Open admissions,orality,aand literacy

Open admissions students tend to be highly oral. Their modes of thinking are different from the modes of thinking demanded in the highly literate (i.e., detached, objective, and scientific) world of college. They can learn the more literate modes of thinking, however, but this requires special awareness and effort on the part of their teachers. Some assumptions and instructional approaches made with traditional students cannot be made with highly oral students in a community college. Moreover, the effort to move the students into the more literate modes of thought cannot be limited to a couple of remedial courses in reading and writing. The promise of the open door can be realized for highly oral students only as more and more teachers change their assumptions about student learning and modify their instructional practices accordingly.He received an M.A. in English and a Ph.D. in higher education from Saint Louis University.     

Preliminary Development of the Student Perceptions of School Safety Officers Scale

Research suggests that the safer students feel at school, the more likely they are to feel connected and able to focus on learning. Thus, measuring students’ experiences with a school safety officer (SSO) is essential to understand the connection between officer engagement and students’ safety. This study’s purpose was to evaluate a SSO scale among 1,065 adolescents. Results suggest the SSO scale displayed excellent internal consistency estimates, construct validity via factor analysis, convergent validity with the School Climate Measure, discriminant validity with key demographic variables, and known-groups validity among students who reported fighting at school. Positive perceptions of SSOs also significantly increased with frequency of contact. The SSO scale is a preliminarily valid measure, potentially useful in research, screenings, and/or evaluation efforts to improve student engagement with SSOs.     

A Comparison of Different Age Estimation Methods of the Adult Pelvis

The adult human pelvis is useful to estimate age because it contains three age indicators—the pubic symphysis, auricular surface, and acetabulum. This study tested the accuracy, inaccuracy, and bias of age estimation from the Suchey‐Brooks pubic symphysis, Osborne auricular surface, Rissech and Calce acetabulum aging methods, and a summary age of these indicators. The study sample consisted of 212 White individuals with known age and sex from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection. The Rissech method performed the best, was the most accurate method with smallest inaccuracy and bias, followed by the Osborne, Suchey‐Brooks, summary age, and then Calce methods. Though the Pearson correlation showed only the Suchey‐Brooks method to correlate significantly with known age, it is likely the Suchey‐Brooks study sample coincidentally reflected the age distribution of this test sample. Results suggested that Bayesian prediction may improve age estimation and should be applied to other age indicators.     

Factors of Success: Drug Court Graduate Exit Interviews

Drug court judges enforce mandated treatment through a series of rewards and graduated sanctions as compliance with mandated treatment and retention are crucial to successful graduation for participants. A study of 600 graduates from drug court details self-report data of motivations and perceptions offenders shared about their experience in drug court. Clients rated different factors related to their entry into, retention in, and graduation from drug court. Upon graduation, clients rated the opportunity to avoid jail as a key factor in their decision to enter drug court and positive improvements in their life as significant in their decision to remain. This research provides important information on the drug court experience from those clients who successfully graduated.     

Adolescent Victim Types Across the Popularity Status Hierarchy: Differences in Internalizing Symptoms

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Previous studies have called attention to the fact that popular youth are not immune to peer victimization, suggesting there is heterogeneity in the popularity of...     

Competence-Related Abilities and Psychiatric Symptoms: An Analysis of the Underlying Structure and Correlates of the MacCAT-CA and the BPRS

The current study used confirmatory factor analysis to examine the factor structures of two instruments commonly used in the assessment of competency to stand trial--the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool--Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT-CA) and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). Results revealed support for the three-subscale factor structure of the MacCAT-CA defined by the authors of the instrument; for a slightly altered three-factor structure defined by Zapf, Skeem, and Golding (2005, Psychological Assessment, 17, 433-445); and for the four symptom clusters of the BPRS as defined by Hedlund and Vieweg (1980, Journal of Operational Psychiatry, 11, 48-63). In addition, exploratory factor analysis of all 24 items of the BPRS revealed a five-factor structure. Correlations between psychiatric symptoms, symptom clusters, and competence-related abilities were also examined using the previously identified and the newly identified factor structures of the MacCAT-CA and the BPRS. Significant relations between symptoms and psycholegal abilities are discussed.     

Does Racial Balance in Workforce Representation Yield Equal Justice? Race Relations of Sentencing in Federal Court Organizations*

Increasing racial and ethnic group representation in justice‐related occupations is considered a potential remedy to racial inequality in justice administration, including sentencing disparity. Studies to date yield little evidence of such an effect; however, research limitations may account for the mixed and limited evidence of the significance of justice workforce racial diversity. Specifically, few studies consider group‐level dynamics of race and representation, thus failing to contextualize racial group power relations in justice administration. To consider these contextual dynamics we combine court organizational and case‐level data from 89 federal districts and use hierarchical models to assess whether variably “representative” work groups relate to district‐level differences in sentencing. Using district‐specific indexes of population and work group dissimilarity to define representation, we find no relationships between black judge representation and sentencing in general across districts, but that districts with more black representation among prosecutors are significantly less likely to sentence defendants to terms of imprisonment. We also find in districts with increased black representation among prosecutors, and to a lesser degree among judges, that black defendants are less likely to be imprisoned and white defendants are more likely to be imprisoned, with the effect of narrowing black‐white disparities in sentencing. Consistent with the “power‐threat” perspective, and perhaps “implicit racial bias” research, findings encourage modeling diversity to account for relative racial group power in processes of social control and suggest that racial justice may be moderately advanced by equal representation among authorities.     

Psychopathy among prisoners in England and Wales

Most research into psychopathy among prisoners is based on selected samples. It remains unclear whether prevalences are lower among European populations. This study aimed to measure the prevalence of psychopathy, and the distribution and correlates of psychopathic traits in a representative national sample of prisoners. Psychopathy was measured using the revised Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R) in a second stage, cross-sectional survey of prisoners in England and Wales in 1997 (n = 496). Poisson regression analysis was carried out to examine independent associations between correlates and PCL-R total and factor scores. The prevalence of categorically diagnosed psychopathy at a cut off of 30 was 7.7% (95%CI 5.2–10.9) in men and 1.9% (95%CI 0.2–6.9) in women. Psychopathic traits were less prevalent among women. They were correlated with younger age, repeated imprisonment, detention in higher security, disciplinary infractions, antisocial, narcissistic, histrionic, and schizoid personality disorders, and substance misuse, but not neurotic disorders or schizophrenia. The study concluded that psychopathy and psychopathic traits are prevalent among male prisoners in England and Wales but lower than in most previous studies using selected samples. However, most correlates with psychopathic traits were similar to other studies. Psychopathy identifies the extreme of a spectrum of social and behavioral problems among prisoners.     

Scaling up Deliberation: Testing the Potential of Mini‐Publics to Enhance the Deliberative Capacity of Citizens

This paper tests the possibility of embedding the benefits of minipublic deliberation within a wider voting public. We test whether a statement such as those derived from a Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) can influence voters who did not participate in the pre‐referendum minipublic deliberation. This experiment was implemented in advance of the 2018 Irish referendum on blasphemy, one of a series of social‐moral referendums following the recommendations of a deliberative assembly. This is the first application of a CIR‐style voting aid in a real world minipublic and referendum outside of the US and also the first application to what is principally a moral question. We found that survey respondents exposed to information about the minipublic and its findings significantly increased their policy knowledge. Further, exposing respondents to minipublic statements in favour and against the policy measure increased their empathy for the other side of the policy debate.     

The European ‘Other’ in Poland’s Conservative Identity Project

Since taking office in November 2015, Poland’s conservative government has pressed for a sweeping reinterpretation of the past, and a re-envisioning of the future, of the political community. This conservative identity project idealises the allegedly fully sovereign Poland of the interwar period and repudiates the normative commitments underpinning Poland’s accession to the European Union. The worldview of the conservative government’s liberal critics, by contrast, represents a fusion of the inclusive nationalism asserted in opposition to communist rule with the affirmation of a European identity. The reawakening of historically resonant debates about the nature of Poland’s European-ness, emphasizing the centrality of the (Western) European ‘other’ in Poland’s national idea, carries significant implications for its relations within the international environment.