bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Centrality of Critical Agency: How Asian American College Students Develop Commitments to Social Justice
Authors: Museus Samuel D. 
Published: November 2021

Context Systemic oppression is one of the most pressing problems in U.S. society. However, relatively little is known about the process by which college students become committed to social justice agendas. In addition, systematic empirical inquiries that examine how Asian American students, in particular, develop such commitments are difficult to find. Purpose/Research Question This inquiry was focused on understanding the process by which Asian American college students develop commitments to social justice. The following overarching research question guided the inquiry: How do Asian American college students cultivate a commitment to social justice? Research Design Using a qualitative approach grounded in a critical paradigm, individual interviews were conducted with Asian American college students involved in social justice activism and advocacy. Data Collection and Analysis A single, semistructured 60-minute face-to-face individual interview was conducted with each participant. The data were analyzed in three phases, using line-by-line, focused, and axial coding. Memos were also used throughout the data analysis process to capture thoughts, make comparisons, and clarify connections across data points. Findings The analysis shows how environmental threats that create a sense of urgency, sources of knowledge that foster collective critical consciousness, and models of critical agency contribute to students developing their own critical agency, which ultimately leads to social justice commitments. Conclusions/Recommendations The current study extends prior knowledge by demonstrating that critical agency is salient in Asian American students developing commitments to engage in social justice agendas. The findings also contribute to existing research by offering some evidence that ongoing opportunities to cultivate critical consciousness and connections to agents who model social justice interact and converge with key environmental threats to shape critical agency. The study also provides some initial evidence that Asian American parents can catalyze students’ critical agency and social justice commitments through serving as sources of knowledge that increase students’ awareness about social injustices and modeling how to contribute to a more just world, while college curricula across diverse disciplines and peer networks that center social injustices also help foster critical consciousness that leads to social justice commitments among some Asian American students.
Expanding Transformative Agency: Learning Lab as a Social Change Intervention for Racial Equity in School Discipline
Authors: Ko Dosun , Bal Aydin , Çakir Halil Ibrahim , Kim Hyejung 
Published: November 2021

Background In the United States, students of color are more likely to receive disciplinary exclusion compared with their White peers. The racial disproportionality in exclusionary school discipline (e.g., office discipline referrals and suspension) marginalizes students from nondominant communities and further aggravates inequalities in academic, social, and behavioral outcomes. As a socially, historically, and geographically situated inequity issue, addressing racial disparities in disciplinary outcomes requires a transformative experiment in which local stakeholders can engage in situated problem identification and problem-solving efforts in response to their specific needs, goals, and local dynamics. Purpose of Study This study examined how Learning Lab, an inclusive, collaborative problem-solving process, created a collaborative problem-solving space wherein school stakeholders exercised their collective, transformative agency to bring about a qualitative transformation in the school discipline system at an urban middle school for the creation of culturally responsive and equity-oriented learning environments for all students. Setting The research took place at Rogoff Middle School in Wisconsin, which has historically served students from urban, low-income families. The school community struggled with the overrepresentation of Black students in exclusionary school discipline. Participants Learning Lab comprised 14 members. Three parents and 11 school staff— administrators, teachers, social workers, an after-school coordinator, and a parent/paraprofessional working in a special education classroom—participated in the Learning Lab. Research Design This study used the Learning Lab intervention, taking place at an urban middle school between November 2012 and May 2014, as an instrumental case to explore how the participatory, design-based intervention transformed a schoolwide behavioral support system. Data collected from 14 meetings include observations, ethnographic field notes, school disciplinary data, and photos. All meetings were video recorded and transcribed, then analyzed using a transformative agency framework. Findings/Results With the aim of organizing inclusive problem-solving activities for shared, collaborative future-making learning experiences, the Learning Lab encouraged local stakeholders to exercise their collective, transformative agency in order to produce locally meaningful and emancipatory knowledge aimed at reshaping a dysfunctional, punitive system that historically has yielded racial injustice in school discipline. Conclusions/Recommendations As a community-driven, scaled-down design process, Learning Lab can be a powerful leadership tool for school leaders to unite school stakeholders by building authentic school–family–community partnerships and leveraging expertise, experiences, and ingenuity for the development of locally optimized solutions to inequity.
Poor Kids versus Bad Teachers: Vergara v. California and the Social Construction of Teachers
Authors: Powers Jeanne M. , Chapman Kathryn P. 
Published: November 2021

Background In the past decade, the laws governing teachers’ employment have been at the center of legal and political conflicts across the United States. Vergara v. California challenged five California state statutes that provide employment protections for teachers. In June 2014, a California lower court declared the statutes unconstitutional because they exposed students to “grossly ineffective teachers.” Purpose The purpose of the article is to document and analyze how Vergara was presented in the print news media. It is important to understand how the print news media presents education policy debates to the public, because the print news media shapes the general public's understanding of education and other public policy debates by providing frames and themes for interpreting the issues in question and people associated with them. Research Design Using the social construction of target populations and political spectacle as conceptual lenses, we conducted a content analysis of print news media articles on the Vergara case published between June 2012 and November 2014. We provide a descriptive overview of the full corpus of articles published during this period and a thematic analysis of the 65 unique news articles published in the aftermath of the decision. The latter focuses on news articles because they are intended to provide more objective coverage of the case than opinions or editorials. Findings In the print news media coverage, the word “teacher” was often paired with a negative qualifier, which suggests that Vergara was an effort to change the relatively advantaged social construction of teachers. Similarly, metaphors and the illusion of rationality associated with political spectacle were used in ways that bolstered the plaintiffs’ claims. While Vergara consumed a substantial amount of philanthropic and public dollars, ultimately it did not change the policies that govern teachers’ employment in California. Vergara may have been more successful in shaping the general public's perceptions of teachers and the conditions of teachers’ employment in the period following the trial.
Fragile Political Coalitions: Negotiating Race and Class in the Opt-Out Movement
Authors: Wilson Terri S. , Contreras Ana , Hastings Matthew 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Recent movements to “opt out” of state assessments have brought together a broad and diverse group of activists. While many activists foreground concerns of equity and justice, opting out has been concentrated in affluent suburban communities. These differences highlight questions of power and privilege within the movement: in what ways is opting out more acceptable—and politically persuasive—because it has primarily been driven by affluent white communities? How has the opt-out movement incorporated—or elided—the voices, interests, and perspectives of communities of color? Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study To explore these questions, this study focuses on how opt-out activists describe the aims of their movement and how they negotiated tensions related to race, power, and privilege in education activism. How might we understand the potential coalitions and fault lines within the diverse opt-out movement? Research Design Drawing on the insights of critical discourse analysis (CDA), we analyze presentations and interactions from a national conference on opting out held in 2016. We focus on publicly accessible video recordings of major sessions (keynotes and panels) to describe how activists describe the aims, strategies, and potential compromises of the opt-out movement. We also draw on several secondary sources of data (social media, webinars, blog posts, and other publications from opt-out leaders) to add context to our analysis. Data Collection and Analysis We use concepts in social movement theory, including movement identity and “splintering,” to frame some emerging fissures among opt-out activists, particularly across lines of class, race, and power. We organize our findings into three interrelated themes, describing how activists framed and negotiated the aims of opting out, often across lines of race and class, and worked to build solidarity amid moments of dissent. Conclusions/Recommendations While politically successful in some respects, the anti-testing coalition remains fragile and divided, leaving its goals for equity-oriented reform uncertain. Certain longstanding issues (the inclusion of communities of color) and particular policy decisions (collaborating with local union and civil rights chapters) have contributed to fractures in the movement. However, activists may capitalize on dissent to expand the boundaries of their movement and build more diverse and expansive networks.
Chapter 9: Writing as Capital: The Emancipatory Act of Writing for Profit, Advocacy, and Charity
Authors: Fitzpatrick Erin , Schrodt Katie , Kissel Brian , Gilbert Suze 
Published: November 2021

Context Writing is an agentive act. Despite drastic improvements over the past few decades in writing instruction and the push for sharing with authentic audiences, the majority of writing students do is still for the teacher. These practices are at odds with those who advocate for classrooms that are culturally relevant, culturally responsive, and culturally sustaining. When students write for the sole purpose of “doing school,” they are denied opportunities to use their writing voices to write about, for, and within their communities. Writing is used to empower—to pose problems and solve them. The distribution of that writing is equally important. Publication matters. It is in the distribution and response to writing that one can experience the power of written words to impact one's world. Purpose In this chapter, we outline authentic purposes for writing centered on culturally relevant, responsive, agentive, and sustaining pedagogies. We describe the writer's workshop, an instructional structure in which to embed these pedagogies. The writer's workshop is the setting in which these students were situated to write purposefully. We take the reader into three classrooms using descriptive vignettes. The three classroom vignettes presented frame emancipatory writing for (a) personal profit to reinforce the value—monetary and social—of using one's intellectual skills and written words for personal gain; (b) advocacy—through fostering critical consciousness that explores equitable and just familial structures and relationships and monetizing written words to directly impact a family through adoption; and (c) charity—through a service-learning project in which students used writing to influence others to financially support a charity that helps people who have been impacted by oppression in the forms of kidnapping, trafficking, and modern-day slavery. Research Design This is a narrative accounting of three teachers’ experience implementing this practice in their own classrooms. Conclusions In all three instances, children were agents who wrote for monetary motivation— seeking and acquiring capital for themselves, for others, or to effect desired social change. Moreover, the outcomes were achieved by students who used their skills and worked within their capacities to meaningfully effect change. Suggestions for implementation and generalization are offered.
Mediation of the Relationship of Acculturation With Glycemic Control in Asian Americans With Diabetes
Authors: Sanjeevi Namrata 
Published: November 2021

Purpose To assess the role of physical activity and healthcare access in mediating the association of acculturation with cardiometabolic health in Asian American adults with diabetes. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011–2018. Subjects Non-pregnant Asian American adults with doctor diagnosed diabetes. Measures Participants were classified into low, moderate, and high acculturation status. Self-reported leisure-time, work, and transportation-based physical activity were summed for overall physical activity. Health insurance, frequency of healthcare receipt, and glycohemoglobin (HbA1c) check in the past year indicated healthcare access. Cardiometabolic health indicators included HbA1c, total and high density lipoprotein-cholesterol, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Analysis Linear and logistic regression estimates, standardized using y-standardization, and assessed mediation of acculturation with cardiometabolic health. Results Low acculturation was significantly related to greater leisure-time inactivity odds [OR (95% CI) = 2.25 (1.05, 4.82)], overall insufficient activity [OR (95% CI) = 2.30 (1.12, 4.74)], and uninsured status [OR (95% CI) = 5.62 (1.55, 20.41)]. Asian Americans with low acculturation had significantly higher log HbA1c than those with high acculturation ( β ± SE = .078 ± .038); however, this association was not significant after adjusting for leisure-time activity. Leisure-time activity mediated 48.9% of acculturation and HbA1c association, and the indirect effect was statistically significant [estimate (95% CI) = .021 (.002, 0.047)]. Conclusions Results suggest that promoting sufficient leisure-time activity could improve glycemic control in least acculturated Asian Americans with diabetes.
A Qualitative Examination of COVID-19’s Impacts on Physical Activity and Perceptions of Remote Delivery Interventions
Authors: Brannon Grace Ellen , Mitchell Sophia , Ray Madison A. , Bhai Salman , Beg Muhammad Shaalan , Basen-Engquist Karen M. , Liao Yue 
Published: November 2021

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic is correlated with decreased physical activity (PA). Transitioning to remote work may impact people’s acceptability and preferences for remotely delivered behavioral interventions, including PA. The objective was to examine perceptions of COVID-19 impacts on PA engagement and motivation, and perspectives related to remotely delivered PA interventions. Design Cross-sectional small-group interview. Setting Harris County, Texas. Participants: Insufficiently active, overweight/obese adults (16 healthy adults [aged 25–52 years], and 7 cancer survivors [aged 50–74 years]). Method Group discussion was guided by semi-structured questions. Audio-transcribed data (278 pages) was analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s process centering identification, analysis, organization, description, and reports. Results Overall, participants expressed a decreased level of PA due to the pandemic. Difficulties (e.g., care-taking activities, working from home, and safety concerns) negatively affected motivation. Participants indicated high acceptability of remotely delivered PA interventions, with advantages of virtual technology features (e.g., did not have to maintain a gym membership) and even accountability in maintaining a PA routine (e.g., using virtual groups to engage in community support). Conclusion Participants described COVID-19 negatively affects access to PA opportunities yet also expressed willingness to engage in remotely delivered PA interventions instead of in-person programs because of their COVID-19 experiences. Remote interventions can greatly increase accessibility and offer opportunities to provide personalized motivation and accountability that people need to be more physically active.
Care and Rearing of Institutionalized Girls in Arequipa, Peru: An Ethnographic Approach
Authors: Sánchez-Luque Berta , Martínez-Angulo Pablo , Cantón-Habas Vanesa , Ventura-Puertos Pedro E. 
Published: November 2021

Introduction: Institutional care for children is a global phenomenon. Despite its advantages, common threats have been described. In Peru, more than 70% of institutionalized children/adolescents have living parents who cannot take care of them. The study aims to understand the care/rearing of institutionalized girls in Arequipa, Peru. Methodology: Ethnographic design, with a sample integrated by 27 institutionalized girls. Data collected based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The analysis followed the Method of Constant Comparisons. Results: Five main themes were found: (a) The little house (foster home) is better than my house; (b) They take care of me—even when I am sick—; (c) But . . .; (d) What I have lived is what I am; (e) Happiness fits in this little house. Discussion: An ethnography of care/rearing practices could be helpful for a better understanding of the dimensions of the life of institutionalized girls living in developing countries.
Next Generation Sequencing and Cytogenetic Based Evaluation of Indian Pierre Robin Sequence Families Reveals CNV Regions of Modest Effect and a NovelLOXL3Mutation
Authors: Sood Anubhuti , Shamim Uzma , Kharbanda Om P. , Kabra Madhulika , Gupta Neerja , Mathur Aradhana , Joshi Aditi , Parveen Shaista , Zahra Sana , Sharma Pooja , Seth Malika , Khan Afreen , Faruq Mohammed , Mishra Deepika 
Published: November 2021

BackgroundPierre Robin Sequence (PRS) affects approximately 1 per 8500 to 14000 new-borns worldwide. Although the clinical entity is well deﬁned, the pathogenesis of PRS is debated. The present study aims to understand the contribution of genomic imbalances and genetic variants in patients clinically diagnosed of PRS.MethodologyA total of 7 independent patients with nonsyndromic PRS thoroughly evaluated by a medical geneticist at a tertiary care hospital, were included in the study. Blood samples were collected from these patients and their family members. Array CGH was performed on all 7 patients and their respective family members for detection of underlying cytogenetic defects. Whole exome sequencing (WES) was performed for 5 families to capture single nucleotide variants or small indels.ResultsCytogenetic analyses did not detect any previously reported gross chromosomal aberrations for PRS in the patient cohort. However, copy number variations (CNVs) of size <1 Mb were detected in patients which may have implications in PRS. The present study provided evidence for the occurrence of de novo deletions at 7p14.1 locus in PRS patients: further validating the candidate loci susceptibility in oral clefts. WES data identified LOXL3 as candidate gene, carrying novel deleterious variant, which is suggestive of the role of point mutations in the pathogenesis of PRS.ConclusionThe present study offered considerable insight into the contribution of cytogenetic defects and novel point mutation in the etiology of nonsyndromic PRS. Studies comprising large number of cases are required to fully elucidate the genetic mechanisms underlying the PRS phenotype.
Evaluating the Effect of Low Power Diode Laser 806 nm on the Healing of Unilateral Cleft Lip Scar: An Open-Label Comparative Study
Authors: Abdul Mohsen Mariam , El Husseiny Saafan Ali Mohamed , El-Basiouny Mahmoud S. , ElTagy Gamal Hassan , ElBarbary Mennat-Allah Magdy , Ragab Moutaz , Emara Dawlat 
Published: November 2021

Objective To investigate the effect of laser bio-modulation irradiation therapy on the scar after surgical correction of unilateral cleft lip. Design a comparative, open-label study. Setting we conducted the study in a university based tertiary hospital that recruited early wound healers of unilateral cleft lip correction. Patients Eighty patients were divided into two groups: In study's group, patients undergo laser bio-modulation irradiation (n = 60); in the control group, patients were followed-up without intervention (n = 20). Intervention In the study's group, patients underwent low-power diode Laser with wavelength of 806 nm and power of 100 mw. Main outcome The change in the scar of cleft lip patients, which was assessed by clinical examination and ultrasound. Results The median pigmentation score was significantly lower in the laser group (median = 1; IQR = 1–2) than the control group (median 2; IQR 1–3), with p-value of <0.001. Likewise, the median height score was significantly lower in the laser group (median = 1; IQR = 1–1) than the control group (median 1.5; IQR 1.5–2), with p-value of 0.001. The median pliability score was significantly lower in the laser group (median = 1; IQR = 1–1) than the control group (median 2.5; IQR 1–3), with p-value of <0.001. Finally, the median vascularity score was significantly lower in the laser group (median = 1; IQR = 1–1) than the control group (median 1.5; IQR 1–2), with p-value of <0.001. Conclusion laser bio-modulation irradiation therapy demonstrates a potential efficacy in managing the hypertrophic scars after surgical repair of unilateral cleft lip.