Practice in Formulating Public Opinion

The social studies classroom can and should be a place where students learn critical thinking skills, but too often, especially in the middle grades, students are asked to focus on discrete facts on which they can be tested. The purpose of this article is to suggest that sixth graders can learn the critical thinking skills of “historical thinking” by discussing big ideas and essential questions and to provide a framework for a middle school unit of study on Ancient Egypt.     

Robotic Pets in Human Lives: Implications for the Human–Animal Bond and for Human Relationships with Personified Technologies

Robotic "pets" are being marketed as social companions and are used in the emerging field of robot-assisted activities, including robot-assisted therapy (RAA). However, the limits to and potential of robotic analogues of living animals as social and therapeutic partners remain unclear. Do children and adults view robotic pets as "animal-like,""machine-like," or some combination of both? How do social behaviors differ toward a robotic versus living dog? To address these issues, we synthesized data from three studies of the robotic dog AIBO: (1) a content analysis of 6,438 Internet postings by 182 adult AIBO owners; (2) observations and interviews with 80 preschoolers during play periods with AIBO and with a stuffed dog; and (3) observations and interviews with 72 children, aged 7–15 years, who played with AIBO and a living dog. Overall, the studies revealed that "hybrid" cognitions and behaviors about AIBO emerged: the robotic dog was treated as a technological artifact that also embodied attributes of living animals, such as having mental states, being a social other, and having moral standing (although this latter finding remained difficult to interpret). Implications for use of robotic pets as companions and in interventions or therapy are explored.     

Overcoming Barriers to Homeless Delivery Services: A Community Response

Homelessness is one of the most pressing social problems today. The.lnstitute of Medicine defines the problem as a failure in the support systems created to prevent the problem and a tighter housing market. The assumption is that the support system should help to prevent the occurrence of homelessness. The Eastern Fairfield County area peiformed a study to look at the relationship between those services serving people who are homeless and near homeless to determine the availability, accessibility, and adequacy of services for homeless people. The study identified several barriers in the service delivery system. A strategy was then developed to address these barriers. This paper shows how a research process can facilitate a community response to a social problem. The paper presents the steps that were taken so other communities may replicate the process.     

Neighborhood history as a factor shaping syringe distribution networks among drug users at a U.S. syringe exchange

Throughout the U.S., high visibility drug markets are concentrated in neighborhoods with few economic opportunities, while drug buyers/users are widely dispersed. A study of Pittsburgh Syringe Exchange participants provides data on travel between and network linkages across neighborhoods with different levels of drug activity. There are distinct racial patterns to syringe distribution activity within networks and across neighborhoods. Pittsburgh's history suggests that these patterns emerge from historical patterns of social and economic development. Study data demonstrate the ability of IDUs to form long-term social ties across racial and geographic boundaries and use them to reduce the risk of HIV transmission.     

Simple Majority Achievable Hierarchies

We completely characterize the simple majority weighted voting game achievable hierarchies, and, in doing so, show that a problem about representative government, noted by J. Banzhaf [Rutgers Law Review 58, 317–343 (1965)] cannot be resolved using the simple majority quota. We also demonstrate that all hierarchies achievable by any quota can be achieved if the simple majority quota is simply incremented by one.     

Racial and ethnic diversity in senior centers: comparing participant characteristics in more and less multicultural settings

The 2008 Health Indicators Project surveyed a probability sample (N = 1,870) of New York City senior center participants. Attendees of racially and ethnically diverse and nondiverse senior centers were compared across 5 domains: demographics; health and quality of life; social support networks; neighborhood perceptions and engagement; health service access/utilization. Although homogeneous and diverse center participants demonstrate similar health and quality-of-life outcomes, those from diverse centers demonstrate greater risk of social isolation, receive less family support, and more likely seek medical care from hospitals or community clinics. Implications and future directions for research, practice and policy are discussed.     

Exploring an HIV paradox: an ethnography of sexual minority women injectors

HIV risk and infection are markedly increased among sexual minority women injectors compared to other injecting drug users. Our ethnographic exploration of this well-documented but poorly understood phenomenon included 270 interviews and over 350 field observations with 65 sexual minority women injectors in New York City and Boston. We discuss findings in relation to four preliminary hypotheses. Neither the presence of gay or bisexual men in risk networks, nor a sense of invulnerability due to lesbian (or other sexual minority) identity seem to be plausible explanations of increased HIV among sexual minority women injectors. However, multiple marginalization was found to be pervasive and to have severe consequences that can be traced to increased HIV risk for many women in the study.     

Links between past abuse,suicide ideation,and sexual orientation among San Diego college students

The authors explored relationships among childhood abuse, suicidal ideation, and sexual orientation of 18- to 30-year-old students enrolled in 2 San Diego area colleges, using responses from anonymous questionnaires. Sixty percent of the 138 eligible respondents were women, and 22% were self-identified gay/bisexual individuals. Women were more likely than men to report at least 1 form of emotional abuse (odds ratio [OR] = 2.3; p =.02) and unwanted sexual touching (OR = 4.3; p = .0004). Lesbian/bisexual women were significantly more likely to report past suicidal ideation than were heterosexual women (OR = 3.7, p = .03). Gay/bisexual men were more likely to report unwanted sexual touching than were heterosexual men (OR = 5.1, p = .04), but the men did not report significantly higher rates of past suicide ideation or suicide attempts. Sexual orientation and a past history of child sexual, physical, and emotional abuse could be compounding risk factors for suicidal ideation among college students.     

The long-term sustainability of after-school programs: the After-School Corporation's strategy

The challenges that The After-School Corporation has faced in building and sustaining quality after-school programs that are accessible to every public school student in New York are discussed.