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COVID-19
Published in J. Michael Ryan, COVID-19, 2020
A pandemic is a moment in which the overlap of the cultural and natural dimensions of reality becomes visible. Viruses, invisible in society, become the major players for a period of time, forcing the public to come to terms with them as agents. In Chapter 15, “Making the Invisible Visible: Viral Cloud Moments in the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic,” authors Joseph A. Astorino and Anthony V. Nicola use a constructionist framework to analyze the media’s portrayal of SARS-CoV-2 at two phases of the pandemic timeline in the USA: before closing and at the reopening of society. The authors examine news articles sampled from across the political bias spectrum to illustrate the process of how a novel virus reshapes the historical disease landscape through naturalization, humanization, demedicalization, and acceptance of the conjoint constitution of viruses.
Would-Be Administrator
Published in Herant Katchadourian, The Way It Turned Out, 2018
In hindsight, I didn’t fully appreciate at the time the significance of the contributions these extra-departmental programs made in addressing political, economic, and social issues that deserved to be part of the university’s offerings (and eventually made their way into the regular curriculum). Part of the reason was my own political bias. I came from a conservative background and saw left-wing politics as being disruptive of the social order of the university. The excesses of politically activist and antiwar students—the sit-ins, class disruptions, and broken windows—alarmed me, and I didn’t want to aid and abet their mischief. That led me to tar with the same brush the more responsible activist programs. More importantly, I saw these reformist programs as a distraction from my efforts to improve the quality of undergraduate teaching and academic advising at the mainstream departmental level. I feared that the association of my office with these more marginal entities would detract further from its already ambiguous academic legitimacy. If I was going to have a significant impact on undergraduate education, I had to find my way into the shops in the bazaar themselves rather than lead the street vendors in an assault on the “establishment.”7
Being happy as ugly ducklings and not swans: the health authority perspective
Published in David Kernick, Getting Health Economics into Practice, 2018
Problems are compounded, as there is real political reluctance to engage in an effective and public debate about these issues. There is an unwillingness to accept that if a community invests less in one thing it is because it invests more somewhere else, and to level up on whatever is the current political preference means levelling down on items that are not national priorities. The challenge for managers is that some of these local differences are, in fact, the services most beloved by local communities. There is always a political bias towards acute services and ‘high tech’ services and a lack of consistency in the assessment of benefit. Significant resources are being invested in services where the cost per OALY is very high at the expense of other services where the benefit is higher but the political gain is not so great. Which politician will make his or her name by denying someone with cancer potentially an average 2 more months of progression-free survival at a cost of £60,000 per QALY to allow significant extra investment in services for alcohol addiction? These decisions are, therefore, placed on local management who are asked to deliver comprehensive services, meet the needs of local communities and satisfy political imperatives around a large number of national priorities and targets. Health economics is rational but the decisions about investment are political. Not surprisingly, therefore, most local priorities are set covertly and without a scientific approach, as managers do their best to juggle expectations and reconcile the unreconcilable.
Self-reported assistive technology outcomes and personal characteristics in college students with less-apparent disabilities
Published in Assistive Technology, 2019
Matt P. Malcolm, Marla C. Roll
We were surprised that membership (or not) in a STEM major did not relate to COPM scores. Previous research showed students with disabilities enrolled in STEM majors have more complex needs for accommodations than non-STEM majors (Moon et al., 2012). We also noted in our own practice that less AT exists to increase access to scientific literature and notations inherent in STEM education as compared to a wealth of AT for non-STEM content. Two issues may underlie our findings of no apparent effect of STEM versus non-STEM major on AT service results. First, we used federal guidelines (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2012) to classify majors as STEM or non-STEM. The validity of federal, international, and institutional classifications is frequently criticized due to inconsistent standards, professional bias, political bias, and over- or under-inclusion of academic majors in the STEM category. As such, our classification scheme may have inadvertently assigned students to the incorrect STEM/non-STEM category. Second, independent of their academic major and as part of the post-secondary general education requirements, students are often required to enroll in STEM or non-STEM courses. We did not track whether a student was seeking or using AT for the purposes of STEM content. Thus, the possibility exists that students in STEM majors used and benefited from AT for non-STEM content.
The Politics of “Giving Student Victims a Voice”: A Feminist Analysis of State Trafficking Policy Implementation
Published in American Journal of Sexuality Education, 2019
Yet, as discovered through document analysis and participant observation, the OAG exercised significant control over participation. Interview data also underscored concerns regarding OAG selection of Workgroup participants and the lack of key stakeholders in the group. Respondents either did not know or could not state definitively how their entity was selected to participate. Some referred to a formal OAG invitation, while others indicated they were asked to participate through their entity’s “chain of command.” Respondents assumed that their participation might be the result of OAG awareness of their trafficking policy and advocacy work. Indeed, most respondents indicated a formal professional relationship with the OAG. In addition to professional ties, one respondent spoke about possible exclusion at this stage of the policy process candidly stating, “I think there’s some cherry picking off of those groups [other task forces and advocacy groups] as well to make sure there’s good representation.” Thus, “cherry picking” was seen as an OAG strategy to ensure specific entities participated in the Workgroup. This is significant given the boundary role of TEA, as well as lack of educator personnel presence on the Workgroup and focus group. As most Workgroup participants had prior relationships with the OAG, political bias in implementation processes also is a possibility.