Do Individual Perceptions Matter in Pornography Effects? How Perceived General Acceptance and Influence of Pornography May Impact Agreement With Sex-Role Attitudes

Pornography use is often associated with less-progressive sex-role attitudes, such as endorsement of a sexual double standard between heterosexual partners, but the process by which this relationship occurs is still largely unexamined. The present study was conducted to examine how perceptions about pornography may play a role in the relationship between pornography use and sex-role attitudes. Perceived general acceptance and perceived influence of pornography on most people partially mediated the relationship between pornography use and sex-role attitudes. The more participants reported using pornography, the more they believed pornography was generally accepted and had a positive influence; however, conversely to what was hypothesized, the more positive they perceived pornography’s influence, the less likely they were to report sex-role attitudes that endorse a sexual double standard.     

The Development of the Olympic Narrative in Chinese Elite Sport Discourse from Its First Successful Olympic Bid to the Post-Beijing Games Era

Abstract

As a phenomenon exogenous to China, the Olympics have been proactively interpreted in the local context since China’s entry (and subsequent re-entry in 1984) into the Olympic movement. With China’s increasing involvement in promoting three bids to host the Olympic Games, two of which were successful, respectively, in 2001 and 2015, the nature of the discourse of key stakeholders in relation to Chinese elite sport has both reflected and reshaped the meaning of the Games to Chinese elite sport. This paper examines the discursive construction process of the Olympics in the Chinese elite sport system by key stakeholders through analyzing statements of political figures on sport and Olympic phenomena, Chinese elite sport policy documents, and the commentaries of leading Chinese sport academics. The analysis of discourse highlights two main features in the construction of the Games in official accounts during the period under investigation. The development of these two themes reflects the nature of the Chinese Olympic discourse, manifests the political power over the interpretation of the Olympics in Chinese context, and continues to characterize the on-going major themes in Chinese elite sport policy.     

Establishing a Center to Support Faculty Research

This article describes the establishment in fall 2002 of a School of Education Research Center designed to support faculty in increasing productivity and quality in research. Details are provided about center goals, services, staffing, space, resources, and logistics during the first year of operation. In addition, data are shared about faculty usage of the Center, the level of faculty satisfaction with center services in the first year, and initial increases in faculty productivity. The article concludes with plans for continued data collection to monitor the impact of the Center, a discussion of lessons learned at this point in the Center's development, and possibilities for the evolution of the Center. All authors are at the University of Colorado, Denver. Laura Goodwin, Ph.D., University of Colorado at Boulder, is Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Affairs and continues to serve as a Faculty Research Associate. Elizabeth Kozleski, Ed.D., University of Northern Colorado, is the Associate Dean for Research in the School of Education. Lynn Rhodes, Ed.D., Indiana University, is the Dean of the School of Education. Rodney Muth, Ph.D., Claremont Graduate School, is a professor of Administrative Leadership and Policy Studies in the school and chaired the Research Center Advisory Board. Kim Kennedy White, M.A., University of Oregon, was the original School of Education Research Center Coordinator and was responsible for collecting most of the data included in this study.     

The endless spiral

A Danish textbook on the history of technology,Skruen uden ende — Den vestlige teknologis historie (The Endless Spiral: A History of Western Technology), was published in 1990. In the present article, one of the authors presents some of the background to this event and puts the work into historical perspective by describing a number of different traditions for writing textbooks on the history of technology. Next follows a discussion of why history of technology ought to be an important ingredient in upper secondary education and why only the contextualist tradition — inspired by the rapidly developing school of research centered around the journalTechnology & Culture — offers any real hope for providing meaningful teaching materials on history of technology. The paper ends with a brief outline of the textbook's contents, with special emphasis on one of its several case studies describing the development of certain mainstream technologies in the context of the scientific, economic, social and cultural developments existing when the particular technology came into being.     

Screening for hearing loss in early childhood programs

This study assessed the feasibility of doing hearing screening in Migrant, American Indian and Early Head Start programs using otoacoustic emissions (OAE) technology. Staff members were trained to screen 0–3-year-old children for hearing loss using hand-held OAE equipment and a multi-step screening and referral protocol. Of the 3486 children screened as a part of the study, 77% passed an OAE screening at the first step, 18% more passed an OAE screening at the second step, and 5% were ultimately referred for medical or audiological follow-up. Eighty children were identified as having a hearing loss or disorder of the outer, middle or inner ear requiring treatment. Of these 80, six had permanent bilateral or unilateral hearing loss. Although the protocol suggested that the multi-step screening procedure should be completed within a 4-week time period or less, analysis of the data showed that for children requiring more than an initial OAE screening, the length of time over which the screening was completed ranged from 7 to 12 weeks. The median time required to complete a single OAE screening session was 4 minutes per child. The results demonstrate that OAE screening of young children using this protocol is practical and effective. The implications for conducting periodic hearing screening throughout early childhood are discussed.     

A New Approach to Avoiding Problems of Scale in Interpreting Trends in Mental Measurement Data

Extracting policy-relevant information from large national surveys of educational achievement is ordinarily a nontrivial task. It is made more treacherous when the data are expressed on scales that are not uniquely determined. The paper begins with a critical analysis of a recent attempt to interpret the findings on reading achievement obtained by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). It then describes a new approach to the quantification and interpretation of change and demonstrates its appropriateness for repeated cross-sectional designs such as NAEP. Limitations imposed by the survey design and the nature of the measurements are highlighted