Bar None: Extending Affirmative Action to Higher Education in Prison

Recognizing the intent of Affirmative Action to include historically marginalized citizens into institutions of higher learning, we stretch the limits of Affirmative Action to consider the role of higher education in prison. We present empirical findings of a 4-year, qualitative and quantitative participatory action research study of the impact of college in prison. Evidence is drawn from participant observations; individual and focus group interviews with participants of the college program, former inmates, prison administrators, corrections officers, and children of inmates; faculty surveys; and a quantitative analysis of recidivism rates. We address the psychological, academic, and crime-related impacts of higher education on women in prison, and document the benefits of broad-based access for inmates, prison environments, children of prisoners, and society-at-large.     

Calibration of FI‐ISK,an Invasiveness Screening Tool for Nonnative Freshwater Invertebrates

The Freshwater Invertebrate Invasiveness Scoring Kit (FI‐ISK) is proposed as a screening tool for identifying potentially invasive freshwater invertebrates. FI‐ISK was adapted from the Fish Invasiveness Scoring Kit (FISK) of Copp, Garthwaite, and Gozlan, which is an adapted form of the Weed Risk Assessment (WRA) of Pheloung, Williams, and Halloy. Initial assessments using FI‐ISK, which include confidence (certainty/uncertainty) rankings by the assessor to each response, were calibrated to determine the most appropriate score thresholds for classifying nonnative species into low‐, medium‐, and high‐risk categories, using both the original medium‐to‐high risk threshold scores for the WRA (i.e., ≥6) and for FISK (i.e., ≥19). Patterns of the assessor's confidence, when making the responses during the FI‐ISK assessments, were also examined. Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, FI‐ISK was shown to distinguish accurately (and with statistical confidence) between potentially invasive and noninvasive species of nonnative crayfish (Decapoda: Astacidae, Cambaridae, Parastacidae), with the statistically appropriate threshold score for high‐risk species scores being ≥16. FI‐ISK represents a useful and viable tool to aid decision‐ and policymakers in assessing and classifying freshwater invertebrates according to their potential invasiveness.     

Communicative competence and the facilitating and perturbing factors in the socialisation of immigrant students

This work analyses the communicative competence and the factors that facilitate and perturb the socialisation of immigrant students in primary education. It provides greater knowledge concerning the relationship between the immigrant student's social and linguistic competence. It also analyses the presence of difficulties in the different language components (morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics). The sample is made up of a total of 326 immigrant students between 6 and 12 years of age, attending 10 different schools. The study demonstrates that immigrant students possess a low level of linguistic dominion. All the linguistic components analysed are affected, although greater difficulties are evident in morphology and syntax than in semantics and pragmatics. The relationship between linguistic competence and the factors that facilitate and perturb socialisation is underlined. This work concludes that there is a significant relation between semantics and pragmatics and several socialisation factors (leadership, aggressiveness–stubbornness and anxiety–shyness). The educational centres should be aware of the complicated learning process that immigrant students have to go through.     

The Bulgarian Educational System and the Challenge of Interculturalism

The following article discusses the manner in which the Bulgarian educational system has dealt with the problem of minority group education during different periods of history: liberal democracy (1878‐1934), authoritarianism (1934‐1944), people's democracy (1944‐1948), communism (1948‐1989) and post‐communism (1989‐). At the end of the article we take a more detailed look at intercultural education in Bulgaria today.     

HELP AND HINDRANCE: PARENTS OF DIVORCING CHILDREN*

Much research exists on the impact of divorce on the nuclear family. Less is known about the response of the extended family to a divorce. In this study, the authors examined divorcing children's perceptions of their parents' behavior; divorcing children experienced their parents' reactions as supportive, non-supportive, or “mixed.” Types of helpful behaviors were categorized and patterns of unhelpful parental behavior were elaborated. Implications of the study for therapy and for an understanding of parent-adult child relationships are discussed.     

Extending dual multiple factor analysis to categorical tables

This paper describes a proposal for the extension of the dual multiple factor analysis (DMFA) method developed by Lê and Pagès 15 to the analysis of categorical tables in which the same set of variables is measured on different sets of individuals. The extension of DMFA is based on the transformation of categorical variables into properly weighted indicator variables, in a way analogous to that used in the multiple factor analysis of categorical variables. The DMFA of categorical variables enables visual comparison of the association structures between categories over the sample as a whole and in the various subsamples (sets of individuals). For each category, DMFA allows us to obtain its global (considering all the individuals) and partial (considering each set of individuals) coordinates in a factor space. This visual analysis allows us to compare the set of individuals to identify their similarities and differences. The suitability of the technique is illustrated through two applications: one using simulated data for two groups of individuals with very different association structures and the other using real data from a voting intention survey in which some respondents were interviewed by telephone and others face to face. The results indicate that the two data collection methods, while similar, are not entirely equivalent.     

Kolmogorov–Smirnov,Fluctuation, and Z g Tests for Convergence of Markov Chain Monte Carlo Draws

We examine the sizes and powers of three tests of convergence of Markov Chain Monte Carlo draws: the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, fluctuation test, and Geweke's test. We show that the sizes and powers are sensitive to the existence of autocorrelation in the draws. We propose a filtered test that is corrected for autocorrelation. We present a numerical illustration using the Federal funds rate.