The inadvertent creation of a neocolonial culture: A study of western sojourners in India

Field work and structured interviews with 139 foreign sojourners in India were analyzed to describe the socialization of aliens into their role. Attitude scales measuring favorability toward the host country and people were also examined in relation to the respondent's occupational status and elapsed time in India. The results from the field work and interviews suggest that the privileges and high status accorded many Western visitors may contribute to the visitors' derogation of their hosts, a process which is often subtle but unmistakable. The visitors appear to become socialized into the world of aliens rather than the world of their hosts. The higher the visitor's status and the longer the elapsed time in India, the more pronounced these patterns appear. While the correlational nature of the study makes it impossible to determine whether persons with initially unfavorable attitudes are selected into the high status positions or whether the positions themselves create such attitudes, it appears reasonable to conclude that there would be less derogation and alienation if the lures of status and money were removed; persons would be neither selected nor influenced by such factors.     

The effects of a systematic training program on the attitudes and behaviors of white people

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of a systematic step-by-step curricular-affective program of race relations training on the attitudes and behaviors of white people. Two attitude scales, the Attitude Exploration Survey and the Steckler Attitude Inventory, are used to assess changes in attitudes. A Behavioral Rating Scale is used by participants and their significant others to assess change in behavior in relations to their behavioral objective. The results indicate that both attitudes and behavior are changed as a result of the training program and that the change is retained eight weeks after completion of the program.     

Academic achievement following childhood brain disease: implications for the concept of learning disabilities.

The present study examined three hypotheses regarding the consequences of early brain damage for academic achievement: First, early brain insults will have a negative impact on achievement, even in children with normal intelligence. Second, underachievement in these children will be at least partially independent of IQ (i.e., not fully accounted for by a lowering of IQ within the average range). Third, normally intelligent children with histories of brain insult will also manifest selective cognitive dysfunctions. To test these hypotheses, we compared two groups of children who had recovered from Haemophilus influenzae type b meningitis. The "complicated" group consisted of children who, as a consequence of having sustained neurologic complications during their illness, were more likely to have had brain insults. Children in the "uncomplicated" group did not have complications with their illness and were regarded as having escaped significant central nervous system (CNS) pathology. Only children with normal hearing and a prorated Full Scale IQ of at least 80 (WISC-R) were considered. Group differences on the Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised were consistent with the first two hypotheses. Although the two groups had similar Verbal IQs, the complicated group also had a lower mean Performance IQ and performed less well on perceptually demanding neuropsychological tasks. Findings suggest that learning disabilities may have selective, brain-related cognitive antecedents; but they challenge the practice of using IQ criteria for clinical diagnosis.     

Who's next? Research predicts museum leadership gap

A brief commentary from the Museum Association of New York (MANY) on the unprecedented gap posed by baby-boomer retirement. Based, in part, on MANY's white paper, “Who's Next? Questioning the Future of Museum Leadership in New York State,” this essay deals with questions of succession, leadership and general differences in New York's museum community.     

‘The feeling of exclusion’: Young peoples' perceptions of art galleries

This article first looks at the relationship between museums and art galleries and their potential audiences and, in particular, the under-represented sector of young visitors. It examines the main findings from the limited research available on young visitors, and goes on to discuss theories delineating the differences between the cultures, identities and values of culture consumers and culture providers. The second part of the article looks at what specific museums have done towards being more inclusive in their appeal, and then reports the findings of a survey of young people in relation to New Zealand's Auckland Art Gallery. The survey found that young people's ideas of what constitutes modern, relevant art do not match standard art criteria, and that most exhibitions and marketing methods do not mesh with their worldview. The article concludes by using data from the survey to suggest ways of engaging more young people with public art galleries.     

Communicating Prevention: The Effects of the keepin' it REAL Classroom Videotapes and Televised PSAs on Middle-School Students' Substance Use

This study sought to determine if exposure to two communication-oriented activities, videotapes and public service announcements, accounts for changes in substance use among adolescents participating in the Drug Resistance Strategies Project's keepin' it REAL adolescent substance use prevention curriculum. Middle-school students (4,734, 72% Latino) responded to questionnaires related to these analyses. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) model was fit separately to six substance use outcomes. The results suggested that intervention students who saw four or five videos engaged in less substance use in the past month than did students who saw fewer videos. Having seen the PSAs one or more times did not predict the reported change in substance use.