Real data, real learning and the London Olympics

The Olympic and Paralympic Games are coming to London in 2012, and there will be huge interest, especially among the young. Could the Games be used to involve students of all ages in a large scale project that involves and interests them to break down their fear of statistics and to motivate learning? Neville Davies of the Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education appeals for help in a major teaching and learning initiative based on the London Olympics. Significance is proud to announce the launch of a scheme that could bring thousands of students, nationally and internationally, to appreciate and value the usefulness of statistics.     

Are Students Failing School or Are Schools Failing Students? Class Cutting in High School

In many urban public high schools today, students navigate their day by selectively cutting class leading to course failure and dropping out. Collaborative, qualitative research conducted with urban high school students indicates that cutting results from disengagement and alienation that students label "boredom." Focus group data ( N = 160 in 8 groups) indicate that class cutting has not only an individual component that schools address, but also a systemic, conflictual component that schools do not address. These unaddressed, intransigent conflicts can foster moral exclusion and structural violence. These data suggest that rather than relying on standard punitive approaches, schools can respond to class cutting more effectively by taking students' concerns seriously, working collaboratively with students, and engaging in institutional self-scrutiny.     

‘I've come on this course to learn how to be politically minded’: political discourses among students entering a social work programme

Small-group self-administered interviews were conducted with 80 students entering a social work degree in the UK, asking about their motivations, political engagement and perspectives on equality. Especially as the interviews went on, many students were found to identify structural constraints on agency and express a desire to learn more about the political stakes of social work. However, it was concluded that speakers had to contend with, and by degrees operate upon, a neoliberal discursive terrain.     

Priming Implicit Racism in Television News: Visual and Verbal Limitations on Diversity

We highlight an understudied aspect of racism in television news, implicit racial cues found in the contradictions between visual and verbal messages. We compare three television news broadcasts from the first week after Hurricane Katrina to reexamine race and representation during the disaster. Drawing together insights from interdisciplinary studies of cognition and sociological theories of race and racism, we examine how different combinations of the race of reporters and news sources relate to the priming of implicit racism. We find racial cues that are consistent with stereotypes and myths about African Americans—even in broadcasts featuring black reporters—but which appear only in the context of color‐blind verbal narration. We conclude by drawing attention to the unexpected and seemingly unintended reproduction of racial ideology.     

Examining South Africa's options

South Africa's Options: Strategies for Sharing Power by F. van Zyl Slabbert and David Welsh. South African edition, David Philip, Cape Town 1979. pp.x & 196.     

Lavender Islands: the New Zealand study

Lavender Islands: Portrait of the Whole Family is the first national strengths-based study of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people in New Zealand. The 133-item survey was made available both by website and paper copy from April to July 2004. Multidisciplinary interest areas were developed by a community reference group, and included identity and self-definition, families of origin, relationships and sexuality, families of choice, immigration and internal migration, wellbeing, politics, income and spending, education, careers and leisure, community connections, challenges, and spirituality. A four-axis model of sexual identity was also tested; 2,269 responses were received. Of these 83% were from the website; 45% of responses were from women and 54% from men. Responses identified a robust, highly educated, relatively high-income, politically active LGB community. Male and female respondents experienced same-sex relationships and identity in significantly different ways.     

Disproportionality in education and employment outcomes of adult foster care alumni

Racial similarities and disparities in the education and employment of 134 African American and 574 White adults placed in foster care as children were examined. Logistic regression was used to compare differences among these young adult alumni who were served by a voluntary foster care agency in 23 U.S. communities. When controlling for demographic background, risk factors, and foster care experiences, race/ethnicity was a significant factor only in the increased odds of White alumni having income at or above poverty level, three times poverty level, and home/apartment ownership compared to African Americans.