Analyzing Challenges to Library Materials: An Incomplete Picture

This research project used Freedom of Information requests to obtain public records from Alabama institutions about challenges to materials in public schools and public libraries. Challenges occur when a patron objects to certain content. In this analysis, we examine the records of challenges. The research questions were as follows: How many challenges occur in public schools and libraries? What is the nature of these challenges? Are there institutional or demographic factors that are correlated to the occurrence of challenges? In this exploratory study, the number of reported challenges was surprisingly low. We investigated whether reported challenges were related to certain institutional or demographic factors, but did not find any discernible relationships. The data suggest that most challenged material is retained, but that librarians may be self-censoring to reduce controversy in their collections.     

The Heroes and the Helpless: Conflicting Media Images of Refugees From Burma

After a protest against Burma's military government exploded into bloody violence on August 8, 1988, some political dissidents applied for refugee status through the United Nations. Since 1990, nearly 6,000 members of Myanmar's ethnic groups settled in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The project's overarching question asks: How have photojournalists covered the lives of the Burmese? An archive of photographs published from 1992 through 2012 by Fort Wayne's The Journal Gazette was used for this qualitative analysis. Three major themes emerged: refugees as “freedom fighters,” Aung San Suu Kyi as “superhero,” and Burmese as helpless victims lacking agency. With mounting tensions concerning refugees arriving into Europe, this examination is important because media images may play a role in welcoming and integrating refugees into new communities.     

Young children's use of spatial coordinates

4-6-year-old children were given problems in which they had to decide which 1 of an array of points was in line with 2 coordinate markers. The simplest problems had 4 points to choose between and markers perpendicular to the horizontal and vertical axes. Children of all ages were able to extrapolate lines from both coordinates to solve these problems. The older children were also given more complex problems. In some of these, 1 marker was at 45 degrees to an axis, the other perpendicular: in others the array was increased to 16 points and presented sometimes in a regular, sometimes in an irregular pattern. There were developmental improvements in performance, and the complex problems were more difficult than the simpler ones. However, 5- and 6-year-olds did extremely well even on the complex problems. The results establish that young children's grasp of Euclidean spatial relationships is more adequate than has often been suggested.     

How changes in work structure influence employees’ perceptions of CSR: millionaire managers and locked-out laborers

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is widely understood as the various activities corporations engage in to meet stakeholder demands and demonstrate fit in society. Often employees are positioned as the beneficiaries of corporate largesse and worker recruitment and retention are offered as rationale for CSR activities. The voice of the employee, however, is noticeably missing from the CSR literature. This study uses a case study approach to explore how locked-out union workers define CSR. We conducted 51 semi-structured interviews and analyzed 27 secondary data sources. The results suggest that workers fuse together economic and ethical responsibilities to develop a portrait of their employer's CSR. Workers defined CSR as an economic/ethical responsibility that is intimately tied to a set of explicitly and implicitly communicated values. Our analysis exposed four additional dimensions that informed employees’ understanding of CSR: reciprocity, fair treatment, economic justice, and organizational structure. Propositions for future research and practical implications are offered based on the findings.     

Curation,conservation, and the artist in Silent Explosion: Ivor Davies and Destruction in Art

This paper examines the preservation and curatorial approaches explored for the exhibition Silent Explosion: Ivor Davies and Destruction in Art at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales (November 2015–March 2016). The collaboration between the artist, curator/researcher, and conservators is considered and the evolving and flexible way in which transient pieces were presented/re-presented is described. The paper offers a case study in the context of this exhibition and argues that regardless of whether it is in traditional media (such as painting) or as time-based media (unstable and open to interpretation), Davies' work challenges a perception of artworks as finished, single-authored objects.     

Scaling and Sustaining an Intervention: The Case of Reading Recovery

ABSTRACT

In every school district across the country, every year, initiatives are adopted with the goal of improving the literacy performance of young students, and, just as frequently, these initiatives fail or quickly become passing fads. In this article, Rodgers reviews literature related to scaling educational innovations and describes challenges and barriers to implementing and maintaining evidence-based reform. Using Reading Recovery as a case example, she describes features of the intervention that are thought to be linked to its longevity in terms of scalability and sustainability. She also shares lessons learned from the most recent period of its expansion with the 5-year grant to scale up Reading Recovery across the county. Implications from this article include the importance of adopting an initiative that has a well-articulated design, collecting data on the progress of the students served, and having a person in the district who acts as a redirecting agent, maintaining the design of the initiative and guarding it against tendencies to pare down the design.     

Network Organizations: Symmetric Cooperation or Multivalent Negotiation?

The network model of organization plays a central role in recent sociological accounts of the information economy. This model is also often presented in organization and information and communication technologies (ICT) literature with an air of enthusiasm that underscores its advantages—flexibility, cooperative culture, innovativeness, and knowledge and technology intensity. Such themes are usually based on a “networking logic” that assumes the trustful cooperation of large and small production firms in a rapidly changing economic environment. We believe that both the logic and the themes based upon it are too narrow to be able to explain the complex dimensions of interorganizational networking. Using Enron as a case study, our goal in this article is to enrich the logic just described and to develop an extended model of the network enterprise. We argue that this is only possible by extending the unit of analysis beyond the production firm, to include, among others, subsidiaries, banks, investors, auditors, and government agencies. The proposed extended model allows the broadening of many of the aforementioned themes, making it possible to arrive at a realistic picture of the complexities of the network enterprise. The managerial advantages of the model are also discussed.     

The relationship between implicit theories of intelligence,attainment and socio-demographic factors in a UK sample of primary school children

Research emerging from the USA suggests that holding an incremental theory of intelligence (growth mindset) has a positive impact on academic success. However, limited empirical work has explored this relationship in a UK sample, and there has been a lack of research into the antecedents which might influence the development of certain intelligence beliefs. This study aimed to explore these gaps in the existing literature. Data was collected from 710 9-year-old pupils (UK Year 5). Participants completed attainment tests in Maths and English, and a questionnaire to assess their implicit theories of intelligence (mindset). Socio-demographic information—including gender, ethnicity, free school meal (FSM) status and special educational needs (SEN) status—was also collected. Results showed that pupils eligible for FSM or SEN endorsed more of an entity theory of intelligence than pupils not eligible for either. Analysis of the whole sample showed that attainment significantly correlated with implicit theories of intelligence, however, this relationship did not exist for children with FSM or SEN status. These findings help to elucidate the relationship between implicit theories of intelligence and attainment in the UK, but also suggest the importance of external support in potentially facilitating pupils’ belief systems. Results are discussed in relation to avenues for targeted intervention.     

Dissecting “Peer Presence” and “Decisions” to Deepen Understanding of Peer Influence on Adolescent Risky Choice

This study evaluated the aspects of complex decisions influenced by peers, and components of peer involvement influential to adolescents’ risky decisions. Participants (N = 140) aged 13–25 completed the Columbia Card Task (CCT), a risky choice task, isolating deliberation-reliant and affect-reliant decisions while alone, while a friend monitors choices, and while a friend is merely present. There is no condition in which a nonfriend peer is present. Results demonstrated the risk-increasing peer effect occurred in the youngest participants in the cold CCT and middle-late adolescents in the hot CCT, whereas other ages and contexts showed a risk-decreasing peer effect. Mere presence was not sufficient to influence risky behavior. These boundaries in age, decision, and peer involvement constrain prevailing models of adolescent peer influence.