Preferential Treatment, Social Justice, and the Part-time Law Student – The Case for the Value-added Part-time Law Degree

There has been growing pressure to increase diversity in legal education and the legal profession in England and Wales. While this has focused upon the absence of certain groups such as women, ethnic minorities, and the disabled, there has been no specific discussion of part-time law students. Drawing on questionnaires and focus groups with part-time law students across England and Wales, this article examines how their background and experiences may hamper their ability to participate and succeed in higher education and legal practice. In response to the consistent omission of part-time students' needs from attempts to enhance social diversity in universities and the legal profession, it also argues that affirmative action is now necessary and justified in respect of these students. Pragmatic suggestions are made for a contextual approach to affirmative action for part-time law students which adds value to their degree. Finally, the potential effects of affirmative action on part-time law students themselves and upon the gatekeepers to the legal profession are explored.     

跨语言和文化教学研究--在全球化背景下教育亚洲法律专业学生所面临的挑战

在过去的十年里,亚洲赴澳大利亚接受高等教育的学生人数几乎翻了一番.对于澳大利亚法律教育工作者来说,所面临的挑战是如何精心设计课程、讲授课程,使学生通过学习这些课程,掌握一些处理涉及全球复杂法律问题的方法;教师在讲课时如何尽可能地注意所讲课程的相关度,使学生获益最大.这就要求设计者采用多学科的、国际化的方法来设计课程.本文试图从教育工作者的视角,分析这些挑战,并通过教学中的两个实例,来探讨向亚洲学生讲授法律课程的教学方法,指出存在的问题,提出改进措施.     

Dental Age Estimation: A Test of the Reliability of Correctly Identifying a Subject Over 18 Years of Age Using the Gold Standard of Chronological Age as the Comparator

This study was designed to test the reliability of using the third molars to demarcate between child and adult status. A total of 2000 dental panoramic tomographs were used for assessment of the calculated age using the 8‐stage system of tooth development and applied to all four third molars. The LL8 was also assessed using this 8‐stage system. For each tooth development stage, the Normal distribution and percentile summary data were estimated. The calculated dental age compared with the chronological age was statistically significantly different (p < 0.001) for both females and males giving underestimates of the true age. Comparison of single tooth dental age and chronological age was only slightly different. The most important finding is that the assignment to above or below the 18‐year threshold, in the age range 17 years to 19 years, could be wrong on up to 50% of occasions.     

The history of urban fiscal politics in America, 1830-1930: what was supposed to be versus what was and the difference it makes

Across the social sciences in America analysts routinely employ the so-called “functional“ model of the urban political machine in their explanations of the development of American urban government. They do so, however, with little knowledge of the intellectual history of this model or the actual history of American urban politics. This essay reviews the development and spread of the functional model through the social sciences and argues that it is an historical construct developed in the nineteen fifties by analysts who were admittedly more interested in creating a “usable past” for liberal political economy than in understanding urban political history. Having done this the essay then reviews recent work by urban historians and sociologists which have put the propositions of this model to the test in its ideological, political, and fiscal contexts for the years from 1830-1930. This work reveals that the image of the “all-powerful” political machines is demonstrably false. On this basis the essay argues that the persistence of this image has led to a unrealistic historical standard against which contemporary urban public administration has been unfairly judged.     

Simulating transfer and persistence of a chemical marker powder for Lycopodium clavatum spores

In this research a chemical marker powder, based on Lycopodium clavatum spores, was studied to determine its transfer and persistence on a T-shirt. Such chemical marker powders are used to provide evidence that a person has handled a covertly marked object, such as a drug package. The powder was found to transfer readily between a marked item and the person handling it. The powder was found to persist on a T-shirt for up to 13 h; however, there was only a very small amount of powder remaining at this time. The rate of loss of the L. clavatum spores was found to follow a decay curve. The largest decrease in spores from the T-shirt was seen in the first 2 h after the marked item had been handled.     

Jettisoning Illusions About the Median Mandate

We endorse G. Bingham Powell's cautionary corrective to challenge Paul Warwick's conclusions that the median mandate thesis needs to be jettisoned because there is not a close match between median voter and government left‐right positions. More to the point, however, we go beyond Powell's mild caution to challenge Warwick's rejection more assertively and thoroughly. We show his rejection mistakes responsiveness for congruence, misapprehends how and why the median mandate thesis distinguishes between those two concepts, and fails to take account of a measurement artifact associated with his survey data.     

Taxation and citizen choice: The effect of a county charter on property taxes

As saliency of the tax burden increases, the preference for a lower burden increases, but most counties are restricted by the state from adopting new taxes or changing the existing rates. Some states allow counties to adopt a charter, freeing them from state control. Using a panel of Florida counties from 1980 to 2017, we explore whether citizens act to reduce their property tax once a charter is passed. Citizens act against their preferences not by lowering burden but rather by increasing it in the case of debt service, suggesting citizens are maximizing their optimal tax burden in exchange for services.     

Parental and Others’ Responses to Physical Sibling Violence: a Descriptive Analysis of Victims’ Retrospective Accounts

Although sibling abuse may be the most common form of family violence, relatively few studies have been conducted on this topic. The current exploratory study addressed this gap in the literature through analyses of thematic categories in sibling abuse narratives gathered from an online survey of sibling violence victims. All data was collected via an online survey. Participants who reported being victimized by physical sibling violence were asked to reflect on how others—family members, professionals, and friends—responded to knowledge of the abuse. Results demonstrate a need for general education about sibling violence, particularly for parents who might minimize or normalize their children’s violent conflicts. Additionally, parents need assistance in developing appropriate responses to sibling violence, as participants often perceived their parents to be ineffective at preventing or stopping the abuse. Finally, this study suggests that negative or unhelpful parental responses can be as harmful as the sibling violence itself.