The Process of Education by Jerome Bruner

The authors discuss the results of a two-year follow-up study of students who had been enrolled in a course on social work with groups in which the only mechanism for evaluation of learning was a small group oral examination. The findings suggest that the mechanism was an effective educational tool. It tapped a natural resource for learning, was responsive to the self-image of the graduate student, and promoted the integration of theory with practice.     

Interpersonal Compatibility and Student-Faculty Evaluations: The Effects of Need Complementarity in the Classroom

Abstract

Previous studies have examined student characteristics or teacher characteristics as sources of variation in student-faculty evaluations. However, little attention has been given to the ways in which interpersonal needs of student and teacher may jointly contribute to such evaluations. This study investigated the hypothesis that complementarity of student-teacher needs for control and affection would be related to positive evaluations of teachers. Eight teachers and 265 students completed the FIROB Scales; student-faculty evaluation forms were later administered to the students. The hypothesized relationship for affection needs was not obtained; however, complementarity of control needs was significantly related to positive teacher evaluations. The results suggest that noncomplementary relationships tend to lead to negative teacher evaluations when the teacher expresses a high need to control others.     

Strategies for Developing Cross-Cultural Sensitivity

Developing cross-cultural sensitivity currently is a primary challenge for social work educators. In this article, the authors propose the use of an analogy between child abuse and cultural wounding to provide a metaphorical understanding of minority cultures. From the overtly physical wounding of castration to the more subtle forms of psychological wounding that occur through denying the importance or value of one’s culture, the range of cultural wounding that occurs as a result of oppression, devaluing or stigmatizing is presented. It will be shown that the use of the child abuse metaphor will allow the student to understand the feelings and behaviors of those oppressed and through a new level of empathy, learn to join the oppressed in a different type of problem—solving effort.     

Administration of the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Text (MAST) at a Student Health Service

Abstract

“Blood Glucose Control and the Evolution of Diabetic Retinopathy and Albuminuria: A Preliminary Multicenter Trial,” The Kroc Collaborative Study Group. We conducted a prospective multicenter randomized trial to determine both the feasibility of maintaining blood glucose control at differing levels and the effect of improved control on diabetic microangiopathy and albuminuria. Seventy patients with diabetes (low C-peptide level) with nonproliferative retinopathy were randomly assigned to continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion or unchanged conventional injection treatment. At entry, both groups had similar demographic, clinical, and glycemic characteristics. Over the succeeding eight months, mean 24-hour glucose concentrations (175 ± 9 mg per deciliter) and glycosylated hemoglobin levels (10.0 ± 0.3%) remained elevated during conventional treatment but fell to nearly normal levels (117 ± 6 mg per deciliter and 8.1 ± 0.2%, respectively) with continuous insulin infusion. The frequency of biochemical hypoglycemia (< 40 mg of blood glucose per deciliter) was similar in both groups, but ketoacidosis occurred only during continuous infusion. The level of retinopathy, assessed from photographs, progressed in both groups. Continuous infusion was associated with slightly more deterioration, mainly because of the appearance of soft exudates and intraretinal microvascular abnormalities. In contrast, elevated albumin-excretion rates fell during continuous infusion but not during conventional treatment. We conclude that maintenance of differing levels of blood glucose is feasible in a multicenter trial and that a nearly normal blood glucose level for eight months does not retard progression of, and may initially worsen, established retinopathy. These preliminary observations indicate the need for longer trials (particularly of primary prevention). (New England Journal of Medicine 1984;311:365-72.)     

Exploring the Contextual Determinants of Individual Attitudes toward Immigrants and Criminal Activity and their Spillover Policy Implications

Immigrants are routinely tied to a range of social problems in the policy making process in the US political system. Little is known however about the extent to which citizens hold attitudes that connect immigrants to particular social problems and whether these attitudes spill over to influence citizens’ preferences toward specific public policy alternatives that might appear to be largely independent of immigrants and immigration. Investigating the nexus between immigration and crime, we ask how Anglo whites’ contextual environments influence their propensity to link immigrants to a salient social pathology like crime. Results show that whites living in states where immigrant populations have increased most dramatically and in states with lower socioeconomic characteristics are more likely to associate immigration with increased criminal activity. Whites’ attitudes toward immigration‐induced crime has important spillover implications to the larger public policy making process as whites who view immigrants as a cause of criminal activity are more likely to support tougher criminal sentencing and the death penalty.