The roles of value predispositions,communication, and third person perception on public support for censorship of films with homosexual content

This study aims to examine the roles of value predispositions, communication, and third person perception on public support for censorship of films with homosexual content in Singapore. Findings from a nationally representative telephone survey of adults showed that the majority of Singaporeans supported stricter censorship of films with homosexual characters. Conformity to norms, intrinsic religiosity, and Asian orientation were positively associated with public support for censorship. Media exposure and perceived negative media effects on self were negatively associated with public support for censorship. Our results supported the perceptual component but not the behavioral component of the third person effect.     

A study of emotional labor in librarianship

Librarianship, like many occupations, requires emotional labor, which is an awareness of job requirements for emotional expression and the strategies used to express those emotions. Research on emotional labor suggests that performing emotional labor results in both positive and negative effects on individual outcomes, such as job satisfaction and job burnout. Since affective events are prevalent in library work and evidence suggests positive outcomes from emotional labor can be fostered, the ways emotional labor is performed in libraries should be studied. This research explores the key components of emotional labor: perceptions of display rules and the emotion regulation strategies of surface and deep acting. Data were collected from a sample of American librarians in 46 states from public, academic, special, and K–12 libraries who completed a survey. Bi-variate and multi-variate correlations, as well as ANOVAs, were used to test relationships among emotional labor constructs, job satisfaction, and job burnout. Results show evidence of significant associations with emotional labor among library employees in both the perception of display rules, as well as in surface and deep acting. Perception of display rules showed mixed results with job burnout and job satisfaction. Surface acting was found to be associated consistently with job burnout and decreased job satisfaction, while deep acting strategies were less strongly associated with negative outcomes. Findings suggest that library managers should clearly communicate display rule expectations to employees and work to build staff support to help meet those expectations. Library employees should be aware of occasions when they use surface acting and work to develop stronger deep acting techniques. The study contributes to an understanding of the influence of emotion management in the library workplace.     

Stereotypical Portrayals of Emotionality in News Photos

This research content analyzed the news photographs of a major U.S. daily newspaper to examine the emotional portrayals of individuals in different gender, age, and ethnic subgroups. A multidimensional measure of emotion (pleasure, arousal, dominance) was used. A total of 1,595 individuals were coded. The results demonstrate that emotionality was stereotyped to some degree, particularly in relation to women, ethnic minorities, and senior citizens. Specifically, African Americans were depicted as excited whereas Asian Americans were seen as calm. Women were portrayed as happy and teens were shown as sad. The results support the social construction of emotion and suggest that the news media play a role in framing and constructing emotional meaning with regard to different subgroups in American society.     

Seeing Life in their Shoes: Fostering Empathy Toward Victims of Interpersonal Violence through Five Active Learning Activities

As educators of future law enforcement and social service personnel, one of the most important objectives of faculty members within the social sciences disciplines is to foster a sense of empathy toward victims of crime among their students. Empathy toward victims of crime, and domestic abuse in particular, is vastly important as evidence suggests that the reactions survivors encounter upon disclosure influences reporting behavior to law enforcement. Moreover, evidence indicates that by fostering empathy toward domestic abuse survivors among students, social science educators can reduce the endorsement of harmful victim-blaming attitudes that these individuals may otherwise carry with them into their public service. However, despite the importance concerning teaching empathy within the classroom, a dearth of information exists—particularly in the criminal justice pedagogical literature. To address this gap, the objective of this study was to assess several active learning activities designed specifically to foster victim empathy in students. To gather feedback about how these activities affected students, we utilized standard Likert scales as well as several free response questions.     

School-wide Positive Behavior Support: Addressing Behavior Problems that Impede Student Learning

The school-wide application of positive behavior support (PBS) is a prevention-oriented approach to student discipline that is characterized by its focus on defining and teaching behavioral expectations, rewarding appropriate behaviors, continual evaluation of its effectiveness, and the integration of supports for individuals, groups, the school as a whole, and school/family/community partnerships. Although school-wide PBS has been implemented in hundreds of schools thus far, many professionals in education and psychology remain, for the most part, unfamiliar with this proactive alternative for increasing positive student behavior. This article reviews the foundations and core components of school-wide PBS, provides a case example of the implementation and preliminary evaluation of school-wide PBS in an urban middle school, and summarizes critical issues and future research directions in this area of considerable importance to professionals in educational psychology and related fields.     

Photovoice: understanding high school females’ conceptions of mathematics and learning mathematics

Photovoice is a participatory action research tool that is grounded in the literature for critical consciousness (Wang & Burris, 1997). Four creative high school girls who reported struggles with mathematics were given cameras and asked to take photographs to answer the following questions: (1) What is mathematics? (2) What is your ideal learning environment? (3) What things impede your learning of mathematics? Within-case and cross-case analyses of the photographs and interview responses were conducted. Each individual case was analyzed using the work of Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (Women’s Ways of Knowing, 1986) who investigated women’s epistemological perspectives. The girls were either silenced (disconnected from the mathematical knowledge of the teacher), received (lacked confidence to do mathematics independently), or “fragily” subjective (viewed mathematical knowledge as personal rather than imparted by the teacher) knowers of mathematics. The use of photovoice has the power to facilitate the nurturing of silence as it moves toward the “roar which is on the other side of silence” (Belenky et al., 1986, p. 4).     

Exploring How a Study Abroad and International Service-Learning Project Shaped Preservice Teachers’ Understanding of Humanizing Pedagogy

In an attempt to better prepare future teachers to fight against social injustice, support their culturally and linguistically diverse students and wrestle with social and educational complexities around the globe, many education programs have increased the number of study abroad programs and international service learning projects. In this qualitative study, we explored seven preservice teachers’ experiences related to humanizing pedagogy after participating in a study abroad program combined with an international service-learning project in a South African rural community. Analyzing multiple data sources such as interviews and reflective journals, we discovered that the preservice teachers grappled with the political, social, economic, and educational differences they encountered during the international project and wrestled with conflicting ideas and beliefs about poverty and language. They identified their relationships with students as catalysts to address these educational issues and their need to reverse systemic inequities. They built caring relationships with students in the community and developed additive perspectives the focused on the students’ community cultural capital. The preservice teachers expressed deep critical reflection and a desire to promote a more fully human educational world where students have the opportunities to enact their agency, their creativity, and their language and culture.     

STUDENT EXPERIENCES WITH MULTICULTURAL AND DIVERSITY EDUCATION

This study of 434 students enrolled at seven southern California community colleges investigated student learning experiences in courses with multicultural and diversity content. Student perceptions of (a) what was learned in courses with multicultural and diversity content, (b) feelings about themselves when learning these types of content, (c) the values learned, (d) the amount of learning achieved, (e) feelings about the teacher, and (f) desire for more courses with multicultural and diversity content were identified. Some research has demonstrated that community colleges are doing very little to provide multicultural educational experiences for students. However, to date, there have been no comprehensive studies of community college students' experiences with multicultural and diversity education. Results of this study indicated that community college students desire courses with multicultural and diversity content. Students' learning experiences are enriched when courses contain these types of content. Although women and members of minority groups are most desirous of multicultural and diversity content, White male students need the experiences. The values taught in these courses seem to enhance the understanding of differences. Although learning about gays and lesbians is problematic for some, students do want to learn more about diversity than what frequently is associated with ''culture.'' Along with multicultural content, information concerning gender, sexual orientation, ageism, classism, and disabilities should be infused into college curricula.