Digital exclusion: potential implications for social work education

QAA Subject Benchmark 5.9 requires social work students to demonstrate the ability to have a critical understanding of the social impact of ICT, including an awareness of the impact of the 'digital divide'. In the twenty-first century, the implications of digital exclusion may become increasingly relevant for the social work profession with its values of empowerment and anti-oppressive practices. As governments and organisations move closer to the provision of online services, the social worker may find themselves addressing the disempowerment of service users and carers disconnected from a virtual welfare state. The concern is that Benchmark 5.9 does not go far enough, that the full significance of this requirement may not be sufficiently realised and a greater awareness urgently called for

Purposes, Uses, and Practices of Leadership Assessment in Education

Explores recent research literature dealing with personnel evaluations, professional learning, accountability, and the relation of leadership to learning, in order to clarify how leadership assessment practices impact student achievement

Nonword Repetition and Interactions Among Vocabulary, Phonotactic probability, and Phonological Awareness in Four Linguistic Groups

The current study was designed to compare the English nonword repetition accuracy in 7-year-old monolingual English, Korean–English bilingual, Chinese–English bilingual, and Spanish–English bilingual children. The relationships among nonword repetition accuracy, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and phonotactic probability in each group of children were also examined. The results indicated significant differences among the groups’ accuracy of consonants and vowels by syllable length. Different correlational patterns emerged among nonword repetition accuracy, vocabulary, and phonological awareness. Theoretical and clinical implications for the use of nonword repetition tasks for children from various linguistic backgrounds are discussed

Exploring The Neural Correlates of Reading Comprehension and Social Cognition Deficits in College Students with ADHD

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. Symptoms of this disorder have been shown to adversely impact academic and social functioning of those with ADHD. College students with ADHD, compared to their non-ADHD peers, are at increased risk for academic and social difficulties. Given the reading-intensive and socially-driven environment of the college campus, empirical literature examining the reading comprehension and social cognition of college students are wanting. The current investigation utilized the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (NDRT) and Faux Pas Recognition test (FPRT) to assess reading comprehension and social cognition, respectively, in college students with (n = 3) and without ADHD (n = 9). The Short Story Task (SST) was administered during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neural correlates of narrative comprehension and theory of mind (ToM) while reading short fictional stories of varying prose complexity. The ADHD and control groups did not differ in IQ, GPA, or scores of NDRT, FPRT, or SST, suggesting that they had comparable academic performance, narrative comprehension, and social cognition. The fMRI analysis of SST showed that the ADHD group demonstrated increased activation in the left anterior cingulate (ACC) and parahippocampal gyrus (PHG) while reading the complex story compared to the simple story. This differential activation was not observed in the CTRL group, suggesting that the ADHD group required more neural resources to process the emotional components of the complex story to achieve the comparable performance on the SST. The ADHD group additionally exhibited lower activation in the narrative comprehension and ToM networks (medial prefrontal cortex, Broca’s area, angular gyri). Collectively, these results indicate that while ADHD and CTRL groups did not differ behaviorally, they exhibit differential neural activation patterns in tasks related to narrative comprehension and social cognition. Further investigations may inform the development of educational and psychosocial interventions to improve academic and social functioning in young adults with ADHD

The Role of the Teacher in the Interdisciplinary Team

Describes the author\u27s impression that teachers are inadequately prepared to assume leadership roles in clinical settings, especially as members of interdisciplinary teams

Benchmark Competition

Over-the-counter (OTC) markets—those for currencies, derivatives, swaps, bonds, commodities—make up an immense and critical component of global financial markets. Certain benchmarks, such as the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), are hardwired throughout these markets and play crucial roles in pricing and valuation. For example, interest payments on instruments ranging from student loans and mortgages to synthetic derivatives are tied to the value of LIBOR. In 2016, estimates of notional exposure to U.S. dollar LIBOR totaled about $200 trillion—ten times U.S. GDP that year. Correspondingly, miniscule variations in a benchmark’s value will impact vast numbers of assets and transactions for hundreds of millions of people. These benchmarks have become so ubiquitous for an important reason: they have introduced substantial harmonization effects in otherwise decentralized, opaque dealer markets. These benefits fit within the prevailing view of financial regulation: because sophisticated market participants, through wealth-maximizing behavior, tend to select towards structures that maximize efficiency, in aggregate social welfare is maximized, meaning that observed equilibria are likely the most efficient equilibria. And thus, OTC markets have remained largely unregulated for decades. This Article argues that this understanding is incomplete, and identifies a fundamental misalignment between what is privately optimal and what is socially optimal in OTC markets. By undertaking a novel structural analysis, the Article documents overreliance by market participants on benchmarks even when they are substantially suboptimal. Thus, in contrast to existing reform proposals, which overwhelmingly assume that a single benchmark will continue to dominate, this Article proposes an alternative competitive equilibrium—one where multiple benchmarks compete