Exploring the Training and Lived Experiences of Resident Directors

This multi-method study explores how RDs characterize the training they receive for their jobs, and what employer-provided training, or other factors, inform how RDs respond to student alcohol use. The project employed a survey, as well as semi-structured interviews and document analysis to help identify the types of training that RDs are receiving in their role, explored the training and other factors that contribute to how RDs respond to student alcohol use, which they primarily encounter on-duty or through the student conduct process. The study yielded important information on how RDs own personal experiences with alcohol inform their work with students

Online Self-Injury Forums, Social Support, And Psychological Distress

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a behavior being seen with increasing frequency among clinicians and the general population. Internet forums where people who engage in the behavior may discuss topics related to NSSI have become widespread. The effects of those websites on people who engage in the behavior have not been researched. This study used structural equation modeling to better understand the relationship between identification with these groups, time online, comfort discussing NSSI, social support, and psychological distress. The final model suggests a complicated relationship between Internet use and offline effects. Identification with such an online group appears to lead to both increases in feelings of social support and increases in psychological distress. Also, the model indicates that comfort with discussing NSSI leads to increased feelings of social support, decreased loneliness, and decreased psychological distress. However, time spent online may both decrease social problems and increase psychological distress. Implications and limitations of the study are also discussed

E/Valuating new media in language development

This paper addresses the need for a new approach to the educational evaluation of software that falls under the rubric "new media" or "multimedia" as distinct from previous generations of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) software. The authors argue that present approaches to CALL software evaluation are not appropriate for a new genre of CALL software distinguished by its shared assumptions about language learning and teaching as well as by its technical design. The paper sketches a research-based program called "E/Valuation" that aims to assist language educators to answer questions about the educational effectiveness of recent multimedia language learning software. The authors suggest that such program needs to take into account not only the nature of the new media and its potential to promote language learning in novel ways, but also current professional knowledge about language learning and teaching

Correspondences and Contradictions in International and Domestic Conflict Resolution: Lessons From General Theory and Varied Contexts

Does the field of conflict resolution have any broadly applicable theories that work across the different domains of international and domestic conflict? Or, are contexts, participants, and resources so domain specific and variable that only thick descriptions of particular contexts will do? These are important questions which have been plaguing me in this depressing time for conflict resolution professionals, from September 11,2001 (9/11), to the war against Iraq. Have we learned anything about conflict resolution that really does improve our ability to describe, predict, and act to reduce unnecessary and harmful conflict? These are the questions I want to explore in this essay, all the while knowing that I will ask more questions than I have answers to. My hope is to spark more rigorous attention to the possibility of comparative dispute resolution study and practice, using key concepts, theories, empirical studies, practical wisdom, and experiential insights to spark and encourage more multi-level and multi-unit analysis of some of our shared propositions

Transforming Perception: Black Men and Boys

While there has been progress in the U.S. in terms of racial attitudes and opportunities, black men and boys continue to face challenges. This report presents original research, along with current studies in social psychology and neuroscience, offering an empirically grounded analysis of how emotions and fears about race shape behaviors and biases

Introduction & Coda, Multi-Party Dispute Resolution, Democracy and Decision Making: Vol. II of Complex Dispute Resolution

The Complex Dispute Resolution series collects essays on the development of foundational dispute resolution theory and practice and its application to increasingly more complex settings of conflicts in the world, including multi-party and multi-issue decision making, negotiations in political policy formation and governance, and international conflict resolution. Each volume contains an original introduction by the editor, which explores the key issues in the field. All three volumes feature essays which span an interdisciplinary range of fields, law, political science, game theory, decision science, economics, social and cognitive psychology, sociology and anthropology and consider issues in the uses of informal and private processes, as well as more formal and public processes. The essays question whether the development of universal theoretical insights about conflict resolution is possible with variable numbers of parties and issues and in multi-cultural and multi-jural settings. Each volume also presents a coda, summarizing key issues in the field and suggesting further avenues for research. The second volume (and the introductory essay here) applies the theoretical foundations and practices of primary processes in dispute resolution–negotiation, mediation, arbitration and some hybrid processes in both public and private, informal and formal settings to more complex multi-party and multi issue settings, and asks whether foundational theories must be altered when there are more parties and issues. What difference do larger numbers make in theory and practice of dispute resolution and decision making? Other theoretical and empirical observations of the role of third party neutrals and facilitators in multi-party settings are explored, and applied disciplines such as game theory and decision sciences are applied to complex dispute resolution settings. Illustrations of uses of these processes in different substantive areas, e.g. legal disputes, public policy decision making, politics and governance, environmental matters, institutional relations, and high conflict settings are provided. The volume collects classic articles in multi-party, multi-issue theory and practice while interrogating the issues of how the numbers of parties and issues, different contexts and cultures challenges our efforts to create generalizable theory and practice of human conflict resolution. The review essay also discusses recent efforts to seek correspondences and learning from application of conflict resolution theory and practice to the work on deliberative democracy and political decision making. The coda suggests avenues for future research. Some attention is paid to issues of ethics and political theory, as well as evaluation of efficacy, in the use of third party facilitators in public policy and governance disputes