‘I’m Strong for Her’ versus ‘I Rely on Him’: male and female victims’ reasons for staying reflect sex-gender conflations

Male and female victims’ communication of intimate partner violence to others in the face of potential repercussions shows how language reflects/is reflected by relational identities when deciding to stay/leave abusive relationships. In this study, a non-clinical sample (N?=?484), self-identified as male (n?=?156) or female (n?=?331) victims, indicated reason-messages used with self and/or others for why they stayed in these violent relationships. Analyses of both independent messages and grouped themes showed victims’ communication as inherently (and perhaps, falsely) gendered. Viewed through a gender- (versus sex-) lens, victims’ reasons for staying suggest barriers to support may be communicated as gendered.     

Stage theory of the development of alternative conceptions

A systematic study of children's ideas on motion of macroscopic objects was carried out with the participation of 631 subjects in Grades 2–12 (ages 7–8 through 17–18). An open-ended, four-part questionnaire was administered to the subjects. The responses were categorized according to the level of sophistication of the answer. The results were analyzed using a mathematical model that was first applied to the development of Piagetian stages (Eckstein & Shemesh, 1992, in press). For three of the questions, the responses change as the children mature, and it appears that the children pass through distinct, successive stages with respect to their conceptual understanding of these questions. The mathematical model predicts that the proportion of subjects at each stage is a linear combination of decreasing exponentials. The model fits the experimental data well. Characteristic times for transition between stages were calculated. If teaching strategies to overcome misconceptions are to be effective, then they must be appropriate to the particular misconception prevalent at each stage.     

Smallholder Information Sources and Communication Pathways for Cashew Production and Marketing in Tanzania: An Ex-post Study in Tandahimba and Lindi Rural Districts,Southern Tanzania

Abstract

Purpose: To identify and review production and marketing information sources and flows for smallholder cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) growers in Tanzania and recommend systems improvements for better technology uptake.

Design/methodology/approach: Two-stage purposive samples were drawn. First, two districts in the main cashew producing areas, one with significant research investment and good marketing infrastructure and the other a counterfactual. Second, two villages were purposively selected from each district to provide the maximum contrast of variables pertinent to the study. Field data were collected using a semi-structured, open-ended questionnaire complimented by field verification and a wrap-up stakeholders' workshop. The data were analysed using chi-square test and the orderly probit model.

Findings: Sources of information and flows varied between districts and villages. For production, the most reliable sources were role model farmers (RMFs), extensionists, radio, on-farm demonstrations, researchers, cashew development centres (CDCs), print media and mobile phones in order of popularity. RMFs, radio programmes, extensionists, interactions with researchers, CDCs and print were the main pathways. For marketing, primary society notice boards, radio announcements, RMFs, extensionists, mobile phones and print were listed in order of popularity. Print media was the least popular due to a low level of literacy among growers. RMFs were popular actors in the information systems irrespective of social-economic background.

Practical implications: Policy change and additional resources are required for improvement of existing information systems. Additionally, incentive structures that will enhance and sustain continued investment in cashew production should be emphasized.

Originality and value: This is the first attempt in the Tanzanian cashew sector to analyse and link social economics of growers with information sources, communication channels and technology uptake.     

Institutional Repositories and Faculty Participation: Encouraging Deposits by Advancing Personal Goals

The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for students in graduate library and information science programs to discuss key issues they see in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to tell us of their visions for the profession, or to tell us of research that is going on in library schools. We hope to provide fresh perspectives from those entering our field, in both the United States and other countries. Interested faculty of graduate library and information science programs, who would like their students' ideas represented in these pages, are invited to contact Nancy H. Dewald at nxd7@psu.edu.

Brigitte Burris is a graduate student at Drexel University's iSchool and also works as a librarian at the University of Pennsylvania. At a time when many librarians hope for the expansion of open access to scholarly resources, Burris here proposes a method of adding attributes to articles in institutional repositories in order to increase faculty members' incentive for depositing their scholarly articles.

?????

The iSchool at Drexel's Master of Science in Library and Information Science, MS(LIS), is the second oldest program of its kind in the nation, and one of just 56 ALA-accredited programs. More technologically oriented than other programs, the MS(LIS) prepares graduates for a wide variety of positions including academic librarian, knowledge management specialist, systems librarian, digital librarian, Web developer, and competitive intelligence analyst. The 2009 edition of U.S. News & World Report's “America's Best Graduate Schools” rated the MS(LIS) program 11th in the nation overall, with specialties in information systems and digital librarianship ranking fifth and sixth, respectively. The iSchool at Drexel's faculty has been nationally recognized, ranked by Academic Analytics, a third party company benchmarking academic excellence, as 8th in the nation for scholarly productivity.     

Caring Teachers and Symbolic Violence: Engaging the Productive Struggle in Practice and Research

Symbolic violence may not be a desirable theory to apply to public schooling—its structuralist limitations render it deterministic, lacking in human agency, and unpalatable to researchers and educators who see schools as viable and productive sites of social transformation. Perhaps for these reasons, it seems little has been written about symbolic violence in schools, and what has been written tends to focus primarily on the symbolic, institutionalized violence imparted by schools and teachers upon students. In this article, I offer a shift in these perspectives. I present symbolic violence as a productive analytical tool in identifying modes of resistance to specific damaging effects of schooling institutions. I also illustrate how symbolic violence victimizes one particularly caring teacher, rendering her compliant in her own victimization, without voice to accurately name her struggles, and—because of her ethic of care—complicit in reproducing damaging institutionalizing practices. Using ethnographic data, I explore symbolic violence via one teacher's reflective, critical narratives. I draw upon the tenets of dialogicality in language to help make more visible the often intangible elements of symbolic violence. And at various points in the article, I discuss the implications of engaging an analytic that ultimately runs counter to my own epistemology, turning to Maxine Greene for insight in the struggle.     

Conversion Conundrums: Listener Perceptions of Affective Influence Attempts as Mediated by Personality and Individual Differences

The study of religious conversion messages is currently an unexplored facet in interpersonal communication and social-cognition research. This study focused on the affective, intellectual, and cognitive needs of potential converts in reference to their attitudes and responses toward ministers utilizing the conversion appeals of fear and comfort. Eighty-nine participants, representing different levels of perceived personal relevance, religiosity (High Religiosity, Low Religiosity, Fundamentalism), familiarity with the type of appeal being made, and High/Low need for cognition were given a religious sermon to view, followed by various response and mood instruments. Results found familiarity with the message type to be a mediating factor of perceived speaker credibility and level of perceived influence, but not necessarily in reference to level of religious grouping. Possible explanations for these findings and applicability of the influence of emotional persuasion in religious conversion sermons were discussed.     

An extreme case of action learning at BAT Niemeyer

Becoming a ‘winning organization’ when one currently is an ‘ugly ducking’ can be a difficult and strenuous task. BAT Niemeyer in the Netherlands succeeded in making such a transformation over the course of four years. Action learning was used, among other methods, to steer part of this transformation, in which employee involvement was heavily emphasized. In the following article, it is described how action learning was used by the company and what resulted from this. Some of the difficulties involved in the process are also set out. Some of the ‘lessons learned’ for action learning development are briefly discussed as well. Although action learning was not used in all of the firm's initiatives to realize the abovementioned transformation, we think these lessons can be drawn nevertheless.     

Familiarity and relatedness: Effects on social learning about foods by Norway rats and Mongolian gerbils

In recent experiments in which the social influences on feeding in Mongolian gerbils were investigated, observer gerbils acquired food preferences from conspecific demonstrators only if the demonstrators and observers were either related or familiar. Even then, the effects of demonstrator gerbils on observers’ food choices lasted less than 24 h. In similar experiments with Norway rats, the familiarity/relatedness of demonstrators and observers had little effect on social learning, and the demonstrators’ influence on observers’ food choices lasted many days. We examined the causes of these differences and found that, after observer gerbils interacted with either unfamiliar or familiar conspecific demonstrators that had been fed using procedures typically used to feed demonstrator rats, they showed long-lasting social learning about foods, whereas observer rats interacting with conspecific demonstrators that had been fed as demonstrator gerbils normally are fed showed effects of familiarity/relatedness to demonstrators on their social learning about foods. Procedural differences, rather than species differences, seem to be responsible for reported inconsistencies in social learning about foods by rats and gerbils.