Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Traffic Stops: Analysis of Vermont State Police Data, 2010-2011

This paper reports the results of an analysis of the Vermon State Police's first year of race data on traffic stops, arrests, and searches for the period July 2010 through June 2011. The results are compared to those reported in McDevitt and Posick (2011). The main innovation of this study is that it examines racial differences in outcomes for each minority group relative to Whites, while the previous study combined all minorities into one group for comparison to White drivers. As a result the analyses and conclusions drawn differ, with this study finding much more robust evidence of racial disparities in policing, particularly for Blacks and Hispanics

Driving While Black And Brown In Vermont

Vermont is perceived to be a political outlier in the United States. It was the first state to outlaw slavery in 1777. And in our more recent history, Vermont was one of the first states to legalize civil unions and to push (unsuccessfully) for a single payer health care system. When it comes to race relations, it is assume d that Vermont is equally liberal and as result, racial bias towards people who are Black and Hispanic, evident in other parts of the country, should largely be absent here. This paper investigates that assumption. In particular, the authors analyze police traffic stop data to assess the extent, if any, of racial disparities in policing. This task is made possible by legislation passed in the Vermont House that required police departments to begin to collect traffic stop data by race as of September 2014.

'Home game': domestic abuse and football

Increased reports of domestic violence and abuse (DVA) following football matches have been documented, within both quantitative studies and the media, leading to questions about the policy and practice responses required. However, qualitative research facilitating understanding of the apparent link between football and DVA is lacking. Drawing upon research with key stakeholders across England and Scotland, this paper provides a rare insight into their understanding of the contested and complex relationship between football and DVA, including the role of contributory and confounding factors such as alcohol, match expectations, masculinity, entitlement and permissions. It is argued that while football may provide a potential platform for challenging DVA, focusing on football (or other specific factors or events) as causative risks re-incidentalising DVA and detaching it from feminist frameworks that have established DVA as a sustained behaviour grounded in gendered inequalities. This paper concludes by considering the broader conceptual implications of these findings for future research, policy and practice

Receiving Help: Management Strategies of the Handicapped

The social act of helping is presented from the recipient\u27s viewpoint. Interview material from handicapped adults and contributions from the literature on helping provide insight to the helped person\u27s management and interpretation of being helped. Techniques employed in the management of help are described. Alternative strategies and interpretations are available to the helped person; receiving help is not necessarily demeaning as social norms suggest. The interaction between helper and helped person is the central concern

Cognitive Aptitude as a Predictor of Success In Associate Degree Nursing Programs

Student success in nursing education is essential to supplement the healthcare workforce and sustain the delivery of safe and efficient nursing care. However, the loss of students who drop out or fail out of nursing programs is alarmingly high even though institutions have sought to identify the best candidates for admission to rigorous nursing curricula. While most nursing programs have used academic measures, such as grade point average or standardized testing to rank students for admission, these measures have not adequately captured the characteristics that students must possess to be successful. To further identify nonacademic attributes that enhance achievement, new criteria are being explored. This study tests a new model, the Nursing Cognitive Aptitude Model, or NCAM (Twidwell et al., 2018) as an organizational framework to examine the variables of prior academic performance, current knowledge, and critical thinking skills, for its ability to predict early student success in an associate degree nursing program. A convenience sample of 115 first semester nursing students completed two instruments, the Health Sciences Reasoning Test, and the Test of Essential Academic Skills. Student scores as well as both pre-nursing and nursing cumulative grade point averages were evaluated using regression analysis. The results were consistent with existing evidence that prior academic performance and current knowledge, as measured by composite scores on standardized testing, were significantly related to student performance. However, overall critical thinking skill did not contribute to early success in nursing education. Thus, the combined composite scores of each variable included in the NCAM did not significantly predict nursing grade point average. Additional inquiry with multisite designs and diverse student populations is needed to understand the role of pre-existing critical thinking skills in the educational process and to further evaluate the NCAM as a predictive model for student success

Self-Empowerment among Adults with Severe Physical Disability: A Case Study

An independent living residential setting for severely physically disabled adults was studied through overt observation methods for twenty-two months. The purpose was observation of residents\u27 council actions and expressions of group interests. The council displayed several phases of political structure and behavior. These phases were related to staff and administrative considerations as well as the residents emerging demonstrations of self-empowerment at the group level. The capacity for selfadvocacy emerges as a dynamic enterprise which is clearly related to the structure and interests of the service agency

EQ-5D and the EuroQol Group: Past, Present and Future

Over the period 1987-1991 an inter-disciplinary five-country group developed the EuroQol instrument, a five-dimensional three-level generic measure subsequently termed the 'EQ-5D'. It was designed to measure and value health status. The salient features of its development and its consolidation and expansion are discussed. Initial expansion came, in particular, in the form of new language versions. Their development raised translation and semantic issues, experience with which helped feed into the design of two further instruments, the EQ-5D-5L and the youth version EQ-5D-Y. The expanded usage across clinical programmes, disease and condition areas, population surveys, patient-reported outcomes, and value sets is outlined. Valuation has been of continued relevance for the Group as this has allowed its instruments to be utilised as part of the economic appraisal of health programmes and their incorporation into health technology assessments. The future of the Group is considered in the context of: (1) its scientific strategy, (2) changes in the external environment affecting the demand for EQ-5D, and (3) a variety of issues it is facing in the context of the design of the instrument, its use in health technology assessment, and potential new uses for EQ-5D outside of clinical trials and technology appraisal

Women and Disability: The Double Handicap

During the 1970\u27s a social movement arose to address the concerns of people with disabilities. Action groups pressed for reforms in architectural barriers, educational and employment opportunities, deinstitutionalization, and legal protection of civil rights. Although accurate demographic information is lacking, estimates indicate that approximately one in ten Americans has a disability or chronic disease and would be affected by the changes brought about by the disability movement. These people experience serious limitations in major activities such as housework, employment, or education. Yet external restrictions imposed by negative attitudes impose greater handicaps by preventing full social participation of this stigmatized group. The primary purpose of the disability movement has been to combat ttiese environmental and social handicaps through public education and legal advances. Despite the attention given to disability in general and certain impairments in particular, one category within the disabled population has received little recognition or study: women. Like many reform movements, the disability movement has often directed its energies toward primarily male experiences; spinal cord injury and employment issues have received more publicity than arthritis or chilc-bearing problems. It is the purpose of this special issue to identify the issues and experiences which are particular to disabled women

Domestic violence and abuse, coronavirus, and the media narrative

Following lockdowns in countries around the world, reports emerged of a ‘surge’ or ‘spikes’ in the number of domestic violence and abuse cases. It is critical to contextualise this: more men are not starting to be abusive or violent; rather, the patterns of abuse are becoming more frequent. Spiking and surging make us think in terms of more one-off incidents but it is more likely that the pattern of abuse that is already there is increasing in terms of frequency and type because both parties remain together at all times. Amid such a crisis, it is imperative that we continue to see the dynamics of domestic violence and abuse as both a pattern of abusive behaviours and a product of gendered social and cultural norms, rather than a reaction to a specific factor or event, such as COVID-19