Gender Differences in Self-Perceptions and Academic Outcomes: A Study of African American High School Students

There is increasing divergence in the academic outcomes of African American males and females. By most accounts, males are falling behind their female peers educationally as African American females are graduating from high schools at higher rates and are going on to college and graduate school in greater numbers. Some have suggested that school completion and performance is associated with how students feel about themselves. The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences in the relationship between self-perceptions and 2 academic outcomes among a sample of 243 African American high school sophomores. The results suggest that, overall, females are more favorably oriented toward high school completion. Both male and female students with more positive self-perceptions have stronger intentions to complete the current year of high school. Higher grade point averages were more strongly associated with greater self-efficacy for females than for males. Given these findings, increased attention to educational programming, societal messages, and future research is warranted.     

The lost generation: How the government and non-governmental organizations are protecting the rights of orphans in Uganda

Millions of Ugandan children have become orphaned over the last two decades, the primary cause being the increasing HIV/AIDS epidemic. This phenomenon has prompted the government to institute numerous legal reforms. These internal reforms, implemented in a legal environment based on English common law and increasingly, international standards, greatly influence the legal inheritance rights of Ugandan orphans and their chances for prosperity. In many regions, however, the traditional local mores trump both national and global standards, meaning that while Ugandan parents may own appreciable property upon death, their children rarely receive it, but rather fall victim to “property grabbing” or mismanagement by relatives. The key impediments to solving this problem and to Uganda’s adoption of a more egalitarian system of inheritance include the ineffectiveness of local councils, the inadequate enforcement of the Children Stature, and the heavily centralized and cumbersome structure of the national government. Therefore, significant reforms are needed, including the pronouncement of a national policy regarding orphans, the reduction of national reliance on NGOs, and the restoration of a national legislative effort to codify orphans’ property rights.     

‘Politics’ and Academic Feminist Theorising: Reflections on Women's Studies in Asia

When invited by the organisers of the Asia-Pacific Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) Beijing+10 Forum to make a brief presentation on the question of academic feminists and the de-politicisation of feminist theorising, I asked myself: What politics? What feminist theorising? Then I remembered how close the links were between the history of feminism in academe—particularly in the form of Women's Studies—and the women's movement.2 Vina Mazumdar, ‘Whose Past, Whose History, Whose Tradition? Indigenising Women's Studies in India’, paper prepared for the International Conference on Women's Studies in Asia, Seoul, 18–21 October 2000 published in Asian Journal of Women's Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, 2001, pp. 133–53; Carol Sobritchea, ‘Imaging the Future of Asian Women's Studies and Feminist Scholarship’, paper prepared for the International Conference on Women's Studies in Asia, Seoul, 18–21 October 2000; and Tita Marlita and E. Kristi Poerwandari, ‘Indonesian Women's Movement throughout History: 1928–1965’, paper prepared for the International Conference on Women's Studies in Asia, Seoul, 18–21 October 2000, are recent narratives of the development of Women's Studies and its ties to the women's movement in India, the Philippines, and Indonesia, respectively. View all notes Ah, that politics!     

A Dull Academic Meeting on Research? That's What You Think!

Negotiation Journal -     

What Difference Does a Robe Make? Comparing Mediators with and without Prior Judicial Experience

This article reports the results of two studies. The first study, based on the responses of attorneys to questions about the reasons for the success of mediators with and without prior judicial experience, shows that the capacity of the mediator to gain the confidence of the disputants was most important for mediators with and without prior judicial experience. Although certain process skills were viewed as important to the success of both former judges and nonjudges, in general, process skills were significantly more important for nonjudges than for former judges. The capacity to provide useful case evaluations, on the other hand, was significantly more important for former judges than for nonjudges. The second study, based upon attorney responses to questions about unsatisfactory mediators, reinforced the conclusions of the first study regarding the importance of confidence-building attributes. For both judges and nonjudges, the mediator's inability to gain the confidence of the parties was a major reason for his or her lack of success.     

Decomposition Rate and Pattern in Hanging Pigs

Accurate prediction of the postmortem interval requires an understanding of the decomposition process and the factors acting upon it. A controlled experiment, over 60 days at an outdoor site in the northwest of England, used 20 freshly killed pigs (Sus scrofa) as human analogues to study decomposition rate and pattern. Ten pigs were hung off the ground and ten placed on the surface. Observed differences in the decomposition pattern required a new decomposition scoring scale to be produced for the hanging pigs to enable comparisons with the surface pigs. The difference in the rate of decomposition between hanging and surface pigs was statistically significant (p = 0.001). Hanging pigs reached advanced decomposition stages sooner, but lagged behind during the early stages. This delay is believed to result from lower variety and quantity of insects, due to restricted beetle access to the aerial carcass, and/or writhing maggots falling from the carcass.