With Liberty and Justice for the Wealthy: The Criminalization of the American Poor

The last phrase of the Pledge of Allegiance states “with liberty and justice for all”. However, not everyone has access to this liberty and justice. Liberty and justice can be bought in this country for a price, and those who can’t afford to pay it are often left in the hands of those who can. One of the most prominent ways to see this is by analyzing the criminal justice system. Despite clauses in the Fourteenth Amendment and court cases like Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) establishing and upholding that the poor are entitled to equal treatment within the criminal justice system, indigent defendants commonly have these rights violated. Individuals with low incomes or lack of resources face discrimination and worse outcomes in all stages of the criminal justice system. This thesis focuses specifically on how pre-trial detention or release, type of counsel, the plea bargaining process, and past involvements with the system impact poor individuals long after they finish serving their sentence. Based on a literature review of existing research, poverty is a very impactful factor on the experiences and outcomes for individuals in the criminal justice system. How these effects interact with and perpetuate the cycle of poverty are summarized, spillover effects are identified, and changes to the system are recommended

An Examination of Students Perceptions of Learning in a Study Abroad Experience and Recommendations for Effective Pedagogy

Undergraduate study abroad programs are becoming more popular in our increasingly global society. Students consider the opportunity to study abroad to be a personally impacting educational experience. This study provided empirical data demonstrating that study abroad experiences are unique as students learn in ways that differ from the tradition classroom. Additionally, the results indicate that students struggle with the interdependent terms study and abroad. The experience of living abroad is exceptionally educational as well deeply personal and impacting. However, traditional classroom study practices (reading textbooks, taking exams, etc.) impose obstacles for the experiential learning (living in another culture). As such, more instructional communication scholarship is needed to understand the unique pedagogical act of studying abroad. Ultimately, this research posits that creative pedagogy may provide students a more educational and impacting study abroad experience

Computer Mediated Communication and Adult Learners: A Case Study of Messages using the Hyperpersonal Framework

There is an increasing amount of research examining the role of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in a variety of educational settings. Online courses are of particular interest to adult learners. In addition, we notice that communication research rarely studies adult learners, who provide increasing numbers in our face-to-face and computer-mediated classrooms. The purpose of this research is to investigate the interaction that occurs between adult learners in an online course. Specifically, the hyperpersonal framework is used as a lens to examine how participants communicate with one another. The hyperpersonal framework components (receiver, sender, channel, and feedback) were evident through a qualitative analysis of postings. Implications reveal instructors would be well served to understand the interpersonal and hyperpersonal interactions that occur online. In both CMC and traditional classroom settings, adult learners are rarely studied, creating a rich research opportunity for instructional communication scholars

Operational Research in Education

Operational Research (OR) techniques have been applied, from the early stages of the discipline, to a wide variety of issues in education. At the government level, these include questions of what resources should be allocated to education as a whole and how these should be divided amongst the individual sectors of education and the institutions within the sectors. Another pertinent issue concerns the efficient operation of institutions, how to measure it, and whether resource allocation can be used to incentivise efficiency savings. Local governments, as well as being concerned with issues of resource allocation, may also need to make decisions regarding, for example, the creation and location of new institutions or closure of existing ones, as well as the day-to-day logistics of getting pupils to schools. Issues of concern for managers within schools and colleges include allocating the budgets, scheduling lessons and the assignment of students to courses. This survey provides an overview of the diverse problems faced by government, managers and consumers of education, and the OR techniques which have typically been applied in an effort to improve operations and provide solutions