Adaptation and Validation of the Polymorphous Prejudice Scale (PPS) - A Short Form In a Sample of Heterosexual Chilean College Students

ABSTRACT. Objectives: The purpose of this article is to present the psychometric characteristics of a short form of the Polymorphous Prejudice Scale (PPS; Massey, 2009), which was adapted and validated in a heterosexual Chilean population. PPS is a multidimensional measure of sexual prejudice. Methods: A nonprobabilistic (convenience) sample consisted of 422 college students. Results: Findings reveal a shortened 16-item form, grouped in four subscales, with all of the items referring to new forms of sexual prejudice. The findings showed differences based on gender, religiosity and geographic location, as hypothesized. Conclusions: Results are discussed in relation to the strengths and weaknesses of the short form of the PPS.     

Roma pupils’ attitudes towards education – a case study

When analysing the reasons behind the academic underachievement of Roma pupils, some teachers suggest that Roma people do not value education and that Roma children have negative attitudes towards school. With increasing frequency, Roma pupils from low socio-economic backgrounds are being researched and the research primarily adopts the perspectives of teachers and schools’ professional staff. The present study analyses attitudes towards education held by Roma pupils whose socio-economic status is comparable to the majority population and considers their perspective. The research was conducted with Roma pupils attending primary school in Maribor, Slovenia. To collect data, interviews were conducted. The study results suggest that the majority of Roma pupils from Maribor like attending school and value formal education; the majority indicated that they want to complete primary school and continue their education. The results also show that Roma pupils can be highly academically motivated if improved life conditions and improved education opportunities are provided to the Roma population.     

Local depth

Local depth is a generalization of ordinary depth able to reveal local features of the probability distribution. Liu's simplicial depth is primarily used, but results for Tukey's halfspace depth are also derived. It is shown that the maximizers of local depth can help to detect the mode(s) of a probability distribution. This work is devoted to the univariate case, but the main definitions are stated in the general multivariate case. Theoretical results and applications are illustrated with several examples.     

Maculate Conceptions: Power,Process, and Creativity in Participatory Research

Justifiably concerned about power dynamics between researchers and participants in participatory research, much of the literature proposes guidelines for including participant voices at every step of the research process. We find these guidelines insufficient for dealing with constraints set up by the social organizational structures in which researchers and participants find themselves. We argue that the process of building relationships between scientists and farmers is unavoidably imperfect, but nonetheless necessary and rewarding. We contend that the potential problems of participatory research originate more from the social organizational structures in which it takes place than in failure to follow particular rules. By acknowledging these structures and the resultant interests of participant and researcher we can make room for the messy reality of negotiating participatory relationships. We suggest that transformative engagement can be born of what we term the “maculate conceptions” of dialogic process and the building of mutual trust.     

关掉电灯——合理使用照明

2003年8月的一个下午,包括百老汇在内的美国东北部、中西部城市以及加拿大安大略省经历了一次大停电,约5千万人受到这次停电事故的影响。除了抱怨不方便、公交乘客一筹莫展、以及饭店和市场里的食品腐败变质之外,许多城市居民感到震撼的是,当夜幕降临时,透过黑暗的摩天大楼,人们凝望天空,看到了令人惊讶的景象——璀璨星空。这些居住在东北部电力发达城市的居民自发聚集,凝望星空这一幕被《纽约时报》报道。     

Outspoken Objects and Unspoken Myths: The Semiotics of Object-Mediated Communication

This interactionist study draws on the semiotics of Peirce and Barthes to theorize object-mediated communication, a nonverbal interpersonal technique in which individuals signal new information by using and orienting themselves to symbolically endowed material objects. Examining the case of door-mediated communication, it proposes that objects lie symbolically dormant until their deeper collective significance is activated through their use in interaction. The article expands the scope of interactionist inquiry on human–nonhuman relations by moving beyond the dominant scholarly focus on identity. The semiotic approach foregrounds a distinct human–object phenomenon, a novel category of nonverbal communication, and important meaning-making dynamics.     

Adolescent Self‐cutting: An Embodiment of the Unsaid

This paper describes adolescent self‐cutting from a systemic–relational standpoint utilising two key concepts: embodied mind and the unsaid. Varella's notion of embodiment is introduced to understand the body as a field of meaning and the unsaid is conceptualised as what holds ‘said meaning’ and gives a sense of identity. These ideas are illustrated by reflections on a clinical vignette.     

Nest design in a changing world: Great tit <Emphasis Type="Italic">Parus major</Emphasis> nests from a Mediterranean city environment as a case study

Investigations of urbanization effects on birds have focused mainly on breeding traits expressed after the nest-building stage (e.g. first-egg date, clutch size, breeding success, and offspring characteristics). Urban studies largely ignored how and why the aspects of nest building might be associated with the degree of urbanization. As urban environments are expected to present novel environmental changes relative to rural environments, it is important to evaluate how nest-building behavior is impacted by vegetation modifications associated with urbanization. To examine nest design in a Mediterranean city environment, we allowed urban great tits (Parus major) to breed in nest boxes in areas that differed in local vegetation cover. We found that different measures of nest size or mass were not associated with vegetation cover. In particular, nests located adjacent to streets with lower vegetation cover were not smaller or lighter than nests in parks with higher vegetation cover. Nests adjacent to streets contained more pine needles than nests in parks. In addition, in nests adjacent to streets, nests from boxes attached to pine trees contained more pine needles than nests from boxes attached to other trees. We suggest that urban-related alterations in vegetation cover do not directly impose physical limits on nest size in species that are opportunistic in the selection of nesting material. However, nest composition as reflected in the use of pine needles was clearly affected by habitat type and the planted tree species present, which implies that rapid habitat change impacts nest composition. We do not exclude that urbanization might impact other aspects of nest building behaviour not covered in our study (e.g. costs of searching for nest material), and that the strengths of the associations between urbanization and nest structures might differ among study populations or species.     

The modified Fréchet distribution and its properties

The Fréchet distribution is an absolutely continuous model which has wide applicability in extreme value theory. In this paper, we propose a new three-parameter model, so-called the modified Fréchet distribution, to extend the Fréchet distribution. By using the Lambert function, we obtain some properties of the new distribution. We provide a simulation study to illustrate the performance of the maximum likelihood estimates. The flexibility of the introduced distribution is illustrated by means of a real data set. We use some goodness-of-fit statistics to verify the adequacy of the proposed model. We prove empirically that it is appropriate for lifetime applications.