Examining implementation and preliminary performance indicators of veterans treatment courts: The Kentucky experience

Veterans’ Treatment Courts (VTCs) are posited as a solution to offer rehabilitation for veterans involved in the criminal justice system. Despite the pervasive implementation of VTCs, there is little research focused specifically on VTC implementation and outcomes, which are based on other problem-solving court models such as drug court. The current study presents qualitative process evaluation data from key stakeholders (n = 21) and veteran participants (n = 4) to show accomplishments, challenges, and lessons learned during first-year implementation at two VTC sites. Quantitative performance data is also presented on veteran participants (n = 19) served during the first year to show: types of services, monitoring, judicial interaction, sanctions/therapeutic responses, and rewards, as well as preliminary data on recidivism. Qualitative data, from both key stakeholders and veteran participants, suggests that offering rehabilitation via various program components, services/referrals, and accountability are critical to the success of the VTC. Data also provides valuable lessons learned for VTC implementation including communication, collaboration, information/protocols, and resources. Performance data shows that a variety of services are utilized and that frequent judicial interaction, drug testing, and sanctions are cornerstones of the VTC. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.     

Attitude strength moderates adverse effects to questionnaire design

ABSTRACT

The presentation and visual design of the “don’t know” category in rating scales on respondents’ behavior may have ambivalent effects. The hypothesis is that attitude strength toward the topic influences the respondents’ sensitivity to the graphical design of the scale. A paper-and-pencil questionnaire conducted among 307 German university students contained an experimental variation of the presentation of a “don’t know” category and its visual design. A multinomial logistic regression shows that presenting a “don’t know” category drives respondents toward extreme categories. The visual design of the “don’t know” category influences the distribution of responses, all the more that the respondents’ attitudes toward the item topic are weak.     

Visibly ageing femininities: women’s visual discourses of being over-40 and over-50 on Instagram

Abstract

This article explores visual discourses about over-40 and over-50 femininities that emerge from women’s own Instagram accounts. It analyses women’s visual and textual rhetoric of what over-40 and over-50 looks like, and whether it could interrupt the ageist, sexist, and body-normative discourses of female ageing and visibility. Intertextual visual discourse analysis of images, captions, and hashtags reveals two dominant themes (fitness and fashion) and two repeating rhetorical elements (motherhood and self-sufficiency) through which women make themselves visible as over-40/50. A few explicitly subversive discourses (i.e., over-40 fatshion account) exist, but a discourse of a healthy, fit, fashionable, independent, self-sufficient, and happy mother over-40/50 is prevalent. It easily lends itself to being interpreted as an insidious reproduction of post-feminist ideology, but I argue that there are moments of critique and subversion within. Thus, a reparative reading that acknowledges moments of disconnect from the discourse that normalizes ageing women’s limited or non-existent visibility is offered.     

Culturally responsive teaching in China: instructional strategy and teachers’ attitudes

The aim of this study was to investigate the manner in which teachers facilitate the pedagogical process within a culturally diverse student population. The study focused on two primary schools in China; one located in a more fully developed city in eastern China (Case A), while the other was in a less developed city in rural western China (Case B). This allowed the researchers to compare and analyse the different instructional practices by means of semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The findings indicate that: the teachers in Case A demonstrated overall affirmative attitudes towards ethnic minority cultures, as well as towards the students belonging to those cultures. However, the teachers also chose not to mention the specific ethnic identities and cultural differences of the students during the course of their instruction in order to ensure equal treatment for everyone. This leads to a kind of ‘cultural blindness’ in the classroom. In Case B, opinions regarding minority cultures were more varied. Compared with the teachers in Case A, more teachers in Case B found minority cultures to be inferior to the dominant Han culture. Some teachers also, counter intuitively, were of the opinion that the minority cultures were even superior. At the instructional level, school leadership developed courses on local culture and ethnicity for the teaching staff. This was done for a variety of reasons. The strongest evidence to support culturally responsive teaching in Case A does not stem from teaching and learning demands but from the necessity to pursue characteristics that make them distinctive from other schools at the same time, Case B’s practice of culturally responsive teaching was strongly supported by the government and UNICEF. Teachers in both schools indicated that they had integrated their knowledge of ethnic minority groups into the subject matter when it was necessary.     

Examples of practice: an intercultural approach to translate Romanian children’s folklore into Spanish

Due to the great number of Romanian pupils in Spanish public school, the local administration organises extra-curricular Romanian courses in order to preserve the Romanian language and culture. This is a way to contribute to build and consolidate a bicultural and bilingual profile of the young people. Besides, it is also an opportunity to align with plurilingual and pluricultural competence established by The Common European Framework of References for Languages (2002). Based on the premise that “children's literature is an intercultural instrument”, I choose as corpus the Romanian children's folklore represented by games, formula-songs, recital-stories, household words, incantations, riddles and lullabies to translate into Spanish. After the translations, Romanian children had to find similarities and differences between the Romanian and Spanish children's songs, in order to augment the knowledge about both cultures.     

‘A person with some sort of learning disability’: the aetiological narrative and public construction of Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle’s audition for the television talent competition Britain’s Got Talent attracted global attention and widespread media discourse. In this article, I would like to examine this discourse to consider how Boyle’s success troubles conventional constructions of both learning disability and celebrity.

I extend Ciara Evans’s recognition that learning disability is invisible to reflect on the media responses to Boyle’s impairment. This reflection notes that even within Boyle’s own discourse, she is loosely positioned as having ‘some sort of learning disability’.

Detailed attention is given to the aetiological account of the ‘brain damage’ Boyle ‘suffered’ at birth. The analysis will consider the correlation with scientific discourse, trauma theory and the imposed biography to suggest that the construction of Boyle as both contained and unpredictable is already implicit in the aetiological narrative.     

浅谈教学改革形势下高职数学教师的自我发展

高职数学教学改革对教师的教学提出了新的要求,数学教师自身素质的提升是教学改革成功的关键。数学教师通过科学的自我反思、持续不断的学习、加大现代教育技术的运用,将有效推动高职数学教学改革的顺利开展。     

论完善教师职业的社会责任

教师职业的社会责任是要把广大青少年培养成为有理想、有道德、有文化、有纪律的社会主义建设人才。人才的培养不仅决定于教师的劳动,而且决定于周围环境的关系。为了使环境符合教育学,教师必须遵循社会主义教师职业的道德要求,正确处理教师和社会的关系,教师职业要适应新时期的要求和建设的需要。     

孙中山的人学思想及其现实意义

孙中山的人学思想产生于19世纪末20世纪初的近代中国,是在其"致力国民革命四十年,求中国之自由平等"的斗争实践中逐渐形成的。它内涵丰富、意蕴深远,涉及互助人性论、民生观、自由平等观、"生元"说以及人生观等方面的内容。探讨发掘孙中山的人学思想中蕴含的积极合理成分,在当代无疑具有重要的现实意义。     

教师职业素养新论

国家于2010年新出台的《国家中长期教育改革和发展规划纲要(2010——2020年)》(以下简称《教育规划纲要》),使教师的职业素养再度引起公众的关注。文章将其归结为"敦品"、"业精"、"敬业"六个字,并从这三个方面入手谈教师的职业素养。