FOREST GRUMP: Examining How Deforestation Affects Plants and Animals of the Canadian Boreal

Grade Level(s): 6-12In this lesson, students consider the definition of an ecosystem as it relates to the Canadian boreal, discover how deforestation is affecting this forest and recreate ecosystems found in this forest. Then, students will write persuasive letters urging politicians or business people to help save the forest.The Bank Street College of Education in New York City; The New York Times Learning Networ

Impact of social complexity on outcomes in cystic fibrosis after transfer to adult care

Objective This study evaluates the roles of medical and social complexity in health care use outcomes in cystic fibrosis (CF) after transfer from pediatric to adult care. Methods Retrospective cohort design included patients with CF who were transitioned into adult care at Indiana University from 2005 to 2015. Predictor variables included demographic and comorbidity data, age at transition, treatment complexity score (TCS), and an objective scoring measure of their social complexity (Bob's Level of Social Support, BLSS). Outcome variables included outpatient visit rates and hospitalization rates. Pearson's correlations and linear regression were used to analyze the data. Results The median age of the patients (N = 133) at the time of transition was 20 (IQR 19‐23) years. The mean FEV1 % predicted at transition was 69 ± 24%. TCS correlated with outpatient visit rates (r = 0.3, P = 0.003), as well as hospitalization rates (r = 0.4, P < 0.001); while the BLSS only correlated with hospitalization rates (r = 0.7, P < 0.001). After adjusting for covariates, the strongest predictors of post‐transfer hospitalizations are BLSS (P < 0.0001) and pre‐transfer hospitalization rate (P < 0.0001). Conclusion Greater treatment complexity is associated with greater healthcare utilization overall, while greater social complexity is associated with increased hospitalizations (but not outpatient visits). Screening young adults for social complexity may identify high‐risk subpopulations and allow for patient centered interventions to support them and prevent avoidable health care use

Assessing victim risk in cases of violent crime

Purpose: There is a body of evidence that suggests a range of psychosocial characteristics demarcate certain adults to be at an elevated risk for victimisation. To this end, the aim of the current study was to examine consistency between one police force, and a corresponding victim support service based in England, in their assessment of level of risk faced by victims of violent crime. Methodology: This study explored matched data on 869 adult victims of violent crime gathered from these two key services in Preston, namely Lancashire Constabulary and Victim Support, from which a sub-group of comparable ‘domestic violence’ cases (n=211) were selected for further examination. Findings: Data analyses revealed methodological inconsistencies in the assessment of victimisation resulting in discrepancies for recorded levels of risk in domestic violence cases across these two agencies. Practical implications: These findings provide a compelling argument for developing a more uniformed approach to victim assessment and indicate a significant training need. Value: This paper highlights areas of good practice and forwards several recommendations for improved practice that emphasises the integration of empirical research conducted by psychologists to boost the validity and reliability of risk assessment approaches and tools used

Attitudes toward intimate partner “honor”-based violence in India, Iran, Malaysia and Pakistan

Although intimate partner violence (IPV) and ‘honor’-based violence (HBV) are major concerns throughout the world, little research has investigated the acceptance of these forms of abuse outside of the West. This study therefore responds to this gap in the literature by exploring attitudes towards HBV in a fictional depiction of IPV across four Asian samples: India, Iran, Malaysia and Pakistan. Participants (n=579) read a hypothetical scenario in which a husband, despite his own marital infidelity, verbally abuses and physically assaults his wife after discovering that she has been unfaithful. Participants then completed a questionnaire that assessed perceptions of damage to the husband’s honor, approval of intimate partner HBV against the wife, and perceptions of both the victim-wife and the perpetrator-husband. Findings revealed that more males than females, across all four nations, were endorsing of honor-adhering attitudes in response to the perceived threat to the husband’s reputation resulting from the wife’s infidelity. Additionally, of the four samples, Pakistani participants were the most approving and Malaysians least endorsing of honor-adhering attitudes. Results are discussed in relation to studies of honor-adherence in Asian populations. This study provides an original glimpse into the perceptions of intimate partner HBV in these not-often sampled nationalities

Repeat Victimisation, Retraumatisation and Victim Vulnerability

Abstract: This study explores the contribution that traumatic experiences and psychological post-traumatic stress symptoms make to predicting subsequent revictimisation in a sample of violent crime victims. In addition, the timing of first trauma exposure was also explored. Fifty-four adult victims (27 male and 27 female) of police recorded violent crime were interviewed and their traumatic exposure history, trauma symptomology, age at first trauma exposure as well as psychological and psychosocial functioning were assessed. These victims were followed longitudinally and subsequent revictimisation between six and twelve months post index victimisation measured. A greater number of types of trauma exposure was related lower emotional stability, higher trauma symptomology and revictimisation. Those victims with childhood traumatic exposure reported more trauma symptomology exposure than those without prior exposure. The implications for law enforcement and victim services are discussed

Suppression of Puberty in Transgender Teens

The purpose of our study is to investigate the suppression of puberty for transgender teens. We will examine current and developing treatments, ethical limitations, and the overarching questions that cause hesitation in healthcare providers. Many of the issues faced by these children stem from their age, and thus their ability to make rational decisions for themselves. Proposals against treatment can create psychosocial developmental issues in teens and increase developing gender dysphoria; the psychological distress that results from the inability to align one’s assigned sex with their new gender identity. But fears of regretful decision-making leads to the question of what is more ethical, the postponement of treatment due to lack of self-awareness, or the alleviation of suffering with the risk of reversal

Vice-Chancellor's Gender Equality Fund Final Report 2017: Illuminating and Understanding Women's and Men's Experiences Navigating Family Care Responsibilities and Their Academic Careers

The research project arose from the March 2017 meeting of the Vice Chancellor’s Gender Equality Committee. At that meeting there was an agreement that there was an opportunity for the Vice Chancellor to consider an additional project titled: ‘illuminating and interrogating the career experiences and interpretations of academic employees with family responsibilities’. By drawing on the constructs illuminating and interrogating, the present research addresses that part of the research which suggests that the dominant discourses and enacted practices that underpin gender inequities are often hidden, latent and less visible, in part because of ‘recent tendencies towards “gender denial” and suggestions that ‘the problem of gender in organizations has been “solved”’ (Lewis & Simpson 2012, p. 141). Further, the literature suggests that dominant discourses can reproduce a situation where women’s delayed career development and the difficulties some women experience securing, in the case of this research, full-time tenured academic positions are interpreted and constructed as unintentional and natural. Women are often understood or positioned as having different priorities and so their delayed career progression is a consequence of their personnel choices rather than gendered organisational practices. Accordingly, Simpson, Ross-Smith and Lewis (2010) argued that ‘discourses of choice’ can legitimate gendered workplace practices because organisations can ‘absolve themselves of responsibility’ (p. 205) for perceptions of differential career access and development. Further, Tatli, Ozturk and Woo (2017) claim that existing gender inequities and the lack of responsibility for tackling them has been legitimised ‘or rendered invisible through a belief in individual choice as the determining factor of career progression for women’ (p. 407). Thus, ‘blaming the victim’ [women] is a means of avoiding the address of gender inequity and so the practices and interactional dynamics involved in constructing and reproducing inequities are often unacknowledged and passively accepted rather than named and challenged. The timeliness and relevance of the research project is, in part, supported by the suggestion that ‘in university employment, particularly for academic staff ‘a strongly male dominated culture persists in which female academic employees (especially mothers) continue to experience discrimination’ (Strachan et al 2016, p. 44). For many women combining family responsibilities and academic career advancement continues to reflect the proposition, flexibility versus advancement (Valantine & Sandborg 2013). That is, despite robust work life integration policies and corresponding cultural values female academics experience and interpret their take up as limiting rather than advancing their academic careers. The present research is also a broader response to findings emerging from aspects of an ARC Linkage Grant Report titled ‘Gender and Employment Equity: Strategies for Advancement in Australian Universities’ (Strachan et al 2016). While bringing to light issues and complexities relevant to women’s academic careers the study was quantitative in orientation. Moreover, while addressing issues pertinent to family responsibilities and work life balance, the ARC project scope was significantly broader and so exploring women’s and men’s family and academic career experiences while important was one of several other focuses. Further supporting the studies’ emphasis, relevant research suggests that despite the development and implementation of family friendly policies, in contemporary workplaces there are tensions, ambiguities and gaps between policy formulation and enacted workplace practices (Cooper & Baird 2015; McDonald, Townsend & Wharton 2013; Putnam, Myers & Gailliard 2014). Fewer of these and like studies have explored these tensions and gaps in context to university workplaces. According, while policy supporting workplace flexibility remains an ongoing dialogue, a clear concern in these studies has been the dissonance between policy and practice which is a focus of the present study

Antigay “Honor” Abuse: A Multinational Attitudinal Study of Collectivist-Versus Individualist-Orientated Populations in Asia and England

Objective: Cultural collectivism, a core feature of honor cultures, is associated with the acceptance of aggression if it is used in the name of so called ‘honor’. Currently overlooked in the research literature, this study explored perceptions of anti-gay ‘honor’ abuse in collectivist orientated honor cultures, where homosexuality, in particular, is considered to be dishonorable. Method: To conduct exploratory and comparative analysis, this study recruited 922 students in four Asian countries (India, Iran, Malaysia and Pakistan), as well as Asian British and White British students in England. All participants read a brief vignette depicting a man whose relatives verbally abuse him and threaten him with life-threatening violence, after suspecting that he is gay and has joined an online dating website to meet men. Participants then completed a short questionnaire that assessed the extent to which they thought the man’s actions had damaged his family’s honor and their approval of the anti-gay ‘honor’ abuse depicted in the scenario. Results: Broadly in line with predictions, data analyses revealed attitudes more supportive of anti-gay ‘honor’ abuse in all five collectivist-orientated populations than the sample of individualistic-orientated counterparts in England. Notably, however, a series of one-way ANOVAs demonstrated that these results varied depending on country of residence, gender, religious denomination, educational status and age. Conclusions: The findings show that individual and demographic differences influence perceptions towards homophobic ‘honor’ abuse in collectivist cultures. These differences are a useful indices of the psychosocial factors that underpin hostile attitudes towards gay males in cultures where homosexuality is denounced