Advancing intercultural competency: Canadian engineering employers’ experiences with immigrant engineers

This paper explores Canadian engineering employers’ perceptions of and experiences with internationally educated engineers (recent immigrants to Canada) employed in their organisations for varying lengths of time. Qualitative data were collected from employers using focus group methodology. Findings reflected employers’ observations of culturally different behaviours and characteristics in their internationally educated employees, employers’ reactions to cultural differences ranging from negative attributions to tolerance, and the implementation of largely ad hoc intra-organisational strategies for managing cultural differences in employer–employee relationships. Findings exposed the lack of corporate intercultural competency in the Canadian engineering profession. Equity and gatekeeping implications are discussed.     

Gardnerella vaginalis infection and sexual contact in female children

Gardnerella vaginalis (GV) infection has been reported as being acquired via sexual contact in adults and as an indicator of sexual contact in female children (DeJong, 1985). The purpose of this study was to determine if GV infection was more commonly found in 191 female children who gave a history of sexual contact and/or were infected with Neisseria gonorrhoeae (GC) or Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) (Group 1), compared with 144 female children evaluated for possible sexual abuse and found to have no such history or infection with GC or CT (Group 2), or 31 female children (friends of the authors) without such a history or GC or CT infection (Group 3). Vaginal GV was found in 5.3% of Group 1, 4.9% of Group 2 and 6.4% of Group 3 (p > .05). Also, vaginal GV infection was not related to the type of sexual contact or race, but did increase with age in white female children. Because vaginal GV infection is not more commonly found in children with a history of sexual contact than those without such a history, the finding of GV in a vaginal culture in an individual case would not be a reliable marker of sexual contact. Routine culturing for GV is not recommended as part of a sexual abuse workup.     

Library Services for Persons with Disabilities: Twentieth Anniversary Update

The Sauls Memorial Virtual Library closed its physical space in 2012. This article outlines the reasons for this change and how the library staff and hospital leadership planned and executed the enormous undertaking. Outcomes of the change and lessons learned from the process are discussed.     

The influence of brief stimuli uncorrelated with reinforcement on choice between variable-ratio schedules

Experiment 1 investigated the behavior of rats trained to leverpress on a concurrent variable ratio (VR) 30 VR-30 schedule with a brief, 500-msec, light occurring at the midpoint of the ratio on one of the levers. Higher response rates were recorded on the lever associated with this stimulus, a finding that paralleled the effect produced by inserting primary reinforcement at the midpoint (i.e., by training on a concurrent VR-30 VR-15 schedule). Similar results were found in Experiment 2 using a concurrent VR-20 VR-20 schedule with a 2-sec visual stimulus presented midway through one of the components. In addition, a brief stimulus inserted midway through the VR-20 component of a concurrent VR-20 VR-10 schedule retarded the development of a difference in response rates between the components relative to a VR-20 VR-10 group lacking the signal. In Experiment 3, multiple VR VR schedules were used. Again, the response rate was higher in the component that had the added stimulus or, for a second group of subjects, on the component with the smaller response requirement. Probe-choice trials revealed a preference for the component that generated the higher rate in both groups. Presenting a stimulus partway through a ratio appears to reduce the effect on response rate and choice of a large ratio value.     

A Conceptual Framework for Learning to Teach Secondary Mathematics: A Situative Perspective

This paper offers for discussion and critique a conceptual framework that applies a situative perspective on learning to the study of learning to teach mathematics. From this perspective, such learning occurs in many different situations -- mathematics and teacher preparation courses, pre-service field experiences, and schools of employment. By participating over time in these varied contexts, mathematics teachers refine their conceptions about their craft -- the big ideas of mathematics, mathematics-specific pedagogy, and sense of self as a mathematics teacher. This framework guides a research project that traces the learning trajectories of teachers from two reform-based teacher preparation programs into their early teaching careers. We provide two examples from this research to illustrate how this framework has helped us understand the process of learning to teach. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.