Equitable access to information in libraries: A predicament for transgender people

Abstract

Discriminations against members of the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer (LGBTQ) community havebeen reported in every sphere of life, including in libraries. This paper reviewed the literature on transgender studies particularly in relation to the role of libraries. It highlights the problems faced by transgender people in accessing information in libraries and the importance of making libraries more inclusive.     

Academia’s Most Wanted: The Characteristics of Desirable Academic Job Candidates in Criminology and Criminal Justice

Although personal opinions and anecdotal evidence abound, there is a dearth of systematic research into the characteristics that academic criminology and criminal justice departments seek in job candidates. The current study uses a nationally representative sample of faculty members to assess the extent to which a wide array of attributes affects whether an applicant for an assistant professor position would be invited for an on‐campus interview. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we find that several applicant characteristics are related to the likelihood of an interview and that some of these relationships are conditioned by the characteristics of the faculty who decide whether to extend an invitation. We discuss the implications of our findings for the nature of the discipline, and for mentoring doctoral students, designing PhD program experiences, and hiring new colleagues.     

Toward a white teachers' guide to playing fair: Exploring the cultural politics of multicultural teaching

Multicultural education in teacher preparation programs can emphasize the study of whiteness so as to make whiteness visible, analyze white privilege, and offer ways that white privilege can be used to combat racism. While white race consciousness has been seen as part of the multicultural education agenda for some educators, recently the efficacy of such an approach has been questioned. White race consciousness or antiracist pedagogy has not been shown to bring about teacher competence in diverse classrooms or to raise the academic performance of students of color and poverty. I suggest here that the social relations in the larger society, deeply embedded with notions of deficit thinking, are mapped onto the reality of a largely white professorate preparing a largely white public school teaching force, thereby ensuring the academic failure of certain children. To play fair, then, requires that white teachers recognize when their classroom practices assume assimilation into the dominant culture and their actions exclude the contributions of diverse individuals and groups. I argue for a multicultural education discourse that includes a recognitive view of social justice for guiding white educators in the practice of fair play in diverse classrooms.     

No cuts,no buts: Satisfaction of first-year medical students with a hybrid prosection-based model for learning gross anatomy during the Covid-19 pandemic

Few realized the extent of disruption that the Covid-19 global pandemic would impose upon higher anatomical education. While many institutions were obliged to adopt a fully-remote online model, the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine strove to develop a curriculum that would allow medical students to receive an in-person anatomy education. A hybrid model that emphasized learning from prosected cadavers and self-study stations was implemented, with the remainder of the students' time directed toward studying at home. Through an anonymous survey aimed at gleaning student satisfaction, this study demonstrates that this hybrid prosection-based anatomy course aligned with student preferences both assuming no health risk (64.6% agreed) and given the current risk of contracting Covid-19 (78.5% agreed). Generally, students felt that their education was equal to that of previous years (Likert scale = 3.24 ± 1.05), fostered an appreciation for anatomy (4.56 ± 0.59), promoted teamwork (4.13 ± 0.85), and prepared them for practical examinations (4.18 ± 0.74). Linear mixed-effect models demonstrated that specific differences in results could be attributed to students' preconceived preferences toward student-led dissections and to past medical training. Importantly, most students “disagree” (1.97 ± 1.00) that they were concerned about the risk of exposure to Covid-19 during in-person anatomy laboratory sessions. Areas requiring improvement were identified by the model, including the provision of access to the cadavers outside of the regularly scheduled laboratory times (3.89 ± 1.08). These findings should be utilized when designing future gross anatomy courses in response to the “new normal”.     

Auto detecting deliveries in elite cricket fast bowlers using microsensors and machine learning

ABSTRACT

Cricket fast bowlers are at a high risk of injury occurrence, which has previously been shown to be correlated to bowling workloads. This study aimed to develop and test an algorithm that can automatically, reliably and accurately detect bowling deliveries. Inertial sensor data from a Catapult OptimEye S5 wearable device was collected from both national and international level fast bowlers (n = 35) in both training and matches, at various intensities. A machine-learning based approach was used to develop the algorithm. Outputs were compared with over 20,000 manually recorded events. A high Matthews correlation coefficient (r = 0.945) showed very good agreement between the automatically detected bowling deliveries and manually recorded ones. The algorithm was found to be both sensitive and specific in training (96.3%, 98.3%) and matches (99.6%, 96.9%), respectively. Rare falsely classified events were typically warm-up deliveries or throws preceded by a run. Inertial sensors data processed by a machine-learning based algorithm provide a valid tool to automatically detect bowling events, whilst also providing the opportunity to look at performance metrics associated with fast bowling. This offers the possibility to better monitor bowling workloads across a range of intensities to mitigate injury risk potential and maximise performance.     

Beyond Vox Pop: The Role of News Sourcing and Political Beliefs in Exemplification Effects

The people we see in news media can affect our perceptions of public opinion through exemplification. Although research shows that individuals interviewed in a news story can influence perceptions of public opinion, little attention has been paid to the role that source type and audience attitudes play in the exemplification process. This study tests how the exemplification process is influenced by different types of news sources featured in an article (e.g., vox pop, protester, and interest group interviews) and the audience's own political ideology. The study finds that the perceived typicality of sources is affected by both source type and how much an audience member agrees with the source. Source type is also found to directly affect perceptions of public opinion.     

Accidents of Birth: Rawls’s Original Position as the Mother’s Womb

This paper examines the history of welfare policy discourse in the United States since the publication of the “Moynihan Report” (1967) and traces its implications for contemporary education policy research. The central thesis is that an overemphasis on “parents” historically invites unwarranted assumptions about autonomy and responsibility, which obfuscates fundamental questions of justice. Children are consequently punished for their parents’ perceived indiscretions. To militate against this tendency the author employs recent feminist critiques of Rawls’s methodology in A Theory of Justice (1999) to reconceptualize the “Original Position” as a mother’s womb in an effort to redirect focus from parents to children. Through this revision, policy discourse can potentially be shifted to more nearly mirror the reasoning applied in Plyler v Doe (1982), which emphasizes finally that children cannot be punished for their parents’ indiscretions.     

A Forerunner

In the course of this book we shall frequently appeal to what we call an Arnoldian filter, a principle we wish to urge for choosing much of what should form part of education in schools. This priniciple is based on a remark in Matthew Arnold's Preface to Culture and Anarchy ,¹ that culture is a matter of getting 'to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world' (1935, p.6, emphasis added). Arnold's work here and elsewhere is often seen as a key monument in English humanist thought. Trilling claims that 'he established criticism as an intellectual discipline among the people of two nations and set its best tone' (1949, p.3). It may not be of merely historical interest to consider some of the concerns that drove Arnold to offer culture in his sense as a contribution to contemporary and future society.