Preparing for re-entry; A program for the sojourning student

A visitor to a new country is assaulted by many changes, both environmental and cultural. Expecting things to be different the visitor is shocked by what he/she finds, thus the term culture shock. A second shock, possibly more traumatic, awaits the international sojourner upon his or her arrival home. The experiences of the returnee typically do not match his or her expectations. Frequently, the individual returning home is not anticipating adjustment difficulties. Compounding the problem is the fact that re-entry has not been widely recognized or researched and thus, little has been done to help individuals to prepare for it.Focusing on international students, who by definition return home, this paper refers to a wide range of social, cultural, political, educational and professional difficulties. The many variables which determine the extent of re-entry shock are identified and discussed. A group program is suggested as one strategy for assisting those about to return home. The results of a pilot study of such a program illustrate how it can be a powerful force to minimize the disorientation and shock of re-entry.This paper serves as a challenge to all those who are responsible or work with international students. Re-entry preparation is also a prerequisite if individuals, institutions, corporations, home countries and host countries are to maximize the benefits and minimize the problems of studying or working abroad.     

Comparison of individual factors in school psychology graduate students: Why do students pursue a degree in school psychology?

The purpose of this study was to investigate what factors influenced students to enter the field of school psychology. Although numerous studies have documented the thoughts and perspectives of practitioners regarding why they have chosen to become school psychologists, attempts to recruit and retain an adequate number of school psychology practitioners and researchers have shown limited success. A national sample of 307 school psychology graduate students responded to a survey designed to measure issues related to the current state of professional practice, the influence of parental education, and professional organization recruitment. Results indicated that working with children and personal experiences within the school system were highly related to participant's decisions to become school psychologists. In addition, doctoral level and nondoctoral level students present similar reasons for entering the field. This research is discussed in terms of its implications for future research and the current shortage of school psychology practitioners and faculty. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 865–872, 2007.     

Aspiring Teachers and Urban Education Programs

The Urban Review - Research stresses a need for more contextually nuanced urban teacher preparation programs that explore racially oppressive structures in society. This article presents a case...     

Exploring Division-I Student-Athletes’ Memorable Messages From Their Anticipatory Socialization

This study explored the socialization of 118 Division-I student-athletes via the topics of memorable messages that they received prior to their arrival on campus. Ten topics were identified (i.e., desirable attitudes, hard work, physical skill or ability, opportunities, pride, inclusion, challenges, athletes as symbols, the importance of education, and the duration of college athletics) using first cycle coding and were subsequently categorized as either addressing the characteristics or experiences of collegiate student-athletes using second cycle coding. These findings continue to demonstrate that characteristics and experiences associated with roles are prevalent within athletes’ memorable messages but also highlight the inherent ambiguity and the contradictions regarding how to use these messages and balance the dual roles of being a student-athlete. This study provides a novel communicative lens for understanding athlete socialization but underscores the need to recognize receivers’ processing and application of memorable messages.     

Potentiation and overshadowing between landmarks and environmental geometric cues

Rats were required in three experiments to find one of two submerged platforms that were situated in the same pair of diagonally opposite corners of a rectangular grey swimming pool. The experimental groups were trained with landmarks, comprising A4 cards attached to the walls, located in the corners containing the platforms. For the control groups, the landmarks were situated in the corners containing the platforms for half of the trials, and in the other corners for the remaining trials. Learning about the positions of the platforms with reference to the shape of the pool was overshadowed in the experimental groups when the landmarks were white, and enhanced when the landmarks were black. A fourth experiment assessed whether geometric cues influenced the control acquired by the landmarks. As in the previous experiments, the presence of the geometric cues overshadowed learning about the landmarks when they were white, but enhanced learning when the landmarks were black.     

Matters of Form: Questions of Race,Identity, Design,and the U.S. Census

This case examines how functionalist approaches manifest culturally based on users’ contexts. The authors conduct a critical visual semiotic analysis of the race and Hispanic origin questions on the 2010 U.S. Census form, demonstrating how incongruities in design potentially harm people. This demonstrates a need for adding critical analyses to design and research and it refocuses the Society for Technical Communication’s value of promoting the public good on to design and documentation in order to fight injustice.     

Counselor Educators' Experiences Preparing Preservice School Counselors: A Phenomenological Study

The authors conducted a phenomenological study to explore the experiences of 32 school counselor educators preparing preservice school counselors. Analysis of data from 3 focus groups revealed 3 themes: breadth versus depth, balancing specialties and professor partiality, and preparation versus practice. These results highlight the need for collaboration across counseling specialties at the preservice level.     

Role of extracurricular activities in the promotion of cross-race contact by white students from high school to college

A series of school extracurricular activities and types of personal, informal interactions were developed to reflect the various types of interracial contact situations defined by Gordon Allport inThe Nature of Prejudice. These were used to determine whether cross-race contact through participation in extracurricular activities in high school could be used to predict cross-race contact at the university. Canonical correlations indicted that, for whites, frequency of cross-race contact while in high school is a predictor of frequent cross-race contact at the university. Additionally, those who gain experience in cross-racial situations through participation in Supportive Norm or Cooperative Interdependent activities in high school are likely to engage in Equal Status forms of contact at the University.This article is based on a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, 1982.     

Influence of conspecific and predatory Stressors and their associated odors on defensive burying and freezing responses

In Experiment 1, male rats were exposed to either aggressive (i.e., alpha) or nonaggressive conspecific colonies and tested 24 h later, with or without alpha odors, for freezing behavior and burying of a wall prod that had been the source of a brief electric shock. The results indicated that prior defeat experience and the presence of alpha odors alone during testing had no significant effects, but the combination of prior defeat and alpha-odor testing significantly decreased burying and increased freezing behavior. In Experiment 2, we examined the effects of noncontact exposure to a cat, as a predatory Stressor, during subsequent prod-shock tests involving the presence or absence of cat odors. Exposure to a cat failed to disrupt later prod burying and did not produce freezing. However, the presence of cat odors during testing significantly reduced the amount of defensive burying,without resulting in an increment in freezing. In Experiment 3, rats were given 1, 5, or 30 inescapable preshocks in the presence of either cat odors or a hedonically neutral citronella odor and were tested 24 h later for prod burying and freezing with or without these odors. Both the cat and the citronella odors resulted in a significant reduction in burying and an increase in freezing for rats given 5 and 30 preshocks and tested in the presence of these respective conditioned odors. For the groups that were given 5 preshocks, preshock and later testing in the presence of cat odors resulted in significantly less prod burying and more freezing than for rats that were preshocked and tested in the presence of citronella. The findings of these three ethoexperimental studies are discussed in terms of the learned-helplessness theory, the stress-coping-fear-defense (SCFD) theory, and the concept of selective CS-US associability.