Salvage: Gendered Violence in Activist Communities

How to best deal with sexual violence in radical social movements is a contentious issue in the UK Left. The persistence of and inability to deal with sexual violence contradicts the core values of equality and social justice at the heart of radical social movements. A legacy of being marginalised and subjected to state repression and scrutiny has led radical activist communities to develop important self-protective strategies to establish trust and belonging. Safer spaces policies, transformative justice and community accountability processes have been attempted to address gendered violence without recourse to the state. Debate has focused on the effectiveness and negative impacts of these interventions often at the expense of survivors and anti-violence activists. However, safer spaces policies and accountability processes are set up to fail without a critical exploration of wider power relations and self-protective cultural practices that already frame activist communities. We chose to develop knowledge and understanding about gendered violence in activist communities from the perspectives and experiences of survivors. Our project has a particular focus on exploring the experiences of women, transgender and non-binary individuals. August 2015 and January 2016 we interviewed 10 survivors who had experienced sexual violence within a range of different activist groups and communities across the UK. These accounts map out how layers of silence and denial can work in activist groups and communities to allow and maintain violence, abuse and harm. There was little evidence of a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Instead there is a need to better recognise how intersections of cissexism, homophobia, classism, racism, sexism and ableism shape survivors’ experiences and meanings of harm, available resources and solutions, and impacts of harm on individuals and communities. Understanding what can produce a ‘conducive context’ for sexual violence against women, transgender and non-binary individuals in activism offers crucial clues in how we can undo these harms. Progressive change requires no less than a reconceptualisation of culture that recognises violence as embedded in an ongoing struggle for power and control of activist arenas

The Voices of Graduates: Informing Faculty Practices to Establish Best Practices for Readying NCLEX-RN Applicants

Changes in the National Council of State Boards of Nursing along with other factors influence graduates’ successful completion of a nursing program and the licensing examination. Literature is scarce in the area of examining stu-dent perceptions of preparing for and taking the NCLEX-RN examination. Our study sought to fill this gap in knowledge by conducting a focus group and interviews with individuals who passed the NCLEX-RN on their first at-tempt and those who did not. This was a descriptive qualitative study which used semi-structured interviews and a focus group to examine graduates’ perceptions related to preparing for and taking the NCLEX-RN. Four themes emerged from the data: messages from faculty, preparation strategies, exam readiness, and the disconnection between pretest and intra-test experiences. Findings point towards the importance of implementing a variety of strate-gies to ensure that graduates successfully pass the NCLEX-RN

Valuing the benefits of a health intervention using three different approaches to contingent valuation: re-treatment of mosquito bed-nets in Nigeria.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the level of willingness to pay (WTP) for re-treatment of mosquito nets and to compare the theoretical validity of WTP estimates from three contingent valuation question formats: the bidding game, binary with follow-up technique, and a novel structured haggling technique that mimicked price-taking behaviour in the study area. METHODS: WTP was elicited from randomly selected respondents from three villages in Southeast Nigeria, using pretested interviewer-administered questionnaires. Respondents' WTP for insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) was first elicited before their WTP for re-treatment of ITNs. Ordinary least-squares regression was used to assess theoretical validity. RESULTS: More than 95% of the respondents were willing to pay for re-treatment. The mean WTP was 37.1 Naira, 43.4 Naira and 49.2 Naira in the bidding game, binary with follow-up and structured haggling groups, respectively (US dollar 1.00 = 120 Naira). The WTP estimates elicited across the three question formats were statistically different (P < 0.01). Ordinary least-squares estimation showed that WTP was positively related to many variables, especially stated WTP for ITNs (P < 0.05). Structured haggling generated the highest number of statistically significant variables to explain WTP. CONCLUSIONS: The three contingent valuation approaches generated different distributions of WTP for net retreatment, possibly due to their inherent differences. Structured haggling generated the most theoretically valid estimates of WTP. The levels of WTP identified suggest that user fees exceeding 50 Naira per net re-treatment may discourage demand for the service. This is an important challenge for ITN programmes

Rare plant survey of San Juan Public Lands, Colorado

December 2005.Includes bibliographical references

Gatsby careers benchmark north east implementation pilot: interim evaluation (2015-2017)

This report presents interim evaluation findings on the implementation of the Gatsby Benchmarks (herewith referred to as the Benchmarks) for good career guidance with a sample of 16 pilot schools and colleges (herewith referred to as education providers) in the North East of England. These interim findings report progress made against the Benchmarks during the course of the pilot (autumn 2015 to autumn 2017), the enablers and barriers faced, and the impact of the Benchmarks on learners’ career readiness and attainment. The interim findings suggest the following: Timescale - Schools and colleges involved were able to make significant strides towards fully meeting most, if not all, Benchmarks within two years. To date Benchmark 2 (Learning from career and labour market information) and Benchmark 7 (Encounters with FE and HE) have seen the largest increase in the number of pilot education providers fully achieving them. Benchmark 3 (Addressing the needs of every pupil) and Benchmark 4 (Linking curriculum to careers) have the least number of pilot education providers fully achieving them. Positive impact on learners. Learners show an increase in some aspects of career readiness and tentative increases in some aspects of GCSE attainment. Effective implementation of the Benchmarks. This was enabled by the existence of a regional facilitator to support pilot education providers and strong provider leadership and robust organisational infrastructures. Key barriers were a lack of time and space (in the curriculum), a lack of funding and a lack of commitment at senior leadership level, which impacted on achieving a cultural shift in some education providers. Regional impact. The implementation of the Benchmarks is impacting more widely in the region with non-pilot education providers forming links with pilot providers to seek support on developing good career guidance in their settings. Furthermore, wider stakeholders such as local employers and providers of careers education were also using the Benchmarks to review and develop their services to schools/colleges. Emerging challenges: A noticeable challenge was how the term ‘meaningful’, in relation to encounters with employers and employees, was interpreted and how education providers monitor provision of such encounters.Gatsby Charitable Foundatio

Sametingen och deras inflytande på policyprocesser

Både Norges och Sveriges regeringar har skapat sametingen i syfte att inkludera samerna i rikspolitiken. Det är dock oklart hur mycket sametingen kan påverka den faktiska politiken. I den här studien utgår vi ifrån teorier om intresseorganisationers möjlighet till inflytande och applicerar dessa på sametinget. Genom en fallstudie av processen bakom ländernas minerallagstiftning har vi studerat några egenskaper som kan ha betydelse för policyprocessens utfall. Vi fann att sametingens förhållande till regering och vilka politiska uppdrag sametingen tilldelas är avgörande för deras inflytande på policybeslut. Resultatet är inte bara relevant för kunskap om sametingen, utan även för intresseorganisationers möjligheter att påverka policybeslut

Assessment of critical biological resources, La Plata County, Colorado

Prepared for: La Plata County, Durango, Colorado.Includes bibliographical references

Circumpolar Active-Layer Permafrost System (CAPS): a global geocryological database on CD and Internet (poster)

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