Multicultural Curriculum Designs in Counselor Education Programs: Enhancing Counselors-in-Training Openness to Diversity

Multicultural competencies are critical elements in both counselor preparation and practice. In accordance with the standards of the Council of Accredited Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP), counselor education programs must implement multicultural competencies as one of core curriculum areas. Although research evidences the positive impact of multicultural training, it remains a challenge to establish which curriculum designs and pedagogical approaches are most effective. This study compares self-reported openness and comfort in interactions with diverse populations of 87 counselors-in-training across two distinct multicultural curriculum designs (i.e., single multicultural course vs. infusion through the curriculum) in a CACREP accredited counselor education program in the Midwest. Implications for counselor education programs and counselors in the field are provided

Mothers in Trouble: Coping with Actual or Pending Separation From Children Due to Incarceration

Although female offenders are the fastest growing population in prison today, relatively few studies focus on their unique experiences as mothers. In this study, the authors utilize 74 semistructured interviews with mothers before trial and during incarceration to document coping strategies employed to deal with potential or actual separation from their children. From the study data, seven strategies emerge: being a good mother, mothering from prison, role redefinition, disassociation from prisoner identity, self-transformation, planning and preparation, and self-blame. The findings show that mothers used multiple strategies and tended to employ emotion-focused and adaptive coping techniques. The policy implications are discussed

INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM IN AMERICA: THE CASE OF GUN OWNERSHIP AND ATTITUDES TOWARD GUN CONTROL

A number of sociologists and cultural psychologists claim that the United States is a predominantly individualistic country. This article uses a unidimensional index of individualism and collectivism to analyze one of the most debated sociopolitical issues in America: gun ownership and gun control. It tests the hypothesis that the widespread gun ownership in the United States and prevailing attitudes toward gun control represent competing individualistic and collectivistic cultural traditions, respectively. The findings indicate that the index is one of the predictors of gun ownership and of attitudes about gun permits

Intensive Faculty-led International Multicultural Courses: Understanding the Perceptions from Students and Improving the Quality of Course Delivery by Faculty

Graduate programs in counselor education have historically offered the on campus multicultural course to increase students’ diversity knowledge, skills, and cultural self-awareness in order to satisfy state, national and international accreditation mandates. This article analyzes the self-reported perceptions and experiences of 21 master’s level counselor education students who participated in an intensive faculty-led international course (IFLIC) as an alternative format to the traditional on campus multicultural course. The pedagogy and curriculum of the IFLIC format is cemented on current multicultural international methodologies of instruction. Subsequently, it presents an in-depth analysis of students’ perceptions of their acquisition of multicultural concepts and skills, as well the role of the course’s curricular and instructional components in their multicultural learning outcomes. It offers a set of recommendations based on the research findings for academic/educational/faculty developers in higher education with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of international higher education. And, it provides delivery strategies for international programs seeking effective implementation of short-term faculty-led international courses (IFLIC)

Gender Differences in the Determinants of Prison Rule Violations

This article addresses gender differences in the extent and explanation of inmate misconduct. The study employs nationally representative prisoner survey data to assess gender-specific explanations of prison rule violations. The gender-specific factors include prior victimization, diagnosed mental disorders, and the amount of inmate contact with their families via visits and phone calls. Logistic regression models support gender-specific explanations of inmate misconduct but also identify other factors of general importance. The policy implications of gendered pathways in prison misconduct are discussed

Myocardial Ischaemia, Coronary Atherosclerosis and Pulmonary Pressure Elevation in Antiphospholipid Syndrome Patients

Thrombotic events in antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) involve venous and arterial circulation with the possible involvement of coronary or pulmonary microcirculation.To evaluate the influence of antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) and on myocardial ischaemia assessed by single-photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT), coronary atherosclerosis assessed by multidetector computerized tomography (MDCT) and pulmonary pressure assessed by transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) in patients with primary antiphospholipid syndrome (PAPS).TTE, SPECT (Tc 99m sestamibi) and MDCT-based coronary calcium scoring were performed in 26 consecutive PAPS patients (20 females, 6 males, aged 20-61, mean 39.7) without any signs of other autoimmunological disease and without clinical symptoms of heart disease.Out of 26 patients, TEE showed normal left and right ventricle function in 25 (96.2%) and elevated (≥ 30 mm Hg) right ventricle systolic pressure in 7 (26.9%) patients. SPECT revealed myocardial perfusion defects in 15 (57.7%) patients: exercise-induced in 6 (23.1%) and persistent in 11 (42.3%). MDCT revealed coronary calcifications in 4 (15.4%) patients. The number of plaques ranged from 1 to 11 (median 2), volume 3-201.7 mm³ (median 7), calcium scores 1.3-202.6 (median 5.7). In the group with perfusion defects or coronary calcifications (n = 15), all the patients showed elevated aCL IgG.In most of the relatively young APS patients, without any symptoms of ischemic heart disease, SPECT showed myocardial perfusion defects, and coronary calcifications in 1/6 of them. Right ventricle systolic pressure was elevated in 1/4 of APS patients. These pathologies, well known as cardiovascular risk markers, were associated with elevated levels of the IgG class of both anti-cardiolipin and antiB2 GPI antibodies. Thus, in a high percentage of APS patients, clinically silent myocardial ischaemia, pulmonary pressure elevation and coronary atherosclerosis are present and related to the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies

Youth and parental perspectives on the functional family therapy programme

Assessing clients’ satisfaction with family therapy interventions has important practical and theoretical implications. This article presents findings on client satisfaction after participating in functional family therapy (FFT), which addresses youths at risk of delinquency behaviour and communication problems in the family. Qualitative interviews and quantitative research methods are employed to compare programme perceptions with standardized therapeutic outcomes. The data include a parent or guardian interview, a youth interview, a services tracking form and the initial and discharge strengths and needs assessment (SNA). We observed high levels of satisfaction with FFT, yet satisfaction with family therapy and therapists was higher among parents. Parents uniformly indicated satisfaction on six Likert scale items while the youths were satisfied only on one. We found five significant differences between the parents’ and youths’ responses. The parents reported greater trust in therapists, more engagement in family therapy and more positive perception of changes in family dynamics following the intervention. The two scales, satisfaction with the programme and satisfaction with the therapists, were correlated only for parents. However, both scales were correlated with some items on our outcome variable: the changes in the SNA, for parents and young people. We assessed predictors of satisfaction and found that satisfaction with therapy was inversely related to the number of sessions for youth. For parents, the only common predictor of both satisfaction with the therapist and satisfaction with the programme were the changes on the caregivers’ strengths scale. The answers to the open-ended questions indicated that, although both parents and adolescents valued the improvements in communication patterns, the youth seemed to be especially attuned to changes in this area. Researchers should continue assessing satisfaction with family therapy and study the relationshi

Understanding evaluation use from an organisational perspective: a review of the literature and a research agenda

Why do some types of evaluation use prevail in certain contexts and not in others? The aim of this article is to advance knowledge about organisational factors of evaluation use, that is, determinants of evaluation use grounded in organisational theories. We critically review existing frameworks of organisational factors of evaluation use, highlighting key differences between them and pointing out discrepancies with empirical insights. We discuss the merits of two potential areas for future research that can help concretise theoretical stances: considering organisational legitimacy as a potential direct determinant of evaluation use and incorporating a dynamic perspective in organisational frameworks of evaluation use.NWOVl.Veni.211R.060The politics and administration of institutional chang

Universal Non-Polar Switching in Carbon-doped Transition Metal Oxides (TMOs) and Post TMOs

Transition metal oxides (TMOs) and post-TMOs (PTMOs), when doped with Carbon, show non-volatile current-voltage (I-V) characteristics, which are both universal and repeatable. We have shown spectroscopic evidence of the introduction of carbon-based impurity states inside the existing larger bandgap effectively creating a smaller bandgap which we suggest could enable Mott-like correlation effect. Our findings indicate new insights for yet to be understood unipolar and nonpolar resistive switching in the TMOs and PTMOs. We have shown that device switching is not thermal-energy dependent and have developed an electronic-dominated switching model that allows for the extreme temperature operation (from 1.5 K to 423 K) and state retention up to 673 K for a 1-hour bake. Importantly, we have optimized the technology in an industrial process and demonstrated integrated 1-transistor/1-resistor (1T1R) arrays up to 1 kbit with 47 nm devices on 300 mm wafers for advanced node CMOS-compatible correlated electron RAM (CeRAM). These devices are shown to operate with 2 ns write pulses and retain the memory states up to 200 C for 24 hours. The collection of attributes shown, including scalability to state-of-the-art dimensions, non-volatile operation to extreme low and high temperatures, fast write, and reduced stochasticity as compared to filamentary memories such as ReRAMs show the potential for a highly capable two-terminal back-end-of-line non-volatile memory.Comment: 28 pages, 17 figures, accepted in APL Material