Assessment for self-blame and trauma symptoms during the medical evaluation of suspected sexual abuse

The purpose of this study was to describe behavioural and emotional symptoms and to examine the effect of abuse-related factors, family responses to disclosure, and child self-blame on these symptoms in children presenting for medical evaluations after disclosure of sexual abuse. A retrospective review was conducted of 501 children ages 8–17. Trauma symptoms were determined by two sets of qualitative measures. Abstracted data included gender, ethnicity, and age; severity of abuse and abuser relationship to child; child responses regarding difficulty with sleep, school, appetite/weight, sadness, or self-harm, parent belief in abuse disclosure, and abuse-specific self-blame; responses to the Trauma Symptom Checklist in Children-Alternate; and the parent's degree of belief in the child's sexual abuse disclosure. Overall, 83% of the children had at least one trauma symptom; 60% had difficulty sleeping and one-third had thoughts of self-harm. Child age and abuse severity were associated with 3 of 12 trauma symptoms, and abuse-specific self-blame was associated with 10 trauma symptoms, after controlling for other variables. The children of parents who did not completely believe the initial disclosure of abuse were twice as likely to endorse self-blame as children of parents who completely believed the initial disclosure. Screening for behavioural and emotional problems during the medical assessment of suspected sexual abuse should include assessment of self-blame and family responses to the child's disclosures. In addition, parents should be informed of the importance of believing their child during the initial disclosure of abuse and of the impact this has on the child's emotional response to the abuse.     

Surviving the Broadcast Media in Small Language Communities

Abstract

The broadcast media challenge the survival of small languages as never before. To date the result largely has been negative, since broadcast media can penetrate to the remote areas that often shelter small languages and can invade even the strongest small‐language sanctuary ‐‐ the home. Where modern media have been enlisted to serve small languages, the uses to which the small languages have been put have been mostly serious and usually educational. This emphasis on the serious overlooks the strongest attributes of most small languages: their rich individuality as repositories of local flavour and folk tradition. These could be mustered for use in broadcasting to great effect and benefit in the support of beleaguered small languages.     

Garage Demos: Using Physical Models to Illustrate Dynamic Aspects of Microscopic Biological Processes

Colorful PowerPoint presentations with detailed drawings, micrographs, and short animations have become the standard format for illustrating the fundamental features of cell biology in large introductory classes. In this essay, we describe a low-tech tool that can be included in a standard lecture to help students visualize, understand, and remember the dynamic aspects of microscopic cell biological processes. This approach involves use of common objects, including pipe insulation and a garden hose, to illustrate basic processes such as protein folding and cloning, hence the appellation “garage demos.” The demonstrations are short, minimizing displacement of course content, easy to make, and provide an avenue for increasing student–faculty interaction in a large lecture hall. Student feedback over the past 4 years has been overwhelmingly positive. In an anonymous postclass survey in 2007, 90% of the respondents rated garage demos as having been very or somewhat helpful for understanding course concepts. Direct measurements of learning gains on specific concepts illustrated by garage demos are the focus of an ongoing study.     

PROJECT LEARN: Supporting On-Campus Learning with On-Line Technologies

PROJECT LEARN (http://learn.lincoln.ac.nz) was initiated in July 1997 as an in-depth staff development activity which provided targeted academics with a team of instructional designers, graphic artists, and computer consultants to help them restructure their instruction to take advantage of the interactive capabilities of the World Wide Web (WWW). A key premise was that any resources developed would engage students in exercises that promote an active learning experience. Students interact with subject-specific material, related resources, and other students and teachers. By systematically focusing on academics teaching compulsory subjects, PROJECT LEARN staff were able to create materials which are used by the greatest number of students—thereby increasing the campus-wide impact of their work. This article includes the development model, results from implementation, and a discussion of factors which have contributed to the project’s ongoing success. It concludes with a discuss of how the implementation of PROJECT LEARN compares to the University of Twente’s Implementation Model and generalizes to other university settings.     

写作何以成为哈佛大学唯一一门必修课程——南希·萨默斯与赫明珠、于海琴的对话

写作是一种用文字和隐喻标记世界的方式,是一个引领学生批判地、深度地阅读和有效地、清晰地书写的过程,是一个让学生发现自己真正关心所在和写出自己所思所想的路径。写作课在美国高校通常是必修课,旨在培养学生的书面沟通能力和批判性思维。哈佛大学说理文写作课程创建于1872年,如今是本科生的唯一一门必修课。对话从南希·萨默斯完成的著作以及她对中国的关注开始,依次展开缘何倾情于写作教育、为何关注修订和反馈研究领域、如何创立哈佛本科生写作工程、因何设立研究生写作工作坊等话题。在对话过程中,萨默斯将所获成功归结为喜爱阅读、喜欢写作,指出学习写作是本科生学习科目的一种方式,认为写作是帮助学生确定人生方向的力量,强调写作是本科教育的核心、修订是写作的核心。另外,萨默斯还对学生写作者的修订策略、对学生写作者的反馈、工作坊中的写作伙伴、一万个小时定律、说与写的关系、写作时内心的恐惧、避免抄袭或剽窃等话题进行了阐述。     

Team processes, team conflict, team outcomes, and gender: An examination of U.S. and Mexican learning teams

Team learning is growing rapidly in popularity in United States (U.S.) and Mexican universities. This instructional approach consists of using learning teams in which participants are required to work together regularly for a semester period of time and produce evaluated team outcomes. These team outcomes, along with their individual performance, have a significant impact on each individual's final assessment. We compare team processes, team conflict, team outcomes, and gender interaction in Mexican and U.S. student teams. U.S. teams report more team-oriented behavior and more cohesiveness, and Mexican teams report more self-oriented behavior and more conflict. Nationality (United States or Mexico) has a moderating effect on the relationship between gender heterogeneity and cohesiveness and conflict. Suggestions are given for applications and future research.     

WHY DO IMMIGRANT YOUTH WHO NEVER ENROLL IN U.S. SCHOOLS MATTER? AN EXAMINATION OF SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AMONG MEXICANS AND NON-HISPANIC WHITES

Using data from the 2000 Public Use Sample of the U.S. Census, this research examines how estimates of school enrollment and school-work patterns among Mexican-origin adolescents are affected by including or excluding young immigrants who never enrolled in U.S. schools. The analysis demonstrates that a non-trivial share of adolescents who were born in Mexico almost certainly never enrolled in U.S. schools; these youth most likely migrated to the United States for work. Excluding these adolescents from analyses substantially reduces gaps in school enrollment between Mexicans and Whites and between native and foreign-born Mexicans. Excluding never-enrolled immigrant youth also changes the relationship between duration of U.S. residence and idleness among Mexican immigrant youth, revealing that additional years of residence in the United States increase the likelihood of being out of school and not working compared to in school and not working. Overall, inferences about the level of school enrollment and intra-ethnic differences in school enrollment by duration of residence depend on how those who are likely to have never enrolled in U.S. schools are treated. Inferences about interethnic differences also are affected, although they are somewhat less sensitive to this issue.     

Evidence and Warrants for Belief in a College Astronomy Course

Science educators have argued that it is insufficient to be able to recite thetheories of science and not know how knowledge claims in science are justified, what counts as evidence, or how theory and evidence interact. We wonder, however, how much students' understandings of the nature of science vary with content. This paper draws on data collected in a university astronomy course. Data include three interviews and written work from twenty students, as well as written work from the 340 students in the class. This study provides us with evidence on how students' talk and writing about the nature of science differs depending on the particular scientific topic which is under discussion. The relationship between theory and evidence, warrants for belief, and nature of observation are described in various ways in the different disciplines discussed in the course.