Too much information: visual research ethics in the age of wearable cameras

When everything you see is data, what ethical principles apply? This paper argues that first-person digital recording technologies challenge traditional institutional approaches to research ethics, but that this makes ethics governance more important, not less so. We review evolving ethical concerns across four fields: Visual ethics; ubiquitous computing; mobile health; and grey literature from applied or market research. Collectively, these bodies of literature identify new challenges to traditional notions of informed consent, anonymity, confidentiality, privacy, beneficence and maleficence. Challenges come from the ever-increasing power, breadth and multi-functional integration of recording technologies, and the ubiquity and normalization of their use by participants. Some authors argue that these evolving relationships mean that institutional ethics governance procedures are irrelevant or no longer apply. By contrast, we argue that the fundamental principles of research ethics frameworks have become even more important for the protection of research participants, and that institutional frameworks need to adapt to keep pace with the ever-increasing power of recording technologies and the consequent risks to privacy. We conclude with four recommendations for efforts to ensure that contemporary visual recording research is held appropriately accountable to ethical standards: (i) minimizing the detail, scope, integration and retention of captured data, and limiting its accessibility; (ii) formulating an approach to ethics that takes in both the ‘common rule’ approaches privileging anonymity and confidentiality together with principles of contextual judgement and consent as an ongoing process; (iii) developing stronger ethical regulation of research outside academia; (iv) engaging the public and research participants in the development of ethical guidelines

Students’ representation of “other” religions

oai:ojs2.curriculumstudies.org:article/2With the unfortunate abundance of religious conflicts in the world, it is important that attention is devoted to how students position themselves in relation to religions they do not associate with. On this score, a section of scholarship in social studies education has examined students making meaning of religio-historical and contemporary happenings. Yet, questions relating to students’ representation of “other” religions remain underexplored. From the Ghanaian context where this study is situated, official curriculum mandates teaching about religion, however, little to no evidence exist to support a claim that students’ attitudes change after learning this curriculum. To explore the disconnect, a qualitative study of six Ghanaian elementary schools were conducted for a three-month period. Through interviews, observations focus groups and document analysis, students’ representation of “other religions” were examined. Research outcome revealed that, students mediate their lessons on religion through the lens of their own experiences and metanarratives of their individual faiths. Consequently, they hold two forms of knowledge – authentic official knowledge used for examination purposes and secularized cultural knowledge used in practice. It is concluded that, the vestiges of colonialism and emergent imperialism are deeply implicated in students’ discourses around religion. Therefore, the missing link between content knowledge and attitudinal change may be explained by the failure of pedagogy to acknowledge the impact of contextual happenings on the realization of curriculum objectives. A solution to this conundrum will be for educators to connect academic knowledge to the out-of-school socio-cultural experiences of student

Constructing a Geodynamic A Priori Seismic (GAPS) velocity model of upper mantle heterogeneity

Seismic studies of the deep mantle suffer from the fact that the probing seismic waves must traverse the highly heterogeneous and poorly resolved shallow structure. One potential way forward is to develop high-resolution models of the crust and upper mantle using other information. Here we describe the construction of a geodynamic a priori model of some aspects of upper mantle seismic velocity heterogeneity. It is based on an equal area tomographic grid and it has been produced at two scales, a 1° × 1° resolution at the equator, (i.e., each cell has an approximate dimension of 100 km by 100 km), and a 5° × 5° resolution at the equator. Both have a constant layer thickness of 100 km. Currently, the model accommodates the subducting lithosphere and global variation in continental crustal thickness and age of oceanic lithosphere. The shape of subducting oceanic lithosphere was derived from profiles through seismicity. The shape was combined with estimates of plate velocities and age of subducting lithosphere using an analytic solution of the thermal field to define the slab thermal anomaly. The temperature perturbation was converted to a slowness (1/velocity) perturbation. For oceanic lithosphere, a plate-cooling model was used to convert lithosphere age to slowness perturbation via a temperature perturbation. The variation in the thickness of continental crust, around a global average, formed the third element of the slowness perturbation model. This model has already been applied in a high-resolution mantle tomographic study of lower mantle heterogeneity

AN EXPLORATION OF THE MENTAL HEALTH HELP-SEEKING AND SELF-CARE STRATEGIES OF BLACK WOMEN: THE IMPLICATIONS FOR COUNSELOR EDUCATION, TRAINING AND PRACTICE.

Mental health is a national concern. It is estimated that 43 million adults in the United States experience mental illness in a given year (National Alliance on Mental Health, 2015). Of those 43 million adults, approximately 6.8 million people who identify as African American or Black suffer from some type of mental illness (U.S. Bureau, 2015). Black Americans experience mental health symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem at alarming rates. When addressing the concerns of mental health within the Black community, the mental health of Black women is of primary concern. Black women are more susceptible than Black men to various forms of depression and the risk factors that stem from depression such as heightened suicidal ideations (Pieterse, Carter & Ray, 2013; Jones & Guy-Sheftall, 2015). Additionally the psychological and physical health of Black women can be impacted by the intersectional characteristics of their identities such as, race, class, gender, income, education, occupational status, religion, and sexual orientation (Boyd-Franklin, 1991; Mays, 1985; Mays, 2017; Williams, 2000). Despite efforts within the field of counseling, Black women remain severely underserved misdiagnosed, and are the least researched within the counseling field (Borum, 2012). The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of Black women who have experienced mental health stress within the past year and to understand of their mental health needs, barriers to mental health care, as well as their help-seeking and self-care practices. Black women who report experiencing some form of mental health stress were solicited for participation for this study. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, a semi-structured interview, and a post interview session with the primary researcher. Interviews were analyzed to provide insight on Black women’s experience as it relates to help-seeking barriers and resources. Findings were summarized by four themes: Perspectives of Oppression on Mental Health, Socio-Cultural Messages about Self-Care and Help-Seeking, New Perspectives about Self-Care and Help-Seeking Strategies, and Messages about Professional Counseling. Each theme was reflective the influencers of mental health for the Black women participants and the resources they perceived as valuable to managing their mental health. Implications of this study include providing information that may assist counseling practitioners and educators to understand the help-seeking strategies of Black women. This in turn may assist them in creating culturally valuable counseling strategies that may be implemented within counselor training and practice. Additional implications include providing data to improve counselor training and practice for current and future counselors. Lastly, this study may help in the transformative care for Black women in the area of mental health as well as the creation and implementation of relevant theoretical counseling strategies employed by practitioners when serving Black women

The Use of Distinct Frames by the Netherlands in Relation to EU Foreign Policy Coordination. A Case Study of the Enhanced Accession Methodology of the European Union.

This thesis examines when, how, and why the Netherlands uses distinct frames during internal and external coordination in relation to European Foreign Policy. Building on an extensive discussion on the theoretical conceptualisation of coordination and framing, this case study compares the use of frames and framing devices by the Netherlands in light of the Enhanced Accession Methodology of the European Union. The thesis has a qualitative research design, and data was primarily collected through semi-structured interviews with key actors and academics, as well as through document analysis. The data is analysed through pattern-matching by comparing theoretical propositions as presented in the theoretical framework to the data as discussed in the empirical chapter. The study finds that all four dimensions (i.e. internal, external, vertical, horizontal) of coordination are applicable to the case, depending on the framing device (i.e. sense-making, selecting, naming, categorising, storytelling). The study also finds that the Netherlands has a sceptical approach to EU enlargement in general and fears a destabilisation of the European Union and the functioning thereof due to a precipitous accession of candidate Member States. This has led to the use of the ‘rule of law’, ‘conditionality’, and ‘merits’ frames, as well as the ‘strict, fair, and engaged’ categorisation frames. The data shows that the ‘rule of law’ frame is used similarly throughout internal and external coordination, while ‘conditionality’ and ‘merits’ are used more positively during external coordination – focusing on rewarding the candidate states in case of positive progress and developments. During internal coordination, these two frames are used more negatively – emphasising that negative progress and backsliding lead to sanctions and a reversing of the accession negotiation process. The somewhat negative ‘strict’ categorised frame is used more during internal coordination to assure the enlargement-sceptic population and Parliament, whereas ‘fair’ and ‘engaged’ are used more during external coordination to prevent being perceived as unconstructive.Master's Thesis in Public AdministrationAORG351MASV-PUBA

Generation Z: Perceptions from Today’s Collegiate Athlete on the Coach-Athlete Relationship and Its Impact on Success in Athletics

Members of Generation Z now fill not only the dorms of higher education institutions, but also the rosters of each collegiate athletic team. Dubbed by many as the tech generation, they are the digital natives that have—in many respects—grown up more connected than their predecessors, and yet self admittedly lack the relational connectedness that they desire. Coaches and athletic policymakers must recognize the defining relational characteristics and needs of this generation of athletes if they hope to maximize athletic success. Using a qualitative design, this study explored the coach-athlete dyadic relational needs of collegiate Generation Z athletes from various institutions across the Pacific Northwest. Through synchronous semistructured interviews, the relational best practices of coaches who were working with athletes, who had experienced athletic success in their team sport were identified. These relational best practices were preferred by Generation Z athletes and represent the coaching qualities that they believe most impacted their athletic success. Purposive sampling was used to identify the participants for this study, and 12 open-response questions provided the data that through thematic analysis, produced six themes that embody the desired relational coaching qualities of collegiate Generation Z athletes. This study offers relational recommendations for collegiate coaches and athletic policymakers who desire to maximize the athletic potential of their Generation Z athletes

Enrollment, Academic Persistence, Social Leveraging, and Social Support: A Multiple Case Study of CCAMPIS Campus-Based Child Care

The research informs the public about the CCAMPIS (Child Care Access Means Parents In School) grant program and how it is improving the academic persistence of five single-mother college students. Besides offering affordable on-campus child care that is both convenient and high quality, the CCAMPIS grant also provided these five single-mother college students the ability to improve their social leveraging and social support networks. Social support is having a support system to turn to in times of need. Social leveraging is having network ties to increase social mobility. This includes improving finances, access to better housing and job opportunities, and access to better education. Many single mothers come from resource-poor neighborhoods, and possibly families, where they lack social leveraging. Providing the CCAMPIS grant to help these single-mother college students progress through school also gives them the opportunity to improve their support system with child care facility staff, faculty, other students, and employees at the college. Connecting with these individuals also helped these single-mother college students improve their social leveraging networks and provide them with opportunities to learn new parenting techniques, gaining better job opportunities, and learning about more grants and funding that they can utilize to help lower the cost of school