In the United States today, there is a growing issue surrounding the field of special education. More and more it is seen that once a student has been placed in special education, their likelihood of being successful in their adult life significantly decrease, especially for those in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. Whether these two factors have any real relationship or not was taken up and studied by Ashley chesmore Suh-Ruu Ou, and Arthur J. Reynolds. Their goal was to answer two research questions. First, Is childhood placement in special education associated with educational attainment, incarceration, substance misuse and depression in adulthood? Second if there is an association between childhood placement in special education and adult outcomes is it mediated by academic achievement?

To answers these questions, They took a sample of 1,377 low-income minority children, 16 percent of which had some sort of special education between grades 1 through 8. They collected their data through surveys from the child, parent and teacher, school records and other available data. They wanted to test to see if special education had any relationship with depression, incarceration, and substance abuse. They cataloged data on all of those topics, also adding demographic factors of the children and their special education placement and educational attainment. They coded a majority of the data dichotomously using 0 and 1 for each individual answer. Once they collected all of their data they used logistic regression to analyze the dichotomous outcomes and multiple linear regressions to analyze the continuous outcomes.

The conclusions produced from the data did show very strong relationships between special education and the factors in questions. For example children who were placed in special education between grades 4 and 8 were 100% more likely to be incarcerated than those not placed in special education. Similarly, special education students between grades 1 and 8 were 69% more likely to abuse substances during their adult life. But the relationship I found most shocking was that students placed in special education between grades 4 and 8 were 133% more likely to end up depressed in their adult life. All of these are rather disturbing numbers that might make us reconsider how our system of special education is structured.

This research was over all well done, my only critique being the size of their sample. They included such a small sample that it is hard to say that these numbers reflect the entire population of special education students. I would be interested to see what the numbers would look like if the study were to be done and included more school districts of different socioeconomic and racial populations.

Chesmore, A. A., Ou, S., & Reynolds, A. J. (2016). Childhood Placement in Special Education and Adult Well-Being. The Journal of Special Education, 50(2), 109-120. doi:10.1177/0022466915624413

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022466915624413

International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology

Vol. 5

Why American boys join street gangs

Stanley S. Taylor

http://www.academicjournals.org/journal/IJSA/article-full-text-pdf/837FD2641401

This scholarly journal is about young boys and what drives them to join a gang. But in this specific study they want to look at young boys to see the paths they take and how they end up in a gang. Not a lot of studies have been done on boys and gangs. Most of the studies are when the gang member is already established and is older. The topic for this journal is young boys and joining gangs. The research question is “What are the social factors that a young boy lacks that makes them join a gang”. We want to know what these kids are thinking so the data we need to do this research project are personal feelings because we want to know how these kids felt growing up. We will also use Hidden Social Patterns so we can see what these participants all have in common. The data gathering method they used for this project was in depth interviews. This is the best way to get information for this study. The researcher wants to know about the participants past so this is the best way. The type of Data Analysis method for this journal is qualitative. Each of the respondents were asked a set of open and closed ended questions and they were encouraged to answer freely and clarify anything they wanted to. Overall I think this was good research they did a good job at being specific on what they wanted to find. They were also great at executing the research itself.

The Journal, Poverty and Public Policy featured an article titled, “Progressive State Taxes and Welfare.” The goal of the study is to analyze how progressive tax systems are linked to the number of welfare recipients. There are differing views when it comes to income distribution. Classical fiscal federalism argues that income distribution should happen at the federal level. However, the states also have power in enforcing their own progressive tax systems which support social services, such as welfare. This produces varied tax redistribution based on their goals. The study answered two questions, “First, do progressive tax structures effectively redistribute income? Second, does a progressive tax system reduce the number of welfare caseloads in a state?”

The type of data used was aggregate, “the welfare recipients, state-specific information on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs (and Aid to Families with Dependent Children for years prior to 1997), multiple measures of tax progressivity, and demographic variables”– which were from 50 states from the years of 1990 to 2002. The study used two measures to determine state progressivity “the Revenue Distribution Index (RDI) measured by Bahl, Martinez- Vazquez, and Wallace (2002) and the Average Tax Rate Progressivity Index (ATR). “ The method of analysis was through regression equation which was described in the following tables. Table 1 described the demographic variables used, also variables as the control to measure the differences between states TANF programs and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Table 2 includes statistics of 1990 and 2002.

They concluded that there is a positive relationship between a state’s tax progressivity and the number of welfare recipients. These conclusions are significant because we can infer with confidence that a state’s tax policies has great effects. Such as “when a state collects a larger portion of its taxes through historically progressive tax policies, such as personal and corporate income taxes, rather than, for instance, sales taxes, the number of individuals enrolled in the TANF (formerly AFDC) program decreases.”

Smith, Kara D., and Bryan Shone. “Progressive State Taxes and Welfare.” Poverty & Public Policy 8, no. 4 (2016): 430-37. doi:10.1002/pop4.162.

The article titled “Suicide by mass murder: Masculinity, aggrieved entitlement, and rampage school shootings” by Rachel Kalish and Michael Kimmel is found in the Health Sociology Review journal. Kalish and Kimmel state that school shootings typically culminate in suicide and are almost universally committed by males. Kalish and Kimmel examine three recent American cases of rampage school shootings that involve suicide to exemplify how the culture of masculinity creates a sense of aggrieved entitlement that is conducive to violence. Aggrieved entitlement is defined by Kalish and Kimmel as a gendered emotion that centers around the loss of manhood and the moral entitlement to gain it back and seek revenge. The topic of the research is masculinity and its relation to rampage school shootings. The research question Kalish and Kimmel pose is, “How does the culture of masculinity in the U.S. create a sense of entitlement that is conducive to violence?” A case study would successfully answer this research question because the researchers investigate specific examples to show the social factors present in a particular population. The type of data needed for this research are reports of acts, behaviors, events and hidden social patterns to describe the school shootings and how the social factor of a threatened masculinity contributes to violence. The data collection method involves discourse analysis because the researchers examine news magazines and major daily newspapers to reveal the ways in which the perpetrators are shaped by systems of social and cultural power. The data analysis method utilized by Kalish and Kimmel is thematic analysis. Thematic analysis focuses on the themes to find relationships between bullying and violence and tie them to the wider social pattern of a threatened masculinity and rampage school shootings. This qualitative method of research is helpful for my own research on this topic and successfully depicts the social and cultural pressures that males face. The most interesting part of this research is the pattern that depicts how most of the school shootings perpetrated by males had stories of being constantly bullied, beaten up, and labelled homosexual.

 Kalish, R. & Kimmel, M. (2010). Suicide by mass murder: masculinity, aggrieved   entitlement,      and rampage school shootings. Health Sociology Review, 19 (4), 451-464.

The study I chose had a research topic of what species of plants can be used to clean the contaminated soils of mine tailings and smelter activities. The specific question was whether screw bean mesquite could be used as a hyper accumulator of copper in contaminated soils. The Mesquite was grown in contaminated soils and after a specified time were dried and chemically altered in ways which allowed for examination of the amount of copper within the roots and leaves. After examination it was seen that mesquite accumulated a significant amount of copper without inhibiting it’s growth. The data needed were acts, or if Mesquite was able to accumulate copper. The collection method was detached observation, recordings of the percentages of copper among the various mesquite plants. The method of analysis was researcher centered, used a Pearsons correlation comparing the difference in mesquite copper amounts with plants grown in soils of different amounts of contaminations. Overall I think the research was valuable in determining the effectiveness of mesquite as a copper hyper accumulator, and the most interesting thing I found was exactly how much copper could be cleaned up using mesquite. The researchers calculated that over 4.1 years, 4.5 tons of copper per acre contaminated could be cleaned.

Zappala, Marian, et al. “Prosopis Pubescens (Screw Bean Mesquite) Seedlings Are Hyperaccumulators Of Copper.” Archives Of Environmental Contamination & Toxicology 65.2 (2013): 212-223. GreenFILE. Web. 10 Feb. 2017. <http://0-web.a.ebscohost.com.books.redlands.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=15&sid=1a26bcde-a165-4a93-add6-cf5f23b43cab%40sessionmgr4010&hid=4106>

This study on the effectiveness of opening a new grocery store to address food insecurity was published in Health Affairs by Cummins, Flint, and Mathews. The research question was “Does opening up a grocery store in a Philadelphia neighborhood classified as a food desert have an effect on ‘ body mass index (BMI), daily fruit and vegetable intake, and perceptions of food accessibility’ in the community?” This indicates the three data types needed: height and weight for BMI (in this case a report of an “act/event”); reported fruit and vegetable intake, and; shallow opinions of various aspects of food accessibility in the neighborhood. These were collected from samples of two neighborhoods with similar characteristics, one that was planned to receive a new store and one that was not as a control.  Each neighborhood had two survey samples taken: one several years before the new grocery store was added, and one six months after it was added. They also compared participants within the experimental group who adopted the new store as their main source of food versus those who did not. The three types of data collected describe different things, and take the forms of both ratio and ordinal data. I can’t quite follow how they went from the data they collected to the data shown in their results, which seems to be all in ratios that were in a form that could be compared. The results of this study show that in the experimental neighborhood perception of food accessibility improved, but the measurements of BMI and fruit and vegetable intake overall did not change. One significant reason for this was that most people in the neighborhood did not actually change their shopping habits with the addition of the store. Another reason for this could be that the follow-up data collection was only performed six months after the store was introduced, not giving enough time for a change to occur. Nonetheless, I think it is significant that people did not change their shopping habits, and this perhaps indicates a need for further measures to address food deserts, such as nutrition education, in addition to bringing grocery stores to places that don’t have them.

Reference: Steven Cummins, Ellen Flint and Stephen A. Matthew. (2014). New Neighborhood Grocery Store Increased Awareness Of Food Access But Did Not Alter Dietary Habits Or Obesity. Health Affairs. 33, no.2 (2014):28N3-291. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2013.0512

Age Appropriateness and Motivation, Engagement, and Performance in High School: Effects of Age Within Cohort, Grade Retention, and Delayed School Entry by Andrew J. Martin at the University of Sydney digs into the relative salience of age while observing three dimensions of age appropriateness. Martin’s study examined 3, 684 high school student’s academic motivation, engagement, and performance. These high school students were then monitored and later evaluated to test their age appropriateness based on the three dimensions (cohort, grade retention and delayed school entry). It was found that, generally, being older-for-cohort has negative effects, the effects of having to repeat a grade are negative, and delayed entry status came up with negative results as well. Overall, it was found that cohort, grade retention and delayed school entry all result in poor age appropriateness, motivation, engagement and performance in high school.

With Martin’s research question asking: whether or not effects of age in the terms of cohort, grade retention and delayed school entry effect age appropriateness in the terms of motivation, engagement and performance in high school? The type of data needed in order to answer such a question would be acts, behavior, or events and demographic data. I chose those two particular data types because the research method required a lot of observation but also the students grades which were supplied by the teacher. The data gathering method for this experiment would then be, ethnography and public and private records. The method of data analysis would be qualitative data as well as ordinal data, to rank the student’s grades. I, personally, found this research question to be very interesting, yet I found the results to be as I expected them to be. I enjoyed reading about a research question that would need two different types of data to answer it fully- something I have not written about until now.

Martin, Andrew J. (2006). Age Appropriateness and Motivation, Engagement, and Performance in High School: Effects of Age Within Cohort, Grade Retention, and Delayed School Entry. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 101. No. 1, pp. 1-258.

In the article, Effects of Teachers on Minority and Disadvantaged Students’ Achievement by Early Grade researcher, Spyros Konstantopoulos conducted a study, which investigated the effects of teachers on female minority and low-socioeconomic-status (SES) (Konstantopoulos 2009, 92). In the study students and teachers were randomly assigned to classrooms. The sample size was enormously large with nearly 11,000 students all in a total of 79 schools. The data took over four years to produce. All participants of the study were students in Tennessee schools.

Data for the study was entered into “Project Star.” Information recorded included; student outcome (i.e. Stanford Achievement test scores), and student demographics (i.e. gender, race, ethnicity, and socio economic status).  Konstantopoulos also explored whether teacher effects were more pronounced in schools with high proportions of minority or female students. Results showed that all students benefited from having effective teachers. The differential teacher effects on female, minority, and low-SES students’ achievement, however, were insignificant. There were some evidence in mathematics that teacher effects are more distinct in high-minority schools. Finally, teacher effects seem to be consistent within and between schools.

The researcher used multilevel models in order to better determine the teacher’s interaction effectiveness with student gender, race, and SES. Konstantopoulos, also used, “similar methods to explore whether teacher effects were pronounced in high poverty schools.” The effects the teachers made towards the students living in low socio economic statuses were measured as a residual variability in achievement among classrooms within the schools whom participated in the study. Konstantopoulos states, “The distribution of teacher effectiveness consisted of deviation scores that demonstrated the difference in achievement between a specific teacher (classroom) and the average effective teacher in the sample (Konstantopoulos 2009, 98).

I believe this research has and will remain current for years to come. We will also face the issue of poverty, and being able to better understand effective ways in which to better suit students living in low SES conditions can only be beneficial for them in many ways.

DOI: 10.1086/598845

Joaana Blogowska and Vassilis Saroglou work together on the piece “Religious Fundamentalism and Limited Prosociality as a Function of the Target” to ask the question, does religion imply altruism or prejudice and violence? To answer this question, they dive into two traditional claims. One of which is the idea that being really religious implies prosocial tendencies. Prosocial, since I was unaware of its meaning before reading this article, applies to voluntary behavior that is beneficial and in pursuit of doing good and promoting social acceptance. The second historical claim is that religious fundamentalism is associated with prejudice, since its roots tend to be resting in right-wing authoritarianism. The authors compile the data associated with these two claims and try to find if indeed religious fundamentalism also predicts prosociality. Another facet of these claims is that they only apply to certain groups and individuals. In the case of religious fundamentalism, predicted prosociality was found in regards to nonfeminists, rather than feminists and to friends, but not to strangers.

In order to answer their research questions, the authors took on two different experiments. In the first, the data being collected is that of self identity. A group of participating Polish college students were randomly assigned either an experiment or a control condition, and were given surveys that were later evaluated to find how their self identities affect their prosociality. Experiment two was an extension of experiment one, but also looked into the distinction between prosociality toward friends rather than strangers. The participants in this study are from a less random pool because they were either Catholics or had received a catholic education. The conclusion from these experiments is that people are more willing to help people they know rather than strangers, but this is not exclusive to religious fundamentalist groups. Therefor, the argument is that this also fails to contribute to violent tendencies There is, however, data showing that a religious fundamentalists do show some prejudice and hostility.

Although this study was pretty abstract and contained language I wasn’t familiar with, I thought it was really interesting. A stereotype that typically aligns with fundamentalist groups is the idea of violence within such communities. This was an interesting perspective to to take on how violence is expressed, perhaps where it comes from, and if it really exists among typical fundamentalist groups.

Blogowska, J., & Saroglou, V. (2011). Religious Fundamentalism and Limited Prosociality as a Function of the Target. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,50(1), 44-60. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2010.01551.x

The topic of the article Urban Heat Island Mitigation and Urban Planning: The Case of the Mexicali, B. C. Mexico, by Jorge Villanueva-Solis, asks the question, how Mexicali’s, a city in Mexico, rising climate be impacted and potentially reduced by analyzing and modeling its urban structure. The phenomenon called Urban Heat Island (UHI) is the main reason why cities climate is typically warmer than outside and includes impacts on air quality, water demand, and energy. IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is an organization created by the United Nations given the task of creating awareness of climate change through scientific view released a report describing the changes needed in cities to decrease their climate change. They reported the need for urban centers to devote their efforts to adaptation through urban planning and therefore reduce the risks of direct and indirect impacts of climate change. This article focuses on the heightened UHI, how its impacted by urban expansion, and its impacts on the city of Mexicali. Results of the study showed that the use of dynamic modeling as a tool applied to urban planning and focused on the reduction and adaptation to climate change. The studies results also showed that regarding implementation of strategies, results indicated that the most effective results are obtained when the strategy is applied generally. The study found that housing land use can significantly reduce the Urban Heat Island in Mexicali.

Two components of collecting data were used to find the data needed. In the first component, data was gathered using a digital satellite that provided clear information on thermal variation. Thermal characteristics within the city were obtained from the infrared band of the satellite. The second method used dynamic modeling and simulation of scenarios, which analyzed the urban spaces process of growth and transformation. The topic of this research was intriguing to me because it proposed one of many answers to the topic of reducing climate change.  The research for this article proposed that a cities capacity for adaptation and mitigation is the key to slowing down climate change. I believe that a carefully and well plan urban center could end up seeing better climate change reduction results. The topic of climate change reduction is a broad topic that I think will be interesting to many people. I also think that this different way of approaching climate change will be of interest to some people.

Citation:

Villanueva-Solis, J. (2017) Urban Heat Island Mitigation and Urban Planning: The Case of the Mexicali, B. C. Mexico. American Journal of Climate Change, 6, 22-39. doi: 10.4236/ajcc.2017.61002.

Abstract:     http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=73976

Article:      http://file.scirp.org/pdf/AJCC_2017020716072125.pdf