School‐based Management — pointing directions for twenty‐first century elementary and middle school principals

As man rushes to the dawn of the twenty‐first century, his society and our own system of education are engulfed in widespread changes. One of these provocative changes is the new move to the site‐based management concept whereby principals become the chief school officers of their own school site. The school principal, in essence, is to have complete control and responsibility over his/her school — the superintendent does not dictate, but rather, negotiates all school business with his principals. In light of this new movement, these two authors draw a parallel between past and present expectations of building principals and submit a planning model for on‐site managerial administrators to inspect, study and implement in accordance with their own needs. The reader is provided with an array of perspectives with which on‐site administrators must deal if total assumption of school‐site business and school programming becomes a reality in the USA and universally.     

Taking a step back: learning without the facilitator on solo activities

The purpose of this study is to report on the nature of student learning resulting from an open facilitation approach to solo activities. Three key moments of facilitator intervention were identified at which the facilitator was encouraged to take a step back from directing the experience. They are the pre-activity brief, the mid-activity visit and the post-activity review. Findings suggest that participants' learning focused on their raised self-awareness and social relationships. Raised spiritual awareness was also identified and this was closely linked to a connection with the landscape and eco-system. Evidence was also identified for emergent learning to have occurred that is not normally identified in the solo discourse. The findings suggest that participants on solo activities do not require a facilitator to tell them what they should be learning and that they will identify for themselves outcomes that are personally meaningful and important.     

Associative structure of integrated temporal relationships

According to the temporal-coding hypothesis (TCH; Savastano & Miller, Behavioural Processes 44:147–162, 1998), acquired associations include temporal information concerning the interval between the associated elements. Moreover, the TCH posits that subjects can integrate two independently acquired associations that share a common element (e.g., S2–S1 and S1–US), which results in the creation of a third association with its own temporal relationship (S2–US). Some evidence has suggested that such temporal integration occurs at the time of testing (Molet, Miguez, Cham, & Miller, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 38:369–380, 2012). Here we report two fear-conditioning experiments with rats conducted to identify the associative structure of the integrated temporal relationship. The goal was to distinguish between two possible associative structures that could exist following an initial test on which temporal integration occurs: (1) Conditioned responding to S2 on subsequent tests could be the result of recurring successive activation of two independently learned temporal maps that remain independently stored in memory (i.e., S2–S1 plus S1–US). (2) Temporal integration at the moment of initial testing could result in the formation of a direct S2–US (or S2–response) temporal map. Integration was found to occur at test and to produce a new association that was independent of associations with the common element (S1). However, the associative status of S1 appeared to modulate whether or not the new association with S2 was US-specific (S2–US) or directly activated a fear response (S2–response).     

The Media and Criminologists: Interactions and Satisfaction

Traditionally, academic criminologists have addressed two audiences—other academics and students—while largely ignoring other segments of society. Frequently neglected is attention to educating the public. This paper uses a random sample of American Society of Criminology (ASC) members to measure the level of interaction with and attitudes toward criminologists working with the media. Findings suggest that most criminologists have participated in an isolated incidence of working with the media, tend to be generally satisfied with this experience, and perceive working with the media as a worthwhile endeavor for criminologists.     

BETTER COLLEGE INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS: THE ROLE OF THE STATE TWO‐YEAR COLLEGE AGENCY

Prospective two‐year college students often lack adequate information on the range of educational alternatives available to them. Increasingly, state level agencies are playing a role in responding to that need. This article reports on a. national study of state two‐year college agencies to determine the extent and comprehensiveness of the postsecondary educational information they provide to students. Results indicate that most states have information they send to prospective students, but it varies widely in quality and often overlooks information students say they want to know. States with model information are identified.     

The Level of Decision-Making,Perceived Influence,and Perceived Satisfaction of Faculty and Their Impact on Student Retention in Community Colleges

ABSTRACT

This study expanded on previous models that looked primarily at student and support factors related to student retention and examined other stakeholder group functions not previously reviewed in relation to student retention. The research question assumed that greater faculty participation in campus decision-making and faculty satisfaction would have been associated with a higher campus student retention rate. The non-experimental retrospective design examined the unanalyzed 2007 community college (CC) Changing Academic Profession (CAP) survey in relation to campus retention rates. The CAP captured faculty perceptions of whether faculty or non-faculty entities were the primary influence on decisions regarding academic matters, as well as a rating of faculty satisfaction. Analysis indicated that CC faculty rated their participation in campus decision-making versus non-faculty entities similarly to the ratings of faculty who had completed the CAP at four-year institutions. When compared with the 2007 retention rate per campus, only faculty job satisfaction was statistically significantly positively associated with student retention. Recommendations for future research include continuing to look at retention as an outcome of a multi-factorial model involving all campus stakeholders, and more research with retention as the outcome.     

Pornography use and sexism among heterosexual men

ABSTRACT

The idea that pornography promotes sexism is a commonly purported one. This study employed an online sample of heterosexual men (N = 323) to investigate the relationship between pornography use (in terms of both overall level of pornography use and use of violent and/or humiliating pornography) and old-fashioned and modern sexism. The moderating effects of agreeableness and perceived realism of pornography were also assessed. Level of general pornography use and use of violent and/or humiliating pornography was not predictive of either sexism measure. Agreeableness was negatively predictive of both sexism measures, whereas perceived realism was positively predictive of sexism. Agreeableness and perceived realism did not moderate the relationship between level of pornography use and any of the outcome measures.