Sexual Violence and Nonconsensual Experiences Among Alt-Sex Communities’ Members

Background As behaviors, alternative sexual (alt-sex) (i.e., kink, bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, and masochism , consensual non-monogamy, swinging, leather, and fetish practices) practitioners often emphasize that consent and boundaries are key elements of alt-sex activities. Despite these emphases, individuals experience consent violations and sexual assault both prior to engaging and during their involvement in alt-sex activities. Purpose This study examines alt-sex practitioners’ sexual assault and nonconsensual experiences in order to highlight potential means of intervention and prevention, as well as inform clinical and legal professionals. Methods In collaboration with the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, this study uses an international survey of adults in alt-sex communities ( N = 2996) to examine sexual assault and nonconsensual experiences both within and outside of alt-sex contexts. Results We found a lower rate of consent violations in the alt-sex community (26%) compared to sexual assault as an adult outside of alt-sex contexts (34%) and sexual assault as a minor (40%). We found significant differences by groups in sexual assault as a minor (gender, sexual orientation, age, and live in the US or not), sexual assault outside of alt-sex contexts (gender, sexual orientation, and age), nonconsensual experiences in alt-sex contexts (gender, sexual orientation, age, and race), receiving nonconsensual touch in alt-sex contexts (gender, sexual orientation, and age), giving nonconsensual touch in alt-sex contexts (sexual orientation, age, living in the US or not, and race), and being falsely accused of nonconsensual touching in alt-sex contexts (gender, age, and living in the US or not). Within the most recent consent violation, the most common behaviors were non-kink related, except for lack of aftercare. Nearly 40% of participants reported the reasons for their most recent consent violation in alt-sex contexts were being selfish or caught up in the moment. Implications Focused interventions are needed to address how different populations are experiencing assault and violations in alt-sex contexts.

Leveraging Political Resources: Applying the Advocacy Coalition Framework to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

As politics becomes increasingly polarized, the value of collective political action becomes more visible and overt. Nonprofit organizations act collectively in pursuit of their policy goals in nearly all aspects of public policy. Understanding how nonprofits borne of social movements engage politically expands our insight into advocacy coalition behavior following seemingly effective social movements. The coalition’s leveraging of political resources provides us this insight. This study assesses the policy activities produced or maintained within a U.S. national domestic violence advocacy coalition over its lifetime to determine how and when resources were leveraged. A directed content analysis is conducted on historical data to capture the evolution of coalition activities over a 41-year period. The coalition’s emphasis on policy change waned over time as it achieved its policy goals. The coalition then leaned on its largest resources, mobilizable troops, and information to increasingly emphasize policy implementation and evaluation. These findings indicate that when in the policy process coalitions leverage their political resources may be more important than how coalitions leverage resources. Framing nonprofit political activity across the stages of the policy process can open doors to better use of scarce political resources.

Teaching the Core Arts Standards in Modern Band

The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards released standards for music education in 2014. These standards are guided by artistic processes and measured by performance standards specific to content areas and grade levels. As school districts in the United States adopt the Core Arts Standards for their music programs, it is imperative that modern band teachers demonstrate how their curriculum aligns with this new framework. Modern band is one approach to popular music education that is particularly well suited to address this new framework; the emphases of songwriting, improvising, critical listening, and group work in a learner-centered modern band class/ensemble are associated with a wide variety of standards. This article explores connections between popular music pedagogies and each of the processes in the Core Arts Standards and examines which standards may be most appropriate for modern band contexts.

The Content and Enlightenment of the National Core Arts Standards of the United States

In 2014, the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards published the revised National Core Arts Standards. It was jointly drawn up by five writing teams of music, media arts, dance, theatre and visual arts. This paper will focus on the content and the structure of the Standards in order to provide a broad international perspective and inspire front-line teachers.

University Governance, Radicalism and the Market Economy: Where power gave way to economics and possibility to the corporate university

This article explores student and staff perspectives on the changes to university governance in a South Australian university. From radicalism, representation and possibility, through the rapid marketisation of the 1980s and to the distillation of accelerated global capitalism into the managerial veins of university institutions. Using the Flinders University Act a parliamentary tool to incorporate a University as a parallel for the rapid pace of changes made to universities in the country, resulting from Dawkins reforms and more recent Liberal/National Coalition changes to the structure and make up of Australian Higher Education. The article posits that pathways to enabling authentic student, and staff, positions in governance at the highest levels may be a new answer to disconnected student/staff bodies, and a partnering of universities with their communities in a meaningful and authentic way, to work counter capitalism for a united future.

Canberra sets China policy as it balances interests

Significance Chinese trade restrictions and deteriorating diplomatic relations are increasing public perceptions of Beijing as a security threat, yet mineral exports to China remain a mainstay of the Australian economy, particularly for some state-level governments. With an election looming, this leaves Prime Minister Scott Morrison engaged in a difficult balancing act. Impacts Beijing’s trade restrictions will see more economic sectors urging Canberra to diversify the country’s trade partners. Efforts to find new coal markets could set Canberra at odds with other Western governments ahead of COP26. The governing Liberal-National coalition and the opposition will share a harder line on China ahead of the upcoming election.

Democratizing the Party: The Effects of Primary Election Reforms in Ghana

The recent expansion of the primary electorate by one of Ghana's major parties offers a rare opportunity to assess the effects of franchise extensions in contemporary new democracies. Using an original dataset on candidate entry and nominations, this article shows that expanding the primary electorate opened paths to office for politicians from social groups that were previously excluded, such as women and ethnic groups outside the party's core national coalition. The authors propose that democratizing candidate selection has two consequences in patronage-oriented political systems: vote buying will become a less effective strategy and the electorate will become more diverse. These changes, in turn, affect the types of politicians who seek and win legislative nominations. This suggests that a simple shift in who votes in intraparty primaries can be a key institutional mechanism for improving the descriptive representation of women and other under-represented groups.

Are patient portals being used to support palliative and end-of-life care?: A scoping review (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Although patient portals are widely used for health promotion, little is known about use of palliative care and end-of-life (PCEOL) portal tools available for patients and caregivers. OBJECTIVE To identify and assess user perspectives of PCEOL portal tools available to patients and caregivers described and evaluated in the literature. METHODS A scoping review of the academic literature directed by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR). We searched three databases. Sources were included if they reported the development or testing of a feature, resource, tool, or intervention, focused on at least one PCEOL domain defined by the National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care, targeted adults with serious illness and/or caregivers, and were offered via patient portal tethered to an electronic medical record. Authors independently screened titles and abstracts (N=796) for eligibility. Full texts (N=84) sources were reviewed. Descriptions of the portal tool name, content, targeted population, and reported user acceptability for each tool were abstracted from included sources (N=19). RESULTS Nineteen articles describing 12 tools were included, addressing the following PCEOL domains: ethical/legal (N=5), physical (N=5), and psychological/psychiatric (N=2). No tools for bereavement or hospice were identified. Studies reported high acceptability of tools among users; however, few sources commented on usability among older adults. CONCLUSIONS PCEOL patient portal tools are understudied. As medical care increasingly moves towards virtual platforms, future research should investigate the usability and acceptability of PCEOL patient portals resources and evaluate their impact on health outcomes.

Ład instytucjonalny a bezpieczeństwo narodowe w podzielonej Europie

In this article, we develop an analytical framework drawing upon Acemoglu’s and Robinson’s theory that links developmental potential of the state to its political and economic institutions (inclusive and extractive), and that of Etel Solingen’s relating type of governing coalitions to foreign policy strategies and regional politics. States that adopted inclusive institutions tend to be governed by internationalist coalitions and their external interactions are based on cooperation, whereas those with extractive institutions tend to pursue adversarial regional strategies. Using the developed analytical framework, the article addresses the following three questions:(1) How has the choice of a strategy for dismantling state socialism shaped the transition towards market-based democracy?(2) What impact did choices made have upon patterns of intra-European relations in terms of cooperation and confrontation?(3) What factors may explain differences in respective trajectories and external strategies?The post-communist systemic transformation took place in an international environment favouring cooperation with the elites of the former Soviet bloc in introducing institutional changes. Western friendly policies and assistance helped internationalist coalitions maintain power but had no impact on the transition from the statist-nationalist-confessional coalition, even when it was weak. Despite initial attempts and strong encouragement from international community, Russia failed to establish inclusive political and economic institutions. The prevalence of the statist-national coalition adversely affected transition processes in its immediate vicinity – primarily in the former ‘Slavic republics’, such as Ukraine and Belarus.