Visualizing the politics of innocence in the age of AIDS

We are concerned with the ways in which social constructions of age can contribute to reducing or exacerbating the vulnerability of young people, and for this reason we refer to the issue as one of ‘the politics of innocence’. The focus of this paper is on gender, youth and HIV prevention/AIDS awareness in the context of South Africa and investigates the uses (and abuses) of images of ‘childhood’, ‘youth’ and ‘adolescence’ in the age of AIDS. Notwithstanding the particular case of South Africa where the incidence of new cases of HIV infection amongst young people is at crisis proportions, the impetus for our work on the visual representations of youth, gender and AIDS comes out of a recognition of the increasing risk of youth to sexually transmitted infections, HIV and AIDS, and within that the particular vulnerability, worldwide, of young women.     

A Cross‐Cultural Comparison of East Asian and American Higher Education Criminal Justice Student Learning Preferences Using the VARK Questionnaire

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between learning preferences of East Asian and American higher education students. A review of the literature revealed a body of qualitative studies suggesting a stereotypical perception of an Asian learning preference influenced by cultural variables and the historical roots of Confucianism. The pedagogical implications of this stereotypical perception are obvious to faculty engaged in teaching and learning with Asian international students in America or abroad. The authors surveyed 233 higher education students from Hong Kong and America using the VARK Questionnaire. The authors used a two‐way contingency table analysis and chi‐square statistical tests to conduct their cross‐cultural comparison on their variables of interest including age, gender, and country.     

Conceptualizing Justice: Revising the Introductory Criminal Justice Course*

Criminal justice is often criticized for lacking theoretical grounding. This article argues that the introductory criminal justice course should be reconceptualized in such a way that permits a critical assessment of theoretical bases underlying crime, law and justice. Doing so would better prepare students to understand key questions in the study of criminal justice and would also help give criminal justice greater credibility as a stand‐alone academic discipline. In addition to presenting the benefits of a theory‐driven introductory course, possible content and pedagogy are described.     

Factors Influencing Military Police Officers in Their Decision in Selecting Higher Educational Institutions

The active duty personnel in the United States Armed Forces exceed 1,411,932. When combined with reserve units and auxiliary units, the number of personnel surpasses 2 million. Due to the nature of worldwide urban conflict, a great number of military personnel are subjected to, assigned to, or affiliated with some type of criminal‐justice‐related duty. These urban situations and associated policing‐type experiences have captured the interest of many active duty personnel. Countless military members are currently planning honorable discharge and re‐entry into civilian life and seeking educational degrees as a resource for access into a criminal justice career. Educational benefits for veterans offer an enormous advantage to the military personnel. On 1 August 2009, these benefits, which include tuition, books, and housing, were expanded to veterans with at least 90 days of aggregate service on or after the September 11th terrorist attacks. Little is known about this vast group of potential students and what factors play a role in their selecting a college or university. Based on a survey of over 300 active duty military personnel currently assigned to criminal justice duty, the authors were able to extract some important findings on this subject. The factors obtained include, among others, preferred type of course delivery and the importance of official statements of military support. Based on the evidence collected and analyzed, this research exposed and examined several important findings.     

Technology User Groups and Early Childhood Education: A Preliminary Study

This article presents a preliminary examination of the potential of Technology User Groups as a professional development venue for early childhood education professionals in developing operational and functional competence in using hardware and software components of a Technology toolkit. Technology user groups are composed of varying numbers of participants having an interest in technology, and are led by one or more skilled facilitators who meet with participants across time to help them acquire and demonstrate new technology skill sets. A series of these groups were conducted with seven early education professionals serving young preschool children who were at risk or who had disabilities. The impact of these technology user groups was examined using self-reports subsequent to individual participation. Specific data were collected regarding the types of technologies that had been used, and the types of classroom instructional products that had been created and implemented in classrooms using the technologies. A discussion of the value of technology user groups is presented.     

Neighborhood Science Stories: Bridging science standards and urban students’ lives

Shelter, distribution of resources, adaptation and food sources are all key topics in teaching fifth grade students ecosystems. These terms and ideas are often presented in value neutral terms in the standard science curriculum. These terms have radically different connotations in different communities. In this paper students’ fictional narrative about the community and ecosystem provide insight into how experiences in an urban community change perceptions and understandings of science content. By analysing the students’ stories, the teacher is provided with a critical lens through which to rethink the content being taught, the examples and discussions about the content and how that content is being presented in the classroom. In this example, students’ own understanding of how resources are allocated justly in society stand in contrast to the value neutral presentation of resource distribution in the standard curriculum.     

Measuring patent assessment quality—Analyzing the degree and kind of (in)consistency in patent offices’ decision making

We argue that consistent decision making in judging a patent's validity and basing this on its underlying technological quality are important elements of patent office service (“assessment”) quality. To understand which level of assessment quality patent offices (can) provide, particularly in new technological areas, we study the concordance of the European Patent Office's (EPO) granting and opposition decisions for individual patents. Using the biotechnology industry in the 1980s (an emerging patenting area then) as an example, we find no empirical evidence that the EPO provided maximal or optimal assessment quality as far as can be told from bibliographic indicators. We discuss research limitations and consequences of this first empirical analysis, and suggest ideas for refinements in future work.     

Caregiver Responsiveness During Preschool Supports Cooperation in Kindergarten: Moderation by Children’s Early Compliance

Research Findings: The current study examined how children’s parent-reported compliance at age 3 (36 months) moderated the effects of 2 dimensions of directly observed early care and education (ECE) process quality (positivity/responsivity and cognitive stimulation) during the prekindergarten year (54 months) on teacher reports of children’s classroom cooperation in the fall of kindergarten. Compliance at 36 months and cooperation in kindergarten are operationalized as overt, behavioral aspects of self-regulation as appraised by parents and teachers. The sample consisted of 996 children from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development who attended formal or informal ECE settings during the prekindergarten year. Results indicated that children with low compliance at age 3 tend to demonstrate stronger cooperation skills by kindergarten when they experience more positivity/responsivity from their ECE caregivers. Main effects of positivity/responsivity and cognitive stimulation on classroom cooperation were not detected for the overall sample. Practice or Policy: The discussion addresses the importance of preparing and empowering ECE providers to help young children who enter the preschool period struggling with behavioral aspects of self-regulation, such as compliance, to improve these skills through positive and responsive caregiving.     

俚语和成语,让你走出英语学习的黑暗

[接上期]Is Slang Only Used By The Lower Classes?“Absolutely not!”Itellmy internationalstudents. There is universal slang that is used by everyone. However, there are many subcategories of slang used by specific groups. Slang can be seen as a family tree with universal slang at the top representing words that are not only used consistently in the media, but by virtually everyone.