From Active Learning to Taking Action: Incorporating Political Context Into Project-Based,Interdisciplinary, International Service Learning Courses

Educational approaches that enable students to actively and directly participate in “real-world” projects are increasingly recognized as valuable pedagogical tools and, as such, being incorporated into university curriculums worldwide. Though not traditionally associated with political science courses, project-based international service learning presents a tremendous opportunity to bring classroom concepts and theories to life, provide an active approach to addressing international challenges, and assist students in the development of the hands-on, problem-solving, team-based, critical-thinking skills that are increasingly important to employers across all sectors. This article seeks to encourage political science faculty to incorporate international service learning—and/or project-based approaches—into their educational offerings. Through examination of the course Global Synthesis in Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies at California Polytechnic State University, we have identified multiple factors that can help promote successful execution of project-based international service learning as a pedagogical tool, and provide additional suggestions for faculty interested in adopting specific aspects of these educational approaches, and/or in doing so closer to home.     

“Violence is everywhere!” An analysis of children's narratives on violence

Exposure to violence is a threat to the health and well-being of society, especially for children. Previous research on youth exposure to violence has focused primarily on the implications for victims or the treatment of the offenders. While some research has concentrated on the lived experience of the children subjected to violence, it has generally been defined within a specific domain such as domestic violence or bullying. Using student essays available from the “Do the Write Thing” (DtWT) Challenge, this research explored significant issues of violence as experienced by middle school children in southeast Texas. This research used a thematic approach for a qualitative analysis of 132 essays submitted during the 2015 school year. Essays were coded and categorized to identify major themes of how children describe their experience of violence and assign meaning to violence in their lives. Several themes within three domains (cognitive, social and moral) arose including the pervasiveness of violence, feelings of helplessness, and violence as “wrong.” Results indicate that students wrote most about personal experiences and how violence permeates their daily lives. Implications for practice and services to children are discussed.     

Recent developments in medicine and law

This article addresses important developments in the field of medicine and law during the period of September 2000 through August 2001. It does not discuss every reported case or piece of legislation but surveys some of the more significant developments in the medicine and law arena.     

‘As if she was my own child’: cohabitation,community, and the English criminal courts, 1855–1900

This essay uses evidence from 217 violence cases between cohabiting couples to investigate the reaction of neighbors to irregular relationships. Ostracism was rare as long as the couples did not flaunt their status, for a number of reasons. First, working-class families lived in tenements and row housing that promoted cooperation for survival. Second, women preferred to live near their kin, and families were less disapproving, as they knew the reason for the cohabitation. Third, neighbors often stepped in to fulfill familial roles if kin were absent, encouraging both sisterly and motherly bonds in particular. Fourth, both men and women intervened, though in different ways. Men's participation was especially facilitated by their use of public houses, which was a liminal space that permitted freer discussion of men's personal lives. Fourth, neighborhood values delineated the ‘blame’ for problem families carefully; both men and women could face disapproval for flouting gender norms. Overall, neighbors parsed the reasons for cohabitation, the harm done by the couple to others, and whether the couple was disruptive in other ways before accepting or rejecting cohabitants in their midst. Indeed, drunkenness and violence was more of a problem than sexual nonconformity in most of these cases.     

Housing instability is as strong a predictor of poor health outcomes as level of danger in an abusive relationship: findings from the SHARE Study

Advocates, clinicians, policy makers, and survivors frequently cite intimate partner violence (IPV) as an immediate cause of or precursor to housing problems. Research has indicated an association between homelessness and IPV, yet few studies examine IPV and housing instability. Housing instability differs from homelessness, in that someone experiencing housing instability may currently have a place to live but faces difficulties with maintaining the residence. We present baseline findings from a longitudinal cohort study of 278 female IPV survivors with housing as a primary concern. Our analysis indicates the greater the number of housing instability risk factors (e.g., eviction notice, problems with landlord, moving multiple times), the more likely the abused woman reported symptoms consistent with PTSD (p < .001), depression (p < .001), reduced quality of life (p < .001), increased work/school absence (OR = 1.28, p < .004), and increased hospital/emergency department use (OR = 1.22, p < .001). These outcomes persist even when controlling for the level of danger in the abusive relationship and for survivors' drug and alcohol use. Importantly, both housing instability and danger level had stronger associations with negative health outcomes than other factors such as age, alcohol, and drug use; both make unique contributions to negative health outcomes and could contribute in different ways. Housing instability is an important and understudied social determinant of health for IPV survivors. These findings begin to address the literature gap on the relationship between housing instability, IPV, and survivors' health, employment, and utilization of medical care services.     

A Psychoecological Model of Academic Performance Among Hispanic Adolescents

Although the number of students who complete high school continues to rise, dramatic differences in school success remain across racial/ethnic groups. The current study addressed Hispanic adolescents’ academic performance by investigating the relationships of parental involvement, culturally responsive teaching, sense of school belonging, and academic self-efficacy and academic performance. Participants were 478 (51.5% female) Hispanic 7th graders in the US-Mexico borderlands. Based on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, a structural model was tested. Results showed that the proposed model was supported by demonstrating significant indirect effects of parental involvement, culturally responsive teaching, and sense of school belonging on academic performance. Furthermore, academic self-efficacy was found to mediate the relationships between parental involvement, culturally responsive teaching, and sense of school belonging and academic performance. The current study provides a useful psychoecological model to inform educators and psychologists who seek to meet the needs of Hispanic students.     

Mental health courts: serving justice and promoting recovery

This article begins and ends with a call for more empirical research to understand the connection between societal views of mental illness and the legal system. The author asserts that changing social perceptions of mental illness certainly affect legal outcomes and commitment levels, but the degree remains unknown. This article explores the above two topics through the framework of the Circuit Court 'split' regarding the Constitutional rights of persons committed to state mental health institutions. A main facet of the 'split' is centered on the Circuits' disagreement about whether or not all mentally ill patients committed to institutions deserve the same Constitutional protections.     

‘Not always logical’: binational/biracial marriages in Britain, 1900–1940

ABSTRACT

This essay explores the intersection of race, religion, and nationality in marriage by concentrating on unions between Britons and ‘Arabs’ (those from North Africa and the Middle East) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Focusing on this area, most of which was not in the British Empire, allows an analysis of the intersection between the empire and the larger world. Marriage was a nexus in the intertwined prejudices of race, empire, class, and religion. Though the British primarily blamed polygamy for any marital problems, their own gendered law of nationality was equally at fault. Indeed, the centrality of gender was clearest in three circumstances. First, many women refused to be ‘white women in peril,’ instead exercising agency in their relationships. Second, British men who moved to the Middle East, converted to Islam, and married Muslim women, became legal hybrids who struggled to pass on British nationality to their wives and children. Third, British-born women married to Middle Eastern Christians faced similar problems, despite marrying other monogamists. In the 1930s, the British government formed a committee to address these issues, but the committee failed to find solutions, in part because the members, like the British state, supported racial/national coverture for women and thus refused to consider granting women equal rights in nationality. As a result, women married to men of different races and nations remained vulnerable to desertion and divorce in the interwar period. Such issues both confirmed the importance of an imperial frame of mind, but also the fact that the dilemmas went well beyond the formal empire.