Exploring alternative assessments for signing deaf candidates

Attitudes to sign languages or language policies are often not overtly discussed or recorded but they influence deaf young people's educational opportunities and outcomes. Two qualitative studies from Scotland investigate the provision of British Sign Language as accommodation in public examinations. The first explores the views of deaf pupils and staff about the official system for face-to-face interpretation of exam papers. The second investigates a centrally translated digital paper with embedded video questions. Discussion focuses on contrasts between the USA and UK approaches to accommodations, raising issues of standardized technical terms in signed languages, the right to respond in sign, and candidate choice.     

Assessment of alcohol and other drug abuse with referred adolescents

Adolescents with alcohol or other drug problems may be referred to school psychologists for assessment and demonstrate symptoms similar to handicapping conditions such as learning disabilities or emotional disturbance. Therefore, school psychologists have a need for assessment techniques to determine the probablity that referred adolescents have alcohol or other drug problems. In this paper, prereferral questionnaires, initial interviews, behavioral observations, and assessment devices are discussed. Suggestions are made for referring substance-abusing adolescents.     

Charting the Relationship Trajectories of Aggressive, Withdrawn, and Aggressive/Withdrawn Children during Early Grade School

The premises examined in this longitudinal investigation were that specific behavioral characteristics place children at risk for relationship maladjustment in school environments, and that multiple behavioral risks predispose children to the most severe and prolonged difficulties. Aggressive, withdrawn, and aggressive/withdrawn children were compared to normative and matched control groups on teacher and peer relationship attributes, loneliness, and social satisfaction from kindergarten (M age = 5 years, 7 months; n = 250) through grade 2 (M age = 8.1; n = 242). Children's withdrawn behavior was neither highly stable nor predictive of relational difficulties, as their trajectories resembled the norm except for initially less close and more dependent relationships with teachers. Aggressive behavior was fairly stable, and associated with early-emerging, sustained difficulties including low peer acceptance and conflictual teacher-child relationships. Aggressive/withdrawn children evidenced the most difficulty: compared to children in the normative group, they were consistently more lonely, dissatisfied, friendless, disliked, victimized, and likely to have maladaptive teacher-child relationships. Findings are discussed with respect to recent developments in two prominent literatures: children at-risk and early relationship development.     

What's in a Name? Some Reflections on the Sociology of Anonymity

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of either the recent death or coming dominance of anonymity have been greatly exaggerated. This article is a beginning effort to lay out some of the conceptual landscape needed to better understand anonymity and identifiability in contemporary life. I suggest seven types of identity knowledge, involving legal name, location, symbols linked and not linked back to these through intermediaries, distinctive appearance and behavior patterns, social categorization, and certification via knowledge or artifacts. I identify a number of major rationales and contexts for anonymity (free flow of communication, protection, experimentation) and identifiability (e.g., accountability, reciprocity, eligibility) and suggest a principle of truth in the nature of naming , which holds that those who use pseudonyms on the Internet in personal communications have an obligation to indicate they are doing so. I also suggest 13 procedural questions to guide the development and assessment of any internet policy regarding anonymity.     

The CCM Model: A Management Approach to Performance Optimization

ABSTRACT Three leadership styles are frequently discussed in the literature today: transactional, transformational, and most recently—transcendental. Managers may be able to put transactional, transformational, and transcendental leadership style theories into practice without inventing a new set of processes and procedures to achieve individual follower optimal performance and effect positive change and optimal individual performance within an organization. The management activities of coaching, counseling, and mentoring are articulating activities for transactional, transformational, and/or transcendental leadership styles.     

Review Essay

Book reviewed in this article:
Catherine Clark, Alan Dyson, Alan Milward (eds), Theorising special education     

An Energy Model for Viewing Embodied Human Capital Theory

Human capital development is one of the emerging areas of study with regard to social science theory, practice, and research. Arelatively new concept, human capital is described in terms of individual knowledge skills and experience. It is currently expressed as a function of education as well as a measure of economic activity. Little theory exists to establish models of individual or group human capital. By drawing upon existing physical science constructs such as embodied energy, this article applies a framework for articulating an approach to human capital development and interaction. Our proposition is that human capital consists of active and passive capacity, which parallels the theoretic dimensions of potential and kinetic energy. Aconceptual binary phase diagram of a human capital system is presented along with examples for applying the model to practice. Utilizing an economic model of resource flows; a model of embodied human capital is developed as a vehicle for sustainable human capital theory.