Mainstream Issue Research Articles

Ethnic Agenda: Relevance of Political Attitudes to Party Choice

This article deals with the controversial ethnic agenda debate, over whether or not visible ethnic minorities in Britain share a common and distinct set of political attitudes. It uses the 1997 British General Election Study, which included an ethnic booster sample, to test four main hypotheses generated by the literature on the ethnic agenda: relative proximity of ethnic minorities’ political orientations to the Labour Party, dominance of ethnic‐specific issues within the ethnic political agenda, the irrelevance of some mainstream issues to ethnic minorities, and cultural proximity of South Asians in Britain to the Conservative Party. The effect of the mainstream and ethnic issues and cultural traditionalism on party identification is then examined. The results confirmed that whereas ethnic issues are supported consistently by ethnic minorities, they matter less when choosing a political party than mainstream issues, except for some of the non‐relevant popular issues. On most economic issues minorities were closer to Labour than to Conservatives. The hypothesis on the cultural proximity of South Asians to Conservatives was to a great extent confirmed.

Overview: Coiled-Tubing Applications (June 2005)

Having been involved in coiled-tubing (CT) technology for many more years than I care to admit, it is interesting to see how much has changed during the last quarter century. Improvements in CT manufacturing, materials, equipment design, and computerized monitoring, as well as a better understanding of CT mechanics, set the stage for rapid growth and acceptance of CT as a viable and versatile oilfield tool. I firmly believe that, following this initial technology surge, the advent of various knowledge-/experience-sharing conferences and joint-industry projects, focused solely on CT technology and needs, have accelerated this CT “revolution.” The first technology-transfer gatherings I recall attending were the HydraRig-sponsored forums beginning in 1989 through the World Oil CT conferences beginning in 1993. There also were several other public and intercompany events offering forums for CT pundits during the 1990s. In 1996, recognizing the need to share ideas on a larger scale, the Intl. Coiled Tubing Assn. (ICoTA) introduced its roundtable conferences. ICoTA soon teamed with SPE to bring us what is now considered the premier CT technology-transfer forum. This year, estimated attendance at the 2005 SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing Conference and Exhibition was 880—up 100 from last year—not including an additional 57 Texas A&M U. students we “graying” technologists were happy to welcome. As I was reviewing papers from recent SPE and SPE/ICoTA conferences for this month’s feature on CT technology, it became apparent to me just how much the focus of the CT conference papers has changed. It seems to me that most early-conference papers centered around CT mechanics—on why CT behaves the way it does and predicting when it will break—and around successful CT jobs for any number of applications. Recent offerings focus more on mainstream issues and what I call CT exploitation. - Reducing the cost and extending the market for CT drilling services. - Improving operational and safety efficiency. - Discussing successful CT programs. - Delivering solutions to complex problems in areas lacking economically viable alternatives. And, of course, there still are the ubiquitous novel and unique thought-provoking sub-jects the innovative CT community is known for. Additional Coiled-Tubing Applications Technical Papers Available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org SPE 92513 Underbalanced Coiled-Tubing Drilling: Update on a Successful Campaign SPE 94058 Some New Developments Applicable to Coiled Tubulars SPE 94159 World’s First Utilization of Coiled Tubing to Dissolve Hydrate(s) in an FPSO Riser: Case History SPE 94102 An Effective Sweep-Cleaning of Large Deviated Wellbores Using Small Coiled-Tubing Systems SPE 90558 Effect of Coiled-Tubing Curvature on Friction-Pressure Loss of Newtonian and Non-Newtonian Fluids—Experimental and Simulation Study

BBC Radio 4 and the experiential dimension of disability

In April 1998, BBC Radio 4’s programmes were rescheduled and a commitment was given that disability would become a mainstream issue for the network. Does He Take Sugar?, the network’s weekly programme which presented in‐depth treatment of disability issues was dropped. You and Yours, Radio 4’s weekday consumerist programme, was given the remit to include disability‐related coverage in its content. While mainstreaming yielded the possibility of increased coverage, the accompanying risk was that insightful treatment of disability would be lost. However, findings from an analysis of the series No Triumph, No Tragedy demonstrate that, post mainstreaming, meaningful exploration of disability continued on Radio 4. Crucial to this, it is argued, is the fact that the series was conducted by a disabled presenter.

Improving Cancer Awareness among Asian Americans Using Targeted and Culturally Appropriate Media: A Case Study

Reaching Asian Americans with cancer awareness messages is critical to improving cancer detection and reducing risk. Two separate targeted media campaigns, sponsored by the Asian Tobacco Education, Cancer Awareness, and Research (ATECAR), were implemented to increase cancer awareness among Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and Cambodians residing in Philadelphia and the surrounding counties. These campaigns, based on Rogers’s diffusion and innovation theoretical model, were culturally sensitive, multilingual, and implemented over an extended time frame using print articles and a radio series under the respective general headings ATECAR Link and Voice of ATECAR. The series covered a range of topics that included tobacco smoking and health, cervical and breast cancer, clinical trials, and cancer information. Despite a reputation for noninvolvement in mainstream cancerrelated media issues, results of the campaigns reflected an exceptional response from the targeted communities. The results suggest that wellplanned, community-based media campaigns can have positive impacts on cancer awareness in Asian communities.

Does ethical theory have a future in bioethics?

Although there has long been a successful and stable marriage between philosophical ethical theory and bioethics, the marriage has become shaky as bioethics has become a more interdisciplinary and practical field. A practical price is paid for theoretical generality in philosophy. It is often unclear whether and, if so, how theory is to be brought to bear on dilemmatic problems, public policy, moral controversies, and moral conflict. Three clearly philosophical problems are used to see how philosophers are doing in handling practical problems: Cultural Relativity, and Moral Universality, Moral Justification, and Conceptual Analysis. In each case it is argued that philosophers need to develop theories and methods more closely attuned to practice. The work of philosophers such as Ruth Macklin, Norman Daniels, and Gerald Dworkin is examined. In the writings of each there is major methological gap between philosophical theory (or method) and practical conclusions. The future of philosophical ethics in interdisciplinary bioethics may turn on whether such gaps can be closed. If not, bioethics may justifiably conclude that philosophy is of little value.

Feminism, Politics, Theories and Science

Are women's movement and feminist theories still connected to radical politics and the interest in changing social inequalities, when feminism has been `institutionalized', for instance in the academia, and has become a mainstreaming issue in social policies? This main question was put to eminent feminist scholars, with the aim of investigating the renewed critical role of international feminism and women's/gender studies in society, science, information, education and research. A reconstruction of the main changes which have occurred to women's movements and feminist theories in the last decades were the core of the interview, stressing differences and disagreement, also in relation to the new sociopolitical claims, supported by younger generations. The conclusion was that feminism has not lost its historical political mission, even though the world scenario and ideologies have dramatically changed. Indeed, feminism has become transcultural and `glocal', facing new socioeconomic inequities induced by globalization both in western societies and countries in development, confronting with the transformation of collective/gender identities and questioning the increasing importance of (bio)technologies.

Improving access and quality for ethnic minority women— panel discussion

precede the care. In community clinics, the formula we use is 80% education and nurturing, 20% medical care. If you don’t do the education and nurturing and provide the love and affirmation for the patients, the medical care isn’t going to do what you’re hoping it’s going to do. We asked UCLA to do a study of our prenatal program to isolate the reasons our patients have so few low-birth weight babies. There wasn’t any magic formula. The people who were seeing the patients wanted to see them, cared about them, and gave individual attention to their individual needs. We don’t have fancy offices or fancy equipment, but each individual’s problems are identified and effectively addressed. It sounds like a simple formula, but it’s actually very hard to deliver for people who are poor, who are minority, or who speak another language. That’s the challenge that we face, but it’s really a labor of love. We have a great time doing it. Our approach seems to affirm the importance of the communities we serve, as well as the individual patients. The problems of racial and ethnic discrimination may be solved at least in part through this kind of local community delivery, and contribution from the ground level to policy discussions on quality care and health care access.

Bringing Adjunct Engineering Faculty into the Learning Community

AbstractAdjunct faculty can offer enrichment to an engineering program by bringing practical experience and by introducing relevant industrial applications and problems to the classroom. The industrial perspective of adjunct faculty often manifests itself through an emphasis on communication and presentation skills, and concern for customer needs. Students observing these attributes come away with a better appreciation for the demands of the engineering workplace. Adjunct faculty members can also provide important linkages for developing industrial affiliate programs, co‐op activities, and employment opportunities for graduates.Nevertheless, the position of adjunct faculty is tenuous, subject to shifting enrollments, negative student perception, and limited connectivity with the mainstream issues of the academic department. Adjunct faculty who teach in engineering programs will almost always come with excellent technical credentials, but they will have little or no teacher training or knowledge of learning principles and cognitive psychology. With limited time on campus, adjunct faculty have little opportunity to improve their teaching skills and methods, resulting in a “sink or swim” environment. At the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), we have evolved a regimen of strategies to ensure the quality of the educational program and to support the teaching effectiveness and professional commitment of adjunct faculty. These strategies have improved student and faculty satisfaction with adjunct faculty, and indeed have improved adjunct faculty self‐satisfaction. These strategies are described in the current paper.

Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Education: a mainstream issue?

This paper argues that issues related to cultural and linguistic diversity have remained at the margins of educational reform efforts in many countries. This marginalisation is interpreted as a reflection of persistent patterns of coercive relations of power in the wider society. A framework is presented for analysing the educational attainment of culturally and linguistically diverse pupils that highlights the ways in which societal power relations influence the negotiation of identity between educators and students. Within the context of this framework, in societies characterised by unequal power relations among groups, pedagogy is never neutral; in varying degrees, the interactions between educators and pupils always either reinforce coercive relations of power or promote collaborative relations of power. Educational reform efforts that ignore the intersections of power and pedagogy inevitably will tend to reinforce coercive relations of power.

Bilingual Minorities and Language Issues in Writing

This article takes the position that teaching writing effectively to diverse students of non-English background will require an examination of existing views about the nature of writing and a critical evaluation of the profession's ability to work with bilingual individuals of different types. In order to explain this view, the article is divided into three parts. Part 1 describes the nature of bilingualism, identifies the population of students who can be classified as American bilingual minorities, and suggests that existing compartmentalization within the composition profession cannot address the needs of this particular population. Part 2 of the article reviews trends in current scholarship in second-language writing and points out that most of this research has focused on ESL students rather than on fluent/functional bilinguals. Finally, Part 3 lists and discusses a number of research directions in which the involvement and participation of mainstream scholars would be most valuable. In presenting an outline of questions and issues fundamental to developing effective pedagogical approaches for teaching writing to bilingual minority students, this final section argues that involvement in research on non-English-background populations of researchers who generally concentrate on mainstream issues would do much to break down the compartmentalization now existing within the English composition profession. It further argues that by using bilingual individuals to study questions of major theoretical interest, the profession will strengthen the explanatory power of existing theories about the process and practice of writing in general.

Land Use Law and the Environment

The emergence of the environment as a mainstream political issue in Britain during the 1980s cannot be understood without an appreciation of the role of the land-use planning system. This system best seen as the constantly evolving web of law, policy and convention which regulates and orders a range of land uses in the United Kingdom1 has been a powerful influence on the distinctive form in which environmental issues have emerged in a British context. This has been so not simply because of the regulatory constraints the system has provided, but also because of the 'cultural' framing created by the discourse and idioms of town and country planning law. These have helped shape certain of the forms in which environmental tensions have been conceptualized and have found public expression. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to throw light on how, in recent years, land use planning law and its institutional forms have been exploited as an arena, in the process helping to frame and shape elements of a distinctively British environmental agenda. Underlying this approach is the author's belief that in particular national cultures, environmental issues and, more generally, political agendas about the environment are not simply 'givens' to be found existing objectively in nature as, so to speak, a set of instantly recognisable physical issues. To be sure, they tend to be manifested in particular physical problems, but the issue of which issues emerge as environmentally significant in particular cultural contexts, why, and in what forms, is not explicable only in terms of objective physical observation. Rather, such questions are social and cultural. Indeed, notions of 'the environment' in particular contexts have been social constructions, the products of frequently turbulent processes of social 'negotiation' in complex cultural settings, rather than self-evident sets of unproblematically identified physical problems for which 'solutions' must then be sought.2 Legal commentaries on the relationship between law and the environment3 tend to take the range and nature of environmental problems as self-evident or given. The key questions then become whether, given these 'problems', legal

The instructional patterns of two fourth-grade spelling classes: a mainstreaming issue.

Two fourth-grade spelling classes, one for hearing-impaired students and one general education class being considered as a mainstream placement, were investigated to determine similarities and differences in the interactional behaviors of the students and teachers. Video recordings and written transcriptions were analyzed to obtain measures of both verbal and nonverbal interactions. Interactional behaviors in the two settings were found to be very different. Differences were found across physical, instructional, and social contexts. Interactions in the general education class were characterized by rapid conversational shifts and complex academic task structures, as well as complex language usage. Interactions in the hearing-impaired class were characterized by routinized academic tasks and simple language structures.

Special education students in regular classes: what happened to the pyramid?

This study investigated school districts which made high use (HU) and those which made low use (LU) of a placement option in which special education students are fully assigned to regular classrooms. In Massachusetts the proportions of these students in respect to other special education students do not fit the base of the cascade "pyramid" which is usually envisioned as a paradigm for placement of students in the least restrictive environment commensurate with their special needs. Special education administrators, special education teachers, regular teachers, and principals responded to questionnaires designed to elicit their beliefs about issues surrounding mainstreaming and the placement of special education students. HU special education administrators were generally more positive than LU special education administrators about mainstreaming and placement issues. HU teachers were more positive than LU teachers on a number of issues, and principals as a group were dramatically more positive than teachers on almost every issue. Principals and regular teachers in the HU districts had received significantly greater amounts of inservice training than had principals and regular teachers in the LU districts. The influence of special education administrators on mainstreaming beliefs is discussed and an explanation is offered for the differences between principals and teachers.

The future of the Falkland Islands: a solution made in Hong Kong?

During 1980 and 1981 the Anglo-Argentine dispute over the Falkland Islands attracted relatively little interest either in Britain or in the wider international community, and at the time it seemed easy to dismiss the topic as a trivial imperial postscript. Lord Carrington, British Foreign Secretary to April 1982, is alleged to have admitted that it rated number 242 on the Foreign Office's list of priorities.1 At the United Nations the Falklands question was far from being a mainstream issue and Sir Anthony Parsons, the British represettative at the time of the 1982 war, has confirmed that prior to 1982 the islands were perceived from the UN as 'very peripheral' in both the political and geographical senses.2 Only in Argentina was the matter treated as significant. However, the Falklands war transformed this situation, and the phrase 'the Falklands factor' was coined to refer to such changes, which included a surge of interest in the origins, nature and development of the dispute and an enhanced British commitment to the islands, reflected in successive ministerial statements and epitomized by Mrs Thatcher's visit to the Falklands in January 1983. Previously deemed unworthy of significant expenditure on account of their continuing economic and demographic decline,3 the islands had rated no visitor more important than a junior Foreign Office minister. In such circumstances their sovereignty had been treated as a subject for Anglo-Argentine negotiations. But the 1982 war changed all that, and in January 1983 Mrs Thatcher informed the islanders that she was 'converted' as regarded their position vis a' vis Britain. This was a point reaffirmed on several subsequent occasions, including her 1984 Christmas broadcast in which she asserted that 'I am not negotiating the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands with anyone, they are British'.4

Contributions of Research to the Teaching of Art

Part of the responsibility of researchers in art education is the address of mainstream issues relevant to the practice of art education. Three basic questions about the role of learning in responding to and making art, and the effects of the educational environment on art learning, are discussed in light of results of selected research studies. Research is shown to be capable of contributing to the resolution of these questions in six different ways.

The Real Issue of Mainstreaming: The Education of the Non-handicapped

The Real Issue of Mainstreaming: The Education of the Non-handicapped