Systematic Social Observation of Public Spaces: A New Look at Disorder in Urban Neighborhoods

This article assesses the sources and consequences of public disorder. Based on the videotaping and systematic rating of more than 23,000 street segments in Chicago, highly reliable scales of social and physical disorder for 196 neighborhoods are constructed. Census data, police records, and an independent survey of more than 3,500 residents are then integrated to test a theory of collective efficacy and structural constraints. Defined as cohesion among residents combined with shared expectations for the social control of public space, collective efficacy explains lower rates of crime and observed disorder after controlling neighborhood structural characteristics. Collective efficacy is also linked to lower rates of violent crime after accounting for disorder and the reciprocal effects of violence. Contrary to the "broken windows" theory, however, the relationship between public disorder and crime is spurious except perhaps for robbery.Sociolog

Passing Muster: Evaluating Teacher Evaluation Systems

Describes how state or federal governments could reward exceptional teachers based on a uniform standard across various district-level teacher evaluation systems by determining the systems' reliability in predicting future performance. Includes Q & A

Evaluating Teachers: The Important Role of Value-Added

Outlines issues for evaluating teachers based on value added -- their contribution to student learning -- and the use of value added information, implications of classifying teachers, and reliability compared with other fields and evaluations

On-the-job improvements in teacher competence : policy options and their effects on teaching and learning in Thailand

Teachers must hone their teaching skills on the job if the quality of primary education is to improve in developing countries. The authors of this paper use a multi-level modeling procedure to examine two policy options for improving the competence of teachers already in the system: providing inservice training and encouraging regular classroom supervision. After examining a nationwide sample of small rural primary schools in Thailand, they found that a teacher's experience in inservice training courses predicts neither instructional quality nor student achievement. In sharp contrast, intensity of supervision within a school significantly predicts both instructional quality and student achievement, after controlling for a variety of school, teacher, and classroom variables. The effect of supervision is significant - roughly the same as the effect of preservice education. Intensive field work in carefully selected rural schools suggests that supervision by effective principals is a critical component in a larger strategy to create and sustain an"ethos of improvement"in school teaching and learning.Teaching and Learning,Primary Education,Gender and Education,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

The Pace of Vocabulary Growth Helps Predict Later Vocabulary Skill

Children vary widely in the rate at which they acquire words—some start slow and speed up, others start fast and continue at a steady pace. Do early developmental variations of this sort help predict vocabulary skill just prior to kindergarten entry? This longitudinal study starts by examining important predictors (socioeconomic status [SES], parent input, child gesture) of vocabulary growth between 14 and 46 months (n = 62) and then uses growth estimates to predict children’s vocabulary at 54 months. Velocity and acceleration in vocabulary development at 30 months predicted later vocabulary, particularly for children from low-SES backgrounds. Understanding the pace of early vocabulary growth thus improves our ability to predict school readiness and may help identify children at risk for starting behind

Assessing Exposure to Violence Using Multiple Informants: Application of Hierarchical Linear Model

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72634/1/1469-7610.00692.pd

Durable Effects of Concentrated Disadvantage on Verbal Ability among African-American Children

Disparities in verbal ability, a major predictor of later life outcomes, have generated widespread debate, but few studies have been able to isolate neighborhood-level causes in a developmentally and ecologically appropriate way. This study presents longitudinal evidence from a large-scale study of >2,000 children ages 6–12 living in Chicago, along with their caretakers, who were followed wherever they moved in the U.S. for up to 7 years. African-American children are exposed in such disproportionate numbers to concentrated disadvantage that white and Latino children cannot be reliably compared, calling into question traditional research strategies assuming common points of overlap in ecological risk. We therefore focus on trajectories of verbal ability among African-American children, extending recently developed counterfactual methods for time-varying causes and outcomes to adjust for a wide range of predictors of selection into and out of neighborhoods. The results indicate that living in a severely disadvantaged neighborhood reduces the later verbal ability of black children on average by ≈ 4 points, a magnitude that rivals missing a year or more of schooling.Sociolog

On the Interplay between Consumer Dispositions and Perceived Brand Globalness: Alternative Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Assessment

Although prior research is congested with constructs intended to capture consumers’ dispositions toward globalization and global/local products, their effects appear to replicate with difficulty, and little is known about the underlying theoretical mechanisms. This investigation revisits the relationship between prominent consumer dispositions (consumer ethnocentrism, cosmopolitanism, global/local identity, globalization attitude) and perceived brand globalness as determinants of consumer responses to global brands. Drawing on selective perception and social identity theories, the authors consider several theory-based model specifications that reflect alternative mechanisms through which key consumer dispositions relate to brand globalness and affect important brand-related outcomes. By employing a flexible model that simultaneously accounts for moderating, mediating, conditional, and direct effects, we empirically test these rival model specifications. A meta-analysis of 264 effect sizes obtained from 13 studies with 23 unique data sets and a total sample of 1,410 consumers raises concerns regarding the (potentially overstated) utility of consumer dispositions for explaining consumer responses to global brands. It also reveals a need for further conceptual contemplation of their function in international consumer research and managerial practice