Communicating With Bank Stakeholders During Recession: Why It's Important,Who Is Doing It,and How to Stay in the Loop

This study explores the attitudes and actions of bank managers toward communication spending during recession. Results of this study indicate that organizational leaders cut communication spending early during recession and also erroneously rely on the bank's financials to mitigate irrational customer withdrawals. This research is used to illustrate the need for public librarians to meet the needs of bank stakeholders when their institution ceases to communicate during crises, for academic librarians to educate students in undergraduate and graduate programs regarding heightened information needs during recession, and for corporate librarians to understand a potential avenue for competitive advantage during recession.     

Sex differences in social support in sororities and fraternities

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to assess differences between sorority and fraternity members with regard to the social support provided by the “sisters”; and “brothers”; with whom they live. Based on sex differences in communication in general, and the few findings of sex differences in social support, two research questions were posed: Do members of sororities and fraternities differ in the social support they provide? How do the various types of social support compare with each other within fraternities and within sororities?

Differences found in this study corroborate results of research on sex differences in communication that characterize women as using communication to connect with, support, and achieve closeness with others, and men using communication to accomplish some task and to assert their individuality. In general, differences were mostly confined to two of the eight types of social support studied: members of sororities, in comparison to members of fraternities, reported being more satisfied with the emotional support they receive and perceiving greater availability of listening support. If the goal of fraternities and sororities is to provide their members with the full range of social support, then findings indicate members of fraternities could benefit from becoming more skillful at providing types of support that tend to promote closeness and connection (e.g., emotional support and listening support); and members of sororities could benefit from becoming more skillful at providing types of support that tend to create distance and separation (e.g., technical challenge support and emotional challenge support).     

Adapting an Embedded Model of Librarianship,College by College

Librarians are increasingly moving out of the library and into the wider university setting as patrons spend more time seeking information online and less time visiting the library. The move to embed librarians in colleges, departments, or customer groups has been going on for some time but has recently received more attention as libraries work to find new ways to reach patrons that no longer need to come to the physical library. Few universities have attempted to embed all their librarians. This case study describes how one group of health sciences librarians dispersed its professional staff throughout its campuses and medical centers.     

Local education authorities’ approaches to provision for children with specific speech and language difficulties in England and Wales

Children with specific speech and language difficulties (SSLD) pose a challenge to the education system as a result of their language needs and associated educational and social‐behavioural difficulties. Local education authorities (LEAs) in England and Wales have developed language units to meet their needs but previous research has indicated this provision was inadequate. The development of inclusion raises questions regarding this type of provision, compared with full inclusion into mainstream schools. The present study reports on a national survey of LEAs in England and Wales (97 respondents, 49.5% response rate) and interviews with 37 LEA special educational needs managers. Provision varied by age group with designated specialist provision more prevalent at key stages 1 and 2 (age 5–11 years), and relatively little at key stages 3 and 4 (11–16). LEAs’ decision‐making regarding provision varied, influenced by the lack of common criteria, which was highlighted by the difficulties in distinguishing children with SSLD from those with autistic spectrum disorder. There were also difficulties translating policies into practice, including the shortage of speech and language therapists. The implications of the study are discussed with reference to inclusion.     

An evaluation of the written texts of children with SLI: the contributions of oral language, reading and phonological short-term memory

In this study, we performed a fine grained analysis of writing by children with a specific language impairment (SLI) and examined the contribution of oral language, phonological short-term memory (STM), nonverbal ability, and word reading to three writing constructs (productivity, complexity and accuracy). Forty-six children with SLI were compared with 42 children matched for chronological age, receptive vocabulary (N = 46) and reading decoding (N = 46) on a measure of narrative writing. The SLI group performed worse on all measures compared to children of a similar chronological age. The SLI group produced a greater proportion of orthographic spelling errors than children with similar receptive vocabularies, but were comparable to children matched for reading decoding. The children with SLI showed specific difficulties in the omission of whole words (e.g. auxiliary verbs and subject nouns) and omissions of grammatical morphology (e.g. past tense—ed) reflecting the difficulties shown in their oral language. Receptive grammar made a significant contribution to writing complexity and accuracy. Phonological fluency contributed to writing productivity, such as the production of diverse vocabulary, ideas and content and writing fluency. Phonological STM and word reading explained additional variance in writing accuracy over and above the SLI group’s oral language skills.     

INCREASING TEACHER TREATMENT INTEGRITY THROUGH PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK PROVIDED BY SCHOOL PERSONNEL

When implementing behavioral interventions in educational settings, some implementers need support to maintain high levels of treatment integrity. Performance feedback has a large body of research supporting it as a strategy for improving teachers’ implementation of classroom interventions. However, in most prior studies, performance feedback has been delivered by a researcher, not by a school staff member, which limits generalizability of results to applied settings. In this study, school personnel (i.e., internal consultants) assessed teachers’ treatment integrity when implementing a classwide behavioral intervention and, when low, provided performance feedback. Further, researchers assessed internal consultants’ treatment integrity and provided performance feedback as needed. Results indicate that internal consultants are able to assess and briefly increase teachers’ treatment integrity with performance feedback, although some teachers needed more support than did others. Likewise, internal consultants’ treatment integrity was fairly high initially, but required consistent performance feedback to increase treatment integrity levels toward the end of the study. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Henrietta Crosman on voice

Good American Speech. By Margaret Prendergast Mclean. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1928.

The Psychology of Language. By W. B. Pillsbury and C. L. Meader. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1928; pp. 306: $3.

Abraham Lincoln: 1809‐1858. By Albert J. Beveridge. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928: 2 volumes, pp. 1348.

The Public Mind: its disorders; its exploitation. By Norman Angell. New York, Button, 1926: pp. 220.

The Public and Its Problems. By John Dewey. New York, Henry Holt, 1927: pp. 224

Publicity for Social Work. By Mary Swain Routzahn and Evart G. Routzahn. New York: Bussell Sage Foundation, 1928, pp. xviii, 392.

Readings in Public Opinion. By W. Brooke Graves. New York: Appleton's, 1928, pp. viii, 1281. $6.

Propaganda. By Edward L. Bernays. New York: Horace Liveright, 1928, pp. 159. $2.50.

Propaganda Technique in the World War. By Harold Lasswell. New York: Knopf, 1927, pp. 283. $3.25.

Political Behavior. By Frank R. Kent. New York: Wm. Morrow, 1928, pp. 342. $2.50.

Public Discussion and Debate. By A. Craig Baird. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1928: pp. iv, 370.

Principles of Effective Speaking: A Text for Colleges and Universities. By William Phillips Sandford and Willard Hayes Yeager. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1928: pp. xv, 416.

The Art of Interpretative Speech. Principles and Practices of Effective Beading. By Charles H. Woollbert and Severina E. Nelson. New York: F. S. Crofts and Company, 1927: pp. vii, 385.

Communicative Speaking. By J. Stanley Gray. Boston: Expression Co., 1928: pp. 299: $2.50.

How to Talk. By John Mantle Clapp and Edwin A. Kane. New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1928: pp. 631.

A Bibliography of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. By Clark Sutherland Northup (now President of the national Phi Beta Kappa Society). New York: The Elisha Parmele Press, 1928. pp. viii, 328.

Crowell's Dictionary of English Grammar and Handbook of American Usage. By Maurice H. Weseen. New York: Thomas T. Crowell Company, 1928: pp. ix, 703.

The Influence of the Audience on Shakespeare's Drama. By Robert Bridges. New York: Oxford University Press, 1927; pp. x, 29.

The Art of Playwriting. Lectures delivered at the University of Pennsylvania on the Mask and Wig Foundation. Philadelphia: the University of Pennsylvania Press: 1928.

The Oxford Recitations. With a Preface by John Masefield. New York: The MacMillan Company: 1928: $1.50.

Power Control. By H. S. RAushenbush and Harry W. Laidler. New York: New Republic, Inc., 1928: $1.     

‘I'm just there to ease the burden’: the parent support adviser role in English schools and the question of emotional labour

In 2005, the Department for Education and Skills announced a £40 million investment in a new school support worker role, the parent support adviser (PSA), for 20 English local authorities. A pilot project ran from 2006–2008 and resulted in the establishment of 717 PSAs in 1167 schools. The national evaluation of the project forms the evidential basis of this paper, with interviews conducted with 69 PSAs, 85 PSA line managers and 105 parents and a database recording casework with nearly 21,000 parents. This paper focuses on the nature of the PSA role as the first centrally funded parent support role in English schools. The theoretical framework provided by the concept of ‘emotional labour’ and the development of the concept represented by the 4Ps typology provides the conceptual structure. This paper argues that although the characteristics of the PSA role appear to place it within the category of work requiring emotional labour, PSAs and parents regard that aspect of the role in a positive light. For the PSAs there was little evidence that emotional labour necessary for the role of PSA led to dissonance between role and worker or alienation from the product of PSA labour.     

Making the case for a material-dialogic approach to science education

ABSTRACT

Science is concerned with understanding the world. As such, engaging with the materiality of that world is integral to both empirical experimentation and theorising within science. However, it has been recognised for some time that the way scientists learn about the world and the way that young people learn about science cannot be simply equated. This difference has been pronounced in recent decades by the dominance of constructivist and social-constructivist theories of learning, which focus on the development of concepts in the minds of people. Whilst these theories have yielded insight into the complexity of learning, the role of the material remains undertheorised, not only within practical science inquiry, but also in relation to the broader materiality of classrooms. Through a detailed critical literature review, this paper demonstrates the need for a stronger theoretical frame through which to understand the role of the material in the learning and pedagogy of science. Building upon the gaps and possibilities that this review reveals, we outline a new material-dialogic theory via a synthesis of Barad’s Agential Realism and Bakhtinian dialogic theory. The significance of this paper lies in offering a theoretical basis for more effective practice.     

Controversy and Challenge: British Funding Increases Nationally,But Not to National Museums

The United Kingdom's economic backdrop, according to Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, has never looked better. Massive amounts of new funding are being invested in the National Health Service, Education and Social Services—tens of billions of pounds. Investment in the U.K.'s 10‐year Science and Innovation strategy has risen to over £3 billion per annum. Investment in Arts Council Funding will have increased 69 percent in the eight years since 1997, to over £410 million per annum by 2005–2006. And attendance at national museums and galleries has increased over 60 percent since admission charges were ended in 2001–2002. But in the field of science and technology there is a scattering of less‐well‐known data. More than 30 departments of chemistry and physics have closed at universities around Britain in the last few years. The take‐up rate of students entering science and mathematics, and subjects leading to technological, engineering, and medical degrees, among certain socio‐economic groups, has been falling dramatically. Even wealthy industries such as the oil and gas sector cannot attract young people—especially young women—to engineering, despite the fact that engineers with less than a decade of experience earn an average of U.S. $75,000 a year, and when fully experienced, an average of U.S. $127,000 a year. Overall, it seems that the ability of the public to interrogate issues driven by changes in science and technology, and their level of trust, are effectively decreasing.