Exploring racism inside and outside the mathematics classroom in two different contexts: Colombia and USA

We give attention to the racial contexts of mathematics education in Colombia and the USA. We discuss the particularities of these contexts but also explore the how in both contexts Blackness and Black people are relegated to the lower rungs of the social order. In offering this comparative analysis, we call for expanded research on race, racism, and mathematics education in global contexts.     

Regional Variations in the Realignment of American Politics, 1944–2004*

Objective. Perennial questions in electoral studies are what constitutes realignment, and when and where do realignments occur? Using the concepts of critical and secular realignments as a framework, we model change in the end product of realignment, election outcomes. We test for secular and critical changes in partisan strength across six geographic regions of the United States, focusing on office‐holding data at both the federal and state legislative level. Methods. Using an interrupted time‐series model, we examine evidence for secular realignment and posit five critical interventions that have affected American politics since World War II. Results. Our findings suggest that there are elements of both critical and secular realignments at work with different patterns in each region, and that different regions have been affected by a variety of elections associated with critical events since 1944. Conclusions. The collapse of Republican hegemony in the Northeast and Pacific West has gone largely unnoticed, buried in the intense examination of the growth of the Republican Party in the American South. The 1994 election is the most prominent in terms of its impact on seat holding by the parties at both the state and national level, and constitutes a realigning election.     

Assessing Family Outcomes: Psychometric Evaluation of the Beach Center Family Quality of Life Scale

There is currently a lack of reliable scales with which to assess the construct of family quality of life, particularly for families who have children with disabilities. The current work presents 2 studies, including a total of 488 families with children with disabilities, which were conducted to complete the development of a scale to assess family quality of life. The measure was refined through confirmatory factor analyses into 25 items that assess 5 domains of Family Quality of Life: Family Interaction, Parenting, Emotional Well‐Being, Physical/Material Well‐Being, and Disability‐Related Support. Each subscale was found to be unidimensional and internally consistent. An initial examination of test‐retest reliability and convergent validity is also presented. Implications for future research, scale use, and policy are discussed.     

The Haitian orphanage crisis: Exporting neoliberal family ideals in the debate on vulnerable childhoods in Haiti

In light of recent global debates over the dangers of institutionalised orphan care, a new model of family care premised on the trope of family reunification has emerged among Haitian and US faith-based actors as the best alternative for ensuring vulnerable children's well-being. This article offers a critical cultural reading of narratives on family reunification in Haiti in social media and advocacy discourse, revealing how this approach privileges Northern assumptions about proper parenting and family life. Not only are these ideas a mismatch with realities in Haiti, they evoke deficit constructions of family and childhood that facilitate the nation's further positioning as a subject of transnational neoliberal governmentality.     

A note on the rubustness of the lilliefors test for univariate normality with respect to equicorrelated data

The Lilliefors test, which was developed by Lilliefors (1967), is a well-known test for univariate normality when population parameters are unknown. The main assumption for implementing the test is the independent-data assumption. This paper demonstrates the robustness of the Lilliefors test against equicorrelated observations. More specifically, we show that the null distribution of the Lilliefors test statistic is invariant under the alternate assumption that the observations are equicorrelated.     

Some New Estimators for Small-Area Means With Application to the Assessment of Farmland Values

Regression models that account for main state effects and nested county effects are considered for the assessment of farmland values. Empirical predictors obtained by replacing the unknown variances in the formulas of the optimal predictors by maximum likelihood estimates are presented. The computations are carried out by simple iterations between two SAS procedures. Estimators for the prediction variances are derived, and a modification to secure the robustness of the predictors is proposed. The procedure is applied to data on nonirrigated cropland in the Corn Belt states and is shown to yield predictors with considerably lower prediction mean squared errors than the survey estimators and other regression-type estimators.     

CONCEPTUAL LEVELS AND THE DESIGN OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEMS*

This article attempts to expand and clarify the discussions in the literature on complexity theory applied to accounting via two central assertions: (a) affecting the cognitive conceptual level of an individual through the financial reporting system can be accomplished not only by varying the immediate information load, but also, in the long run, by modifying the types of information and the mode of user-system interface. In other words, a properly designed accounting information system can have developmental cognitive effects in both the short and long run. (b) attempting to maximize the conceptual level of the decision maker is not always desirable. In certain types of environments, a high conceptual level actually impedes appropriate decision making. Therefore, the appropriate conceptual level must be related to the type of decision being made as well as to the type of decision maker.     

由卡特琳娜和丽塔飓风引发的灾难人类学思考

新奥尔良市在2005年所遭受的卡特琳娜和丽塔飓风和水灾袭击,为美国数十年来最大的自然灾害之一。这两次飓风也唤醒了学者对灾难研究的注意力。灾难不仅冲击了社会结构,造成了不同群体聚合或边缘化,也作为一种显示器,昭示在灾难过程中最为脆弱的是穷人群体。人类学家不仅要研究灾难的影响与结果,也应该联合起来,参与救灾活动,直接为受害群体提供援助。