Silent or Stealth Retractions,the Dangerous Voices of the Unknown,Deleted Literature

Retractions serve as one perspective of the publishing process, and can offer vast insight into the problems associated with basic research, with the traditional publishing platform, or with policies. Some established retraction guidelines exist, such as those established by the Committee on Publication Ethics, or COPE. This essay provides a perspective of stealth or silent retractions within the broader concept of retractions, and within the framework of the COPE retraction guidelines. The issue of opaque retraction notices, especially in the case of COPE members, as well as the prominence of questionable retraction policies among select “predatory” open access publishers, is emphasized. Select clear examples are provided.     

An Error is an Error… is an Erratum: The Ethics of not Correcting Errors in the Science Literature

This essay provides an unpalatable perspective on classifying the reluctance of authors, editors or publishers to correct their erroneous literature as being unethical. Authors who publish papers that carry errors and who take laurels for such publications, but who then fail to correct reported errors at a post-publication stage should be classified as unethical, and their act or irresponsibility as misconduct. Similarly, editors and publishers who fail to revise erroneous literature when claims are factually correct, independent of the volume of claims, are also in violation of their codes of conduct and professional responsibilities towards the scientific community and society. This essay provides a critical outlook on this issue which has begun to plague the post-publication movement in science, and which deserves urgent attention and focus.     

Linking family hardship to children's lives

The impact of drastic income loss on children is mediated by a number of family adaptations, including the shift toward more labor-intensive households and altered relationships. Using newly developed codes on parenting behavior during the Great Depression, this study investigates the role of parental behavior (rejecting, nonsupportive) in linking economic hardship to children's lives in the Oakland Growth Study. The results extend beyond those reported in Children of the Great Depression by showing that economic hardship adversely influenced the psychosocial well-being of girls, but not boys, by increasing the rejecting behavior of fathers. The parenting behavior of mothers did not vary significantly by income loss. In addition, the rejecting influence of hard-pressed fathers was more pronounced in relation to less attractive daughters, as judged by physical features. Attractive daughters were not likely to be maltreated by their fathers, no matter how severe the economic pressure. These outcomes on family mediation and conditional effects underscore the importance of viewing economic decline in relation to both the child's characteristics and parenting behavior. An understanding of the effects of economic decline in children's lives requires knowledge of parent and child behavior within the family and life course.     

Higher education and its contribution to a diverse regional supply of human capital: does the binary/unitary divide matters?

Diversity has been an important topic of research for some time in higher education, though the purposes underlying this attention have varied across national and regional contexts. In many parts of the world, the term diversity has been emphasized with regard to variety among the programs or services provided by academic institutions, and differences among the types of institutions themselves. It is particularly important to discuss whether different dimensions of diversity may influence the degree of effectiveness of higher education (HE) in fulfilling its contribution and relevance to economic and social development. We are particularly interested in analyzing whether unitary or binary systems present significant differences in different dimensions of diversity that may be relevant to enhance higher education institutions’ (HEIs) contribution to territorial cohesion, notably by enhancing the local stock of human capital and contributing to the social and cultural development of their regions. Therefore, we propose the following research questions: *Are there relevant patterns regarding different dimensions of diversity between unitary and binary HE systems? *In the case of binary systems, is it possible to find relevant differences in different dimensions of diversity between universities and more vocational HEIs? By looking at these questions, we aim at contributing both to the literature on HE institutional diversity and to the study of the role played by HEIs on regional development.     

Women teachers and professional development: gender issues in the training programmes of the Aga Khan Education Service, Northern Areas, Pakistan

In the area of this study, teaching continues to provide the vast majority of formal sector jobs available to women. Within teaching, women's restricted access to training is addressed by AKES, whose programmes appear to meet women's immediate needs for localised training. Nevertheless, women remain largely unrepresented beyond the lowliest levels of the Service. This paper considers why this is so, and explores strategies for facilitating their professional and career development. It stresses the need for a contextualised, gender-aware approach to teacher education, and an avoidance of a simple correlation between girls' and women's education and their broader empowerment.     

INFUSING GERONTOLOGICAL CONTENT INTO THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION

The graying of the American population and the importance of religion in the lives of older individuals suggests that members of the clergy need to be well informed regarding the processes and realities of aging. For several years, gerontologists have been encouraging theological educators to place an increased emphasis on the needs and concerns of older adults in seminary curriculum. The purpose of the present study was to determine what seminaries are currently doing to prepare pastors for ministry with older adults and to compare the findings to a similar study undertaken more than a decade ago. The results of the current study are quite similar to those obtained in the past. Although several schools have added a course focusing on the needs and concerns of older adults within the last 20 years, gerontological content remains a minor consideration among the vast majority of seminaries. The major recommendation of the study is that seminaries need to infuse their curricula with gerontological content in order for their graduates to be adequately prepared for ministry in twenty-first century America.     

Cheating by economics and business undergraduate students: an exploratory international assessment

Today’s economics and business students are expected to be our future business people and potentially the economic leaders and politicians of tomorrow. Thus, their beliefs and practices are liable to affect the definition of acceptable economics and business ethics. The empirical evaluation of the phenomenon of cheating in academia has almost exclusively focused on the US context, and non-US studies usually only cover a narrow range of countries. This paper presents a comprehensive, cross-country study on the magnitude and determinants of cheating among economics and business undergraduates, involving 7,213 students enrolled in 42 universities located in 21 countries from the American (4), European (14), Africa (2) and Oceania (1) Continents. We found that the average magnitude of copying among economics and business undergraduates is quite high (62%) but there was significant cross-country heterogeneity. The probability of cheating is significantly lower in students enrolled in schools located in the Scandinavian, and the US and British Isles blocks when compared with their Southern European counterparts; quite surprisingly this probability is also lower for the African block. On a distinctly different level, however, students enrolled in schools in Western and especially Eastern European countries reveal statistically significant higher propensities towards committing academic fraud.