Discovering Countries and Their Cultures Through Movement: Fifth-Grade Students Developing Awareness and Empathy Toward Each Other

The purpose of this study was to investigate and answer the following essential questions: 1) What are students’ responses to use of movement and dance to teach multi-cultural lesson content? 2) What movement and dance-based methods can be used to help fifth-grade students develop empathy towards classmates from different cultures and countries from around the world? 3) Which movement and dance-based lessons seemed to be most effective to develop student empathy for other students from a different culture and country? One goal of the study was to help students become more empathetic toward one another through movement. There were twenty-four participants in this study. Learning about each other’s countries and cultures through movement had a very positive outcome. The participants discovered things about their peers that they had not previously known prior to this study. For example, the participants learned about each other’s cultures, such as their traditions, foods, sports, and dances. Through creativity, communication and collaboration, the participants in this study developed an increased sense of awareness and empathy toward each other

Critical Race Feminism, Health, and Restorative Practices in Schools: Centering the Experiences of Black and Latina Girls

Restorative practices (RP) in K-12 schools in the United States have grown exponentially since the early 1990s. Developing against a backdrop of systemic racism, RP has become embedded in education practice and policy to counteract the harmful and persistent patterns of disparities in school discipline experienced by students of color. Within this legal, social, and political context, the empirical evidence that has been gathered on school-based restorative justice has framed and named RP as a behavioral intervention aimed at reducing discipline incidents—that is, an “alternative” to punitive and exclusionary practices. While this view of RP is central to dismantling discriminatory systems, we argue it reflects an unnecessarily limited understanding of its potential and has generated unintended consequences in the field of RP research. First, the reactive RP model of analysis focuses more exclusively on behavioral change, rather than systemic improvement, to address discipline disparities. Second, RP research has insufficiently examined the potential role of RP in achieving health justice. Third, RP research too rarely engages in intersectional analyses that critically examine gendered racism. This study is intended as a course correction. Building on the work of legal scholars, public health researchers, sociologists, restorative justice practitioners, and our own prior work, this original study is the first to examine non-disciplinary RP through a critical race feminist lens, and—just as importantly—a public health praxis. Our findings reveal that the interplay between RP and adolescent health, race, and gender can no longer be overlooked. Proactive non-disciplinary RP was found to promote supportive school environments that enhance five key protective health factors for Black and Latina girls. Additionally, results indicate that RP improved the mental health and wellbeing of Black and Latina girls, building fundamental resilience skills that can help overcome the complex array of social structures that serve to disempower and disenfranchise girls and harm their educational and health outcomes

Not by Technology Alone: The “Analog” Aspects of Online Public Engagement in Policymaking

Between Twitter revolutions and Facebook elections, there is a growing belief that information and communication technologies are changing the way democracy is practiced. The discourse around e-government and online deliberation is frequently focused on technical solutions and based in the belief that if you build it correctly they will come. This paper departs from the literature on digital divide to examine barriers to online civic participation in policy deliberation. While most scholarship focuses on identifying and describing those barriers, this study offers an in-depth analysis of what it takes to address them using a particular case study. Based in the tradition of action research, this paper focuses on analysis of practices that evolved in Regulation Room - a research project of CeRI (Cornell eRulemaking Initiative) that works with federal government agencies in helping them engage public in complex policymaking processes. It draws a multidimensional picture of motivation, skill, and general political participation divides; or the “analog” aspects of the digital divide in online civic participation and policy deliberation

Bartleby the Original the Queer

Insofar as human beings try to “know” we must define concepts, objects, actions. We label, we distinguish between one concept and another, and in doing this, we make categories. Labels are categories. Our categories are imperfect. Our labels are always relative, defined by and dependent on that which they exclude. The boundaries of our terms, what “counts” as something or what is considered to be within a certain term, are always shifting. Our definitions change based on our method of analysis. For instance, the definition of “human” is different in different disciplines, like science, philosophy, sociology, economics, etc. Given their instability, categories can only be rough approximations of what we mean, and not always very good ones at that. To our detriment, we sometimes forget that they are approximations, and already laden with meaning of their own. Michel Foucault and other thinkers have pointed out that some of our ways of knowing, for example, the scientific method, have become synonymous with truth, objectivity or neutrality. When this happens, we cease to question those ways of knowing, and the questions within those ways of knowing. We forget that the kinds of questions we ask determine the kinds of answers we find. Then, when something that does not prove easily “knowable” or categorizable troubles our ways of knowing, we call it trouble. Instead of remembering that our methods are imperfect, we think that the thing we want to know about is flawed, wrong or bad. This thesis is a reclamation of the flawed, the failed, the queer, a revaluation of it as something positive and productive. It is a reminder to be critical of our categories, and to rule them rather than be ruled by them. Categories are tools, not truth

The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: The Girls' Story

This report exposes the ways in which we criminalize girls -- especially girls of color -- who have been sexually and physically abused, and it offers policy recommendations to dismantle the abuse to prison pipeline. It illustrates the pipeline with examples, including the detention of girls who are victims of sex trafficking, girls who run away or become truant because of abuse they experience, and girls who cross into juvenile justice from the child welfare system. By illuminating both the problem and potential solutions, we hope to make the first step toward ending the cycle of victimization-to-imprisonment for marginalized girls

PDE8 controls CD4(+) T cell motility through the PDE8A-Raf-1 kinase signaling complex

The levels of cAMP are regulated by phosphodiesterase enzymes (PDEs), which are targets for the treatment of inflammatory disorders. We have previously shown that PDE8 regulates T cell motility. Here, for the first time, we report that PDE8A exerts part of its control of T cell function through the V-raf-1 murine leukemia viral oncogene homolog 1 (Raf-1) kinase signaling pathway. To examine T cell motility under physiologic conditions, we analyzed T cell interactions with endothelial cells and ligands in flow assays. The highly PDE8-selective enzymatic inhibitor PF-04957325 suppresses adhesion of in vivo myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) activated inflammatory CD4(+) T effector (Teff) cells to brain endothelial cells under shear stress. Recently, PDE8A was shown to associate with Raf-1 creating a compartment of low cAMP levels around Raf-1 thereby protecting it from protein kinase A (PKA) mediated inhibitory phosphorylation. To test the function of this complex in Teff cells, we used a cell permeable peptide that selectively disrupts the PDE8A-Raf-1 interaction. The disruptor peptide inhibits the Teff-endothelial cell interaction more potently than the enzymatic inhibitor. Furthermore, the LFA-1/ICAM-1 interaction was identified as a target of disruptor peptide mediated reduction of adhesion, spreading and locomotion of Teff cells under flow. Mechanistically, we observed that disruption of the PDE8A-Raf-1 complex profoundly alters Raf-1 signaling in Teff cells. Collectively, our studies demonstrate that PDE8A inhibition by enzymatic inhibitors or PDE8A-Raf-1 kinase complex disruptors decreases Teff cell adhesion and migration under flow, and represents a novel approach to target T cells in inflammation