Investigating the Effects of Pre‐school Provision: Using Mixed Methods in the EPPE Research

The Effective Provision of Pre‐school Education (EPPE) project is a longitudinal study of young children between the ages of 3 and 7 years. Research began in 1997 and both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to explore the effects of pre‐school education on children’s attainment and social/behavioural development at entry to school, and of any continuing effects on such outcomes at the end of Key Stage 1 (age 7). The sample included over 3,000 children and 141 pre‐school centres drawn from six different types of providers. In addition, a home sample of children who had not attended a pre‐school centre was included. In order to identify the processes that might influence centre effectiveness, observational data were collected and centre managers interviewed. In‐depth case studies of 12 more effective centres were used to explore and illuminate the processes, particularly in relation to pedagogy, associated with better child outcomes. A mixed method approach was adopted to simultaneously answer both confirmatory and exploratory questions, to support user engagement and provide triangulation. The paper argues that the mixed method approach supported the development of stronger research inferences.     

COOPERATION IN PUBLIC GOODS GAMES PREDICTS BEHAVIOR IN INCENTIVE-MATCHED BINARY DILEMMAS: EVIDENCE FOR STABLE PROSOCIALITY

We report the results of an experiment in which subjects completed second mover public goods game tasks and second mover binary social dilemma tasks. Each task was completed under three different incentive structures which were matched across tasks. The use of nonlinear incentive structures, along with a novel categorization method, allowed us to identify behavioral subtypes that cannot be distinguished using conventional linear incentive structures. We also examined how well behavior could be predicted across tasks. Subjects' average conditional cooperation levels showed significant cross-task predictability and stability. However, almost a third of responses (28%) demonstrated unambiguous preference reversals across tasks. We argue that prosociality is best described as an individual-level trait, similar to risk aversion in choice under risk. (JEL C7, C91, H41)     

Mentoring,Sexual Harassment,and Black Women Academics

ABSTRACT

The #MeToo Movement both within academia and popular culture has largely been seen as an issue for white women (and men). While the phrase Me Too was originally coined by Tarana Burke in 2006 to raise public awareness of sexual harassment, violence and assault experienced by women of color, the Movement has largely been whitewashed by primarily depicting victims and survivors as white women. Black women academics, like myself, also experience sexual harassment. By highlighting the ways that race-based sexual harassment further marginalizes already underrepresented groups in political science, I use my personal story to elucidate how a gender-only lens misses the complexities of Black women’s experiences with power inequities in academia. Throughout this narrative I underscore the importance of mentorship, professional networks, and the ability to harness scholarship as a vehicle to combat the pervasiveness of sexual harassment, violence, and assault for Black women in political science.     

Disabled academics: a case study in Canadian universities

Though Canadian universities are legally required to accommodate disabled employees, disabled faculty still experience difficulties navigating neoliberal performance standards and medicalized conceptualizations of disability. Drawing on data from a qualitative study with Canadian university faculty, this paper explores the experiences of five disabled academics. Our analysis draws on post-structural understandings of neoliberalism, discourse, disciplinary power, and governmentality, as well as Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s concepts of the fit and misfit. Though the sample is small, this analysis suggests universities pose disabling contexts for academics. Disability is cast as individual responsibility, leaving disabled academics navigating accommodations without institutional support. The normative academic constructed through a discourse of efficiency and productivity is the measure against which disabled academics are evaluated, requiring self-governance to produce themselves as ‘good enough’ academics. Although higher education environments are increasingly diverse, disabled academics are still having to prove their right to exist in academia, hindering their abilities to participate fully.     

Bayesian compartmental model for an infectious disease with dynamic states of infection

Population-level proportions of individuals that fall at different points in the spectrum [of disease severity], from asymptomatic infection to severe disease, are often difficult to observe, but estimating these quantities can provide information about the nature and severity of the disease in a particular population. Logistic and multinomial regression techniques are often applied to infectious disease modeling of large populations and are suited to identifying variables associated with a particular disease or disease state. However, they are less appropriate for estimating infection state prevalence over time because they do not naturally accommodate known disease dynamics like duration of time an individual is infectious, heterogeneity in the risk of acquiring infection, and patterns of seasonality. We propose a Bayesian compartmental model to estimate latent infection state prevalence over time that easily incorporates known disease dynamics. We demonstrate how and why a stochastic compartmental model is a better approach for determining infection state proportions than multinomial regression is by using a novel method for estimating Bayes factors for models with high-dimensional parameter spaces. We provide an example using visceral leishmaniasis in Brazil and present an empirically-adjusted reproductive number for the infection.     

Engaging with Parents in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

This paper asks the question: How can child and adolescent mental health clinicians constructively engage parents as a resource in the young person's treatment? It draws from qualitative research data that explore parents' experience of their involvement in their adolescent's mental health treatment program. The paper especially focuses on challenges for clinicians in engaging with parents as part of the treatment program for young people. Clinicians' input about their perceptions of interacting with parents is utilised alongside parents' experiences of their involvement in clinical processes. The clinician data revealed key challenges were managing their reactions to parent defensiveness; broadening the focus from just alleviating symptoms in the young person; not taking sides with the young person; and resisting becoming an expert instructor. The paper discusses Murray Bowen's original family research about engaging parents in treatment with the symptom bearer and addresses how clinicians can build a positive alliance with parents that avoids blame while constructively opening exploration of the family relationship process as part of a collaborative approach.     

FORECASTING WITH SOCIAL MEDIA: EVIDENCE FROM TWEETS ON SOCCER MATCHES

Social media is now used as a forecasting tool by a variety of firms and agencies. But how useful are such data in forecasting outcomes? Can social media add any information to that produced by a prediction/betting market? We source 13.8 million posts from Twitter, and combine them with contemporaneous Betfair betting prices, to forecast the outcomes of English Premier League soccer matches as they unfold. Using a microblogging dictionary to analyze the content of Tweets, we find that the aggregate tone of Tweets contains significant information not in betting prices, particularly in the immediate aftermath of goals and red cards. (JEL G14, G17)     

Religion and subjective well-being among the elderly in China

Evidence from developed and developing countries alike demonstrates a strongly positive relationship between religiosity and happiness, particularly for women and particularly among the elderly. Using survey data from the oldest old in China, we find a strong negative relationship between religious participation and subjective well-being in a rich multivariate logistic framework that controls for demographics, health and disabilities, living arrangements, wealth and income, lifestyle and social networks, and location. In contrast to other studies, we also find that religion has a larger effect on subjective well-being on men than women.