‘It's against our law,never mind anyone else's’: the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and adults with learning disabilities

This study examines Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (the provision of goods, services and facilities) in relation to adults with learning disabilities. The study had a participatory element in that self‐advocates co‐facilitated focus groups and joined the Research Advisory Group. The paper presents views of people with learning disabilities, garnered through focus groups and interviews, about the Act and about using services. Awareness of their rights was generally low, although activists were generally better informed. While usually offered reasonable service in shops, pubs and other facilities, people were sometimes treated unfairly. This could take three forms – being treated with a lack of courtesy and respect, failure to make reasonable adjustments and outright refusal to serve. People felt a strong sense of injustice when treated in these ways but the majority were unlikely to complain, although a few had challenged unfair treatment. The paper concludes with recommendations for policy and practice.     

The role of religious networks and other factors in types of volunteer work

In view of current efforts to strengthen volunteering and promote the faith‐based provision of social services in the United States, we examine both the underlying complexity of volunteering and who performs particular types of volunteer work. This paper, drawing on a telephone interview survey of 526 randomly selected Indiana residents, considers whether religious involvement helps explain engagement in different types of volunteer work independent of such other contributing factors as family status, socioeconomic status, and community attachment. We find that religious involvement plays an independent role, but only for certain types of volunteer work.     

Summer Engagement for At-Risk Youth: Preliminary Outcomes from the New York State Workforce Development Study

The goal of engaging high-risk youth in pro-social activities is to reduce involvement in the criminal justice system and create experiences that increase the youth’s chance of success in education and employment in the future. However, the literature does not support this assumption. The current study looks at the Summer Youth Engagement Program in New York State (NYSYEP). NYSYEP attempts to engage youth in a variety of pro-social activities including employment; education programs; organized recreation programs; and, volunteer work or community service. The hypothesis for the study was that youth who were engaged in pro-social activities would be more likely to be rearrested than youth who were not engaged. The number of hours of youth engagement was found to reduce the odds of being rearrested, but by only 2 %.     

Slavery,Empire and Civilization: A Luso-Brazilian Defense of the Slave Trade in the Age of Revolutions

This article examines a defense of the slave trade mounted in the 1790s by the Luso-Brazilian Bishop Azeredo Coutinho. While Azeredo's defense has been interpreted as a function of his slave-owning family's interest, this article provides a broader analysis of Azeredo's writings on the slave trade and the Portuguese empire within the contexts of eighteenth-century Luso-Brazilian intellectual culture and transatlantic debates about empire, commerce and historical transformation. His writing on the imperial economy and the slave trade included both appeals to an eighteenth-century ideal of civilization as a process predicated upon the universality of humanity as well as defense of empire as the rational, just and necessary exploitation of the barbarous by the civilized.     

Marijuana,Gender, and Health-Related Harms: Disentangling Marijuana's Contribution to Risk in a College “Party” Context

Sociological studies suggest that there is social change occurring in the acceptance of lesbians and gay men in the workplace. Compared to prior decades, there are more businesses that welcome, value, and even privilege nonheterosexual sexual identities and relationships. Few studies have analyzed workers' experiences in these types of work contexts. In this article, we explore the experiences of “out” LGB women and men who work for organizations that they consider “gay-friendly.” In-depth interviews demonstrated that, although gay and lesbian workers feel that they are accepted in “gay-friendly” organizations, they nevertheless described differential treatment because of their sexual identity. We discuss evidence of stereotyping, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in their work experiences. Although the movement toward greater acceptance of gays and lesbians in the workplace has made significant progress, the transformation is so far incomplete. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this research for the study of equality in organizations.     

US college and university student health screening requirements for tuberculosis and vaccine-preventable diseases, 2012

ABSTRACT

Objective: Colleges are at risk for communicable disease outbreaks because of the high degree of person-to-person interactions and relatively crowded dormitory settings. This report describes the US college student health screening requirements among US resident and international students for tuberculosis (TB) and vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) as they relate to the American College Health Association (ACHA) guidelines. Methods/Participants: In April 2012, US college health administrators (N = 2,858) were sent online surveys to assess their respective school's TB screening and immunization requirements. Results: Surveys were completed by 308 (11%) schools. Most schools were aware of the ACHA immunization (78%) and TB screening (76%) guidelines. Schools reported having policies related to immunization screening (80.4%), immunization compliance (93%), TB screening (55%), and TB compliance (87%). Conclusion: Most colleges were following ACHA guidelines. However, there are opportunities for improvement to fully utilize the recommendations and prevent outbreaks of communicable diseases among students in colleges.     

Awareness of Publication Guidelines and the Responsible Conduct of Research

We have conducted a longitudinal survey of NIH-funded F32 postdoctoral fellows to determine if mandated instruction in the responsible conduct of research (RCR) has measurable effects on awareness of, attentiveness to, and behavioral judgments about research ethics and authorship and publication. Of 418 F32 fellows participating in the study, 50% were aware of and had referred to guidelines on authorship and publication practices while 50% were either unaware of or had not referred to guidelines. Groups were similar with regard to total number of peer-reviewed publications and total number of first author publications, years of research experience, years since completing their doctoral degree, and receipt of RCR training. The equal distribution of guideline awareness and use, and group similarities with regard to career development and achievement provided us with an opportunity to consider whether awareness of and use of guidelines is associated with broader judgments about author roles and responsibilities. The findings suggest that awareness and utilization of guidelines are, at best, only modestly associated with more ethically appropriate judgments and attitudes about author roles and responsibilities among novice F32’s.     

Construal level theory and escalation of commitment

Escalation of commitment causes people to continue a failing course of action. We study the role of construal level in such escalation of commitment. Consistent with the widely held view of construal level as a primed effect, we employed a commonly used prime for manipulating this construct in a laboratory experiment. Our findings revealed that the prime failed to produce statistically significant differences in construal level, which was measured using the Behavior Identification Form (BIF). Furthermore, there was no effect of the prime on escalation of commitment, or on constructs that have previously been linked to construal level such as the perceived importance of feasibility considerations relative to desirability considerations, and the number of pros and cons that subjects can think of.

Interestingly, however, subjects’ actual construal level scores on the BIF were found to significantly affect escalation. Specifically, our findings show that people with a low construal level are less willing to continue a failing project. This relation is mediated by the perceived importance of the feasibility of the project relative to its desirability. For people with a low construal level, the perceived importance of feasibility relative to desirability is higher, which in turn makes escalation of commitment less likely.

Our findings are consistent with prior research suggesting that priming construal level may not always be effective. Thus, while construal level has typically been regarded as a state-like variable that can be primed, in this study, we show that construal level may also be considered as a trait.

     

Some Ethical and Methodological Issues in Research with People with Learning Difficulties

This paper discusses some ethical and methodological issues which arose in a recent study examining the exercise of choice by people with learning difficulties. The research aimed to examine in detail the choice-making process, and to explore ways of involving people with learning difficulties both as respondents and as contributors to the study design. Various dilemmas were encountered-including how to gain informed consent from people with profound impairment, the risk of intrusion when conducting research in people's own homes, and the dangers of raising expectations of continuing friendship. The importance of accountability when analysing data and disseminating findings is highlighted. A Research Advisory Group, including two people with learning difficulties, was set up to give guidance on the study. Steps were taken, but not enough, to facilitate their involvement in the meetings. Reflecting on experience gained in this study and on research reported elsewhere, a number of pointers for future research are drawn. These include the need to consider the potential implications of intellectual impairment for involvement in the research process.