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

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

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

Modelagem do crescimento da aprendizagem nos anos iniciais com dados longitudinais da pesquisa GERES

Este artigo compara duas abordagens de valor agregado para dados oriundos do survey educacional de recorte longitudinal, chamado GERES - Estudo Longitudinal da Geração Escolar 2005, que acompanhou uma coorte de alunos de mais de 300 escolas públicas e privadas ao longo dos primeiros quatro anos do Ensino Fundamental. Ambas as abordagens utilizam modelos lineares hierárquicos, permitindo o agrupamento natural dos dados educacionais provenientes dos três níveis: aluno, turma e escola. Na primeira abordagem de valor agregado, constroem-se modelos cuja variável dependente é a proficiência do aluno em cada ano avaliado. Com um modelo distinto para cada ano é possível detectar fatores do aluno, da turma e da escola associados ao desempenho dos alunos. A segunda abordagem cria modelos para mostrar o efeito das covariáveis de aluno, turma e escola nas curvas de evolução da proficiência ao longo do período do estudo. Quando comparados os dois tipos de modelos de valor agregado, o primeiro foi o mais eficiente em diagnosticar os efeitos do ambiente e da prática pedagógica do professor, mas somente em determinados anos. Já o segundo tipo de modelo foi capaz de identificar curvas de evolução de proficiência de formatos distintos de acordo com determinadas características das escolas e dos alunos, mas foi menos sensível na identificação de variáveis associadas ao processo de formação de grupos e à prática pedagógica do professor. Os dois tipos de modelos de valor agregado oferecem indicações de processos de aprendizagem diferenciados para as disciplinas Língua Portuguesa e Matemática que mereceriam estudos adicionais

The Effectiveness of Incarceration-Based Drug Treatment on Criminal Behavior: A Systematic Review

Many, if not most, incarcerated offenders have substance abuse problems. Without effective treatment, these substance-abusing offenders are likely to persist in non-drug offending. The period of incarceration offers an opportunity to intervene in the cycle of drug abuse and crime. Although many types of incarceration-based drug treatment programs are available (e.g., therapeutic communities and group counseling), the effectiveness of these programs is unclear. The objective of this research synthesis is to systematically review quasi-experimental and experimental (RCT) evaluations of the effectiveness of incarceration-based drug treatment programs in reducing post-release recidivism and drug relapse. A secondary objective of this synthesis is to examine variation in effectiveness by programmatic, sample, and methodological features. In this update of the original 2006 review (see Mitchell, Wilson, and MacKenzie, 2006), studies made available since the original review were included in an effort to keep current with emerging research. This synthesis of evaluations of incarceration-based drug treatment programs found that such programs are modestly effective in reducing recidivism. These findings most strongly support the effectiveness of therapeutic communities, as these programs produced relatively consistent reductions in recidivism and drug use. Both counseling and incarceration-based narcotic maintenance programs had mixed effects. Counseling programs were associated with reductions in recidivism but not drug use; whereas, incarceration-based narcotic maintenance programs were associated with reductions in drug use but not recidivism. Note that our findings regarding the effectiveness of incarceration-based narcotic maintenance programs differ from a larger review of community-based narcotic maintenance programs (see Egli, Pina, Christensen, Aebi, and Killias, 2009). Finally, boot camp programs for drug offenders had negligible effects on both recidivism and drug use