High School Science and Social Studies Teachers\u27 Self-Efficacy Regarding Literacy Instruction: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to explore high school teachers’ self-efficacy regarding the incorporation of literacy instruction in high school science and social studies classes in a rural, public school district. In this qualitative research study, self-efficacy was generally defined as the teachers’ belief in how well they succeed at the task of including literacy instruction into their content area lessons. Albert Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy theory and Shulman\u27s (1986) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) theory guided this study as it explored the teachers’ beliefs in their teaching abilities. Literacy instruction was defined as explicit instruction in word study, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and motivation techniques. The study used a self-efficacy questionnaire to explore the teachers’ beliefs about their ability to include literacy strategies in their content area subjects. The study also included in-depth personal interviews with teachers and a review of participants’ lesson reflection journals. Because the study was based on a phenomenological design, the information was analyzed for significant statements that are then turned into themes. From the themes, an essence of the phenomenon was described

Operation Youth Success (Douglas County Collective Impact) Developmental Evaluation Report

In the summer of 2014, a subset of leaders and stakeholders in Douglas County initiated a collective impact project to reform the county’s juvenile justice system. Since the first meeting of that group, a number of additional stakeholders have been incorporated into this initiative, which is now known as “Operation Youth Success.” Operation Youth Success, or OYS, has been engaged since that time in an effort to create system change producing a more effective, efficient, and compassionate justice system that better serves the families and youth who are the users of this system. This report will review the activities and progress of OYS through May of 2016

Upending a Global Debate: An Empirical Analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Use of Transnational Law to Interpret Domestic Doctrine,

Over the last ten years, judges, scholars, and policymakers have argued — quite vehemently at times — about whether U.S. courts should use transnational sources of law to interpret domestic legal doctrine. All eyes in this debate focus on the U.S. Supreme Court and its use, misuse, and alleged use of transnational law. And almost all the debates are normative. Some scholars and judges argue the Court is correct to use transnational law. Others believe to do so is constitutional apostacy. Still, the controversy seems to have generated more heat than light. Among the clamor can be found little empirical work on the conditions under which Supreme Court Justices actually use transnational law. Is it in fact the case that only liberal Justices employ transnational law — or do conservatives as well? In addition, there is little work on which countries Justices cite when they do use transnational law. Do they cherry pick whichever country works best in the given case, or is there a lower bound of plausibility when selecting countries to examine and cite? The authors provide the most systematic empirical exploration of the Court’s use of transnational law to date. Their results challenge conventional wisdom and prove to upend the existing debates over transnational law. The data show that Justices are more likely to reference transnational law when they exercise judicial review and when they overturn precedent, which likely explains much of the controversy around the practice. Importantly, the data show, further, that all Justices cite transnational law. Liberals cite transnational law when they render liberal decisions, and conservatives cite transnational law when they render conservative decisions. Liberals and conservatives alike employ such law because they are both ideologically conscious, strategic judicial actors who seek to support their decisions with as much persuasive material as possible. Finally, the results suggest that Justices cite countries with regard to their political and legal characteristics. They cite what the public would consider to be among the most legitimate countries across the globe. In other words, on the whole, Justices seem to borrow from countries most like the U.S. Whether these results are good or bad is unclear; what is clear, however, is that the normative debate over using transnational law must take a turn and address the authors’ findings