ACADEMIC WORDS AND GENDER

1998 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Scarcella ◽  
Cheryl Zimmerman

This paper seeks to resolve certain questions pertaining to the relationship between gender and second language vocabulary knowledge. One question we examine is whether female and male ESL students at the University of California at Irvine differ significantly in their knowledge of academic vocabulary in English as measured by scores on the Test of Academic Lexicon (TAL). One hundred ninety-two freshman university ESL students participated in the study. A t test, used to investigate differences in the TAL scores of males and females, reveals that the males performed better on the TAL than the females (t = 3.32, p = .001). Analyses of covariance were used to examine questions pertaining to the effect of gender on the TAL, controlling for the possible effects of the students' verbal Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, length of residence in the United States, and age of arrival in the United States. In all cases, gender remains significantly related to the results of the TAL when controlling for the other variable: for verbal SAT scores, F(1,181) = 5.86, p < .05; for length of residence, F(1,187) = 9.64, p < .01; and for age of arrival in the United States, F(1,185) = 10.22, p < .005. Neither the present study nor the gender literature reviewed suggests that gender itself causes differences in the TAL scores. In analyzing the results, we consider possible explanations for the males' better TAL scores related to reading habits, interactional styles, educational backgrounds, and cultures.

October ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 230-241
Author(s):  
Pamela M. Lee

This article considers the prospects of “facial politics” in the wake of CoVID-19. Recounted through the author's positionality as an Asian American feminist academic, the article describes her encounters in the university and the street, in the United States and China. Addressing gestures of face touching and the trope of the mask relative to its wearer, the essay draws on the work of Mel Y. Chen on the viral conjunction of race, animality, illness, and gender as inflected further by both historical and contemporary treatments of “Chineseness” and visibility. In so doing, the article reframes concepts of perfomativity and the face that are associated with Judith Butler, with the face becoming “the fallen site of discourse” under the conditions of a pandemic.


1994 ◽  
Vol 78 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1283-1286
Author(s):  
Vidyavathi Vara ◽  
I. W. Kelly

This study investigated the relationship between common problems reported and gender for 139 middle-school children (Grades 7, 8, and 9) in Saskatchewan. Students were asked to describe in writing “a problem that has bothered you during the previous month.” For boys, the order of reported problems in terms of frequency was parents, school, friends, and siblings. For girls, the order differed, with friend-related problems reported most often, then parents, siblings, and school-related problems reported least often. These findings are consistent with those found in the same age groups of middle-school children in the United States.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rian Mehta ◽  
Stephen Rice ◽  
Natasha Rao

The aim of this research is to determine passengers’ trust in air traffic controllers, based on the age and gender of the controller. The job of an air traffic controller is difficult in terms of the physical and mental stressors involved. The retirement age for controllers was instated in an effort to avoid issues relating to lack of capabilities. Decline in trust in an aging workforce has become a trend in certain areas. Similarly, gender inequality in the workplace and the sentiment that female employees are not as capable as males is an issue experienced the world over. 376 participants from India and the United States were asked to assess their level of trust in an air traffic controller during an emergency situation. The data suggested that the American participants trusted the older controller (55 years old) more than the younger counterparts (25 years old) regardless of gender. However, the Indian participants trusted the younger controllers more than the older counterparts as long as they were male. A mediation analysis found that affect mediated the relationship for the American participants but not for the Indians. This implies that the Americans were basing their trust on emotions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-81
Author(s):  
William D. Brice ◽  
Edward Chu ◽  
Anastasiya Brice

AbstractThis empirical study analyzes the cultural basis of the United States market response to imported Spanish products that seem to violate strongly-held cultural taboos. Survey responses were obtained from students in two contrasting majors, Art and Business, in two distinct cities and universities, i.e. Little Rock at the University of Arkansas, and Dominguez Hills at California State University. The study focused on a baby doll marketed to piggy-back on the new movement towards breastfeeding babies. Although accepted in its original European market, the United States media reports strong moral objections to this product among U. S. citizens. The toy was overwhelmingly rejected in some, but not all, population sub-groups. This study attempts to discern the cultural basis for product rejection by comparing responses between regions, college majors, genders and gender/major combinations. Differences in acceptance between groups are correlated with specific cultural constructs.


Horizons ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Connolly

The article presents an analysis of Newman's understanding of theology and its role in the Catholic University of Ireland. In explaining Newman's understanding of university theology, the article focuses on two elements of Newman's thought. The first is Newman's understanding of theology as a form of liberal knowledge. An application of the elements of liberal knowledge to theology reveals the main characteristics of Newman's understanding of university theology. The second is Newman's understanding of the relationship between the church and the university. Newman distinguishes between the mission of the Catholic Church and the mission of the Catholic university. The distinct mission of the university indicates that the objective of university theology is different from the teaching mission of the magisterium. In the final section, the article examines the significance of Newman's ideas for Catholic universities in the United States today.


2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa L. Beeble ◽  
Deborah Bybee ◽  
Cris M. Sullivan

While research has found that millions of children in the United States are exposed to their mothers being battered, and that many are themselves abused as well, little is known about the ways in which children are used by abusers to manipulate or harm their mothers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that perpetrators use children in a variety of ways to control and harm women; however, no studies to date have empirically examined the extent of this occurring. Therefore, the current study examined the extent to which survivors of abuse experienced this, as well as the conditions under which it occurred. Interviews were conducted with 156 women who had experienced recent intimate partner violence. Each of these women had at least one child between the ages of 5 and 12. Most women (88%) reported that their assailants had used their children against them in varying ways. Multiple variables were found to be related to this occurring, including the relationship between the assailant and the children, the extent of physical and emotional abuse used by the abuser against the woman, and the assailant's court-ordered visitation status. Findings point toward the complex situational conditions by which assailants use the children of their partners or ex-partners to continue the abuse, and the need for a great deal more research in this area.


Author(s):  
Steven Hurst

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.


1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Rodger

This article is the revised text of the first W A Wilson Memorial Lecture, given in the Playfair Library, Old College, in the University of Edinburgh, on 17 May 1995. It considers various visions of Scots law as a whole, arguing that it is now a system based as much upon case law and precedent as upon principle, and that its departure from the Civilian tradition in the nineteenth century was part of a general European trend. An additional factor shaping the attitudes of Scots lawyers from the later nineteenth century on was a tendency to see themselves as part of a larger Englishspeaking family of lawyers within the British Empire and the United States of America.


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