Individual Risk Attitudes and Democratic Representation.

Although often ignored, the variation of risk attitudes across individuals may have strong implications for democratic representation. I investigate the effect of risk attitudes on the behavior of voters and representatives. This work is divided into four papers. The first paper investigates the effect of risk attitudes on the likelihood of voting for a new party in multiparty systems. Using the Swiss case, where two new parties appeared on the political scene, I show that risk aversion decreases the likelihood of voting for a new party. Given that risk aversion is negatively correlated with right ideology, new party entry may be more difficult on the right. Consequently, rightist parties may feel less pressure to adapt to changes in voters preferences than leftist parties. In the second paper, I argue that existing work presents gaps in empirical evidence of strategic voting driven by the wasted vote logic. Testing if risk attitudes affect strategic voting can bring additional evidence of the wasted vote logic. Analyzing survey data from the UK, Canada, and Germany, I find that risk-averse voters are less likely to vote strategically than risk-acceptant ones. Thus, given the correlation between risk and ideology, strategic voting may be stronger on the left, meaning that representation may be more proportional on the right than on the left. In the third paper, I use a new dataset that combines a survey measuring risk propensity of Swiss legislators and their votes, and find that risk propensity has an effect on legislative voting. However, as this effect is mediated by ideology, risk does not have particular implications for representation here. In the fourth paper, I discuss if the heterogeneity of risk preferences should be taken into account in spatial models of parliamentary voting. I suggest three different ways to do so. First, legislators' utility function can have different shapes. Second, one can allow for the status quo bias to be stronger among more risk-averse legislators. Third, risk aversion could affect the predictability of legislators' behavior. The results suggest that relaxing the assumption of similar risk preferences does not appreciably impact the estimation of ideal points.PhDPolitical ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120659/1/martidan_1.pd

It Goes Both Ways : How white teachers view and respond to culture in the diverse classroom

The purpose of this study was to examine how white teachers in a diverse school district view, respond to, and bridge cultural differences in the classroom. A pre-question, survey, audio recorded discussions, notes in a teacher research journal, and a post question were all analyzed to determine how four white, female teachers incorporated culture into the classroom as well as their receptiveness to culturally sustaining pedagogy. Findings were that these four teachers had a rudimentary understanding of culturally sustaining pedagogy prior to the study and while they made attempts to include culture in the classroom, these attempts were limited and superficial. However, findings also included their side of the story and the challenges they face to carry out the many demands of their job while trying to make teaching relevant and applicable to their diverse student population. Implications for future research are discussed

Party ambiguity and individual preferences

Although the literature on party ambiguity does not lead to a consensus, recent findings suggest that party ambiguity is a good strategy for electoral success. However, the literature on decision processes shows that individuals generally dislike ambiguity. The aim of the present project is to test the effect of party ambiguity on party preferences at the individual level, to see if findings in decision processes still apply. Using election data from eight Western European democracies, I define a measure of party ambiguity at the individual level and find that ambiguity has a negative effect on party preferences. In addition, I find that individuals with a high interest in politics are less likely to like ambiguous parties

The Ever-Changing Social Perception of Autism Spectrum Disorder in the United States

Danielle Martin is the winner of the 2012 Michael F. Bassman Honors Thesis Award.This paper aims to examine the comprehensive social perception of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) within the United States today. In order to study the broad public view of those with ASDs, this study investigates the evolution of the syndrome in both sociological and scientificrealms. By drawing on the scientific progression of the syndrome and the mixture of this research with concurrent social issues and media representations, this study infers why such a significant amount of stigmatization has become attached to those with ASDs and how these stigmatizations have varied throughout history. After studying this evolving social perception of ASDs in the United States, the writer details suggestions for the betterment of this awareness, including boosted and specified research efforts, increased collaboration within those experts in autism, and positive visibility of those with ASDs and their families. Overall, the writer suggests that public awareness has increased and thus negative stigmatization has decreased in recent years; however, there remains much to be done to increase general social understanding of ASDs

Liminal space or in limbo? Post Graduate Researchers and their personal pie charts of identity

How do postgraduate researchers (PGRs) see themselves at the start of their PhD journey? There is a duality of identity or even a triality when it comes to PGRs, since they exist in a space that is simultaneously researcher, student, and often ‘teacher’ in the broad sense of supporting other students in their learning. This report draws on data from a source originally not intended to be one: personal pie charts of identity. The activity was originally conceived as a warmer or discussion prompt for ensuing focus groups (four separate groups all completing a Teaching, Learning and Assessment strand of the mandatory elements of their PhDs). However, the pie charts themselves provided surprising insights. The pie charts presented here show considerable variance in the ways they see themselves within the academic community and raise issues about the implications for them as they exist and traverse the spaces within and between these multiple identities

Examining trade-offs between social, psychological, and energy potential of urban form

Urban planners are often challenged with the task of developing design solutions which must meet multiple, and often contradictory, criteria. In this paper, we investigated the trade-offs between social, psychological, and energy potential of the fundamental elements of urban form: the street network and the building massing. Since formal methods to evaluate urban form from the psychological and social point of view are not readily available, we developed a methodological framework to quantify these criteria as the first contribution in this paper. To evaluate the psychological potential, we conducted a three-tiered empirical study starting from real world environments and then abstracting them to virtual environments. In each context, the implicit (physiological) response and explicit (subjective) response of pedestrians were measured. To quantify the social potential, we developed a street network centrality-based measure of social accessibility. For the energy potential, we created an energy model to analyze the impact of pure geometric form on the energy demand of the building stock. The second contribution of this work is a method to identify distinct clusters of urban form and, for each, explore the trade-offs between the select design criteria. We applied this method to two case studies identifying nine types of urban form and their respective potential trade-offs, which are directly applicable for the assessment of strategic decisions regarding urban form during the early planning stages

Learning from Each Other: Peer-Reviewed Literature Searching

Background: Amidst shrinking staffing levels and expanding business, a health system library department developed a peer-learning program in order to build literature search capacity and self-efficacy amongst librarians and library support staff.Description: Library staff are partnered and rotate monthly; pairs include those in same and different job roles and experience levels. Staff are encouraged to choose real patron clinical questions that would serve as optimal learning opportunities, reinforcing best practices in search strategy and/or database functionality or ones that are particularly challenging. Partners independently perform the other’s search then meet virtually to compare results, strategies, and debrief on lessons learned.After a search for validated tools measuring library staff search self-efficacy turned up no appropriate tools, a brief survey was created based on feedback from senior librarians. REDCap was used to conduct a pre-survey of brief impressions on search self-efficacy and comfort with reaching out to colleagues for support when faced with a difficult search. A post-survey will be done at 6 and 12 months, as well as solicitation of candid feedback.Conclusion: We expect to measure an increase in search self-efficacy and comfort in asking colleagues for assistance at both 6 and 12 months. We hope to use staff’s candid feedback to inform and develop our peer-review program for continued use.Initial response to the program has been positive. While some staff indicated feelings of nervousness or lack of confidence going into the first debrief, most have expressed that they found the exercise useful and noted that it gave them a welcome opportunity to connect with geographically disparate colleagues they might not have otherwise