Open Adoption: It\u27s Effect on the Parent-Child Relationship

While adoption has been in existence for centuries, only in recent years has open adoption, the procedure in which contact continued between birth parents and their biological children, been practiced. Consequently, the affect of this practice on birth parents, adoptive parents and their children has had limited study. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of open adoption on their relationship with the adopted child. The outcome of this study indicates that open adoption is a positive change in social work practice and this change in philosophy of family building has resulted in a positive experience for the families in this study

How Women of Color are Portrayed on the Cover of Magazines: A Content Analysis on the Images of Black/African, Latina, Asian and Native American (BALANA)

Historically, women of color with little knowledge can blindly imitate the images of themselves as portrayed in mass media, which can be harmful to their self-esteem, contradictions of self-identification, and daily interactions with majority people. Media literacy is important in understanding how images of minority women are distorted to fit the dominant group\u27s ideals and cultural relevance, which affect the identity of minority women. The researcher through the use of BALANA and content analysis examined some attributes of how women of color (WOC) are portrayed on the cover of eight selected magazines, for example, 1) Good Housekeeping, 2) Cosmopolitan, 3) Glamor, 4) Vogue, 5) Redbook, 6) Seventeen, 7) Teen Vogue and 8) Maxim. The acronym of BALANA stands for Black/African, Latino, Asian, Native Americans. The analytical framework BALANA and content analysis examined the following attributes or characteristics derived from the literature review: hypersexualization, objectification, likeness to whiteness and intensified exoticism. The theoretical perspectives that guided the study are social identity theory, social cognitive theory, critical race theory and objectification theory. The findings revealed that of the 278 magazine covers reviewed, 52 covers displayed women of color. 90% percent on the magazine covers with WOC had hypersexual images, contextual cues, and content. The percentage on magazine covers with women of color with ethnic traits being masked by whiteness was also 90%. Twelve, magazine covers of the 52, displayed images of WOC portraying objectification attributes. About 42 percent of magazine covers with WOC portrayed intensified exoticism attribute. The percentage of Black/African Women on the cover of magazines was 4.7%, the percentage of Latinas on the cover of magazines was 11.9% and the percentage of Asian Women on the cover of magazines was 2.2% and there were no Native American women presented on the cover of any magazines reviewed. This is an exploratory study and for the first time applied a socially constructed framework called BALANA to study WOC, therefore, a limitation. Another limitation is the difficulty to locate physical copies of magazines or other resources at local libraries in Minnesota Areas\u27 Minneapolis and Winona. The socially constructed BALANA as an analytical framework or tool is to help women better understand and improve their media literacy thereby empowering them

Disabled people and social estrangement: facilitating connection in counselling

In this thesis I explore why disabled people often feel socially estranged and how this issue might be worked with in counselling. Disability has a very low profile in the counselling literature and research in this field is often conducted from a counsellors’ perspective. As a disabled person myself, I have based my research on a reflexive narrative approach that draws on interviews with disabled people who have been clients in counselling. From a person-centred perspective, I understand the impact of estrangement on the self-concept and interpersonal relationships in terms of societal conditions of worth. Counselling is considered by some writers in the field of Disability Studies to be an oppressive pursuit. Others who align themselves with a feminist approach argue that the psycho-emotional and lived experience of disability should not be excluded in research. I draw on these writings as well as on participants’ experiences to critique the theory and practice of counselling disabled people. Finally, I formulate a framework for understanding disability in counselling and offer some recommendations for practice

Adaptive Analytics: It’s About Time

This article describes a cooperative research partnership among a large public university, a for-profit private institution and their common adaptive learning platform provider. The focus of this work explored adaptive analytics that uses data the investigators describe as metaphorical “digital learning dust” produced by the platform as a matter of course. The information configured itself into acquired knowledge, growth, baseline status and engagement. Two complimentary models evolved. The first, in the public university, captured end-of-course data for predicting success. The second approach, in the private university, formed the basis of a dynamic real-time data analytic algorithm. In both cases the variables that best predicted students at risk (effective use of time and revision attempts) were deemed teachable skills that can improve with intervention

Household Clustering of Escherichia coli Sequence Type 131 Clinical and Fecal Isolates According to Whole Genome Sequence Analysis

Background. Within-household sharing of strains from the resistance-associated H30R1 and H30Rx subclones of Escherichia coli sequence type 131 (ST131) has been inferred based on conventional typing data, but has been assessed minimally using whole genome sequence (WGS) analysis. Methods. Thirty-three clinical and fecal isolates of ST131-H30R1 and ST131-H30Rx, from 20 humans and pets in six households, underwent WGS analysis for comparison with 52 published ST131 genomes. Phylogenetic relationships were inferred using a bootstrapped maximum likelihood tree based on core genome sequence polymorphisms. Accessory traits were compared between phylogenetically similar isolates. Results. In the WGS-based phylogeny, isolates clustered strictly by household, in clades that were distributed widely across the phylogeny, interspersed between H30R1 and H30Rx comparison genomes. For only one household did the core genome phylogeny place epidemiologically unlinked isolates together with household isolates, but even there multiple differences in accessory genome content clearly differentiated these two groups. The core genome phylogeny supported within-household strain sharing, fecal-urethral urinary tract infection pathogenesis (with the entire household potentially providing the fecal reservoir), and instances of host-specific microevolution. In one instance the household\u27s index strain persisted for 6 years before causing a new infection in a different household member. Conclusions. Within-household sharing of E. coli ST131 strains was confirmed extensively at the genome level, as was long-term colonization and repeated infections due to an ST131-H30Rx strain. Future efforts toward surveillance and decolonization may need to address not just the affected patient but also other human and animal household members

Antimicrobial Drug–Resistant Escherichia coli from Humans and Poultry Products, Minnesota and Wisconsin, 2002–2004

Similarities were found between drug-resistant E. coli from humans and poultry products