Searching for demography's missing link: Momentum

This paper is both more theoretical and highly applied; both methodological and policy-oriented. Empirically until recently there has been little work on momentum effects. By way of case-studies on momentum effects, the paper reviews published policy-oriented work on New Zealand on national growth and age-structural transitions; on fertility patterns in New Zealand; and on survivorship and longevity, and the more local discussion of Maori-Pakeha differentials. The conclusion is that more attention must be paid to momentum. It calls for the demographic community to lead in moving policy analyses away from demography as a naive art form to one that is more multi-dimensional and sophisticated

2012 Grantmakers Information Technology Survey Report

Together the Technology Affinity Group (TAG) and Grants Managers Network (GMN) conducted an information technology survey of grantmaking organizations in July 2012. This survey serves as a follow?up to similar surveys TAG has conducted in collaboration with the Council on Foundation (The Council) in April 2003, July 2005, and June 2007, and then independently in 2010

Language sample analysis for Spanish speakers

textThe purpose of this project was to develop a Spanish language sample analysis (LSA) scoring procedure for English-Spanish bilinguals used to guide clinicians in developing language goals and monitoring progress on those goals. A Spanish LSA procedure was created and was tested on 20 typically developing and 16 language impaired English-Spanish bilinguals. Each utterance of each language sample was analyzed for correct and attempted use of the 20 grammatical forms selected for the LSA procedure. Based on the results, a preliminary profile of impairment was established. It showed that Relative Clauses, Infinitive Clauses, Present Subjunctive, Third Person Plural Present and Preterit Indicative, Irregular Preterit Indicative, Indirect and Direct Object Clitics, Imperfect, and Plural Nouns were the most problematic forms for English-Spanish bilinguals with LI. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.Communication Sciences and Disorder

Population trends, convictions and imprisonment: Demographic divergence, dichotomy and diversity

The links between population patterns and trends, and policy and planning for the justice system is important. The trends in the number of convictions and imprisonments by regional councils are investigated for the period 1986 to 2001. This does not just focus on Custodial sentences but also looks at other types of sentences such as monetary and community sentences. Additionally, a regional estimate of the muster in prison is derived to give “normal” place of residence of those in prison. The relationship of imprisonment to other factors such as income, unemployment, sickness/invalid benefit rates, labour force participation rates and ethnicity is investigated. Some policy implications of these findings are presented

Medical technology advances from space research

Details of medical research and development programs, particularly an integrated medical laboratory, as derived from space technology are given. The program covers digital biotelemetry systems, automatic visual field mapping equipment, sponge electrode caps for clinical electroencephalograms, and advanced respiratory analysis equipment. The possibility of using the medical laboratory in ground based remote areas and regional health care facilities, as well as long duration space missions is discussed

Piloting a Digitized Evidence-Based Assessment System

One of the most difficult challenges facing university-based teacher education programs is to document program effectiveness. Demands for supporting data come from a number of different constituencies including state legislators, hiring officials and parents, and state officials. The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) survey (Wineburg, 2006) identified that institutions are besieged by the demands for data and frustrated by the time and energy required to collect and retrieve evidence. A primary recommendation emerging from the AASCU findings focused on the proactive development of institutional data systems that guide program progress and demonstrate the achievement of educational outcomes for both teacher quality and student learning. The purpose of our paper is to report on the development of a pilot effort in Pennsylvania to digitize practice-based evidence for documenting teacher candidate and program quality. [excerpt

A Reading Apprenticeship Model for Improving Literacy: A Pre-service Teacher Case Study

A major challenge of today\u27s standards-based assessment movement targets the need to address and improve the achievement of struggling readers. As teacher education programs must prepare content teachers to address the challenges of teaching students who lack reading skills, we need to prepare out pre-service teachers to help students make meaning while reading any text. To accomplish such a goal, comprehension instruction must be explicit, direct, and effective. As VanDeWeghe (2004b) notes, even though students may still need development as readers at the secondary level, there may be confusion surrounding where reading instruction is addressed in the secondary curriculum. After talking with our cooperating teachers and tracking student teaching performances of our secondary English candidates, we believed that our pre-service teachers needed more effective preparation. To present important content conceptualizations, we realized our pre-service teachers must explicitly teach and use comprehension strategies with multiple texts at varying levels of difficulty. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the pilot of Gettysburg College\u27s redesign and implementation of a reading apprenticeship model developed in collaboration with two practicing secondary English teachers. After field testing at the secondary level, the model was transported to the college level for preparing secondary English pre-service teachers. [excerpt

E G Jacoby: A Brief Historiography of New Zealand Demography

Dr "Peter" Jacoby can legitimately be seen as the "founding father" of modern New Zealand demography. It was for this reason that the Population Association of New Zealand, with his widow's permission, have used his name for its student prize. Parenthetically, it can be noted here that the Goethe Society independently set up a Jacoby Prize -- I only learnt about this a year or so ago. In sum then, two professional bodies have recognised the contribution of Dr Jacoby to New Zealand Scholarship. Beyond this, representatives of the state library in the Landt where he had studied -- Schelswig -- came to New Zealand to collect the papers of this notable "native son" for their archives

Components of regional population growth, 1986-2001

The vitality of a region is frequently assessed by looking at its population growth pattern. This is seen as being linked to its economic and social vibrancy. To better understand the dynamics of this growth pattern it is necessary to decompose population growth into the contributions of natural increase (births less deaths) and migration (both domestic and international). This provides a demographic accounting of the factors of population change which we use to analyse the degree to which the levels and impacts of these factors differ between the Regional Council Areas of New Zealand. We find large variations between Regional Council Areas in overall population growth for the three quinquennia between 1986 and 2001. The Auckland region experienced the largest growth, coming both from high natural increase and international migration, while the “sunbelt” regions of Bay of Plenty, Nelson-Tasman and Marlborough had high growth, but driven by internal migration. In other regions, such as Gisborne, West Coast and Southland population growth declined

Transfers of capital and shifts in New Zealand’s regional population distribution, 1840-1996

When researchers attempt to study population and development, and particularly the role of migrations, the focus is normally on national level trends, frequently involving time-series analyses of more generic indicators of population change and economic growth. The migration field does, of course, deal with questions of the integration of migrants, at a macro-level evaluating their impact on social diversity and cohesion by turning to ecological-level indices covering clustering. This paper takes a different approach in part inspired by the model developed by Le Heron, Britton and Parson to analyse a related question: restructuring. This they saw as likely to be induced and thus frequently exogenous to a particular socio-demographic system. For example, policies effecting restructuring at a regional level will often come from some central agency external to the region, or even outside the geographic territory or country. There are also other changes that can be spontaneous in nature, arising from a mix of factors and situations endogenous to a given area.1 In both cases, so these authors argue (1992:5), we must deal with “processes operating at various geographic scales...”. To this end this paper thus employs as demographic variables indices plotting subnational changes, thereby recognising that population dynamics at the national-level are likely to be a composite of complex societal forces varying from region to region. For much of this essay, which is more an exercise in setting research agendas than a full-scale empirical analysis, the regional breakdown is very broad, attempting to distinguish between the more dominant and less dominant poles at any time