Symbolic and Competitive Racism on Campus

After a short hiatus, overt racism is on the rise again. Increases in reported racially motivated crime and violence have been noted all over the country. In the wider U.S. society, identifiable racial incidents have been estimated to have increased 55 percent from 1986 to 1987. According to the Community Relations Service (CRS), African Americans comprised two-thirds of the victims in the cases reported in 1987. Although this racial violence has taken various forms ranging from name-calling, vandalism, and cross-burning to actual physical assaults that result in casualties and death, these have not been isolated incidents but have their basis in the racism that underlines U.S. institutions. This resurgence is due, in no small part, to the increasing level of conservatism that has swept the country, making racial intolerance and conflict the order of the day

Water Content and Thermoplastic Polyurethane Effects on Thrombosis Clotting

One of the main factors that can increase the chance of heart disease is unwanted blood clotting, or thrombosis. In addition, implantable biomaterials and/or medical devices are likely to trigger a series of adverse reactions that can lead to unwanted blood clotting. Herein, we study a thromboresistant polymeric material, specifically thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs), on their physical properties and anticoagulation performance. Their hydrophobic nature and superior mechanical properties make them an ideal candidate for coating materials on implantable medical devices, such as vascular stents. Our results show that hydrophobic TPUs absorbed minimal to negligible water content and provided excellent thromboresistant properties against human plasma.Cockrell School of Engineerin

Caste cultures and fertility in south Karnataka

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D51930/84 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Trust and legitimacy across Europe: a FIDUCIA report on comparative public attitudes towards legal authority

FIDUCIA (New European Crimes and Trust-based Policy) seeks to shed light on a number of distinctively ‘new European’ criminal behaviours which have emerged in the last decade as a consequence of both technology developments and the increased mobility of populations across Europe. A key objective of FIDUCIA is to propose and proof a ‘trust-based’ policy model in relation to emerging forms of criminality – to explore the idea that public trust and institutional legitimacy are important for the social regulation of the trafficking of human beings, the trafficking of goods, the criminalisation of migration and ethnic minorities, and cybercrimes. In this paper we detail levels of trust and legitimacy in the 26 countries, drawing on data from Round 5 of the European Social Survey. We also conduct a sensitivity analysis that investigates the effect of a lack of measurement equivalence on national estimates

Justifying violence: legitimacy, ideology and public support for police use of force

Under what conditions do people support police use of force? In this paper we assess some of the empirical links between police legitimacy, political ideology (right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation), and support for ‘reasonable’ use of force (e.g. an officer striking a citizen in self-defence) and ‘excessive’ use of force (e.g. an officer using violence to arrest an unarmed person who is not offering violent resistance). Analyzing data from an online survey with US participants (n=186) we find that legitimacy is a positive predictor of reasonable but not excessive police use of force, and that political ideology predicts support for excessive but not reasonable use of force. We conclude with the idea that legitimacy places normative constraints around police power. On the one hand, legitimacy is associated with increased support for the use of force, but only when violence is bounded within certain acceptable limits. On the other hand, excessive use of force seems to require an extra-legal justification that is – at least in our analysis – partly ideological. Our findings open up a new direction of research in what is currently a rather sparse psychological literature on the ability of legitimacy to ‘tame’ coercive power

Authority and punishment: on the ideological basis of punitive attitudes towards criminals

Why do people support tough sentencing of criminal offenders? Three explanations dominate the literature. The first is an instrumental perspective: people are concerned about becoming a victim of crime and they look to punishment to reduce future harm. The second is a relational perspective: people are concerned about community breakdown, and they support punishment to restore moral boundaries. The third is a psychological model based on ideological preferences: people desire conformity and authority in society, and they look to institutions to punish transgressions that threaten collective security. Building on the work of Tyler & Boeckmann (1997), two studies of London citizens (n1=13,929, n2=283) suggest a way of integrating these three perspectives. We show that right-wing authoritarianism predicts both the extent to which people worry about social threats and the extent to which they support harsh punitive measures. Bridging research from political psychology and criminology, we conclude with the idea that popular punitive sentiment is grounded in an uncritical submission to authorities, an adherence to conservative moral values, and consonant concerns about collective security and cohesion

A study of children and grief : living through bereavement.

Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2007.The high levels of HIV/AIDS and violent crime in South Africa mean that millions of children are being forced, and will continue to be forced, to deal with the death of a parent/primary caregiver in their early and middle childhood years. Acknowledging that does not lessen the apprehension and uneasiness which lingers in formal and informal discussions of children, death, dying and grief, nor does it ameliorate the fact that childhood bereavement is becoming a normative childhood experience in South Africa. It is vital, therefore, to understand what are South African children's experiences of bereavement and grief, and to explore what impacts are likely to be exerted on their development. Children do not grieve in the same way; and children's grief is influenced by factors such as environment, unique experiences, developmental level, personality, age and gender. Family, too, is important because it is still the primary institution of society, and it influences substantially how children understand death, bereavement and grief. The school, too, has an impact on childhood grief. The majority of school-going children in South Africa are in primary school grades. Attending primary school corresponds with (most often) middle childhood, which is a critically important developmental stage. The experience of bereavement and grief during middle childhood is challenging precisely because it occurs in such a sensitive emotionally, cognitively and socially developmental period. Childhood grief experienced in that period can have long-term consequences. Important, too, is the fact that school-going children will, more than for younger children, not only experience grief privately but will grieve in public settings such as the school setting. This study, therefore, was concerned with exploring and gaining insight into the dynamics of bereavement and grief as experienced by children, who were in middle childhood, and enrolled in the primary school system. An exploratory design was chosen to explore the issue. A purposive sample was drawn from the school's list of scholars, and included 25 children attending Grades Five to Seven (Senior Primary Phase) at a co-educational, English-medium, state school. Data were collected both qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitative primary data collection, involving in-depth interviews, was chosen because it allowed the researcher to explore the issue from the children's own perspectives. Each child was interviewed by the researcher over two to three sessions. Quantitative secondary data collection, involving key demographic and academic information extracted from the school's records, was included, and that helped triangulate and contextualise the data collected in the interviews. This study found that children in middle childhood do experience a diverse range of grief responses to the death of their parents/primary caregivers in the school environment, among other places, and some of those grief responses were challenging. Although respondents experienced different and confusing emotions; and although some had had their grief acknowledged by significant others, while others had not, all were able to engage in honest, clear discussions about death and grief. Respondents reported experiencing a range of secondary losses associated with the initial loss on their daily lives, and that was especially so for girl children. Respondents did know how to access support services but had not done so. The respondents also expressed a need to be encouraged to remember and memorialize their dead parent/primary caregiver. The study found, too, that the more prepared and supported the bereaved child was prior to that death, the better s/he coped with the event. Understanding children's bereavement can help those individuals and organisations, which are responsible for children's optimal development, provide children with the necessary support to prevent the child's bereavement and grief from becoming a lasting trauma

Factors Contributing to Burnout Levels Among Public Sector Rehabilitation Counselors

Burnout has led to turnover and poor counselor performance within public sector rehabilitation. Scholarly literature on burnout among mental health counselors and school counselors are abundant. However, few researchers have compiled studies to evaluate burnout among rehabilitation counselors. No research could be found that examined the relationships among job demand, control, support, and burnout among public sector rehabilitation counselors. The Job Demand Control- Support (JDC-S) model indicates that stress from work is developed based on work demands, perceptions of control, and the perceived support that is received. The purpose of this research study was to determine the extent of the prediction, if any, between burnout and job demand, job control, and job support for public sector rehabilitation counselors. This study examined the following research question through a multiple linear regression: Job demand, job control, and job support (as measured by subscales of the Karasek and Theorell Job Content Questionnaire) predicts burnout (as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory) among public sector rehabilitation counselors. Instruments used in the study included the Job Content Questionnaire and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. An electronic questionnaire was sent to 1,000 certified rehabilitation counselors throughout the United States;197 were returned. The results of this study suggest that there is a likelihood of a lower risk of stress because of high autonomy on the job. Moreover, there was a significant prediction between burnout (as described by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment) to job demand, job control, and job support. Results of the study may contribute to social change through increasing the wellness of counselors within the public rehabilitation counseling sector, which, in turn, could lead to improvement in the quality of services for clients

Gjennom hierarkisk styring og nettverk? Koordinering av overvannshåndtering i Bergen kommune

Denne studien undersøker koordinering av overvannshåndtering i Bergen kommune. Overvann er regn- og smeltevann som samles og renner av på overflater. Med et klima i endring vil nedbørsmengdene øke, men nye løsninger for å håndtere overvann krever økt koordinering. Oppgavens forskningsspørsmål er: «På hvilken måte koordineres innsatsen for håndtering av overvann i Bergen kommune, og hvordan kan denne koordineringen beskrives og forstås?». Gjennom dokumentanalyse og semi-strukturerte intervju har studien kartlagt de ulike formene for koordinering som spilles ut i kommunen. Både hierarkisk styring og nettverk er viktige koordinerende mekanismer for overvannshåndtering i Bergen, både internt og eksternt. Funn viser at dette spiller sammen. En hybrid kombinasjon kan bidra til overvannshåndteringen ved å utfylle hverandre. Gjennom tre organisasjonsteoretiske perspektiv gis en fortolkning av koordineringsuttrykket som er identifisert. Dette gjennom det hierarkiske-, det forhandlende-, og det kulturelle perspektivet.Masteroppgave i administrasjon og organisasjonsvitenskapAORG350MASV-AOR