Precursors to probation and parole agent intent to send informational,emotional, and esteem social support messages to female clients

Supervising agents serve as sources of social support for over one million women in the US on probation and parole who strive to avoid recidivism. Little is known about the supportive messages agents intend to provide their female clients or their precursors. The optimal matching model of social support is used in an investigation of the precursors to agents’ intent to send different types of social support messages to the women they supervise. Results indicated that supervising agents intended to provide informational support in the form of suggestions or advice, esteem support in the form of compliments, and emotional support in the form of encouragement to the women. Both agent communication pattern and offender level variables were precursors to the intent to send informational support messages, but only agent communication pattern variables predicted the intent to send emotional support messages.     

SEGREGATION AND CIVIC VIRTUE

In this essay Michael Merry defends the following prima facie argument: that civic virtue is not dependent on integration and in fact may be best fostered under conditions of segregation. He demonstrates that civic virtue can and does take place under conditions of involuntary segregation, but that voluntary separation—as a response to segregation—is a more effective way to facilitate it. While segregation and disadvantage commonly coexist, spatial concentrations, particularly when there is a strong voluntary aspect present, often aid in fostering civic virtue. Accordingly, so long as separation provides the conditions necessary for the promotion of civic virtue, integration is not an irreducible good.     

An exploration of female offenders’ memorable messages from probation and parole officers on the self-assessment of behavior from a control theory perspective

Guided by control theory, this study examines memorable messages that women on probation and parole receive from their probation and parole agents. Women interviewed for the study were asked to report a memorable message they received from an agent, and to describe situations if/when the message came to mind in three contexts likely to emerge from a control theory perspective: when they did something of which they were proud, when they stopped themselves from doing something they would later regret, and when they did something of which they were not proud. The types of memorable messages and the reactions to these messages within the three contexts were coded, and differences between women on probation versus parole were examined. Overall, a greater proportion of women on parole recalled memorable messages, and the most frequently reported type of memorable message was behavioral advice. Women reported that the message helped them do things of which they were proud, such as engaging in routine activities and fulfilling goals; helped them to not give into urges that could lead to further negative sanctions or feelings of regret; and came to mind when they relapsed. Practical implications of the findings for training are presented.     

Is the liberal defense of public schools a fantasy?

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we offer a Leftist critique of standard liberal defenses of the public school. We suggest that the standard arguments employed by mainstream liberal defenders of the public school are generally inadequate because they fail to provide a credible representation of their historical object, let alone effective remedies to our current problems. Indeed, many of these narratives, in our view, are grounded in fantasies about what public schools, or teaching and learning, are or could be, as much as they are grounded in the historical realities of public schools or the realities of so-called privatization. We speculate whether the self-identification of the proponents of this cause as ‘progressive’ is not part of this ideological construction and if the underlying political agenda is not in fact more conservative.     

What's got two heads and no nose? Young British and Chinese children's representations of unreality

In this study, two samples of 4‐year‐old Chinese children were given two drawing tasks, one very familiar task and one novel and challenging task. The first sample was drawn from a nursery that taught art in a similar way to that widely used in the West, with an emphasis on individual expression. The second sample was from a nursery where drawing was taught explicitly and directly in the traditional Chinese way. Results were compared between the two groups and with a British sample given the same task. Some very significant differences were found with both tasks, and these are discussed in the context of different ideas about young children's drawing and art education.     

Strategic Communication during Marital Relationship Dissolution: Disengagement Resistance Strategies

This study investigated the communication strategies used by divorced individuals who did not wish their marriages to end (non-initiators). Participants were 270 divorced persons drawn from divorce recovery and support groups as well as network sampling. An adaptation of Buss's (1988 Buss , D. M. ( 1988 ). From vigilance to violence: Tactics of mate retention in American undergraduates . Ethology and Sociobiology , 9 , 291 – 317 . [CROSSREF] [CSA] [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) taxonomy of partner retention tactics served to capture the communication strategies of non-initiators during marital dissolution. A factor analysis revealed that four disengagement resistance strategies—commitment, alignment, negativity, and harm—are used by non-initiators during the process of marital dissolution.     

The importance of self-assessment in students’ use of tutors’ feedback: a qualitative study of high and non-high achieving biology undergraduates

Little is known as to how students process tutor feedback. In this study, 36 final-year biological sciences undergraduate students from four higher education institutions took part in interviews or focus groups. Students were assigned according to tutors’ judgements as being either high achieving or non-high achieving, and focus groups consisted of a single student type. A thematic approach was used to analyse the interview data. There were overall major differences in how both types of students processed tutor feedback. These differences concerned primarily three areas: (1) self-assessment, (2) the role of external regulation and (3) the role of peer discussion. The findings are discussed in terms of dispositions to learning and conceptions of learning. It is concluded that guidance to students regarding their use of feedback needs to be designed with respect to encouraging the development of students’ self-assessment practices.