bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
English Language Syllabuses: Definition, Types, Design, and Selection
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Sabbah Sabah Salman
Published: July 2018

This article aims at probing the different types of syllabi used to teach English to English native and non-native speakers. The researcher used a chronological approach in describing each syllabus type in accordance to its emergence in epistemology of the syllabus design and pedagogical trends in teaching English in the world. Theories of language and learning, characteristics of each syllabus, and pros and cons of the discussed syllabi were highlighted throughout the article. Emphasis was also given to shed light on the interrelationship between syllabi types and pedagogical approaches and techniques. The process of syllabi design was also discussed with examples. The researcher endeavored to cite texts from proponents of authors and scholars who discussed each syllabus. The strategy used in presenting the information in this article was to list main titles and write explanatories to describe the syllabus. Primary and secondary resources were referred to for more ideas. Thus, some resources dated back to the 1985-2017. This was done on purpose to highlight authentic resources of the pioneer linguists and scholars of each type of syllabi.
“There is Nothing Inherently Mysterious about Assistive Technology” A Qualitative Study about Blind User Experiences in US Academic Libraries
Authors: Mulliken Adina
Published: July 2018

Eighteen academic library users who are blind were interviewed about their experiences with academic libraries and the libraries’ websites using an open-ended questionnaire and recorded telephone interviews. The study approaches these topics from a user-centered perspective, with the idea that blind users themselves can provide particularly reliable insights into the issues and potential solutions that are most critical to them. Most participants used reference librarians’ assistance, and most had positive experiences. High-level screen reader users requested help with specific needs. A larger number of participants reported contacting a librarian because of feeling overwhelmed by the library website. In some cases, blind users and librarians worked verbally without the screen reader. Users were appreciative of librarians’ help but outcomes were not entirely positive. Other times, librarians worked with users to navigate with a screen reader, which sometimes led to greater independence. Some users expressed satisfaction with working with librarians verbally, particularly if websites did not seem screen reader user friendly, but many users preferred independence. Participants agreed it would be helpful if librarians knew how to use screen readers, or at least if librarians were familiar enough with screen readers to provide relevant verbal cues. Many users liked and used chat reference and many preferred Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) to learn citation style, though learning citation style was challenging. Questions such as reference librarians’ role when e-resources are not equally accessible deserve wider discussion in the library literature and in practice. Given the challenges described by the research participants and legal requirements for equally effective electronic and information technologies, libraries and librarians should approach reference services for blind users more proactively. Recommendations are provided. This paper was originally published in Reference and User Services Quarterly at https://journals.ala.org/index.php/rusq/article/view/6528
CLIL: Content based Instructional Approach to Second Language Pedagogy
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Awan Muhammad Afzal , Sipra Muhammad Aslam
Published: July 2018

The present paper accentuates the need for innovation in pedagogical theory and practice of the day. It elucidates the linguistic dilemma of the present times and identifies space for bilingualism and pluriculturalism. To make the readers acquainted with Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), the authors corroborate the detailed theoretical framework by establishing links with growing trends of cross continent migration, rising globalisation and expansion of multicultural and multiethnic contexts in the educational arena. A brief prehistory of CLIL has also been explored to justify its birth in helping out the linguists and educationists in Europe and beyond. The paper delineates the theory of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) diagrammatically employing content, cognition and communication in a linguistic culture. It explicates the various nomenclatures, dimensions, functions and the developmental stages of CLIL pedagogy at the dawn of the new millennium. After exploring the theoretical, functional and futuristic facets of CLIL, it is concluded that CLIL is an apt, economical and timely framework of bringing diverse cultures and languages closer to one another and can help build cosmopolitan identity of learners in the Knowledge Age.
The weight of truth: Lessons for minimalists from Russell’s Gray’s Elegy argument.
Authors: Button Tim
Published: July 2018

Minimalists, such as Paul Horwich, claim that the notions of truth, reference, and satisfaction are exhausted by some very simple schemes. Unfortunately, there are subtle difficulties with treating these as schemes, in the ordinary sense. So instead, the minimalist regards them as illustrating one-place functions, into which we can input propositions (when considering truth) or propositional constituents (when considering reference and satisfaction). However, Bertrand Russell’s Gray’s Elegy argument teaches us some important lessons about propositions and propositional constituents; and, when applied to minimalism, they show us why we should abandon it.Published in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 114.3: 261–89.
Women’s Fertility Autonomy in Urban China: The Role of Couple Dynamics Under the Universal Two-Child Policy
Authors: Qian Yue , Jin Yongai
Published: July 2018

Under China’s universal two-child policy, decisions about whether to have a second birth become more dynamic, flexible, and subject to negotiation between the spouses; moreover, how women can maintain their fertility autonomy has far-reaching implications for gender equality. Using valuable, new data from the 2016 Survey of the Fertility Decision-Making Processes in Chinese Families, we examine the relationship between couple dynamics and women’s fertility autonomy in urban China. If women want no more than one child and already have one, intending to have a second birth indicates low fertility autonomy. Couple dynamics are measured by conjugal power structure and spousal pressure on fertility. We find that only if women have less marital power than their husbands, greater fertility pressure from husband is associated with a higher likelihood that women intend to have a second birth. In addition, when investigating the determinants of couple dynamics, we find that women’s marital power depends on their relative resources, whereas fertility pressure from husband persists regardless. The findings suggest that in post-reform urban China, growing gender inequalities in labor markets likely reduce women’s marital power, which in turn negatively affects their fertility autonomy. We urge greater research and policy attention to gender equality issues in the era of the universal two-child policy.
Deception Declassified: The Social Organisation of Cover Storying in a Secret Intelligence Operation
Authors: Luscombe Alex
Published: July 2018

This article asks why and how governments keep secrets from publics, journalists and politicians using the strategy of ‘cover storying’. To develop a theory of cover storying, insights are drawn from political sociologies of state secrecy and from recent sociological examinations of secrecy and deception in organisations. This theory is illustrated by analysing Cobra Mist, a secretive and deceptive Anglo-American Cold War intelligence operation. Examining recently declassified documents, this article develops a framework for the analysis of five interrelated narrative conditions that shape social processes of cover storying: correspondence; plausibility; accountability; constraint; and durability. In conclusion this article reflects on the broader implications of this analysis for contemporary state and organisational theories and understandings of secrecy.
Exploring the Status and Teachers’ Perceptions of Technology Integration in EFL Classrooms at Chadli Bendjedid University, Algeria
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Naima Ladaci
Published: July 2018

In the realm of language education, technology has reshaped the state of the teaching/learning framework in different ways and there is no surprise how a number of classes around the world have now turned from chalk and board classes to technology-based ones. However, whether teachers adopt or reject technology in their teaching depends primarily on the way they perceive it. Consequently, the current paper intends to capture the various perceptions of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers from the department of English at Chadli Bendjedid University, El Tarf (Algeria) towards the use and the integration of technology in their teaching practices. It also aspires to answer the question: to what extent is technology used in their teaching? In order to collect data for this study; a questionnaire was administered to ten teachers from the above-cited department. Although the findings revealed that all the participants have a positive attitude towards technology; they all face different barriers that impede them from integrating it.
Maintaining Cultural Identity in Translated Literary Texts: Strategies of Translating Culture-Specific Items in two Arabic plays
Authors: Studies AWEJ-tls for Translation & Literary , Zahrawi Samar
Published: July 2018

This article focusses on the translator’s task as a cultural mediator who has to transfer the nuances of the literary text faithfully. The translation of culture-specific items, such as proverbs, figurative language, reference to religion, mythology or literature, and stylistics, are at the core of the discussion. This paper discusses generally recommended strategies used in translating culture specific items (CSIs), and further analyses and evaluates such strategies as used in two translated Arabic plays; Sa’dallah Wannous’s The Glass Café (1978/2004) and Mamdouh ‘Udwan’s Reflections of a Garbage Collector (1987/2006). The translation strategies used in these two plays are recognized and rationalized in terms of giving a domesticated or a foreignized effect. Besides transferring meaning, the cultural identity of the text is highlighted as a mainstay of the translation process
Delaying Access to a Problem-Skipping Option Increases Effortful Practice: Application of an A/B Test in Large-Scale Online Learning
Authors: Savi Alexander Olof , Ruijs Nienke , Maris Gunter , van der Maas Han
Published: July 2018

We report on an online double-blind randomized controlled field experiment (A/B test) in Math Garden, a computer adaptive practice system with over 150,000 active primary school children. The experiment was designed to eliminate an unforeseen opportunity to practice with minimal effort. Some children tend to skip problems that require deliberate effort, and only attempt problems that they can spontaneously answer. The intervention delayed the option to skip a problem, thereby promoting effortful practice. The results reveal an increase in the exerted effort, without being at the expense of engagement. Whether the additional effort positively affected the children's learning gains could not be concluded. Finally, in addition to these substantial results, the experiment demonstrates some of the advantages of A/B tests, such as the unique opportunity to apply truly blind randomized field experiments in educational science.
A Latex Template for SocArXiv
Authors: Marcum Christopher Steven
Published: July 2018

New version updated to 1.1 on 6-Sept-2016.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND HUNGARY AT THE BRUSSELS EXPO OF 1958- NATIONALISM IN THE DISPLAY OF SOCIALIST MODERNITY AND THE GLOBAL CULTURAL POLITICS OF THE COLD WAR.
Authors: Pal Arkaprabha
Published: July 2018

The Brussels EXPO of 1958 was envisioned by its organisers as a platform to renew the intellectual, spiritual and moral powers of humanism after the horrors of the Second World War. In its post-War setting, it aimed to promote the new Man by crossing the anxious binaries of Cold War politics. In reality, however, it fed on these very anxieties with the USA and USSR using art, technology, architectural designs to further the propaganda of their respective competing antagonistic political worldview. But, some small countries like the Soviet satellite states of Czechoslovakia and Hungary made a significant impact through their pavilions on the millions of visitors. The death of Stalin in 1953 followed by the comparatively liberal policies of Khrushchev and the consequent political disturbances in Hungary and, political reforms in Czechoslovakia determined the content and styling of the pavilions at the Expo. Both the countries marked a shift from socialist realism and posited themselves through art, architecture or technological displays which were more abstract, innovative, individualistic, existential, humanistic and even avant-garde. Moreover, the local, regional, ethnic and even the national were strongly emphasized in the pavilions, some of which at times were bereft of the traditional symbolism of a socialist state. The emphasis on the national illustrated the contradictions in the ideology and action of politics in these east and central European countries in the light of the post-Stalinist era. These contradictions, not only helped to realign the dominance of socialism internally, but had global implications and intentions in the cultural Cold War, which were played out through the content and styling of the pavilions at the expo in Brussels.
Interests, Folk Psychology and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge
Authors: Ylikoski Petri
Published: July 2018

This paper provides a conceptual analysis of the notion of interests as it is used in the social studies of science. After describing the theoretical background behind the Strong Program’s adoption of the concept of interest, the paper outlines a reconstruction of the everyday notion of interest and argues that the same notion is used also by the sociologists of scientific knowledge. However, there are a couple of important differences between the everyday use of this notion and the way in which it used by the sociologists. The sociologists do not use the term in evaluative context and they do not regard interests as purely non-epistemic factors. Finally it is argued that most of the usual critiques of interest explanations, by both philosophers and fellow sociologists, are misguided.
The Effects of Inequality, Density, and Heterogeneous Residential Preferences on Urban Displacement and Metropolitan Structure: An Agent-Based Model
Authors: Boeing Geoff
Published: July 2018

Urban displacement - when a household is forced to relocate due to conditions affecting its home or surroundings - often results from rising housing costs, particularly in wealthy, prosperous cities. However, its dynamics are complex and often difficult to understand. This paper presents an agent-based model of urban settlement, agglomeration, displacement, and sprawl. New settlements form around a spatial amenity that draws initial, poor settlers to subsist on the resource. As the settlement grows, subsequent settlers of varying income, skills, and interests are heterogeneously drawn to either the original amenity or to the emerging human agglomeration. As this agglomeration grows and densifies, land values increase, and the initial poor settlers are displaced from the spatial amenity on which they relied. Through path dependence, high-income residents remain clustered around this original amenity for which they have no direct use or interest. This toy model explores these dynamics, demonstrating a simplified mechanism of how urban displacement and gentrification can be sensitive to income inequality, density, and varied preferences for different types of amenities.
Inquiry into increasing affordable housing supply: Evidence-based principles and strategies for Australian policy and practice
Authors: Gurran Nicole , Rowley Steven , Milligan Vivienne , Randolph Bill , Phibbs Peter , Gilbert Catherine , James Amity , Troy Laurence , van den Nouwelant Ryan
Published: July 2018

This study examined the range of strategies and initiatives governments have used to leverage affordable housing supply across the continuum of housing needs (i.e. from social housing to affordable rental and home ownership) in a constrained funding and increasingly market driven context across a range of different jurisdictions and markets.
The Educational Gradient in Self-Rated Health in Europe: Does the Doctor-Patient Relationship Make a Difference?
Authors: Präg Patrick , Wittek Rafael , Mills Melinda C.
Published: July 2018

Research suggests that doctor–patient relations have evolved from a doctor-centered, paternalistic approach towards a more patient-centered, egalitarian model of interactions between physicians and their patients. Given the long-running debate on the positive relationship between education and health, the question arises how this development in doctor–patient relations affects social inequalities in health. First, we test to what extent egalitarian (e.g. discussing treatment decisions with patients) doctor–patient relations are underlying the education–self-reported health association. Second, we test whether egalitarian and paternalistic (e.g. withholding some information from patients) doctor–patient relations show differential effects on self-reported health across educational groups. Analyses of the European Social Survey (ESS) 2004/2005 for 24 countries demonstrate that a more egalitarian doctor–patient relationship does not substantially reduce educational inequalities in self-reported health. However, some direct positive effects of egalitarian and direct negative effects of paternalistic doctor–patient relations on health ratings can be found. Finally, results show how the health status of the lower educated can improve with a more egalitarian and less paternalistic doctor–patient relationship.
The challenge of measuring UK wealth inequality in the 2000s
Authors: Alvaredo Facundo , Morelli Salvatore , Atkinson Anthony B.
Published: July 2018

The concentration of personal wealth is now receiving a great deal of attention - after having been neglected for many years. One reason is the growing recognition that, in seeking explanations for rising income inequality, we need to look not only at wages and earned income but also at income from capital, particularly at the top of the distribution. In this paper, we use evidence from existing data sources to attempt to answer three questions: (i) what is the share of total personal wealth that is owned by the top 1 per cent, or the top 0.1 per cent? (ii) is wealth much more unequally distributed than income? (iii) is the concentration of wealth at the top increasing over time? The main conclusion of the paper is that the evidence about the UK concentration of wealth post-2000 is seriously incomplete and significant investment in a variety of sources is necessary if we are to provide satisfactory answers to the three questions.
Sheep in Goats' Clothing: Satire and Fair Use After Campbell v. Acuff Rose Music, Inc.
Authors: Bridy Annemarie
Published: July 2018

A tricky question emerges from the Supreme Court's decision in Campbell: If a parodic work, to use Justice Souter's words, shades into satire, is it no longer classifiable (and therefore no longer defensible) as a parody? Should it be regarded as having crossed a critical boundary for fair use purposes? Campbell suggests that it should, but there are actually compelling reasons, rooted in principles underlying the doctrine of fair use, why some types of parodic works that shade into satire should not be regarded as infringing. After examining the curious development of the parody/satire distinction within the law of fair use, this article draws on literary theory to propose a workable and more accurate taxonomy than that provided in Campbell, by means of which courts engaging in a fair use analysis can evaluate works that are hybrids of parody and satire.Annemarie BridyProfessor|University of Idaho College of Law|PO Box 83720-0051|Boise, ID 83720|Ph. 208.364.4583Affiliate Scholar|Stanford Center for Internet and SocietyAffiliate Fellow|Yale Information Society ProjectSSRN|HeinOnline|LinkedIn|Twitter
The Role of Teacher-Student Conferencing in Improving Grammatical Accuracy in University EFL Students’ Composition Writing
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Hamlaoui Naima , Fellahi Sarra
Published: July 2018

Based on the value of teacher-student conferencing practice in writing classes, the study investigates the role of this practice in improving grammatical accuracy in EFL university students’ writing. One particular aim of this study is to help second-year students at Sétif 2 University (Algeria) reduce subject-verb (S-V) disagreement and run-ons in their writing. Ten students took part in this study; they wrote 120 drafts, and were provided with teacher’s oral feedback on their written compositions at the editing stage. Corpora of students’ compositions were examined and instances of errors were counted before each conferencing session for four weeks. The findings reveal that the participants successfully show progress in grammatical accuracy over time to reach elimination for Subject-Verb disagreements and a significant reduction for run-ons.
congressbr: An R Package for Analysing Data from Brazil's Chamber of Deputies and Federal Senate
Authors: McDonnell Robert Myles , Duarte Guilherme , Freire Danilo
Published: July 2018

In this research note, we introduce congressbr, an R package for retrieving data from the Brazilian houses of legislature. The package contains easy-to-use functions that allow researchers to query the Application Programming Interfaces of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate, perform cleaning data operations, and store information in a format convenient for future analyses, making a previously-difficult task fast and convenient. congressbr downloads data on legislators, submitted and ratified law proposals, Senate and Chamber commissions, and other information of interest to social scientists across various fields. We outline the main features of the package and demonstrate its use with practical examples.
Classroom Interaction in English Language Class for Students of Economics Education
Authors: Journal Arab World English
Published: July 2018

This research is attempts to find out the types of teacher and students talk and also the patterns of teaching-learning interaction. This research was qualitative case study conducted in English Language 1 class Economics Education Study Program of Teacher Training and Education Institute Persatuan Guru Republik Indonesia Bojonegoro, East java. The participants were an English teacher and thirty four students. Observations were conducted twice in November 2016. The data were analysed by using the combination of interaction analysis system adapted from (Flanders, 1970; Moskowitz, 1971; Brown, 1975; Al-Otaibi, 2004; and Erling et al., 2012). The findings show that the teacher produced almost all types of teacher talk. They also produced almost all types of student talk in learning process. The teaching-learning activities used produced the patterns of group work, choral responses, closed-ended teacher questioning (IRF), individual work, student initiates-teacher answers, open-ended teacher questioning, and collaboration. Consider the result of this study. It is important for the teacher to build interactive and communicative teaching-learning activities involving more interaction and participation among the students. It is also advisable for the teacher to consider the factors that might affect the teaching-learning interaction in the classroom.
Inaction on climate change projected to reduce European life expectancy
Authors: Hauer Mathew , Santos-Lozada Alexis R
Published: July 2018

Climate change-related excess mortality estimates clearly demonstrate a dramatic impact on public health and human mortality. However, life expectancy at birth is more easily communicated and understood by the public. By properly situating climate change mortality within the contexts of life expectancy, we better represent the cost of climate change on longevity. In this paper, we convert excess mortality estimates due to increases in extreme weather from climate change into potential reductions in life expectancy at birth in thirty-one European countries. We project climate change extremes to reduce life expectancy at birth by 0.24 years for the average European country with differences in excess of 1.0 years in some countries by the end of the century. We only estimate the impact of mortality directly related to climate extremes, making our estimates conservative. Thus, the cost of inaction on climate change could approach, and likely to exceed, one year of life in some European countries.
Exploring the Construction of Professional Selves of Non-native EFL Teachers at a Saudi Arabian University
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Ahmad Hussain , Latada Fatmawati , Shah Sayyed Rashid , Wahab Muhammad Nubli
Published: July 2018

This study aims to investigate the factors that develop the professional identity of Pakistani English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Saudi Arabia. This study is unique in the sense that there has been hardly any systematic investigation that has considered the professional identity of Pakistani EFL teachers in Saudi Arabia. This study has two considerations: the way EFL teachers' selves evolve and the personal, professional, social and pedagogical factors constructing a teacher’s professional identity. This study was conducted at the English Language Institute of Saudi Arabian University and the study employed a quantitative survey method. The quantitative data was collected from 41 Pakistani EFL teachers by using an online questionnaire. The findings from the research revealed that a number of intrinsic and extrinsic factors develop the professional identity of Pakistani EFL teachers. Among these factors are the participants' pre-Saudi Arabia lives and the decision to become EFL teachers, the decision to come to Saudi Arabia, the impact of their overseas EFL experience, and the social influence on their own professional identity. Moreover, other factors that develop these teachers' professional identities are: being non-native, their views on continuing professional development (CPD), interaction with other EFL teachers, and their professional futures.
External Representations and Scientific Understanding
Authors: Kuorikoski Jaakko , Ylikoski Petri
Published: July 2018

This paper provides an inferentialist account of modelKbased understanding by combining a counterfactual account of explanation and an inferentialist account of representation with a view of modeling as extended cognition. This account makes it understandable how the manipulation of surrogate systems like models can provide genuinely new empirical understanding about the world. Similarly, the account provides an answer to the question how models, that always incorporate assumptions that are literally untrue of the model target, can still provide factive explanations. Finally, the paper shows how the contrastive counterfactual theory of explanation can provide tools for assessing the explanatory power of models.
Shortcomings of experimental economics to study human behavior: a reanalysis of Cohn et al. 2014, Nature 516, 86–89, ‘‘Business culture and dishonesty in the banking industry’’
Authors: Hupé Jean-Michel
Published: July 2018

In the wake of financial scandals, Cohn and collaborators published a headline-grabber study in the field of behavioral economics. M.C. Villeval (2014) summarized the main message as follows, in News and Views of the Nature issue where the Cohn study was published: the “experiment shows that although bank employees behave honestly on average, their dishonesty increases when they make decisions after having been primed to think about their professional identity.” Cohn et al. thus provide evidence that “the incentives and the business culture developed in the financial sector may undermine the honesty norms of ordinary employees.” This study may have important consequences for policy, since, Villeval continues, “it is crucial to ensure a business culture of honesty in this industry to restore trust in it.” Villeval also argues that “from a scientific perspective, this study […] supports the economic theory of social identity […], links this theory with the economic analysis of lying behavior [… and] shows how behavioural economists can contribute to a broader reflection in science about how people manage their 'multiple selves' ”. Here I show that the use of flawed statistics methods, yet employed routinely in so-called “evidence-based” science, led the authors to distort the “evidence”. I am also using this data-set as an interesting example to explore how we can use modeling and simulations to provide a fair account of the information and uncertainty conveyed by the data, based on Confidence Intervals. I provide the R-code. Based on this paper, I question the contribution of behavioral economics to the understanding of human behavior and conclude with considerations on honesty and science.
Vogel (2018): Matching survey responses with anonymity in environments with privacy concerns: A practical guide
Authors: Vogel Dominik
Published: July 2018

In many cases, public management researchers’ focus lies in phenomena, embedded in a hierarchical context. Conducting surveys and analyzing subsequent data requires a way to identify which responses belong to the same entity. This might be, for example, members of the same team or data from different organizational levels. It can be very difficult to collect such data in environments marked by high concerns for anonymity and data privacy. This article suggests a procedure for matching survey data without compromising respondents’ anonymity.
Expectancy-value and children's science achievement: Parents matter
Authors: Thomas Julie , Strunk Kamden K
Published: July 2018

This longitudinal study explored the ways parents’ and teachers’ expectancy for success influences 3rd – 5th children’s expectancy for success and achievement in science. Guided by an open-systems perspective and functional (Ballantine & Roberts, 2007) and expectancy-value (Eccles, 2005; Eccles, 2007) theories, we focused on school related socialization processes and the role of parents and teachers in shaping children’s abilities and skills. Participants included 153 children from 23 rural, Oklahoma schools and provided matched sets of parent, teacher, and child surveys. Weisgram and Bigler’s (2006) science self-efficacy subscale organized survey items where wording changes allowed parallel parent and teacher versions of the scale. Achievement was determined by test scores on the state-administered Oklahoma Core Curriculum Tests (OCCT). Results showed teachers’ expectancy for children’s success in science did not significantly predict students’ fifth grade science achievement. However, regression analyses showed parents’ expectancy did predict students’ fifth grade science achievement. The relationship was statistically significant and explained about 19% of the variance in fifth grade science achievement test scores (R2 = .19). We further determined that children’s science self-efficacy significantly influenced science achievement scores (β = .20) (however this was a far weaker influence than the direct effect of parents’ expectancy (β = .38) of children’s success in science). The novel finding is that parents have an influence on children’s achievement over and above children’s own self-efficacy beliefs about science. Clearly, parents matter when it comes to science achievement. Though it seems parents are more influential than teachers when it comes to children’s own expectations and achievement success in elementary science, we encourage further consideration of parent expectancy as it relates to child ability and achievement, modified classroom strategies, and home-school relations to better align teachers’ positive influence on children’s expectancy for success.
Reading Comprehension Strategies among EFL Learners in Higher Learning Institutions
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Al-Jarrah Hamza , Ismail Nur Salina binti
Published: July 2018

A variety of reading strategies are required to comprehend reading materials. Without effective reading strategies, students mostly face reading comprehension difficulties. This study aims to investigate reading comprehension strategies among English foreign language (EFL) learners in higher learning institutions. The study employed qualitative method and 10 Arab students of Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA) and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) were interviewed. Inductive thematic approach was used to analyze data. The findings indicates that the most commonly used reading strategies among the EFL learners are logical knowledge (under linguistic schema), formal construction (under formal schema), cultural knowledge (under cultural schema), and prior knowledge and conceptual knowledge (under content schema). This study concludes that reading strategies help the EFL learners in understanding English reading materials. To improve reading strategies for EFL learners, there is a need for collective effort of English language teachers, curriculum designers, educationists, education policy makers, and the EFL learners themselves.
A Sociology of Foreign Aid and the World Society
Authors: Swiss Liam
Published: July 2018

This article highlights an emerging research agenda for the study of foreign aid through a World Society theory lens. First, it briefly summarizes the social scientific literature on aid and sociologists' earlier contributions to this research. Next, it reviews the contours of world society research and the place of aid within this body of literature. Finally, it outlines three emergent threads of research on foreign aid that comprise a new research agenda for the sociology of foreign aid and its role in world society globalization.
The Surprising Link Between Education and Fatal Police Shooting Rates in the U.S., 2013-2016
Authors: Bradford John Hamilton
Published: July 2018

This study analyzes county-level fatal police shooting rates from 2013 to 2016. Lasso regression, elastic net regression, cross-validated stepwise selection, all-subsets regression, partial least squares regression, as well as relative importance analysis are used to assess the best predictive models. The most surprising and robust finding is that standardized test scores for English/Language Arts (ELA) are negatively associated with rates of fatal police shootings across multiple geographical levels of aggregation, net of crime and other socioeconomic controls. The findings suggest that deadly encounters between civilians and police officers are more likely to occur in impoverished regions with high rates of violent crime, more police per capita, and low average verbal ability. In addition, fatal police shootings rates tend to be lower in more segregated areas with larger Black populations and higher in areas with larger Hispanic populations.
Personal Income and Hierarchical Power
Authors: Fix Blair
Published: July 2018

This paper examines the relation between personal income and hierarchical power. In the context of a firm hierarchy, I define hierarchical power as the number of subordinates under an individual’s control. Using the available case-study evidence, I find that relative income within firms scales strongly with hierarchical power. I also find that hierarchical power affects income more strongly than any other factor for which data is available. I conclude that this is preliminary evidence for a hierarchical-power theory of personal income distribution.
Socioeconomic status, reputation, and interpersonal trust in peer-to-peer markets: Evidence from an online experiment
Authors: Keijzer Marijn A , Corten Rense
Published: July 2018

Online peer-to-peer markets decentralize distribution of resources, creating a trust problem in economic exchange on the internet. Individual characteristics of trustees, as determinants for being trusted, are therefore increasingly important. In light of this societal development, this study is concerned with socioeconomic status and reputation as part of the explanans for interpersonal trust. Some have argued that lower status trustees are trusted more easily because of their repeated reliance on resources in their social network. Others state that higher status trustees are perceived to be more trustworthy, because they are more vulnerable to social control and loss of reputation. We propose a novel, experimental method for examining interpersonal trust situations mimicking the reality of peer-to-peer market platforms. 626 subjects in an online experiment were asked to place trust in their preferable trustee based on the asking price, and seller's characteristics. The results from conditional logistic regression models showed that status increases perceived trustworthiness, and positively affects the trust premium for past trustworthy behavior. Strong reputation effects were found, sending out a warning for inequitable emergent inequality of trust through reputation cascading.
Special Section Editorial: Toward a Geographical Software Studies
Authors: Burns Ryan , Lally Nick
Published: July 2018

Geographic concepts have always been implicated in calls to study software as a political, cultural, or social phenomena, even if they have not always been named as such. “Software structures and makes possible much of the contemporary world” writes Matthew Fuller in the introduction to Software studies: a lexicon1—a succinct summary of the central problem guiding software studies, gesturing towards the spatial implications of software. So too in the insistence on the materiality of software do we find software studies bringing forth software as material thing that exists in and through space, in sites and scales as diverse as voltage differences in circuits, nation states, digital maps, and networks of computers. As geographic theory has long insisted, space is not just a container for software, but is actively produced by software in its various material, situated, and socio-technical contexts. Influenced in part by the exciting work that has developed in software studies in addition to geography’s own rich history of engagement with technology, a growing number of geographers have turned to software as an object of study, producing theories and methods to understand the relationship between computation and space.This special section emerged from our effort to bring together a group of scholars working on geographical approaches to software studies at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) in 2016. Spanning four sessions, presenters expressed a variety of orientations towards software, with diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding how software has come to structure the world. This introduction is a brief summary of some of those approaches, but more importantly, it suggests some of the ways that software studies and geography might productively learn from and build upon each other. These cross-disciplinary discussions are important as we come to terms with the growing power of software in our everyday lives and attempt to build critical practices that not only study, but also build other ways of knowing the world through computation. Ultimately, we frame the discussions that follow in ways we hope will encourage software studies scholars to grapple with the spatial implications of software.
Uneasy Settlements: Reparation Politics and the Meanings of Money in the 2005 Israeli Withdrawal from Gaza
Authors: Dromi Shai M.
Published: July 2018

Negotiations about reparations tend to take the language of interests and to deal primarily withmonetary compensation for disadvantaged groups. In such proceedings, aggrieved claimants arelikely to make a variety of claims about the use of money to represent their experience, rangingfrom demands for increased compensation to rejections of the entire process altogether. This articledraws attention to the communicative functions of money in the reparation process. It claims thatactors may grudgingly agree to attach a monetary value to what they hold sacred, butsimultaneously strive to preserve their sense of self-worth and to elicit identification by raisingmoral critiques about the use of fiscal logic. To exemplify, the article focuses on the 2005 removalof Jewish-Israeli settlers from Israeli-occupied territories. It shows that settlers indeed demandedto be compensated fiscally for their lost property. At the same time, it shows that they profferedmoral denunciations of the use of fiscal logic in representing their experience and offered alternatelogics of evaluation in its stead. The settlers resisted shame and devaluation through suchcompeting logics, demanding that the state reaffirm a positive and embracing relationship withthem despite its decision to evict them.
Computational reproducibility in archaeological research: Basic principles and a case study of their implementation
Authors: Marwick Ben
Published: July 2018

The use of computers and complex software is pervasive in archaeology, yet their role in the analytical pipeline is rarely exposed for other researchers to inspect or reuse. This limits the progress of archaeology because researchers cannot easily reproduce each other’s work to verify or extend it. Four general principles of reproducible research that have emerged in other fields are presented. An archaeological case study is described that shows how each principle can be implemented using freely available software. The costs and benefits of implementing reproducible research are assessed. The primary benefit, of sharing data in particular, is increased impact via an increased number of citations. The primary cost is the additional time required to enhance reproduciblity, although the exact amount is difficult to quantify.
On the Sociology of Patenting
Authors: Burk Dan
Published: July 2018

Recent commentary on the patent system has argued that there is little evidence supporting the incentive justification for patenting, so that continued faith in patents constitutes a kind of irrational adherence to myth or falsehood. While an obituary for the incentive theory of patenting is likely premature, the concept that the patent system is based upon myth should not be surprising. Over the past 30 years, some of the most prominent work in sociology has focused on social ordering, including legal ordering, that is found to be structured around prevalent social narratives or myths. Explicitly rejecting the economic construct of rational behavior, such "new institutional" approaches to social ordering recognize that organizations adopt practices and structures according to widely recognized scripts or conventions that lend legitimacy to their goals. In this essay I suggest that the known behavior of patenting firms likely fits the models developed in new institutional sociology: firms patent because other firms patent, because investors expect them to patent, and because patents validate the firm as innovative and reputable. Following such conventions is socially rational, but not necessarily economically rational. Applying new institutional approaches to patenting could explain several pervasive yet puzzling behaviors within the patent system, and moves us away from interminable fruitless arguments over the idealized efficiency or inefficiency of patents.
Review of Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times
Authors: Cohen Philip N.
Published: July 2018

The questions Marianne Cooper asks are relevant beyondthe context of the Great Recession – the event that headlines her analysis – but the crisis of the moment underscores their importance: How do people (women, men, families) increasingly charged with managing their owneconomic security experience and handle that task, emotionally? And further, what do the social class differences in that process tell us about life in an era of ballooning economic inequality?
Risk Management Committee and Disclosure of Hedging Activities Information among Malaysian Listed Companies
Authors: Abdullah Azrul Bin , Ismail Ku Nor Izah Ku , Isa Norshamshina Mat
Published: July 2018

This paper examines the relationship between Risk Management Committee (RMC) characteristics and the extent of hedging activities disclosure within the annual reports of the Malaysian listed companies. In particular, relationships are tested on RMC size, independence, RMC meeting, RMC gender diversity and RMC training. Our regression analysis shows that RMC independence significantly and negatively influences the extent of hedging activities information disclosure, while RMC meeting positively influences the disclosure. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Characteristics of the front-line child welfare workforce
Authors: Edwards Frank , Wildeman Christopher
Published: July 2018

In this study, we provide new national- and state-level estimates of workload and workforce instability among child welfare agencies using previously unavailable data that includes unique identifiers for US child welfare caseworkers in 46 states and supervisors in 43 states. We identify and describe 139,921 unique caseworkers and 31,124 unique supervisors who were in the child welfare workforce between 2003 and 2015. The median caseworker handles 55 cases annually and is on the job for about 1.8 years. The median state has an annual front-line caseworker turnover rate of between 14 and 22 percent annually, and a supervisor turnover rate of about 20 percent annually.
Changes in time-related academic behavior are associated with contextual motivational shifts
Authors: Strunk Kamden K , Lane Forrest , Mwavita Mwarumba
Published: July 2018

Research in the field of time-related academic behavior (i.e., procrastination and timely engagement) has traditionally been focused on more stable factors, such as personality. Recent research suggests there may be a motivational component to these behaviors. The present study examines whether time-related academic behavior is stable across time and context, and the degree to which change is predicted by contextual and motivational factors. The sample was comprised of 453 undergraduate college students at a large public university in the Midwestern U.S. We found that time-related academic behaviors were not stable, and changes in those behaviors were most closely linked to changes in self-efficacy, self-regulation, and mastery-approach achievement goals.