Research-based service-learning: outcomes of a social policy course

Previous research has found service-learning in undergraduate social policy courses to increase students’ knowledge, skills, values, and competence. The present study utilized a sample of 60 graduate-level social work students who participated in a research-based service-learning (RBSL) project that involved collecting and analyzing data about the extent of payday loan use among bankruptcy filers and reporting results to community partners. Quantitative findings revealed significant increases in students’ personal social responsibility. Qualitative findings shed light on growth in personal social responsibility, civic awareness, policy advocacy, and personal values. Suggestions for future studies using RBSL pedagogy to teach social policy are discussed.     

Non‐Citizen Mexican Youth in US Higher Education: A Closer Look at the Relationship between State Tuition Policies and College Enrollment

This paper examines state policies that extend or deny in‐state tuition to children of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Using the Current Population Survey (1997–2010), we assess changes in college enrollment among Mexican‐born non‐citizens — a proxy for the undocumented population. In contrast to previous analyses, we find that policies extending in‐state tuition to undocumented youth do not directly affect rates of college enrollment. However, we find that Mexican‐born non‐citizen youth residing in states that deny in‐state tuition have a 12.1 percentage point lower probability of being enrolled in college than their peers living in states with no such policies.     

The Application of Bioassays in Risk Assessment of Environmental Pollution

Increased contamination of the environment by toxic chemicals has resulted in the need for sensitive assays to be used in risk assessment of polluted sites. Traditional tests are useful to detect and measure concentrations of chemicals in the environment and in tissues. However, physicochemical assays possess deficiencies that impair their use in evaluating complex environmental contamination. We have developed cytogenetic procedures, including chromosomal, micronucleus, and flow cytometric assays, to assess the mutagenic damage of petrochemicals and low-level radioactivity on indigenous terrestrial and aquatic wildlife populations. These procedures are sensitive to the perturbation of DNA that results from exposure to mutagenic contaminants in both field and laboratory studies. The use of natural populations of animals in biomonitoring, combined with traditional chemical assays, will ultimately provide sufficient information to estimate the risk to human health and environmental quality from anthropogenic pollution.     

Gender and Citizenship in a Global Context: The Struggle for Maquila Workers' Rights in Nicaragua

This article analyzes the strategic deployment of rights and citizenship discourses by a Nicaraguan women's organization (MEC) and the struggle that this group has faced in reconciling the use of these discourses with its aim of bringing about changes in the conditions faced by women workers in the Free Trade Zone (FTZ). Contestations regarding notions of citizenship are explored, and I discuss Nicaraguan state agents' and (to a lesser degree) maquila factory owners' use of notions of citizenship, and how they both coincide and conflict with neoliberal social and economic projects. The case of this Nicaraguan organization's discursive engagement with state actors sheds light on the question: How do ideologies linked to transnational social movements filter into regional and national discourses and become transformed by local actors? In addition, this case has important implications for the larger issue of changing state sovereignty within a global context. A contextualized approach to the strategic use of (human) rights and citizenship calls attention to the complex and situationally specific dilemmas and opportunities involved in adapting this "frame" to work for oppositional objectives. Furthermore, viewing rights and citizenship as always situational calls us to move away from narrow conceptualizations of structural transformation to a more complex and nuanced vision.     

Listening Competency on Campus: A Psychometric Analysis of Student Listening

Primarily used in corporate and organizational contexts, this study evaluates the psychometric properties of the 30-item Organizational Listening Survey (OLS) as a measure of listening behavior with a sample of undergraduate college students. The first study analyzed 1,475 students' self-reports of their listening behavior on campus, indicating a single-factor model of listening with strong internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = .96), incorporating aspects of affirming the relational partner as well as confirming the message communicated. The second study involved students' other-reports of their professors' listening behaviors. It demonstrated high interrater agreement using the OLS to evaluate a common professor.     

KONY 2012: Branding the Enemy—Activism Imagery in the Age of Social Media and the Political Brand

The KONY 2012 campaign, released by Invisible Children in early March 2012, is a carefully strategized program of destruction through promotion (aimed at destroying Joseph Kony’s image while making him famous). It is composed of a series of branded visual identity images, logos, text, and videos that are currently rewriting contemporary strategies for generating activism through social media. This article investigates the visual imagery and media of the KONY 2012 campaign and considers how the campaign team purposefully creates a subversive brandspace where individuals interact with the preformulated anti-Kony imagery that aids in the construction, communication, and maintenance of an antipathetic political brand identity. It also considers the implications of the iconoclastic visual rhetoric used by campaign designers to encourage the symbolic destruction of Kony’s image by making him notoriously iconic. Finally, it investigates the religious undertones of the campaign and its selective recruitment of followers through evangelical churches and organizations.