Deborah S. Willis and Laura N. Schram
Recent research on graduate students’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) socialization found that graduate colleges play a role in supporting graduate students’ DEI…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent research on graduate students’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) socialization found that graduate colleges play a role in supporting graduate students’ DEI professional development (Perez et al., 2020), but more studies are needed about how graduate colleges facilitate DEI socialization. One graduate college at a large, selective, research-intensive, public university in the Midwestern US created a graduate certificate for professional development in DEI to expand graduate students’ capacities to contribute to inclusion and equity in higher education. The purpose of this multi-method program evaluation is to assess whether the certificate program created significant learning about DEI and developed intercultural competence among graduate students.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors rely on multiple methods to evaluate the impact of the professional development DEI certificate. First, the authors used the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) pre and postassessment to measure the growth of participants in the first three years of the program. Second, the authors designed a reflection tool to assess significant learning after each component of the program. Finally, we conducted focus groups with graduates of the program to understand what program components were most valuable for DEI-related significant learning.
Findings
The authors found that the DEI professional development program increased students’ intercultural competence as measured by the IDI. Students reported perceptions of significant learning in every domain of learning we assessed using a self-reflection tool and in focus groups.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that demonstrates how graduate colleges contribute to DEI socialization by preparing graduate students to interact across differences and contribute to inclusive climates both within and beyond academe.
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Laura N. Schram, Emma M. Flores-Scott and Paula Clasing-Manquian
The USA’s higher education leaders and professional organizations have called for increased professional development programming at graduate colleges to better prepare US graduate…
Abstract
Purpose
The USA’s higher education leaders and professional organizations have called for increased professional development programming at graduate colleges to better prepare US graduate students for their future careers. This study aims to investigate the demographic characteristics of graduate students participating in co-curricular professional development (PD) and sociocultural development (SD) programming at a graduate college at a large, selective and research-intensive public university in the Midwestern USA.
Design/methodology/approach
Using institutional data from six semesters, the authors examined the characteristics of students that attended the graduate college’s programs at one university. The authors analyzed which students were most likely to attend PD and SD programs using multinomial logistic regression models.
Findings
Female students, students from US historically marginalized racial groups, and US Pell Grant recipients (low-income students) were found to have a higher likelihood of attending both PD and SD programs at the centralized graduate college.
Practical implications
The findings will be of interest to graduate deans and educators who support graduate students. Further evaluative research on the usefulness of such programs at other institutions would help graduate colleges better understand the role they play in meeting graduate students’ needs.
Originality/value
The findings contribute to the understanding of the important role of the US graduate college in the development of graduate students. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study to evaluate the backgrounds of graduate students who pursue co-curricular PD and SD opportunities.
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Tom Schultheiss, Lorraine Hartline, Jean Mandeberg, Pam Petrich and Sue Stern
The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the…
Abstract
The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.
This article examines the impact of the 1996 welfare‐to‐work law on women’s work and welfare outcomes. I investigate four welfare and work outcomes: (1) off welfare and employed;…
Abstract
This article examines the impact of the 1996 welfare‐to‐work law on women’s work and welfare outcomes. I investigate four welfare and work outcomes: (1) off welfare and employed; (2) off welfare and unemployed; (3) on welfare and employed; and (4) on welfare and unemployed. I compare how women on welfare move into these different categories from 1990 to 2000, with specific interest in examining what happened to the number of women in these categories after 1996, which is the bench mark year to examine the impact of the 1996 welfare‐to‐work law. In this article I will investigate four questions: (1) are long‐term welfare users permanently leaving welfare?; (2) is there a group of welfare users that permanently left welfare before the 1996 welfare‐to‐work law? (3) is there a hard‐to‐serve welfare population?; and (4) are those women that leave welfare finding employment. I draw four conclusions from my analyses. My first conclusion is that a new group of welfare users emerged after 1996 that is different than the conventional three groups (e.g., long‐term users, short‐term users, and recidivists). I call this new group PRWORA leavers, which are long‐term welfare users that have permanently left the welfare rolls after 1996. My second conclusion is that a group of welfare users permanently left the welfare rolls before 1996. Thus, many women were already leaving welfare and finding work be fore the law was passed. My third conclusion is that there remains a consistent hard‐to‐serve population on welfare. However, this group of welfare users is small. My fourth conclusion is that work participation has significant in creased from 1996 to 2000 for long‐term welfare users.
Racism in the United States is complex given the cultural logics that uphold notions of “post-race” or “colorblindness” as a means for understanding racialized events. The various…
Abstract
Racism in the United States is complex given the cultural logics that uphold notions of “post-race” or “colorblindness” as a means for understanding racialized events. The various forces at play within media institutions create paradoxes in the power that the media wields in society. Utilizing the concept of “media spectacle” and putting it into dialogue with colorblind racism, the author looks at local coverage of the 2009 arrest of Henry Louis Gates. The author’s primary concern is to identify not only the narratives that uphold or challenge colorblind racism during racialized events, but also the dynamic in which racialized events are mediated in contemporary society. Through a critical discourse analysis of two Boston newspapers, the author demonstrates the way colorblind racism adapts during a racialized event. This study demonstrates the contested nature of the media and nuance to the ways we understand colorblind racism in an increasingly mediated society.
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Marco Brydolf-Horwitz and Katherine Beckett
A growing body of work suggests that welfare and punishment should be understood as alternative, yet interconnected ways of governing poor and marginalized populations. While…
Abstract
A growing body of work suggests that welfare and punishment should be understood as alternative, yet interconnected ways of governing poor and marginalized populations. While there is considerable evidence of a punitive turn in welfare and penal institutions over the past half century, recent studies show that welfare and carceral institutions increasingly comanage millions of people caught at the intersection of the welfare and penal sectors. The growth of “mass supervision” and the expansion of the social services sector help explain the blurring of welfare and punishment in the United States in daily practice. We suggest that these developments complicate the idea of an institutional trade-off and contend that welfare and punishment are best understood along a continuum of state management in which poor and socially marginalized populations are subjected to varying degrees of support, surveillance, and sanction. In presenting the punishment–welfare continuum, we pay particular attention to the “murky middle” between the two spheres: an interinstitutional space that has emerged in the context of mass supervision and a social services–centric safety net. We show that people caught in the “murky middle” receive some social supports and services, but also face pervasive surveillance and control and must adapt to the tangle of obligations and requirements in ways that both extend punishment and limit their ability to successfully participate in mainstream institutions.
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Tobias Otterbring, Giampaolo Viglia, Laura Grazzini and Gopal Das
The nonprofit sector has come to deliver the majority of state-funded social services in the United States. Citizens depend on nonprofit organizations for these services, and…
Abstract
The nonprofit sector has come to deliver the majority of state-funded social services in the United States. Citizens depend on nonprofit organizations for these services, and nonprofits depend on government for financial support. Scholars have begun to ask important questions about the political and civic implications of this new organizational configuration. These questions have direct ramifications for the anti-prison movement given the explosive growth of nonprofit prison reentry organizations in recent years. To see how such organizations may impact political engagement and social movements, this chapter turns its focus on the intricate dynamics of client-staff interactions. Leveraging a yearlong ethnography of a government-funded prison reentry organization, I describe how such organizations can be politically active and at the same time contribute to their clients' political pacification. Staff members engaged in political activities in surrogate representation of their clients. While staffers advocated on their behalf, clients learned to avoid politics and community life, accept injustices for what they are, and focus instead on individual rehabilitation. By closely studying what goes on within a nonprofit service provider, I illustrate the nonprofit organization's dual political role and its implications for social movements and political change.
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Erin Yildirim Rieger, Laura Terragni and Elzbieta Anna Czapka
The purpose of this study is to explore beliefs and experiences of Turkish immigrant women in Norway related to body weight, nutrition and exercise practices.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore beliefs and experiences of Turkish immigrant women in Norway related to body weight, nutrition and exercise practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This study has a qualitative research design. Ten semi-structured interviews and a focus group were conducted with a purposive sample of Turkish immigrant women residing in Oslo, Norway. Themes were identified in the transcripts using systematic text condensation.
Findings
Participants viewed Turkish women as more commonly overweight or obese compared to Norwegian women. Weight was discussed openly among Turkish women and a preference to lose weight, both as individuals and among community members more broadly, also emerged. For participants, this represented a generational shift. Participants identified their barriers to weight loss, including norms around socialization and food in their community and exercise and eating practices during the long Nordic winter.
Practical implications
Participants expressed a tension between concern about health impacts of overweight and obesity and the desire to uphold cultural practices around food. Weight-related health-care initiatives for Turkish immigrant women can take into account such experiences shaped by their interaction with multiple cultures.
Originality/value
Participants emphasized that perspectives about weight in their Turkish immigrant community were influenced by the transition toward thin weight ideals in Turkey. Self-image regarding weight was also situated within the context of being immigrants in Norway.