Inclusive Education and the Politics of Difference: Considering the Effectiveness of Labelling in Special Education

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the British Psychological Society via the link in this recordAim: The contribution of this paper to this ongoing debate, is to interrogate the discourse of labelling by critically analysing its role in inclusive and special education. Rationale: Labels have a strong tradition of orchestrating educational inequity. In response, recent debates about the concept of labelling have focused on whether the use of labelling in inclusive and/or special education has an equality potential or indeed threatens the quality of education provided to students with diverse needs. Findings: The difficulty with labelling is that it is fraught with political, psychological and ideological ambiguities that permeate the well-intentioned efforts of providing education to students with disabilities. Labelling also carries considerable historical beliefs that saturates policy, professional, and institutional practices. Limitations: This article is a position piece which has put forward an argument based on available evidence. However, as with all non-empirical articles it is limited to the quality of the articles which are cited by the authors and it may not reflect the breadth of available articles on this subject area. Conclusions: Therefore, understanding how labels promote, or impede, the quality of special and inclusive education within international contexts is essential for developing realistic innovations in policy and practice to enhance educational outcomes for all

Labelling and Diagnosis

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the British Psychological SocietyGuest editoria

Factors That Predict Short-term Complication Rates After Total Hip Arthroplasty

Background: There remains uncertainty regarding the relative importance of patient factors such as comorbidity and provider factors such as hospital volume in predicting complication rates after total hip arthroplasty (THA). Purpose: We therefore identified patient and provider factors predicting complications after THA. Methods: We reviewed discharge data from 138,399 patients undergoing primary THA in California from 1995 to 2005. The rate of complications during the first 90 days postoperatively (mortality, infection, dislocation, revision, perioperative fracture, neurologic injury, and thromboembolic disease) was regressed against a variety of independent variables, including patient factors (age, gender, race/ethnicity, income, Charlson comorbidity score) and provider variables (hospital volume, teaching status, rural location). Results: Compared with patients treated at high-volume hospitals (above the 20th percentile), patients treated at low-volume hospitals (below the 60th percentile) had a higher aggregate risk of having short-term complications (odds ratio, 2.00). A variety of patient factors also had associations with an increased risk of complications: increased Charlson comorbidity score, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, advanced age, male gender, and black race. Hispanic and Asian patients had lower risks of complications. Conclusions: Patient and provider characteristics affected the risk of a short-term complication after THA. These results may be useful for educating patients and anticipating perioperative risks of THA in different patient populations. Level of Evidence: Level II, prognostic study. See Guidelines for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence. © 2010 The Author(s)

Analytical solutions to the third-harmonic generation in trans-polyacetylene: Application of dipole-dipole correlation on the single electron models

The analytical solutions for the third-harmonic generation (THG) on infinite chains in both Su-Shrieffer-Heeger (SSH) and Takayama-Lin-Liu-Maki (TLM) models of trans-polyacetylene are obtained through the scheme of dipole-dipole ($DD$) correlation. They are not equivalent to the results obtained through static current-current ($J_0J_0$) correlation or under polarization operator $\hat{P}$. The van Hove singularity disappears exactly in the analytical forms, showing that the experimentally observed two-photon absorption peak (TPA) in THG may not be directly explained by the single electron models.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Coordinated distributed experiments: an emerging tool for testing global hypotheses in ecology and environmental science

There is a growing realization among scientists and policy makers that an increased understanding of today's environmental issues requires international collaboration and data synthesis. Meta-analyses have served this role in ecology for more than a decade, but the different experimental methodologies researchers use can limit the strength of the meta-analytic approach. Considering the global nature of many environmental issues, a new collaborative approach, which we call coordinated distributed experiments (CDEs), is needed that will control for both spatial and temporal scale, and that encompasses large geographic ranges. Ecological CDEs, involving standardized, controlled protocols, have the potential to advance our understanding of general principles in ecology and environmental science

The PREDICTS database: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts

Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species’ threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project – and avert – future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups – including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems – www.predicts.org.uk). We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015

Labelling and Inclusive Education

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxford university Press via the DOI in this recordThe use of labels in inclusive education is a complex issue. Some have argued that labels are a necessary evil in the allocation of limited resources in order to support children with specific additional support needs, and others would argue that they bring comfort and relief for children and their families and lead to an intervention programme that will improve the child’s educational opportunities. Further arguments about the use of labels have included that they lead to a wider and better understanding of certain needs that children may have, and thus there is more tolerance, and less stigmatisation amongst the general public than was the case before. However, counter arguments can be made for each of these issues as to whether the use of labels can truly be considered a valuable practice in the sphere of inclusive education

A comparative overview of educational psychology across continents.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in The Routledge International Companion to Educational Psychology. 13 May 2014, available online https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-International-Companion-to-Educational-Psychology/Holliman/p/book/9780415675604This chapter aims to inform the reader as to the range and breadth of educational/school psychology practice throughout the world in what is both a diverse and challenging profession. Educational psychology faces both external and internal challenges to maintain a unique identity and the question the profession should be asking is ‘what is distinct about the work that I do’. Educational psychologists have to decide if they are educationalists dabbling in a bit of psychology or psychologists involved in the education sphere. The authors pose challenging questions about what the role should be in the well regarded professional of educational psychology

Promoting positive emotional health of children of transient armed forces families

The focus of this research was to promote emotional health in a small primary school (n = 180), with a highly transient pupil population of armed forces children (Service children). Negative effects of pupil mobility have been found to relate to academic attainment (Dobson, Henthorne, & Lynas, 2000; Mott, 2002), but its effect on social and emotional development is less specific. A multi-stranded approach to intervention was used, which included the delivery of pilot curricular materials on emotional literacy to two classes in the school, an educational programme (Seasons for Growth) delivered to a smaller group of pupils and the development of a specific critical incident policy in the event of a casualty notification. Post-intervention, evaluation measures did not point to increases in pupils’ emotional literacy scores but the qualitative data indicated that the emotional literacy curriculum did receive positive ratings by pupils and staff. Findings suggest the importance of an emotional health curriculum for a mobile school community and the role of parental involvement to sustain curricular interventions. Further research could investigate the extent of behavioural and emotional difficulties for mobile pupils across primary and secondary schools and the effect of a whole school approach to emotional literacy for this group of pupils. Implications for Educational Psychologists’ (EP) practice indicate an increasing role in psycho-education and integrated work with health agencies