Advocate or Traditional Bureaucrat: Understanding the Role of ESL Supervisors in Shaping Local Education Policy toward Immigrant Communities

As recent immigrants seek a productive and dignified life in “new immigrant destinations” that have little historical experience with immigration, public education systems serve a key function in immigrant integration efforts. In a federal system increasingly focused on accountability, a crucial sub-set of education policy and local responsiveness to immigration is English language instruction and services for Limited English Proficient (LEP) students and parents. In such contexts, the role that local bureaucrats play, and whether they actively represent the interests of the newfound diversity of community members, are crucial questions if strongly held American ideals of social equity and equal opportunity are to be upheld. This research asks broad questions at the intersection of bureaucratic power, representative bureaucracy and educational policy toward English language learners at the local level. Variations in how school systems in the political bellwether of Virginia responded to a recent policy shock - federal guidance released in January 2015 that reiterated local school system responsibility for providing equal educational access to LEP students and parents – form a unique window into local policy-making. Using a concurrent triangulation mixed methodology that consists of a state-wide survey and interviews with a sub-set of the Title III coordinators who supervise programs for English Language Learners, this research shows Title III coordinators to be unrepresentative in passive terms of the foreign born population but nevertheless to have a strong sense of advocating for English Language Learners. Findings suggest that public service motivation is the key explanatory factor in driving a sense of role advocacy and this in turn drives a greater range of action taking by the coordinator to benefit ELLs. Despite this link between role advocacy and coordinator action, role advocacy is not found to be significant in driving the likelihood or range of system level responsiveness to the letter. Instead, political and demographic factors increase the likelihood of system action but, counter to existing literature, more conservative localities are found to be more likely to have responded to the Dear Colleague Letter. This suggests that a previous reluctance to act in these places may have been dislodged by the letter and points to the importance of change over time in conceptualizing local responsiveness to immigrants

Dividing Lines: Comparing Predictors of Public Policy Preferences Toward Refugees and Local Involvement in Immigration Enforcement in a U.S. State

Following the norm breaking immigration policies of the departed Trump administration, which drastically reduced refugee admissions and pressured state and local governments to join in identifying and deporting unauthorized immigrants, the current Biden administration faces significant choices about the pace and degree of any potential roll back of such Trump policies. In this moment, the importance of the understudied local and state dimensions of migration and integration of newcomers increases for public management and intergovernmental policy research. Numerous studies have tied the creation of national level policy toward immigrants to the examination of national and international public attitudes toward immigrants and immigration (ATII) around broad questions of whether immigrants are perceived as a threat and whether the current flow of immigrants is too high. But few studies have examined factors driving public opinion on more specific sub-national policy options such as local willingness to welcome refugees and the use of local resources for immigration enforcement. This paper makes use of a 2017 representative state level survey from Virginia (USA). Descriptive and logistic regression analysis of data from the VCU Wilder School’s Summer 2017 Commonwealth Poll is conducted to determine which factors are significant determinants of the variation in responses for each of these understudied topics. The paper presents the results and concludes by summarizing potential implications for policymakers

Quantum Entanglement in the S=1/2 Spin Ladder with Ring Exchange

In this paper we study the concurrence and the block-block entanglement in the $S=1/2$ spin ladder with four-spin ring exchange by the exact diagonalization method of finite cluster of spins. The relationship between the global phase diagram and the ground-state entanglement is investigated. It is shown that the block-block entanglement of different block size and geometry manifests richer information of the system. We find that the extremal point of the two-site block-block entanglement on the rung locates a transition point exactly due to SU(4) symmetry at this point. The scaling behavior of the block-block entanglement is discussed. Our results suggest that the block-block entanglement can be used as a convenient marker of quantum phase transition in some complex spin systems.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure

Flow in Information Systems Research: Review, Integrative Theoretical Framework, and Future Directions

As information systems (IS) are increasingly able to create highly engaging and interactive experiences, the phenomenon of flow is considered a promising vehicle to understand pre-adoptive and post-adoptive IS user behavior. However, despite a strong interest of researchers and practitioners in flow, the reliability, validity, hypothesized relationships, and measurement of flow constructs in current IS literature remain challenging. By reviewing extant literature in top IS outlets, this paper develops an integrative theoretical framework of flow antecedents, flow constructs, and flow consequences within IS research. In doing so, we identify and discuss four major flow streams in IS research and indicate future research directions

Food Deserts in the Breadbasket: A Rural-Urban Comparison

This research seeks to better describe and understand rural and urban food deserts. Previous research on food deserts suggests that, as a result of discriminating structural social mechanisms like redlining and neighborhood disinvestment within large metro areas in the U.S., poor and black individuals and households tend to be at a distinct advantage in terms of healthy food accessibility and availability (Miller et al. 2015). Similar trends in grocery store disinvestment have been seen in rural areas though there has been less research attention in these areas. In this paper we analyze the differences and similarities between the dynamics that determine healthy food accessibility and availability in a small urban and isolated rural context in Kansas, in Topeka (urban) and Gove, Linn, and Pottawatomie counties (rural). Data from the 2010 U.S. Census and the 2006-2010 American Community Survey estimates and independently collected data on food store locations are used to inform a descriptive quantitative analysis that uses GIS mapping

148. Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be seen as graphene sheets rolled to form cylinders. CNTs may be categorised as single- (SWCNT) or multi-walled (MWCNT). Due to the small size, the number of particles as well as the surface area per mass unit is extremely high. CNTs are highly diverse, differing with respect to e.g., diameter, length, chiral angles, chemical functionalisation, purity, stiffness and bulk density. Today, CNTs are utilised primarily for the reinforcement of composite polymers, but there is considerable potential for other applications. The rapidly growing production and use of CNTs increases the risk for occupational exposure. Since CNTs in bulk form are of very low density and much dust is produced during their handling, exposure by inhalation appears to represent the greatest potential risk in the work place. However, most work place measurements involved sampling periods that are too short, varying sampling techniques and non-specific analytical methods. CNTs may be absorbed via inhalation and ingestion. Systemic uptake via the skin has not been demonstrated. Human toxicity data on CNTs are lacking and interpretation of animal studies is often problematic since the physical properties and chemical composition are diverse, impurities may be present and data are sometimes omitted. Because of the physical similarities between asbestos and CNTs, it can be suspected that the latter may also cause lung fibrosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer following inhalation. Intraperitoneal and intrascrotal administration of CNTs causes mesothelioma in animals, but no inhalation carcinogenicity studies have been conducted. Thus, it is too early conclude whether CNTs cause mesothelioma and lung cancer in humans. Both SWCNTs and MWCNTs cause inflammation and fibrosis in the lungs of relevant animal types and for MWCNTs these effects are also seen in the pleura. For instance, minimal histiocytosis and mild granulomatous inflammation in the lungs and lung-draining lymph nodes have been observed in rats exposed for 13 weeks to 0.1 mg/m3 MWCNTs (lowest observed adverse effect level, LOAEL), with more pronounced inflammation in both mice and rats at higher doses. Thus, inflammatory responses in the lungs may be considered as the critical effect. However, the LOAEL of CNTs should be interpreted cautiously, since their toxicity is likely to vary widely, depending on the structure and physicochemical properties, as well as the contribution from non-carbon components. It is also uncertain which dose metric (e.g., mass, number or surface area per air volume unit) is most appropriate. Some studies indicate that longer straight CNTs evoke more pronounced biological effects than shorter or tangled fibres

HB 69 Grocery Investment Program and Fund

In the 2018 session of the Virginia General Assembly, multiple pieces of legislation were brought to committee, proposing the creation of a fund to catalyze public-private partnerships to expand access to Virginians residing in food deserts. Through the creation of the fund, underserved communities would see the construction, rehabilitation and expansion of food retailers in their communities ameliorate food desserts

Towards an American Postmodernism: Allegory, Appropriation, and Post Studio’s Intervention into Modernism

This project began as an inquiry into the archive of the California Institute of the Arts’ (CalArts) Post Studio Program, whose only relic is a course description written by its founder, artist John Baldessari. An equally important component of this early inquiry was the discovery of Jean-François Lyotard’s palimpsestic text, Pacific Wall, whose frontispiece, “Five Car Stud,” was first publicly displayed at documenta V by artist Edward Kienholz. These two materials led toward a novel articulation of how post studio artistic methodologies – embodied by both Baldessari and Kienholz – intervened in the master narratives of modernism. I argue that the absence of a formal archive of post studio allows for such an intervention. The paucity of materials written on post studio led me to original sources within archives (including the San Francisco Art Institute, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and the Getty Research Institute), lending agency to each artist’s voice. By engaging the missing archive of post studio through ventriloquizing its lack, this project deconstructs the normative apparatus of modernism and deromanticizes the sacred space of an artist’s studio. Scholarship generally has understood post studio practice as a methodology eschewing the studio as a space for generating art, its reliance on the political economy of the art market, and its spatialization of sovereign subjectivity. A site of resistance, with aesthetic implications, post studio offers a narrative of its own that defies the artistic conventions of modernism; including, importantly, the authorial legacies, master narratives, and the cult of originalism to which modernism was heavily invested. Informed by French poststructuralism and its debates over postmodernity, I reclaim, posthumously, Craig Owens’s theories on power and representation alongside allegory and appropriation as the key methodologies of post studio artistic practice. These methodologies challenge postmodernity through a heretofore undocumented intervention into modernism.https://digitalmaine.com/academic/1031/thumbnail.jp