Let's stick together? Explaining boundaries to territorial policy variation:the case of Germany's prisons legislation

This article offers an initial impact assessment regarding the introduction of new legislative responsibilities at the Land level in a case study of prisons policy (Strafvollzug). Combining an analysis of new legislation produced across the 16 Länder since the responsibility for prisons policy was transferred to the Land level, and insights into the mechanics of policy development obtained through a series of interviews with senior politicians and officials, this article finds that the desire among Länder to legislative independently has varied, with substantial backing for co-ordination in the development of new legislation. This has helped to confound expectations of a ‘competition of harshness’ which many expected to result from decentralisation. However, even before the 2006 reforms, there were substantial variations between the Länder when it came to implementing prisons policy, so consideration of the sub-national level in this area remains essential

Social work education, training and standards in the Asia-Pacific region

This article discusses the joint project between the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) and the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) to establish guidelines for the training and standard setting that elucidates what social work represents on a global level. While it is impossible to address all the issues that might be significant in such a large scope, attention is given to the challenges establishing global standards might encounter in a region as diverse as the Asia-Pacific

Accuracy of Recollection Without Rehearsal

Priming refers to the influence of encountered objects on future responses to similar objects (Wang et. al., 2003). Cross-modality priming occurs when the stimuli are presented in one modality and tested within another (Marinis, 2018). However, there is not much research done on verbal and visual cross-modality priming. This study looks at the effects of cross-modality implicit priming on recall and recognition. Participants read 8 different priming stories. After each, participants completed a visual memory task where they looked at a slide of several images for 5 seconds, and then wrote which images they remembered. After this, they answered 2 questions about the story. This repeated for all 8 stories. After these tasks, participants completed a visual recognition task with 8 images that were primed and 8 novel images. They then completed a visual recognition task with 8 images that had been seen before but not primed, and 8 novel images. Lastly, they completed a visual recognition task with 8 images that related to the prime but had not been seen before, and 8 novel images. A within-subjects ANOVA was used for the primed images, and a within-subjects T test was used for the image recognition task. Results of this study are still being processed. These results provide more data for the effect of cross-modality priming, but more research needs to be done in this area

Introduction to the special issue : reframing German Federalism

In recent years, Germany’s federal system has been subject to a number of pressures for change. A constitutional debate on ‘disentangling’ the legislative roles of federal and Länder institutions which stuttered through the 1990s and into the 2000s finally led to a re-allocation of competences in 2006. These reforms shifted some areas of legislative responsibility from the federal to the Länder level and relaxed rules which had earlier justified a federal override when both levels held legislative responsibilities concurrently. At the very least, these constitutional adjustments increased the potential for policy outputs to diverge from one Land to another and give expression to territorial differences in priority and preference

Regional policy variation in Germany:the diversity of living conditions in a 'unitary federal state'

The German federal system is conventionally understood as highly co-ordinated between federal and regional governments and aimed at producing a 'uniformity' of living conditions. This view has increasingly been challenged as new work focuses on innovation and diversity at the regional level, and also as a consequence of reforms to the federal system that took place in 2006. This contribution attempts to establish a more systematic basis for assessing and explaining the scope and significance of regional policy variation in Germany. Our findings suggest that - despite institutional structures that foster intense co-ordination between central and regional governments and apparent popular preferences for uniformity of policy outcomes - the extent of policy variation in Germany is much greater than conventionally understood and driven both by structural factors and partisan choices at the regional level

Renewing and Rethinking Bilateralism after Brexit

This report emerged from a workshop in Brussels where Aston Centre for Europe staff presented research on the future of the UK’s bilateral relations after Brexit. The report itself examines the central policy challenges arising from the UK’s need to renew and rethink bilateral relations with key European countries after the UK has left the EU. The bilateral relationships selected for inclusion in this report reflect the variety of cross-cutting economic, security, and diplomatic concerns that characterize UK engagement with Europe after Brexit. UK relations with France, Germany, Spain, Turkey, and the Visegrad Four (V4; the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) are scrutinized to determine how far bilateralism is likely to address the first two policy challenges described above. The final chapter brings back in to focus the complicating factor of devolution, looking at how territorial governance arrangements elsewhere in Europe can provide lessons on conducting “paradiplomacy” with the EU

Effects of a culturally responsive speech and language intervention for students of Indigenous and non-Indigenous ancestry

This study explored the effectiveness of a speech and language intervention that was designed to be culturally responsive and adapted to provide explicit language instruction. Participants included all 774 kindergarten students from a mid-sized rural school district in British Columbia. Seventy-seven students screened as at risk received the intervention, and the remaining students participated in the regular kindergarten curriculum. Results indicated statistically significant effects of the intervention on language and vocabulary skills. No differential effects were observed between students of Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage. Results are discussed in terms of culturally responsive and explicit instruction for early language development.Key words: early intervention, language intervention, cultural responsiveness, Aboriginal educationCette étude a examiné l'efficacité d'une intervention orthophonique et linguistique conçue pour être culturellement adaptée et permettre un enseignement explicite des langues. 774 élèves de maternelle d'un district scolaire rural de taille moyenne en Colombie-Britannique ont participé à cette étude. Parmi eux, 77 étudiants, sélectionnés comme étant à risque, ont participé à l'intervention, tandis que les autres étudiants ont participé au programme de maternelle habituel. Les résultats ont montré des effets statistiquement significatifs de l'intervention sur le langage et le vocabulaire. Aucune différence n'a été observée entre les étudiants ayant un patrimoine culturel autochtone ou non autochtone. Ces résultats sont débatus en termes d'enseignement explicite et culturellement adapté pour le développement précoce du langage.Mots clés: intervention précoce, intervention linguistique, sensibilisation à la culturel, éducation des Autochtone

Comparing the characteristics of snowboarders injured in a terrain park who present to the ski patrol, the emergency department or both

Ski patrol report forms are a common data source in ski/snowboard research, but it is unclear if those who only present to the emergency department (ED) are systematically different from those who see the ski patrol. To determine the proportion and characteristics of injured snowboarders who bypass the ski patrol before presenting to the ED, three groups of injured snowboarders were compared: presented to the ED only, ski patrol only and ski patrol and ED. Data were collected from ski patrol Accident Report Forms (ARFs), ED medical records and telephone interviews. There were 333 injured snowboarders (ED only: 34, ski patrol only: 107, both: 192). Ability, time of day, snow conditions or drugs/alcohol predicted ED only presentation. Concussions (RRR: 4.66; 95% CI: 1.83, 11.90), sprains/strains (RRR: 4.22; 95% CI: 1.87, 9.49), head/neck (RRR: 2.90; 95% CI: 1.48, 5.78), trunk (RRR: 4.17; 95% CI: 1.92, 9.09) or lower extremity (RRR: 3.65; 95% CI: 1.32, 10.07) injuries were significantly more likely to present to ski patrol only versus ski patrol and ED. In conclusion, snowboarders who presented to the ED only had similar injuries as those who presented to both

Feature-specific terrain park-injury rates and risk factors in snowboarders : a case–control study

Background : Snowboarding is a popular albeit risky sport and terrain park (TP) injuries are more severe than regular slope injuries. TPs contain man-made features that facilitate aerial manoeuvres. The objectives of this study were to determine overall and feature-specific injury rates and the potential risk factors for TP injuries. Methods : Case–control study with exposure estimation, conducted in an Alberta TP during two ski seasons. Cases were snowboarders injured in the TP who presented to ski patrol and/or local emergency departments. Controls were uninjured snowboarders in the same TP. κ Statistics were used to measure the reliability of reported risk factor information. Injury rates were calculated and adjusted logistic regression was used to calculate the feature-specific odds of injury. Results : Overall, 333 cases and 1261 controls were enrolled. Reliability of risk factor information was κ>0.60 for 21/24 variables. The overall injury rate was 0.75/1000 runs. Rates were highest for jumps and half-pipe (both 2.56/1000 runs) and lowest for rails (0.43/1000 runs) and quarter-pipes (0.24/1000 runs). Compared with rails, there were increased odds of injury for half-pipe (OR 9.63; 95% CI 4.80 to 19.32), jumps (OR 4.29; 95% CI 2.72 to 6.76), mushroom (OR 2.30; 95% CI 1.20 to 4.41) and kickers (OR 1.99; 95% CI 1.27 to 3.12). Conclusions : Higher feature-specific injury rates and increased odds of injury were associated with features that promote aerial manoeuvres or a large drop to the ground. Further research is required to determine ways to increase snowboarder safety in the TP