Do Open Educational Resources Help Contingent Sociology Faculty Acquire Teaching Resources and Form Collegial Relationships?

Access to resources and social relationships are important for teacher development. Unfortunately, within higher education contingent faculty often are under resourced and poorly integrated into their department’s social network. This shortfall could be addressed by Open Educational Resources (OERs), which are websites that freely distribute pedagogical resources and provide a platform for educators to form collegial relationships. The current research focuses on the OERs that have formed around American sociology to assess the characteristics of the faculty who use them, the pedagogical resources they acquire from them, and how often their users form collegial relationships online. Analysis of an online survey of 275 sociology OER users finds that contingent faculty are acquiring resources from the sites. While only a small percentage of faculty are forming collegial relationships via these sites, they are doing so without occupational status, gender, or racial differences.     

Simple graphical methods of displaying multiple clinical results

A common challenge in clinical research trials is for applied statistics to manage, analyse, summarize and report an enormous amount of data. Nowadays, due to advances in medical technology, situations frequently arise where it is difficult to display and interpret results. Consequently, a creative approach is required to summarize the main outcomes of the statistical analyses in a form which is easy to grasp, to interpret and possibly to remember. In this paper a number of clinical case studies are provided. Firstly, a topographical map of the brain summarizing P-values obtained from comparisons across different EEG sites; secondly, a bulls eye plot, showing the agreement between observers in different regions of the heart; thirdly, a pictorial table reporting inter- and intra-rater reliability scores of a speech assessment; fourthly a star-plot to deal with numerous questionnaire results and finally a correlogram to illustrate significant correlation values between two diagnostic tools. The intention of this paper is to encourage the effort of visual representations of multiple statistical outcomes. Such representations do not only embellish the report, but aid interpretation by conveying a specific statistical meaning.     

“Live in Israel. Live the Dream”: Identity,Belonging, and Contemporary American Jewish Migration to Israel

Most current sociological literature on migration examines international moves to the United States and internal migration. Scant research addresses religious migration out of the United States. Utilizing in-depth, semi-structured interviews, we explore motivations behind recent American Jewish migration to Israel and how Jewish identity plays a role in the decision to move. We find that a combination of religious and cultural factors, Zionism, social networks, and the desire for a new start play a major role in motivating migration to Israel. Jewish identity is a common thread across these motivations. Many participants created a strong bond between their Judaism and Israel, viewing their connection to Israel as a way to belong to a larger community and demonstrate their attachment to Judaism. We discuss the implications for studying religious emigration from the United States that move beyond traditional economic models.     

Relations Among Spontaneous Preferences,Familiarized Preferences,and Novelty Effects: Measurements With Forced‐Choice Techniques

We here describe a discrete trial, forced‐choice, combined spontaneous preference and novelty preference technique. In this technique, spontaneous preferences and familiarized (postfamiliarization) preferences are measured with the same stimulus pairs under closely parallel conditions. A variety of systematic stimulus variations were used in 16‐week‐old infants to explore the interrelations among spontaneous preferences, familiarized preferences, and familiarization (novelty) effects. Infants were exposed to pairs of 10° red and blue disks of varying colorimetric purity generated on a video monitor. Pairs of disks were identified for which spontaneous preferences were balanced at about 50–50 or unbalanced at about 75–25, and the magnitudes of familiarized preferences were determined. When spontaneous preferences were balanced at 50–50, novelty effects increased with increasing chromatic separation between the 2 stimuli, showing the independence of these variables. When spontaneous preferences were unbalanced, novelty effects were asymmetrical, being large after familiarization to the spontaneously preferred stimulus, but small or nonexistent after familiarization to the spontaneously nonpreferred stimulus. The potential uses of combined spontaneous preference and novelty preference techniques are discussed.     

Procurement process: Decision by exclusion and pairwise comparisons

Two case studies illustrate multicriteria decision making techniques frequently used in procurement practice: least-cost sufficient performance and weighted utility optimization. Both techniques have defects and are rarely robust. Decision by exclusion and pairwise comparisons is proposed as a third approach which eliminates inferior alternatives by generalized forms of minimum performance requirements established under multicriteria framework. It is more robust and maintains high level of accountability.     

Is Swedish pension reform the right medicine for aging Europe?

Following the Second World War, the idea of the life course with distinct periods of education, work, and retirement became popular as a result of the alliance of interests of unions and management, with politicians seizing the opportunity to accommodate them. These "social partners" implemented benefit rules and created practices for using old age and disability to ease the exit of older workers. Although justifiable at the time, now those rules and practices hinder individual and employer incentives to invest in human capital and work environments that enable older workers to remain in the workforce. The article argues that the workforce environment of the coming half-century, which is relevant for persons born around 2000, is much different from that a hundred years earlier, which determined the opportunities for people born around 1900. People are healthier and live much longer and work environments are friendlier. The article argues that it is no longer justifiable to subsidize exit from the workforce around the age of 60 for healthy workers, especially in view of the coming labor shortage in Europe. It also argues that the introduction of the principles of the Swedish NDC pension reform in Europe would provide possibilities for flexible exit from the workforce and remove impediments to labor mobility in Europe, which are embedded in many of Europe's present pension arrangements.     

The challenges to intimacy and sexual relationships for gay men in HIV serodiscordant relationships: a pilot study

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection and disease progression create imbalance in long-term, HIV-serodiscordant, gay male relationships, particularly in sexual relations and issues of physical and emotional intimacy. Stage of disease progression and worldview of the couple both affect the relationship and its survival. To redress imbalance, partners employ a range of coping strategies and techniques. This article explores these issues in the context of HIV serodiscordant gay couples and how they preserve their relationships in the face of these unique challenges. For workers who provide psychotherapeutic and community support for people with HIV and for their partners, the results of this study may be helpful in recognizing stress factors for couples, and tailoring support services to the needs of both partners. Overall, this study provides a basis for further work examining the dynamics of serodiscordant relationships.     

Education, academic program and intergroup attitudes

Plusieurs études ont montré l'existence d'une relation positive entre le degré d'instruction et les attitudes intergroupes. Ces résultats suggèrent à certains chercheurs que l'éducation réduit les préjugés mais d'autres soutiennent que les gens les plus instruits ont simplement plus de facilités à cacher leurs préjugés. De façon similaire, si plusieurs considèrent que l'éducation rend les gens plus réceptifs à l'idéologie dominante, d'autres maintiennent l'inverse. La présente recherche évalue un modèle intégrant ces positions apparement contradictoires. Le modèle propose que les effets de l'instruction varient en fonction du domaine d'études. Alors que les étudiants/étudiantes d'un secteur d'études peuvent devenir plus favorables a l'égard d'un groupe social donné, ceux et celles d'un autre domaine peuvent maintenir leur attitude ou devenir plus negatifs à l'égard de ce même groupe. Le modèle présume que l'éducation constitue un processus de socialisation et que les domaines d'études professent des idéologies différentes. Une étude transversale menée auprès de 675 étudiants/étudiantes de trois niveaux scolaires et de trois domaines d'études a permis de recueillir des évaluations de sept groupes sociaux. II ressort que les étudiants/étudiantes en sciences sociales sont plus favorables à l'égard des ‘socialistes’à mesure que leur niveau scolaire augmente alors que les étudiants/étudiantes en administration deviennent moins favorables. L'inverse se produit par rapport à l'évaluation des ‘militaires’ et des ‘conservateurs’. Les résultats appuient le modèle qui propose un effet différentiel du domaine d'études sur les attitudes intergroupes. La discussion souligne les implications de ces résultats pour les recherches étudiant l'incidence de l'instruction sur les attitudes sociales et politiques et pour les théories sociologiques de l'éducation. Several studies have shown a positive relation between education and intergroup attitudes, with such results usually being taken as evidence that education reduces prejudice. Others have argued that the better-educated simply have a greater ability to disguise their prejudice. Similarly, while many have argued that education increases support for the dominant ideology, others maintain the opposite. The present study tests a model that would permit reconciliation of these seemingly contradictory positions. The model proposes that effects of education on intergroup attitudes will vary as a function of academic discipline. While students in one area of study may become more positive toward a given social group, students in another area may not change or may become more negative toward that same group. The model assumes education is a socialization process and that academic areas differ in the ideology they promulgate. A cross-sectional survey of 675 students at three levels of education, in three fields of study, collected ratings of seven groups. Social science students were found to give more positive ratings to 'socialist as their level of education increased while business students became more negative. The reverse pattern was observed on ratings of 'the military and 'conservatives. The results support the model of differential effects of field of study on intergroup attitudes. The implications for research on the effects of education and for theories regarding the nature of the educational process are discussed.