The Missing Mirror: A Critical Content Analysis of Multicultural Children\u27s Literature with Black Male Characters

ABSTRACT Education in America is facing many challenges, such as the adoption of common core standards and the demand for highly qualified teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Further, the achievement gap lingers on, with Black males often performing poorly on national assessments of reading proficiency (Tatum, 2005). Although Black males are highly literate, they may feel alienated from traditional school systems and classroom reading selections (Kirkland, 2013). One of the most effective strategies for teachers to bridge the gap in reading is to inspire Black males to get engaged with their books and read for longer periods of time. However, children are more likely to engage with characters who look like them, and it is difficult to find books with Black male characters (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Noguera, 2008; Sims, 1982; Tatum, 2005). The purpose of this dissertation is to identify more culturally conscious children’s books with Black male characters. It is a qualitative study, a critical content analysis of multicultural children’s books. The study has been guided by Multicultural Education Theory and Rudine Sim’s theory of Windows, Mirrors and Sliding Glass Doors (1982). The books I analyzed were selected from a website sponsored by the Conscious Kid. This organization’s goal is to cultivate a list of children’s books that affirm and celebrate Black males. Convenient access to such a list on the Internet would serve to help teachers find culturally conscious books for culturally relevant teaching. Three research questions guided my study: 1) How are Black male characters in books from the Conscious Kid website portrayed? 2) How, if at all, is the content of the books aligned with the mission of the Conscious Kid organization? 3) What are the overarching themes of the books on the list? I found that the Black characters in books from the Conscious Kid website were portrayed in a positive and empowered light, and the books’ contents were aligned with the mission. They also revealed a host of sociopolitical themes. These themes were: the importance of family and parent/child relationships; perseverance to overcome adversity; fighting for equality and civil rights; the importance of church and spirituality; growing up and coming of age; the prevalence of mental health issues; the importance of education; and working class struggles. These books provided a microcosm of Black life in America. I also used a rubric adapted from literacy researchers to determine whether or not the books were of high quality (Hefflin & Barksdale-Ladd, 2001). I concluded that these selections are high quality culturally conscious books that would make an appropriate addition to a classroom library. Keywords: Black males, critical content analysis, elementary students, multicultural education, multicultural literature, reading, windows and mirror

Representations of the Local Past: Gilded Age and Bureaucratic Accounts of the Minisink, 1889 to the Present

The process whereby local pasts are made meaningful varies through time and among different communities. While historians, philosophers, and anthropologists have long been intrigued by the problem of historical practice, their discussions remain speculative. This paper examines the specific social conditions of production of a single local past. During the late 19th-century, the members of the Minisink Valley Historical Society in Port Jervis, New York, engaged in the imaginative construction of a place they named the Minisink - an early frontier region encompassing portions of the Upper Delaware River Valley. The Society\u27s account is examined and compared to accounts produced a century later by cultural resource management professionals engaged in the interpretation of the same past

Towards An Archaeology of the Hudson River Ice Harvesting Industry

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, natural ice cut from the Hudson River provided the New York City metropolitan area with much of its supply. This article briefly examines the history and technology of this industry, and its impact on local workers, commuities, and landscapes. The documentary history and visible remains of three ice house sites are analyzed, with ice house technology viewed as an integrated system of production and transportation. Results suggest that archaeological examination of such sites can be used to study variations in ice industry technology and reveal features not mentioned in the documentary record. Aerial photography and shoreline reconnaissance indicate that archaeological remains of many Hudson River ice houses are still preserved. These should be studied before they are destroyed by development

Exosomes released from breast cancer carcinomas stimulate cell movement

For metastasis to occur cells must communicate with to their local environment to initiate growth and invasion. Exosomes have emerged as an important mediator of cell-to-cell signalling through the transfer of molecules such as mRNAs, microRNAs, and proteins between cells. Exosomes have been proposed to act as regulators of cancer progression. Here, we study the effect of exosomes on cell migration, an important step in metastasis. We performed cell migration assays, endocytosis assays, and exosome proteomic profiling on exosomes released from three breast cancer cell lines that model progressive stages of metastasis. Results from these experiments suggest: (1) exosomes promote cell migration and (2) the signal is stronger from exosomes isolated from cells with higher metastatic potentials; (3) exosomes are endocytosed at the same rate regardless of the cell type; (4) exosomes released from cells show differential enrichment of proteins with unique protein signatures of both identity and abundance. We conclude that breast cancer cells of increasing metastatic potential secrete exosomes with distinct protein signatures that proportionally increase cell movement and suggest that released exosomes could play an active role in metastasis

Health workers’ views of a program to facilitate physical health care in mental health settings: implications for implementation and training

Author version made available in accordance with the publisher's policyObjective Physical co morbidities shorten the lifespans of people with severe mental illness. Mental health clinicians need to support service users in risk factor-related behaviour change. We investigated mental health care workers’ views of a physical health self-management support program to identify implementation requirements. Method Qualitative interviews were conducted with workers who had differing levels of experience with a self-management support program. Themes were identified using interpretive descriptive analysis and then matched against domains used in implementation models to draw implications for successful practice change. Results Three main themes related to (i) understandings of disease management within job roles (ii) requirements for putting self-management support into practice and (iii) challenges of coordination in disease management. Priority domains from implementation models were inner and outer health service settings. Conclusion While staff training is required, practice change for care which takes account of both mental and physical health also requires changes in organisational frameworks

Developments in Australian general practice 2000–2002: what did these contribute to a well functioning and comprehensive Primary Health Care System?

BACKGROUND: In recent years, national and state/territory governments have undertaken an increasing number of initiatives to strengthen general practice and improve its links with the rest of the primary health care sector. This paper reviews how far these initiatives were contributing to a well functioning and comprehensive primary health care system during the period 2000–2002, using a normative model of primary health care and data from a descriptive study to evaluate progress. RESULTS: There was a significant number of programs, at both state/territory and national level. Most focused on individual care, particularly for chronic disease, rather than population health approaches. There was little evidence of integration across programs: each tended to be based in and focus on a single jurisdiction, and build capacity chiefly within the services funded through that jurisdiction. As a result, the overall effect was patchy, with similar difficulties being noted across all jurisdictions and little gain in overall system capacity for effective primary health care. CONCLUSION: Efforts to develop more effective primary health care need a more balanced approach to reform, with a better balance across the different elements of primary health care and greater integration across programs and jurisdictions. One way ahead is to form a single funding agency, as in the UK and New Zealand, and so remove the need to work across jurisdictions and manage their competing interests. A second, perhaps less politically challenging starting point, is to create an agreed framework for primary health care within which a collective vision for primary health care can be developed, based on population health needs, and the responsibilities of different sectors services can be negotiated. Either of these approaches would be assisted by a more systematic and comprehensive program of research and evaluation for primary health care

Transportation Barriers to Healthcare in Adults 65+ in the Greater Burlington Area

Introduction. Missed appointments often lead to poorer health care outcomes for patients and pose a major economic burden on medical centers. Transportation is an obstacle to accessing medical care for elderly patients in Vermont and results in delayed medical appointments. Methods. We surveyed senior citizens in Chittenden county to determine both the type of transportation barriers and medical care missed due to the lack of transpor- tation. An original survey assessing the impact of transportation to health care was distributed in person and through an online platform. Participants were asked to identify the following in the past year: how often transportation was an issue for healthcare, specific barriers to transportation, and which specific health care appointments were missed due to lack of transportation. Ninety-six surveys out of a total of 251 collected were included in the analysis. Respondents were grouped into either having high transportation barriers, n=43, (always, often, sometimes had issues in the past year), or low transportation barriers, n=53, (rarely had issues). Results. The high barriers group reported more missed appointments, with eye appointments being the most frequent, and depended more on other modes of trans- portation. The low barriers group was able to drive themselves to their appointments more often. Conclusion. The results suggest a trend between barriers to transportation and a lack of access to healthcare appointments. Although more than half of the survey respondents indicated that they do not currently experience transportation barriers, many expressed concern about the transportation difficulties they could encounter in the future.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1263/thumbnail.jp

Use of a Cosmid Recombination System in Mutational Analysis of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Genes UL14 to UL17

The HSV-1 genome is 152 kbp in length and contains at least 74 distinct genes. About half of the genes are individually not essential for viral growth in cell culture but most appear to be required for efficient viral replication and pathogenesis in experimental animal systems. The availability of the complete DNA sequence of HSV-1 since 1988 has made it possible to target any gene for mutation, including those that had been previously inaccessible to conventional genetic analysis. A cosmid-based recombination system for producing HSV-1 mutants has been developed recently. The inserts from a set of five cosmids, each about 40 kbp in size, which together contain the entire HSV-1 genome, are co-transfected into BHK C13 cells to yield wt virus via recombination processes. One cosmid containing a gene of interest can be mutated, and replacement of the wt cosmid in the set by the mutated cosmid results in mutant progeny after co-transfection. This approach has a number of advantages over traditional methods of mutagenesis, particularly in allowing minimal alterations to be introduced and in permitting the generation of mutants in the absence of a wt background. The aim of this project was to expand the use the cosmid-based system of mutagenesis to analyse HSV-1 genes UL14, UL15, UL16 and UL17 and to investigate the phenotypes of mutants obtained. The technique used takes advantage of the observation that digestion of covalently closed DNA molecules in the presence of ethidium bromide by restriction enzymes with multiple recognition sites preferentially yields full length linear molecules after a single site is cleaved. An appropriate cosmid (cos24) was linearised with the restriction enzyme Asp718, which cleaves at the sequence G'GTACC, leaving a 5' overhang. Treatment with T4 DNA polymerase in the presence of the four deoxynucleotide triphosphates, followed by religation, resulted in a 4 bp insertion, thus altering the reading frame of the gene from that point onwards. Asp718 has seven sites in cos24, and mutant cosmids were made with a 4 bp insertion in UL14, ULl5 and UL17, in addition to UL6 and UL7. Since these genes may be essential in cell culture, a number of candidate complementing cell lines were produced by three different strategies. These were generated using either cos24 (containing genes ULl to UL21), a plasmid containing genes UL14 to ULl8, or plasmids containing UL14, UL15 or UL17 individually. Overall, 122 candidate cell lines were produced, and 40 were tested to see if they could complement the mutation by transfection with the appropriate mutant cosmid sets. BHK Cl3 cells were also transfected. Following transfection, all of the progeny generated from these cell lines and BHK C13 cells were wt revertants, presumably owing to loss of the 4 bp insertion by intramolecular recombination. This indicates that the cell lines tested are not able to complement the defects and that UL14, UL15, and UL17 are essential for viral replication in cell culture. Proteins whose sequences are present in databases may be identified by newly developed techniques involving mass spectrometry. Proteins are separated by SDS-PAGE and electroblotted onto a membrane, then proteins of interest are excised and treated with trypsin. The peptides produced are subjected to laser desorption mass spectrometry, and the resulting masses from the spectrum are compared to the predicted tryptic products from proteins in a database. Using this method, evidence was obtained that the protein products of UL17 and UL14 may be present in small amounts in HSV-1 virions. Two independent UL16' viruses were available in the laboratory at the commencement of this work, and a further four independent UL16' mutants were also produced. These six mutants were characterised in cell culture and the effects of the lesions on neurovirulence and latency were investigated using a mouse model. The mutants produce smaller plaques on BHK C13 cells and yield less virus than wt and a revertant. The small plaque size and low yield were dependent on the particular site of the mutation within UL16. The mutants were able to adsorb as efficiently as wt, but were slightly reduced in their ability to bind and penetrate cell, they were not significantly temperature sensitive or cell type-specific. Particle counts by electron microscopy revealed that they have a high particle to plaque forming unit (pfu) ratio (i.e. they produce the same amount of particles but fewer are infectious). Analysis of the mutants was carried out using a mouse model. After inoculation of virus into the cranium, wt virus produced from the parental cosmid set was fully neurovirulent but the UL16' viruses were less virulent than wt (i.e. they killed fewer animals at each dose). Footpad inoculations were carried out to investigate the ability of the mutants to replicate at the periphery and to establish and reactivate from latency. The mutants were able to establish and reactivate from latent infection, but less efficiently than wt. In conclusion, although UL16 mutants are viable in cell culture they have a high particle to pfu ratio, yield less virus than wt and produce smaller plaques. The results from experiments involving infection of mice indicate that the UL16 protein has a role in neurovirulence and latency