and no talk. When adolescents were asked to report how those could have been improved, five types emerged from the analysis of their responses: no change, be more specific/provide guidance, talk to me, appropriateness, and collaborate. Comprehensive talk and safety were perceived as significantly more effective than all other types of conversations. Safety conversations predicted the lowest levels of permissive sexual attitudes and risk-taking.