What Should We Teach Children About Forgiveness?

The Primary and Secondary Handbooks on the National Curriculum for England state that children ‘should learn how to forgive themselves and others’. But what is involved in forgiveness? It is suggested that there is a strict view, which is shown to involve some ethically questionable attitudes, and a more relaxed view. Schools, it is suggested, need to introduce their students to an understanding of the complexities of these notions of forgiveness and other possible attitudes to wrongdoers. In the life and organisation of the school, however, it is argued that the more generous‐spirited attitude should prevail.     

Communicating Prevention: The Effects of the keepin' it REAL Classroom Videotapes and Televised PSAs on Middle-School Students' Substance Use

This study sought to determine if exposure to two communication-oriented activities, videotapes and public service announcements, accounts for changes in substance use among adolescents participating in the Drug Resistance Strategies Project's keepin' it REAL adolescent substance use prevention curriculum. Middle-school students (4,734, 72% Latino) responded to questionnaires related to these analyses. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) model was fit separately to six substance use outcomes. The results suggested that intervention students who saw four or five videos engaged in less substance use in the past month than did students who saw fewer videos. Having seen the PSAs one or more times did not predict the reported change in substance use.     

Diversity on U.S. Public and Commercial TV in Authorial and Executive-Produced Social-Issue Documentaries

Where are diverse makers and subjects most likely to be found in U.S. TV documentary? This study compares commercial and public TV series, and also anthology formats (“authorial” series) and executive-produced formats. A content analysis for characters and makers showed that public TV authorial series are more diverse than either commercial or other public TV series. Independent documentaries have diversity value both in commercial and public TV settings.     

Cultivating communities of care: A qualitative investigation of the communication of support among incarcerated women

In 2014, a female-only detention and re-entry facility was restructured to implement new rehabilitative philosophies rooted in strategies to prepare incarcerated women for successful transition into society. A specialized housing unit called incentive-based housing (IBH) was created within this facility to promote an environment of accountability and responsibility. Here, women are expected to be proactive in seeking and achieving successes through programming, all while offering support to one another. In this study, participant observations and interviews were used to understand how 12 incarcerated women living in IBH communicate support. This qualitative study revealed three forms of support being communicated: (a) accountability, (b) validation, and (c) compassion. This study also revealed forms of communication that complicate support, including (a) drama and (b) rivalry. Communication of support is important to consider as we devise new approaches to rehabilitation within America’s criminal justice system.     

Community College Counseling: Why Are Research Outcomes So Elusive?

This article focuses on counseling research in the community college context. The article suggests the need for a robust community college knowledge base, describes some limitations of the current community college literature, and suggests a framework for more effective work in this area. The authors’ own experiences and selected examples of published studies are used as illustrations of the hurdles encountered and solutions available when examining counseling theories, practices, and outcomes in 2‐year settings.     

Commemorative places,political spaces: Virginia Indians,the Jamestown Quadricentennial,and the quest for sovereignty

ABSTRACT

This essay examines the cross-cultural communication strategies deployed by a coalition of indigenous tribes in Virginia to leverage the Quadricentennial commemoration of the founding at Jamestown in support of their sovereignty campaign. The tensions between Jamestown’s mythos as the “birthplace of democracy” and the natives’ historical and contemporary lived experiences, combined with the national and international attention focused on the events, constructed the 400th anniversary “celebrations” as a compelling location for social action. The coalition employed intercultural communicative practices—particularly cross-cultural dialogue and negotiation—as means of mobilizing these tensions to renegotiate their relationship with the federal government, illustrating the intersection of intercultural communication, memory, and identity.     

A systematic review and meta‐analysis of the effectiveness of information and communication technology (ICT) on the teaching of spelling

Recent Government policy in England and Wales on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in schools is heavily influenced by a series of non‐randomised controlled studies. The evidence from these evaluations is equivocal with respect to the effect of ICT on literacy. In order to ascertain whether there is any effect of ICT on one small area of literacy, spelling, a systematic review of all randomised controlled trials (RCTs) was undertaken. Relevant electronic databases (including BEI, ERIC, Web of Science, PsycINFO, The Cochrane Library) were searched. Seven relevant RCTs were identified and included in the review. When six of the seven studies were pooled in a meta‐analysis there was an effect, not statistically significant, in favour of computer interventions (Effect size = 0.37, 95% confidence interval =–0.02 to 0.77, p = 0.06). Sensitivity and sub‐group analyses of the results did not materially alter findings. This review suggests that the teaching of spelling by using computer software may be as effective as conventional teaching of spelling, although the possibility of computer‐taught spelling being inferior or superior cannot be confidently excluded due to the relatively small sample sizes of the identified studies. Ideally, large pragmatic randomised controlled trials need to be undertaken.