Ethnic Heterogeneity,Group Affinity,and State Higher Education Spending

A rich interdisciplinary literature exists exploring the determinants of state higher education funding policies. However, that work has collectively ignored an important finding from political economy literature: namely, that citizens’ preferences regarding public spending are strongly influenced by the state’s ethnic and racial context. Drawing on a unique panel of state-level data covering the years 1982–2009, we find that states demarcated by increased racial and ethnic diversity and eroding white majorities do tend to spend less on subsidies to public higher education, resulting in decreased state appropriations as well as more tepid support for financial aid programs. Critically, however, we find that the negative effects of increased ethnic and racial fractionalization can be mitigated—and in some circumstances, fully offset—by a high degree of positive social interaction between ethnic and racial groups. These results are discussed within the pragmatic context of continued state emphasis on degree attainment as a mechanism to foster economic growth as well as broader considerations about equality and social justice.     

Knowledge sharing in the process of developing a cross-border knowledge region

Knowledge Regions are insufficiently studied by academia. The aim of the article is to analyse Knowledge Region (KR) by inter-linking knowledge creation theories, including knowledge management and knowledge sharing for the purpose of developing of a Cross-Border Knowledge Region (CB KR). The empirical study of the cross-border cooperation organisation and a theoretical debate on the creation processes of CB KR are linked. This methodology puts in evidence that an intermediary organisation and CB KR creation processes are explicitly linked as it facilitates the development of a KR. The originality is that cross-border cooperation organisation is studied by applying the three-element model developed by Nonaka, Toyama and Konno to an intermediary organisation. The intermediary organisation covers Helsinki and Tallinn capital city-region(s) and is used as a Place/Space/Ba in this article. The outcomes prove that intermediary organisations should be part of KR development processes.     

Getting in the flow: adolescent test-takers,motivation, and optimal performance

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - The validity of inferences made with test results depends on meeting the assumptions of the test users, one of which is the presumption of...     

Linguistic performance and minority groups

Abstract

Beginning with linguistic performance as currently defined, this article systematically pursues its implications to and through the notion of “successful communication.” The four divisions of the article attempt explorations of the following questions: What does linguistic performance do? What place does it have in a theory of communication? What are the practical implications of such a theory in connection with actual language use? How is all this relevant to problems of what we take to be “linguistically underprivileged” (minority) groups? The article concludes that the concept of linguistic performance, “scientifically” based, is not significant in successful communication, which is an art.     

New Destinations,New Trajectories? The Educational Progress of Hispanic Youth in North Carolina

Since 1990, Latin American immigrants to the United States have dispersed beyond traditional gateway regions to a number of "new destinations." Both theory and past empirical evidence provide mixed guidance as to whether the children of these immigrants are adversely affected by residing in a nontraditional destination. This study uses administrative public school data to study over 2,800 8- to 18-year-old Hispanic youth in one new destination, North Carolina. Conditional on third-grade socioeconomic indicators, Hispanic youth who arrive by age 9 and remain enrolled in North Carolina public schools close achievement gaps with socioeconomically similar White students by sixth grade and exhibit significantly lower high school dropout rates. Their performance resembles that of first-generation youth in more established immigration gateways.     

Ethically challenging situations reported by school psychologists: Implications for training

Practitioner‐members of the National Association of School Psychologists (N = 208) completed questionnaires regarding their ethics training, preparedness, the types of ethical transgressions and dilemmas encountered in the previous year, and the strategies used to solve problems. Respondents who received multilevel training in ethics (ethics coursework, ethics instruction in multiple classes, ethics addressed in practicum/internship) perceived themselves to be better prepared to tackle difficult challenges and were more likely to use a systematic problem‐solving strategy when faced with an ethical dilemma than respondents who did not receive multilevel training. Assessment‐related ethical transgressions and failure to follow up on interventions were the two most commonly witnessed types of ethics code violations; troublesome dilemmas included whether to suspect child abuse, whether to tell parents about their child's risky behavior, and how to handle administrative pressure to engage in unethical actions. Implications for ethics training are discussed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

PLURALISTIC IGNORANCE REVISITED: PERCEPTION OF OPINION DISTRIBUTIONS IN ISRAEL

This study examines the phenomena of pluralistic ignorance,looking-glass perception and conservative bias across issues.Public opinion data from Israel suggest that these phenomenaare largely context and issue related. Thus for salient issuesin a highly politicized society such as Israel, people can quiteaccurately assess majority and minority opinions. Looking-glassperception and pluralistic ignorance were found to vary systematicallywith the information available on the various issues in thestudy. The level of ignorance on an issue seems also to be afunction of the shape of its distribution. Moreover, the greaterthe overlap between the majority or minority position on anissue and a clearly defined political block, the lower the looking-glassperception and ignorance levels. This suggests that the politicalcontinuum may be used as a surrogate distribution in assessingthe majority opinion when direct information is scarce. Conservativebias was shown to exist on some issues, but a ‘liberalbias’ exists on others. It is proposed that this biasmay reflect social norms rather than an individual tendencyto view others as more conservative than oneself.     

Experiences with Counselor Training in Central Europe: Voices from Student Trainees

Globalization has led to an increase in United States-influenced counseling programs the world over; however, the extent to which these training models apply to other cultures is unclear. Using a sample of master’s-level counseling students studying in the Czech Republic (n?=?5), the authors conducted a phenomenological inquiry examining the experiences of European students trained in a program developed and supervised by faculty in the United States. Three themes (and potential barriers) related to English-language training programs in Central Europe included: cultural differences between faculty and students, complications related to the notion of professional identity, and concerns related to the utility of wellness-based principles in the Czech Republic. Implications for educators include cultural adaptation of training and course material as well as reframing illness perspectives through a wellness lens.     

Re-Norming the Science–Society Relation

The ideal of bildung as a goal for higher education and research (HER) in European Union member states is losing ground to more pragmatic goals such as innovation and growth. This shift in the policy perspective about the role of science in society has given rise to a system of multi layered governance which in turn is progressively giving rise to the emergence of a new normative regime for the HER sector. This normative regime involves the blurring of boundaries between the public and the private and the introduction of social accountability as a criterion for evaluating scientific knowledge. The paper concludes that the elision of the boundary between private and public disguises real problems about defining who owns what particularly in the light of the increasing commercialisation of public funded science. Further, the limitation of social accountability to select groups of actors who can afford to pay for influencing research raises questions about the ability of the new governance regime for HER to achieve the democratic aims that it purports to pursue.