Bonding & Bridging Social Capital in Family & School Relationships

Developing successful family & school relationships has long been a challenge for urban schools. This qualitative case study investigated a parent engagement program that took place at one school in a Midwestern city. This program is based on a program in Chicago featured in Soo Hong’s book A Cord of Three Stands that pairs parents with teachers in the classroom while also creating a space for parent-to-parent relationships. This research analyzes the program through the theoretical lens of social capital in an attempt to understand how strategic relationships in inorganic settings can impact the relationships between schools and families. Additionally, this research segregates the investigation into parent-to-parent relationships, bonding social capital, and parent-to-teacher relationships, bridging social capital. The research then rejoins these two theories of social capital accumulation to investigate how both impact power relations in the school setting. While there is literature that attempts to understand the bonding and bridging of social capital between families and schools, few provide empirical research or a clear vision on using these two theories in tandem in school settings

Friction in inertial granular flows: microscopic and macroscopic origins

Granular media are prevalent in dynamic frictional processes throughout nature and technology, from earthquakes to grain transport. Empirical relations describing macroscopic friction as a function of the inertial number have proven successful in predicting experimentally observed velocity and stress profiles when combined with continuum models. However, these relations and the continuum models that employ them do not elucidate the grain-scale origin of friction or its widely observed rate dependence. They also fail to capture the important transient behavior of granular flows relevant to processes like sliding on granular fault gouge. This lack of a micro-to-macro understanding leaves a unified modeling approach for granular media, from quasi-static to rapid flows, elusive. In this study, we present recent theoretical and numerical studies of friction in granular shear flows. We first show that steady-state friction can be explicitly written as a function of coordination number, volume fraction, inertial number, and average per contact dissipation rates. This relation illustrates that steady-state friction emerges from a competition between the dilative tendency of granular flows and grain-scale viscoplastic effects. The dilative tendency results in a decrease in volume fraction and average number of contacts per grain with shear rate. The viscoplastic effects cause per contact dissipation rates to increase with shear rate. We use 3D numerical simulations to investigate how inherent scaling of these properties leads to rate-strengthening in the inertial (or dense) flow regime. This scaling also elucidates the ”“slowing down”“ of rate-strengthening at higher shear rates. Per-contact sliding and collisional dissipation rates are compared for their contribution to total friction and to rate-strengthening. We briefly discuss how consideration of other dissipative processes (e.g., grain breakage) may alter frictional properties in the context of this relationship. We also compare our relation with others developed in the literature. We will also describe ongoing study on the transient behavior of granular flows. We study the analog of the friction relation described earlier for transient behavior and use 3D numerical simulations to study the role of dilatancy and other nonsteady-state processes on the strengthening and weakening behavior that occurs when loading rates change. Transient behavior is particularly important during sliding on granular fault gouge and the findings presented here may lend insight into the grain-scale processes that control frictional behavior during these events

Arts At Large Handbook Pt. 1 - The Arts @ Large Program

The Arts @ Large model is based on a simple mission: consistently advocate for the connection of arts to academics by building sustainable partnerships between the arts community, K-12 educators and students, public policy makers, and institutes of higher education. With this mission in mind, Arts @ Large strives to meet goals that make arts education accessible for ALL students.Arts @ Large:Provides ongoing, quality arts experiences for students that builds an arts-rich school climate, which encourages the inclusion of art and music specialists in school staffing plans.Forges sustainable partnerships with artists, arts and community organizations to enhance in-classroom and after school learning, and motivate ALL students to higher academic achievement.Provides arts education experiences in an inclusiveenvironment designed to motivate students with diverse learning and physical abilities.Helps teachers build skills to integrate performing, visual, and literary arts into all subjects in a manner sensitive to the needs of a diverse student population.The arts are essential because they:Are a unique languagethat all people use to communicate regardless of age, ability,ethnicity or gender.They allow people to move beyond individual differences such as race, society, culture, education and economic level.Are symbol systems like letters and numbers and are equally important to a person's development.Allow every child to learn.Connect the learning of both content and process.Develop independence and collaboration.Provide opportunities for self expression,creative problem solving and critical thinking.Improve student achievement -enhancing test scores, attitudes and social skills.Provide authentic assessment opportunities.Create a bridge between motivation, instruction, assessment and application - leading to deeper understanding.Integrate mind, body and spirit thereby addressing the whole child.Provide immediate feedback and opportunities for reflection.Exercise and develop higher order thinking skills including analysis, synthesis, and problem solving.Address the multiple intelligences and various learning styles

When Public Institutions Betray Women: News Coverage of Military Sexual Violence Against Women 1991-2013

Women’s movement into sectors of society that have previously excluded them can be a cause of triumph. The institutions that receive them, however, often erect further barriers to their participation. This study of the intersection of two such institutions, the military and journalism, explores the nature of news coverage of sexual violence toward women in the military over a 22 year period

A Comparison of the Progression of International Students to First Year Undergraduate Studies by Entry Route in an Irish Higher Education Institution: Part One - A Quantitative Study

Increasing international student numbers in higher education institutions has long been an educational priority internationally due to the cultural, educational and economic benefits it brings (Ireland’s International Education Strategy, 2010). Little research however has been conducted in the area of varying entry routes to higher education by international students and the potential benefits/disadvantages if any of pursuing one entry route over another (Terraschke & Wahid, 2011). This research examines the first year undergraduate progression rates of international students in the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) in Ireland to determine if students who complete a one year International Foundation Programme (IFP) in DIT progress differently to direct entry international students to the same institution. Results show that there is no statistically significant difference in the progression rates of international students from both entry routes however international students as a whole were found to progress at a lower rate when compared to domestic students on a national level. This research highlights the effectiveness of the DIT IFP in bringing international students up to the required standard to enter their undergraduate studies and informs practitioners and policy makers of the disparities between international and domestic students in terms of progression rates

Progression of International Students through their Undergraduate Studies in an Irish Higher Education Institution: A Qualitative Study

The focus of this paper is on the progression of international students through their undergraduate studies in an Irish higher education institution. Despite the increasing presence of international students in higher education, their perspectives on progression through their undergraduate studies are not adequately explored. Research into the factors that influence international students’ progression is underdeveloped. The paper aims to provide new insights into international students’ perspectives of their progression through their undergraduate studies in an Irish context. This study addresses this gap by exploring what factors international students deem to be significant in terms of successful student progression through higher education in an Irish context. The research involved conducting semi-structured interviews with international students in TU Dublin in Ireland. Five students volunteered to participate in the study. The findings revealed factors that facilitate student progression such as the student’s motivation to study and learn new skills and partake in the class and college environment. The research also revealed factors found to impede progression such as issues relating to the college experience and environment. The results are considered in terms of implications for international student progression. This paper outlines the necessity for those involved in policy and practice to understand and act upon the challenges that international students encounter during their higher education journey

Strength of Granular Materials in Transient and Steady State Rapid Shear

This paper discusses relationships between the frictional strength of a flowing granular material and quantities including porosity and grain-scale energy dissipation. The goal of the paper is to foster an understanding of frictional strength that will facilitate the development of constitutive laws incorporating important physical processes. This is accomplished in several steps. First, a friction relationship is derived for a steady state simple shear flow using an energy balance approach. The relationship shows that friction is explicitly related to porosity, grain connectivity, and grain-scale dissipation rates. Next, the friction relationship is extended to describe transient changes in frictional behavior. The relationship shows that, in addition to the processes important for steady flows, the rate of dilatation and changes in internal energy play a role in the frictional strength of a granular material away from steady state. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to illustrate the accuracy of the friction relationships and illuminate important scaling behavior. The discussion of numerical simulations focuses on the rate-dependence of frictional strength and the partition of macroscopic energy dissipation into its grain-scale components. New interpretations of existing constitutive laws and ideas for new constitutive laws are discussed