Examining the effects of news coverage linking undocumented immigrants with criminality: Policy and punitive implications

Although research suggests that there is no meaningful real-world connection between crime rates and undocumented immigrants, media coverage of this group almost exclusively portrays them as criminals. The present two-study investigation experimentally tests the effects of exposure to crime news depicting undocumented immigrant suspects on White viewers’ social judgments. To this end, assumptions from social identity theory were applied to research and theorizing on mediated intergroup threat and compound penalties for immigrant criminality. Results from Study 1 and Study 2 indicate that when White viewers are exposed to threatening crime news featuring undocumented immigrants, out-group bias emerges in the form of harsher sentencing. In Study 1, when exposed to highly threatening coverage, attitudes toward immigration and in-group identification partially mediated and moderated this relationship, respectively.     

General Motion Pictures

Dana H. Hodgdon and Stuart M. Kaminsky BASIC FILMMAKING (New York: Arco Publishing, 1982—$12.95/$7.95)

Stewart Bronfeld WRITING FOR FILM AND TELEVISION (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981—$11.95)

Leonard Maltin TV MOVIES (New York: New American Library, 1982— $4.95)

Alan Frank THE HORROR FILM HANDBOOK (Totowa, NJ: Barnes E. Noble Books, 1982—$24.95)

Richard Dyer MacCann and Jack C. Ellis CINEMA EXAMINED: SELECTIONS FROM CINEMA JOURNAL (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1982—$9.95 paper)     

INTERGENERATIONAL DAYCARE AND PRESCHOOLERS' ATTITUDES ABOUT AGING

The evidence that intergenerational contact influences children's attitudes about the elderly or aging, in either a positive or negative manner, is mixed. In an attempt to shed light on this issue, perceptions of the elderly were assessed for 33 3-to 5- year-old children enrolled in either an intergenerational daycare program or a daycare program without an intergenerational curriculum. The Children's Attitudes Toward the Elderly (CATE) and a measure of perceived ability to participate in activities (Activity Scale) were used to examine the influence of an intergenerational daycare program on preschool children's attitudes. Program-related differences in attitudes about aging or the elderly were expected, but, overall, the two groups were very similar. In general, children rated older adults less positively than they did younger adults, and they believed that older adults could participate in fewer activities than children could. Longitudinal studies of intergenerational programs, especially programs with an aging education curriculum, are needed to further illuminate the effects of intergenerational contact on children's attitudes.     

Metacognition and Middle Grade Mathematics Teachers: Supporting Productive Struggle

Communicating mathematical ideas through writing, listening, and verbalizing allows students to think about how they “think” about mathematics. By focusing this communication on a reflection of how one thinks about mathematics, metacognitive writing engages students as mathematicians and learners. In this article we describe a professional development that we implemented with middle grade mathematics teachers focused on metacognitive writing as a tool to support productive struggle in the mathematics classroom. Thus, this practitioner article adds to the knowledge base on how to develop middle grade teachers metacognitive writing through engagement in productive struggle. Recommendations for practice are included.     

Concept maps as assessment in science inquiry learning - a report of methodology

Increasing availability of technologies, such as CD ROMs and the World Wide Web, in schools means that more teachers will have the potential to implement student-centred, inquiry-based approaches to learning. Assessing what each student knows in a broad subject area, such as science, is difficult. Assessing students' understanding in circumstances where each student may pursue different topics of study, where there is no way to predict in advance what those topics of study will be and where the possible topics of study include natural phenomena which are only beginning to be studied by professional scientists, is even more difficult. The authors recently faced such a challenge. To meet the challenge, the authors chose to assess student learning using an open-ended concept map activity combined with a rubric which extracts quantitative information about the quality of understanding from each map. This article describes the method the authors developed, including tests of reliability and validity.     

The ethics of polyvocal ethnography: empowering vs. textualizing children and teachers

Polyvocal approaches allow researchers and informants to interact on a more equal footing and informants’ voices to be heard in the final text. But research methods intended to empower informants also can be a source of unanticipated authorial power ‐ the power to confront informants with unsolicited self‐reflections and to textualize people's lives and words. The authors reflect on those ethical dilemmas in this article.     

Decreased Self-Reported Cognitive Failures after Memory Training

In recent years, attention has been focused on investigating the effectiveness of composite memory intervention programs with different age and diagnostics groups. The goal of this study was to measure changes in cognitive lapses by Cognitive Failure Questionnaire (CFQ) in a large trained, dementia free group (Mini-Mental State Examination [MMSE] > 26). The CFQ was administrated to older adults before training (Wave 1), after training (Wave 2), and in a six-month follow-up (Wave 3) to an experimental (N = 77; memory training) and control sample (N = 78, no intervention). Significant changes in subjective cognitive functioning in the experimental group and a plateau curve in the control group were observed. The results indicate support for the efficiency of a large memory-training group in promoting subjective cognitive functioning.     

On building a web-based university

This paper describes some of the principles for building a freely available web-based university with open content. The ＂tutor-web＂ is an international project for web-assisted education, including such free and open access. This project was initiated by the University of Iceland in partnership with many universities around the world, among them the University of Craiova, Romania. The aim of this paper is to present this project, to point out its specificity and to arouse interest for collaboration in the project, which uses http：//tutor-web.net as the home location.     

A multifaceted approach to teacher induction

The purpose of this study was to determine the implementation and effectiveness of the components of two middle school induction programs through the perceptions of three participant groups – new teachers, mentor teachers, and principals. Effectiveness was defined as a systematic processes embedded in a healthy school climate that met new teachers' personal and professional needs. Data indicated that each element of the induction program – principal and new teacher interaction; mentor teachers; collaborative structures; professional development; and new teacher orientation – met different needs of the new teacher. This multifaceted approach appeared to effectively support new teachers.     

The Bat'a Company in Zlín: a shoe company or a school company?

The first part of the study focuses on the characteristics and analysis of Zlín as an example of a company town. Life in the company town is characterised as a means of forming ‘a new man’ in Bat'a’s Zlín. The second section analyses the aims of worker education in Bat'a’s Zlín (in the so-called Bat'a school of work) and highlights the methods and conditions of education for young men and women, focusing on the area of company education. The third part deals with the question of rationalisation (or scientific management) – an extended concept in the production, social and economic areas of interwar Czechoslovakia – in the context of Bat'a’s Zlín. Attention is given to the technocratic movement and to the problems of psycho-technology and its application in the production process and employee selection in the Bat'a Company.