The Future Is Certain: Manifesting Age, Culture, Humanities

--

The Politics of Caring in a Bilingual Classroom: A Case Study on the (Im)possibilities of Critical Care in an Assimilationist School Context

By juxtaposing colorblind and critical approaches to caring, the author suggests there is often a disjuncture between teachers‘ caring practices and those that students of color and/or language minorities may expect of their teachers. While critical care may provide the foundation for equitable practices, the author warns against idealizing critical care. The author makes a case that all classroom practices, including pedagogies of care, must be contextualized in larger social and political power dynamics that often shape the (im)possibilities of caring. The article includes a case study of a fourth and fifth grade dual language bilingual teacher, wherein the author examines what critical care practices the teacher is able to enact within the context of a deficit-oriented and assimilationist school setting

Understanding compulsive buying tendencies among young Australians: the roles of money attitudes and credit card usage

To investigate money attitudes and credit card usage between compulsive and non-compulsive buyers of young Australians. It also serves to validate the MAS scale using an Australian sample. Data were collected using a mall intercept method in a major shopping complex in Perth, Western Australia. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed and recorded a response rate of 18%. Compulsive buyers are more likely to perceive money as a source of power and prestige. They are also more frequent users of credit cards and are more likely to bargain hunt. There are no differences between compulsive and non-compulsive buyers for the dimensions of time retention, distrust, and anxiety of the MAS scale. The study has only captured young adult Australians and should not be generalised across other demographics and national consumers. Studies on compulsive behaviour of online shopping and a comparison between fashion and non-fashion related variables could also be explored. Firms should consider using advertising campaigns that portray images of status and prestige in order to appeal to young adults. They could utilize aggressive in-store promotion and selling techniques and highlight the discount or best buy slogans. For the credit card companies and banks, word-of-mouth through family and friends are better promotional tools to attract users. Marketers and policy makers are recommended to incorporate consumer education programs for young adults to build skills to counter financial problems. This is the first Australian study that examined money attitudes, credit card usage and compulsive behaviour. Further the MAS scale is validated with the addition of the 'bargain hunting' variable

Working class single mothers : performing middle class identity

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on March 25, 2011).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. Joan Hermsen.M.A. University of Missouri--Columbia 2010.Much of the literature on single motherhood has been devoted to poor or middle class single mothers. In this study I interviewed working class single mothers. Their unique position between the poor and the middle class leads to interesting observations about how women at the boundaries do and perform class. These women, while aware of the contradictions between their material realities and their symbolic realities, attempted to establish a middle class sense of identity through consumption, concerted cultivation and associational distancing strategies. These findings indicate that class is a salient feature in the life of working class single mothers and that they invoke strategies to maintain a sense of class identity and dignity.Includes bibliographical reference

The Manual of Disaster: Creativity, Preparedness, and Writing the Emergency Room

This essay offers a critical examination of creativity discourse at the intersection of two disciplinary fields: health and humanities. In contrast to creativity’s longstanding associations with making, imitation, or invention, we examine the relatively recent emergence of what we call creativity’s preparatory capacity, particularly within critical discussions of healthcare and illness narratives. Working with fictional representations of the emergency room in physician-writer Jay Baruch’s short story collection Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers (2007), we identify how particular narrative techniques are revealed in a range of emergency scenarios—both within and beyond the fictional setting—and what such deployments of creativity might signal for the future of literary studies more broadly

Ant-Plant Relationships in a Re-Created Tallgrass Prairie

Relationships between the distributions of nesting ants and flora were investigated in a re-created tallgrass prairie located in northeastern Illinois. One-third of 167 randomly selected 1m2 quadrats in the prairie contained ant nests. Basal coverage of ground by tall grass shoots was greater in quadrats having ant nests than in those lacking ant nests. In addition, clumps of big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) that were inhabited by the ant, Acanthomyops clavigera, had higher median rank densities than adjacent clumps lacking nests. The clumps also showed a negative correlation between big bluestem shoots/ cm2 and area occupied by the clump at ground level. These significant findings relating to the distribution of nesting ants and tall grasses indicate ants have ecologic importance in re-created prairie that warrants greater scrutiny among restoration scientists

The Future Is Certain

--

Traumatized defendants, troubled attorneys: The impact of vicarious trauma on the defense attorney-client relationship

Approximately 90% of justice-involved youth have experienced some form of trauma by the time they become involved in the justice system, and attorneys report being negatively impacted by their work with trauma-exposed populations generally. Yet, research has not focused on how varying degrees of youth trauma can impact attorney decisions and if that differs based on youth race. This study, therefore, explored vicarious trauma and its impact on juvenile defense attorneys, including how an attorney’s experience of vicarious trauma impacts case handling and perception of their youth client and how that differs based on client race and trauma history. We recruited 144 active juvenile defense attorneys via email listservs to partake in an online survey utilizing a vignette about a Black or White youth with either a severe or moderate trauma history, with the attorney answering a questionnaire about the decisions they would make as the youth’s attorney. Youth race did not predict attorney case handling, however, attorneys reported they would expend significantly more effort on behalf of a severely traumatized youth client compared to a moderately traumatized youth. Years of experience, but not percentage of traumatized clients, significantly predicted vicarious trauma symptomatology, with attorneys with more years of experience demonstrating elevated trauma levels. Furthermore, when controlling for youth race, an attorney’s own history of vicarious trauma did not moderate the relationship between youth trauma history and attorney case handling. This study contributed to the small body of research that investigates the relationship that attorneys have with their trauma-exposed youth clients and may further influence policy work and trauma-informed training for attorneys in the future

Cognitive Recovery in the Post-Infectious CNS

Neuroinflammation plays a pivotal role in a variety of diseases of the CNS associated with cognitive impairment, including Alzheimerճ Disease, Parkinsonճ Disease with dementia, Multiple Sclerosis, anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, and West Nile Virus Neuroinvasive disease (WNND). Despite strong evidence that infiltration of peripheral immune cells and activation of resident microglia and astrocytes occurs in these various diseases, very little is known about how this altered immune environment may influence normal cognitive function. Given that communication between the nervous and immune system is essential for normal cognitive function, the central motivation of my thesis work is to understand the mechanisms by which immune activation, which is vital for pathogen control, may influence cognitive recovery in the setting of viral infection of the CNS. First, using a recovery model of WNND in which intracranial infection of adult mice with an attenuated strain of West Nile Virus leads to spatial learning deficits on the Barnes Maze behavioral task, we demonstrate that following viral clearance activated astrocytes express the cytokine interleukin-1 (IL-1) which decreases neurogenesis and increases the generation of astrocytes. Animals deficient in the receptor for IL-1 (IL1R1-/-) are protected from this decrease in neurogenesis and display early recovery of synaptic terminals and protection from virus-induced spatial learning deficits. In addition, treatment of mice with Anakinra, an FDA-approved IL-1R antagonist, during acute disease similarly led to protection from spatial learning deficits. Next, using the same recovery model of WNND, we demonstrate that T cells persist in the hippocampus for weeks following viral clearance and continue to express the cytokine interferon-gamma (IFNg) leading to persistent activation of microglia. Animals deficient in the receptor for IFNg (IFNgR-/-) are protected from microglial activation and spatial learning deficits, despite delayed viral clearance and increased persistence of viral RNA in the hippocampus compared to wildtype controls. Conditional deletion of IFNgR from microglia upon tamoxifen administration to Cx3CR1-CreER x IFNgR-fl/fl mice was sufficient to protect animals from spatial learning deficits. These results were confirmed in animals infected with Zika-virus (ZIKV), a related flavivirus with different neural tropism, suggesting a common mechanism by which altered immune activation in the CNS leads to long term cognitive deficits. These studies provide valuable insights into the neuroimmune processes that influence tissue repair and cognitive recovery in the hippocampus following viral encephalitis, and identify IFNg signaling in microglia as a critical signal underlying diverse recovery mechanisms