Social Justice and Juvenile Offenders: Examples of Fairness,Respect, and Access in Education Settings

Youths involved in juvenile justice face unique barriers to educational and mental health services. This qualitative study illustrates social justice violations that are particularly salient for this population. Youths on probation, their mothers, and juvenile probation staff participated in interviews as part of a multisite study conducted in Texas and California. Interviews were coded using the Consensual Qualitative Research method. This study provides detailed examples of social justice components of fairness, respect, and access within school and juvenile justice settings. Implications for how schools could address these types of situations to promote fairness and decrease discrimination and stigma for youths with a criminal record who are trying to succeed in school are also discussed.     

COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS' OPINIONS REGARDING THE VALUE OF THEIR FRESHMAN SEMINAR EXPERIENCE

Students enrolled in a community college freshman seminar course were interviewed to gather qualitative data on their opinions regarding the value of the course. Existing dissatisfaction among students, faculty, and administrators initiated this study . Data analysis revealed that randomly grouping students with wide - ranging levels of academic abilities and life experiences in a freshman seminar class had a number of drawbacks, as older adult learners differ greatly from younger student learners in aptitude, ability levels, maturity, and academic needs. The findings suggest that older adults need a different kind of freshman seminar course than the traditional first - year student, and that "gifted" older students might be used to provide "on - campus apprenticeships" for other first - year students.     

Do physical maturity and birth date predict talent in male youth ice hockey players?

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among biological maturity, physical size, relative age (i.e. birth date), and selection into a male Canadian provincial age-banded ice hockey team. In 2003, 619 male ice hockey players aged 14 – 15 years attended Saskatchewan provincial team selection camps, 281 of whom participated in the present study. Data from 93 age-matched controls were obtained from the Saskatchewan Pediatric Bone Mineral Accrual Study (1991 – 1997). During the initial selection camps, birth dates, heights, sitting heights, and body masses were recorded. Age at peak height velocity, an indicator of biological maturity, was determined in the controls and predicted in the ice hockey players. Data were analysed using one-way analysis of variance, logistic regression, and a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The ice hockey players selected for the final team were taller, heavier, and more mature (P < 0.05) than both the unselected players and the age-matched controls. Furthermore, age at peak height velocity predicted (P < 0.05) being selected at the first and second selection camps. The birth dates of those players selected for the team were positively skewed, with the majority of those selected being born in the months January to June. In conclusion, team selectors appear to preferentially select early maturing male ice hockey players who have birth dates early in the selection year.     

The Canadian State of Mind: Coverage of Men and Women Athletes in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Prime Time Broadcast of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games

The following study represents the first attempt in to empirically analyze the Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s (CBC) prime time Olympic broadcast to determine if there were significant trends based on the sex of the athlete. All 72 hours of the CBC’s 2014 prime time Winter Olympic broadcast were analyzed. When excluding mixed-pair competitions, men received 60.4 percent of the airtime. Men received 61.2 percent of the mentions and comprised 65 percent of the top 20 most-mentioned athletes list. Sportscaster dialogues surrounding the attributions of success and failure of athletes, as well as depictions of physicality and personality, contained some divergences based on the sex of an athlete. Men were more likely to be depicted as succeeding because of athletic ability and intelligence while women were more likely to have their successes attributed to experience. Additionally, men were more likely to have their failures attributed to lack of intelligence. In the areas of personality/physicality, women athletes were more likely to receive comments about their size/parts of the body while men were more likely to receive comments in the areas of outgoing/extroversion and emotions.     

Dyadic effects of gratitude on burden,conflict, and contribution in the family caregiver and sibling relationship

Family caregivers are a quickly growing population in American society and are potentially vulnerable to a number of risks to well-being. High stress and little support can combine to cause difficulties in health and personal relationships. Siblings are, however, a possible source of protection for the at-risk caregiver. This study examines the relationships between caregiver burden, relational conflict, individual contribution, and gratitude exchange between caregivers and their siblings as they attend to the issue of caring for aging parents. Dyadic data were collected through an online survey and were analyzed using a series of actor–partner interdependence models. Dimensions of gratitude related to reduced caregiver burden, improved care-related conflict, and promotion of greater contribution to caregiving.     

User wayfinding strategies in public library facilities

An experiment in a public library demonstrates that Passini's conceptual framework of wayfinding can be applied to public library patron wayfinding behavior. Participants were asked to think aloud while completing prescribed wayfinding tasks. Findings indicate that library patrons use all five of Passini's strategies to varying degrees, supporting the need for further research testing this framework with library patrons. Participants were given varying level of details on Passini's strategies prior to completing the wayfinding tasks, and that intervention had no significant effect on the results.     

Raising awareness of campus diversity and inclusion: Transformationally teaching diversity through narratives of campus experiences and simulated problem solving

ABSTRACT

Courses: Organizational Communication, Intercultural Communication

Objectives: This activity encourages students to learn collaboratively about diversity through the sharing of student experiences; deepen and complicate their understanding of organizational diversity; and enhance their ability to apply course material to increasingly complex organizational environments.     

Towards an integrated model of strategic environmental communication: advancing theories of reactance and planned behavior in a water conservation context

This study demonstrates how communication research can be strategically applied to address environmental problems in modern societies. To accomplish this goal, this research advances an integrated communication model based on psychological reactance theory and the theory of planned behavior to explain negative attitude change that can occur when people are exposed to water conservation campaigns [Liang, Y. J., Henderson, L.K., & Kee, K. F. (2017). Running out of water! Developing a message typology and evaluating message effects on attitude toward water conservation. Environmental Communication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1288648]. The data fit the hypothesized model, synthesizing message-, social-, and individual-based processes to predict their effects on behavioral intention towards water conservation. Interestingly, data show that (1) combinations of message strategies affect reactance differently, and (2) subjective norm and perceived behavioral control negatively correlated with threat to freedom. These results point to the practical implication that environmental communication to promote voluntary water conservation are effective when campaign messages are designed to reduce threat to freedom, induce social norms, and increase self-efficacy. We call the documented research process strategic environmental communication, which focuses on the joint application of evidence and theory towards addressing environmentally motivated problems.     

Empirical comparison of alternative instructional TV technologies

An experiment was conducted to compare training effectiveness and user acceptance of live instruction andsix different alternative Instructional TV (ITV) technologies: multi‐channel 2‐way video with 2‐way audio, single‐channel 2‐way video with 2‐way audio, 1‐way video with 2‐way audio, 1‐way video with 1‐way audio, 1‐way video with intermittent 2‐way audio, and audiographics. Findings were that, in comparison with live instruction, ITV in several different forms was effective both in terms of student performance and acceptance. The most successful ITV technologies were those allowing continuous 2‐way audio communication between classrooms with either 2‐way or 1‐way video. Student test performance was poorer with ITV systems that restricted remote students' ability to converse with or see the instructor and the performance decrement was evident in both local and remote classrooms.

The research described was performed under the sponsorship of the Office of Naval Technology. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors, are not official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Navy department.     

Situational specificity makes the difference in assessment of youth behavior disorders

In this article we examine the ability of contextual information to enhance assessment of behavior problems in schools. Capitalizing on the multisituational structure of the Adjustment Scales for Children and Adolescents, exploratory and confirmatory analyses with a representative national sample (N = 1,400, ages 5–17 years) revealed three unique and reliable behavioral situtypes (problems in Peer Contexts, Academic Contexts, and Teacher Contexts). The situtypes were found internally consistent and structurally generalizable across age, sex, and ethnicity. Multiple logistic and discriminant analyses confirmed the ability of the situtypes to identify accurately those youth independently diagnosed as emotionally disturbed, as well as distinguish those diagnosed as learning disabled. Information gleaned from the situtypes was substantially better able than conventional psychopathology syndromes (attention‐deficit hyperactivity, oppositional defiance, etc.) to forecast later academic achievement. Implications for informing motivation and intervention are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 121–136, 2005.