Communication channels within ethnic groups

Major channels of communication are examined for two major functions: providing news of the ethnic community, and linking ethnics to the “mother country.” The four major channels are: interpersonal channels (friends and neighbors), radio, local metropolitan daily newspapers, and ethnic-language newspapers. Size of ethnic group is linked to channel preference, and greater ethnicity is related to a preference for ethnic media for both functions. Lower SES ethnics lend to rely more on interpersonal communication and ethnic media, while higher SES ethnics turn more to metro media and magazines. Channel preference as indicated by respondents is also linked to actual usage patterns.     

Newborns' face recognition: role of inner and outer facial features

Existing data indicate that newborns are able to recognize individual faces, but little is known about what perceptual cues drive this ability. The current study showed that either the inner or outer features of the face can act as sufficient cues for newborns' face recognition (Experiment 1), but the outer part of the face enjoys an advantage over the inner part (Experiment 2). Inversion of the face stimuli disrupted recognition when only the inner portion of the face was shown, but not when the whole face was fully visible or only the outer features were presented (Experiment 3). The results enhance our picture of what information newborns actually process and encode when they discriminate, learn, and recognize faces.     

Book reviews

H.R. Kells Self‐Study Processes: A Guide to Self‐Evaluation in Higher Education (4th Edition). Phoenix, AZ: The Oryx Press, 1995. Paperback. ISBN 0 89774 903 0 Price $34.95 (North America) 194pp

David Warner and David Palfreyman (eds) Higher Education Management, The Key Elements. Buckingham: The Society for Research on Higher Education and Open University Press, 1996. Paperback. ISBN 0 335 19569 5 Price £19.99. 239 pages.     

Facilitated group mentoring develops key career competencies for university women: a case study

This article examines the effectiveness of a facilitated group mentoring program for university women. Content analysis across existing sources of data (questionnaires, a focus group, and interviews), collected over the five years of the program’s operation (1999–2003), suggested the program helped women to develop three ways of knowing—‘knowing why’, ‘knowing how’, and ‘knowing whom’—which contribute to enhanced career outcomes. Drawing on the experiences of the women in the case study program at the University of Canberra, and the career competencies literature, the article provides a framework for exploring the career outcomes of mentoring programs for both women and men.     

Mentoring in black and white: the intricacies of cross‐cultural mentoring

Cross‐cultural mentoring relationships can be sites of struggle around the issues of race, class and gender. In addition, the mentor/protégé relationship offers micro‐cosmic insight into power relations within western society. The authors of this paper, a black woman associate professor and a white male professor, use the example of their mentoring relationship to illustrate six common issues facing academicians involved in these relationships: (1) trust between mentor and protégé; (2) acknowledged and unacknowledged racism; (3) visibility and risks pertinent to minority faculty; (4) power and paternalism; (5) benefits to mentor and protégé; and (6) the double‐edged sword of ‘otherness’ in the academy. Literature is used for review and critique of mentoring in the academy while offering personal examples to illustrate the complexity and success of a 13‐year mentoring relationship between a duo who began their association as teacher/student.     

College students' views on criminal justice

We surveyed 683 college students to examine their attitudes toward the death penalty, other criminal sanctions, and the war on drugs. College seniors were consistently less likely than freshmen to hold punitive views; this suggests a “liberalizing” effect of the college experience. This liberalizing college effect on attitudes toward criminal justice was not apparent for criminal justice majors, however, particularly when criminal justice seniors' attitudes toward the death penalty were compared with those of freshmen in criminal justice. The views of criminal justice majors overall did not differ appreciably from other students' views. We found no support for the expectation that criminal justice majors with experience in criminal justice would express more conservative, more punitive views than would criminal justice majors in general.