Portrayals of the internal God among Ashkenazi Jewish Orthodox lesbians in Israel

Abstract

Most of the existing literature on Ashkenazi Orthodox Jewish lesbians focuses on sociological aspects, mainly the negative attitudes held by religious communities towards their sexual identity and the various problems that arise from these. Less attention has been paid to lesbians’ psychological coping mechanisms with the tensions between their two central identities: the religious and the sexual. Ashkenazi Orthodox lesbians find themselves in a complicated situation where they remain on the margins of both their “natural” communities: the religious one and the homosexual one. As a result, they feel rejected, isolated, and even punished by society. As believers, God is their ultimate refuge. But there are different conceptions of God, ranging from benevolent to persecutory, accepting or highly judgmental and punishing. This variance has not been considered in regard to the dual identity of Ashkenazi Orthodox lesbians. This article focuses on this neglected issue, examining Ashkenazi Orthodox lesbians’ conception of God and its relation to their managing the conflict between their apparently conflicting identities.     

Self-care: There’s a badge for that

ABSTRACT

Social work education has embraced a major shift towards competency based education. A core component of competency based education is that students must actually demonstrate competence. The ability to define terms or even to explain principles of effective social work practice is no longer sufficient. In this vein, social work educators are tasked with providing students a means of demonstrating an ability to practice necessary social work skills. Digital badges are a recent trend in higher education that can facilitate the shift towards competency based education. With this shift in mind, this paper outlines the requirements and benefits of a self-care badge. Students who completed the self-care badge completed readings on self-care, completed self-assessments and worksheets, developed written self-care plans, enacted the plans, monitored progress and completed a final report on the self-care practices. Overall, students described the benefits of the badge and the focus on actually practicing self-care rather than simply increasing their knowledge about self-care.     

Decision‐making under uncertainty in child protection: Creating a just and learning culture

The argument is made for having a positive error culture in child protection to improve decision‐making and risk management. This requires organizations to accept that mistakes are likely and to treat them as opportunities for learning and improving. In contrast, in many organizations, a punitive reaction to errors leads to workers hiding them and developing a defensive approach to their practice with children and families. The safety management literature has shown how human error is generally not simply due to a “bad apple” but made more or less likely by the work context that helps or hinders good performance. Improving safety requires learning about the weaknesses in the organization that contribute to poor performance. To create a learning culture, people need to feel that when they talk about mistakes or weak practice, there will be a constructive response from their organization. One aspect of reducing the blame culture is to develop a shared understanding of how practice will be judged and how those appraising practice will avoid the hindsight bias. To facilitate a positive error culture, a set of risk principles are presented that offer a set of criteria by which practice should be appraised.     

英格兰数理精英教师培养及启示——基于“未来教学学者”计划

英格兰政府针对国内中小学数学和物理等学科专业教师紧缺、学生数理成绩较差的现状，推出了"未来教学学者"（Future Teaching Scholars）精英教师培养计划。这一专项教师培养计划旨在通过严格的选拔标准、系统的培养方案、丰厚的奖学金与助学金以及明确的教师未来职业发展规划，吸引高质量的本科生积极参与，从而提高英格兰数理学科教师的专业水平及学生的数理学科成绩。英格兰政府为改善特定科目和偏远地区学校教师质量而开展的专项教师培养项目为我国相关教师的培养工作提供了积极借鉴：创新教师教育培养模式，提高师范生教学实践能力；充分发挥地方师范院校的主体作用，保障特定地区教师供应；提高师范生选拔标准，促进教师队伍整体质量提升。     

Education and wage inequality in the informal sector: The case of Cameroon

This article analyses the effects of education on wage inequality in the informal sector in Cameroon. The author uses quantile regression on data from the Second survey on employment and the informal sector in Cameroon (EESI 2) of 2010. The results indicate that both wages and wage inequality increase with education in the informal sector, with tertiary education creating greatest inequality. These findings point to a number of policy recommendations for a transition to formality, such as the creation of more jobs for a skilled workforce, the development of sites adapted to informal sector activities and the creation of more vocational schools.     

Using Cultivation Theory to Understand American College Students’ Perceptions of Arabs in the Media

Research has shown that Arab portrayals on television have an effect on viewers’ beliefs about Arabs in general. Based on questionnaire responses from 429 undergraduate students, this study sought to examine perceptions of Arabs on television. Results revealed that college students have predominantly antagonistic views about Arabs in general and on television. These findings suggest that television can affect the way college students view reality regarding Arabs and how these perceptions can perpetuate negative stereotypes.     

Testing the feasibility of a value‐added model of school quality in a low‐income country

Value‐added models (VAMS) are commonly used in high‐income countries for measuring the quality of teachers and schools, on the grounds that they are a fairer reflection of true quality than simple average test scores, as they account for differences in student intake. Not accounting for student's prior test scores can give a misleading impression of school quality. In this article, we adapt the current VAM of secondary school quality to the Ugandan context, and test its robustness. Using official test score data from Uganda, we test the robustness of the model to a range of different empirical specifications, including sensitivity to the inclusion of controls for student socioeconomic status. We find that the model is robust to a variety of different specifications and control variables. The VAM is low cost and has the potential to provide a clearer signal to parents, teachers, schools, and policy‐makers about how much learning is actually happening in different schools. This approach could be carried out at low cost in a wide range of low‐income countries that have similar testing regimes.     

基于SWOT模型的农村地区学前教育发展问题研究

SWOT分析法又称作态势分析法，能够将内部的优势劣势、外部的机会威胁逐条列举出来，并据此建立可视化矩阵图，系统全面地提出针对性策略。学前教育作为基础教育的短板，而农村地区学前教育又是学前教育中的短板。借助SWOT模型系统，全面地分析了农村地区学前教育发展的内部与外部的优势（S）、劣势（W）、机会（O）和威胁（T），进而提出相应的增长型战略、扭转型战略、多元化战略和防御型战略，以促进农村地区学前教育平稳、健康发展。     

Validation of the Learning Transfer System Inventory (LTSI) in the Korean corporate context

Lack of a valid instrument to measure learning transfer predictors has been the major obstacle hindering Human Resource Development (HRD) professionals from moving forward. This problem is one of the lingering HRD issues in South Korea, in which human resources have been strategically emphasized as a critical asset due to the scarcity of natural resources. To address this issue, this study aims at testing the validity and reliability of the data collected with the Korean Learning Transfer System Inventory (LTSI) Version 4. A sample of 753 managers from 16 Korean industries was divided into two subsamples for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Reliability and the effect of common method variance on the factor structure were examined, with the results suggesting that the LTSI is valid for use in the Korean industry.     

外国教育史学在中国

我国外国教育史学发展的百年历程经历了萌芽起步、艰难恢复、积极发展、成就与危机并存以及近年来的积极转向这几个阶段。几代学者共同就外国教育史的基本命题进行了深入的讨论、总结与反思，包括外国教育史是什么？研究外国教育史有什么用？作为一个学术领域，外国教育史应该研究什么？怎样研究？作为一个知识门类，外国教育史应该教什么？怎样教？学者们的辛勤耕耘使外国教育史学已经有了一个健康合理的起点，但其中诸多制约外国教育史学发展的实质性问题仍需重视，包括教育史观的把握问题、教育史研究的功利主义问题、教育史研究的规范意识问题以及教育史研究的陈述范式与立场视角的自觉反思问题等。