Social Policy Commons^™

Introduction: Diving Into The Wreckage: Our Schools, Education Reform, And The Future Society, William Ayers

Occasional Paper Series

"In this special issue of the Bank Street Occasional Papers, we will dive into the wreckage, engage the fight, and hope to reclaim the ground of education in and for democracy." --Author.

Norway's Prison System: Investigating Recidivism And Reintegration, Meagan Denny

Bridges: A Journal of Student Research

Recidivism rates are high in most Western countries and, as prisons in these countries become overcrowded, the resources meant to enhance reintegration of inmates into society can be inadequate or nonexistent. On the other hand, Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates among Western nations, at approximately 20 percent. Norway also has, along with other Scandinavian countries, a unique approach to its prison system. This paper discusses the exceptionalism associated with Norway's prison system and explores the reasons behind its low recidivism rates, with a focus on the encouragement of reintegration of inmates into society. With the educational opportunities …

Assessment Of Impacts Of The Biomedical Careers Program – Just-A-Start Corporation Of Cambridge, Ma, Brandynn Holgate, Françoise Carré, Michael Mccormack, Wendel Mirbel

Center for Social Policy Publications

In 2015, Just-a-Start Corporation (JAS) of Cambridge, MA asked the UMass Boston Center for Social Policy to conduct an assessment of the impacts of the Biomedical Careers Program on the region and state, examining individual impacts for graduates as well as the economic contributions of program graduates to the biomedical industry.

The Biomedical Careers Program (hereafter “BioMed”) is described by JAS as an eight month program designed to enable local residents to complete “a Certificate in Biomedical Sciences to prepare them for entry level jobs at local biotechnology companies, universities, research institutions, clinical laboratories and hospitals. The program includes a …

Catching Up And Staying Out Of Trouble: Serious Juvenile Offenders’ Facility School Experiences And Their Transition To The Community, Lena Jäggi

Theses and Dissertations

Despite recent drops in rates, juvenile incarceration remains a serious issue in the United States (Hockenberry, 2013; Mendel, 2011). One shared part of the incarceration experience across different systems and facility types is the obligation for juvenile offenders to receive correctional education. Ample research demonstrates that increased academic achievement, attending community school, and being employed are connected to better community outcomes and desistance, yet little is known about how school experiences in the facility influences these outcomes. Applying life-course theory of the development of crime (Sampson & Laub, 1997, 2005), the present study investigates whether correctional education serves as a …

2016 New Hampshire Early Care And Education Market Rate Survey Final Report, Nh Department Of Health And Human Services

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

This final report provides selected findings of the current and eight previous New Hampshire Early Care and Education Market Rate Survey (MR#9) among licensed providers in the state of New Hampshire.

Teaching While Lesbian And Other Identities: Sexual Diversity, Race, And Institutionalized Practices Through An Autoethnographic Lens, Sondra S. Briggs

Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership Dissertations

The implicit acceptance among educators and in institutions of learning that discussions around LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) issues are off limits perpetuates the marginalization of these identities and those who inhabit them. In K-12 schools and college classrooms the prevailing silence sends disturbing messages about the treatment of adults and children when their sexual orientation fails to fit neatly into prescribed binary classifications. As one who has been silent as well as silenced, I understand this dichotomy from a unique perspective. Moreover, my lived membership within diverse cultural and racial groups that have been routinely marginalized through institutionalized practices …

Understanding The History Of Institutionalization: Making Connections To De-Institutionalization And The Olmstead Act For Persons With Intellectual Disabilities In The State Of Illinois, Nancy A. Cheeseman

Dissertations

What is the historical connection between deinstitutionalization and the Olmstead decision? The purpose of this study was to examine and analyze policy within a historical perspective the connections between institutional care, deinstitutionalization, the Olmstead decision, and the effect on persons with intellectual disabilities lived experience, in the state of Illinois.

The data collected include, the transcripts of interviews with four participants, artifacts from policy documents and historical papers accessed from the Disability Museum online journals. The creation of a table for use in coding themes as associated with 5 (out of 18) core concepts for disability policy.

The Olmstead decision …

Making The Invisible Challenges And Opportunities Visible, Maureen A. Scully, Lisa Deangelis, Katie Bates

Emerging Leaders Program Team Projects

The 41 fellows in the 2015 Emerging Leaders Program worked with community partners to generate the theme, “Making the Invisible Challenges and Opportunities Visible: Collaborative leadership for economic and social well-being."

The projects provide fellows an opportunity to practice elements of collaborative leadership in peer-led teams working with multiple stakeholders. The projects focus on civic engagement, building a leadership base for Greater Boston that is ready to tackle the big challenges that ensure the broader economic and social well-being of the region. The project sponsor with whom each team works is a nonprofit or governmental organization with big goals. Each …

Cross-Cultural Bridges : Closing The Gaps In Direct Services With Immigrant And Diverse Populations, Lucy Chen

Graduate Student Independent Studies

The shifting cultural, racial, ethnic, and linguistic makeup of the United States is expected to become more diverse in the coming decades. This has important implications for direct service professionals, including social workers and educators. An overview of culturally sensitive, responsive, and competent practices is provided for work with immigrant and diverse populations to assist professionals in the process of crossing cultural bridges, overcoming privilege, and building bridges.

2015 Massachusetts Family Impact Seminar, Emily M. Douglas Ph.D., Melinda Gushwa Ph.D., Licsw, Martha J. Henry Ph.D.

Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise

Mission Critical: Reforming Foster Care and Child Protective Services is the sixth Massachusetts Family Impact Seminar. It is designed to emphasize a family perspective in policymaking on issues related to reforming foster care and child protective services in the Commonwealth. In general, Family Impact Seminars analyze the consequences an issue, policy, or program may have for families.

No Ordinary Field Trip: A Conversation With John Lewis, Sam Brian

Progressive Education in Context

Eighth grade students from Bank Street School for Children meet Congressman John Lewis in Washington D. C.

The Role Of Occupational Therapy In Primary Care, Priti Patel

Occupational Therapy Doctorate Capstone Projects

The Capstone Project is focused on communicating, influencing and educating other health care professionals regarding the role of occupational therapy in the future model of primary care delivery initiated by the adoption of the Affordable Care Act and the Triple Aim Initiative. Currently, primary care, the largest health care platform in United States, is not inclusive of occupational therapy services. Occupational therapists have the scope, knowledge and understanding to be part of the redesigned team model of primary care. Educating those currently working in primary care about adding occupational therapy services can have a significant impact on the profession of …

Racism Vs. Social Capital: A Case Study Of Two Majority Black Communities, Bruce W. Strouble

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Several researchers have identified social capital as a means to improve the social sustainability of communities. While there have been many studies investigating the benefits of social capital in homogeneous White communities, few have examined it in Black homogeneous communities. Also, there has been limited research on the influence of racism on social capital in African American communities. In this dissertation a comparative case study was used within a critical race theory framework. The purpose was to explore the role of racial oppression in shaping social capital in majority African American communities. Data were collected from 2 majority Black communities …

Site Visitation: School Leaders' Perceptions Of A Diagnostic Tool For School Improvement, Mary Shannon C. Chiasson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This case study explored the use of site-visitation as a diagnostic tool for school improvement. Nine charter schools in New Orleans were selected for the study. Based on qualitative research and systems theory, a within- and cross-case analysis of nine semi-structured interviews with school leaders were conducted. The school leaders’ experiences with the state-run site-visitation model and their use of the findings for school improvement was explored. The findings led to the development of a hybrid accountability model that encompasses the components school leaders believe will lead to school improvement. This study aims to assist educators, policy makers, and researchers …

Thrive In 5 Boston Initiative, Center For Social Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Center for Social Policy (CSP) is the external evaluator for Thrive in 5 Boston. As part of the initiative, CSP is helping to identify, implement, and evaluate community interventions designed to increase the readiness of Boston children for success in school at kindergarten age.

Thrive in 5 is transforming Boston into a city that values and proactively nurtures young children’s school readiness, and envisions a city where families, educators, providers, business leaders and communities come together with the knowledge, skills, and resources to prepare children for success in school and beyond.

Word On The Street: Instilling A Relationship Between Art And Community, Joyce Peseroff

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The project “Word on the Street” will be integrated into ENGL 210: Introduction to Creative Writing. Beginning as a pilot in one course section in Spring 2014, the course will partner with the Black Seed Writers’ Workshop, a group of homeless writers supported by the Cathedral Church of St. Paul’s Wednesday Lunch Program. Professor Joyce Peseroff and Master of Fine Arts graduate student Teaching Assistants (TA) will participate in the Civic Engagement Scholars Initiative (CESI) to build capacity for course redesign, implementation, assessment, and scholarship.

The Campus Kitchen At Umass Boston Student-Powered Hunger Relief In Boston, Office Of Student Leadership And Community Engagement, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Walter Denney Youth Center, Housing Opportunities Unlimited, St. Peter's Teen Center, John Winthrop Elementary, Project Alerta, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Camp Shriver, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Inc., Sodexo

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Campus Kitchen at the University of Massachusetts Boston (CKUMB) is a part of The Campus Kitchens Project. (CKP), a national network of student volunteers, works to rescue excess food to create meals for those in need. CKUMB opened in 2010 to provide meals for the Dorchester community. By taking the initiative to run a community kitchen, students develop entrepreneurial and leadership skills, along with a commitment to serve their community, that they will carry with them into future careers.

Media Portrayal Of Individuals In The Lower Class And Its Effects On Attributions Of Educational Hardships, Krista A. Burke

Communication Studies

This study investigated how media portrayals of individuals in the lower class affect people’s beliefs about educational hardships in lower socioeconomic areas. Specifically, this study looked at the attributions of these hardships to determine if media consumption had an effect on the internality of attributions. It was hypothesized that increased media consumption would be related to an increased tendency toward internal attributions. It was hypothesized that increased media consumption would lead to lower support for policy changes regarding education. A survey was distributed to assess media consumption habits and attitudes toward educational hardships in the lower class. Correlation results yielded …

Rapid Change Without Transformation: The Dominance Of A National Policy Paradigm Over International Influences On Ecec Development In Ireland 1995-2012, Noirin Hayes, Bernie O'Donoghue Hynes, Toby Wolfe

Articles

The rapidity of change in Irish early childhood policy over the last 20 years is clear to observers (OECD 2004). What may be debated is how significant the changes are. In this paper, we analyse changes in early childhood education and care policy in Ireland since 1995, using Hall’s (1993) typology of policy change to help understand how policies and institutions could change so much in appearance without changing their fundamental features or underlying philosophy. We demonstrate that, despite extensive change, a traditional policy paradigm has held constant, where the State’s role in direct service delivery remains limited, the State …

Beacon Voyages For Service: 2013 Alternative Spring Break Trip To The Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, Sherrod Williams

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

This March, fourteen UMass Boston students traveled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to address the pressing issues of poverty faced by the Oglala Lakota people by assisting in construction efforts such as repairing stairwells, building children’s bunk beds, and installing protective skirting around mobile homes to help increase the overall quality of life on the reservation. In conjunction with the service work, special attention was placed on fostering relationships and participating in a cultural exchange with the Oglala Lakota community that has created awareness about the tribulations faced by the United States of America’s most disadvantaged …

Sam Gen Ms 01 Jean Byers Sampson Papers Finding Aid, John D. Knowlton, Susannah Clark

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Jean Byers Sampson was a 1944 graduate of Smith College. Early in her post-Smith career, she conducted and wrote the 1947, “A Study of the Negro in Military Service,” which contributed to President Harry Truman’s decision to desegregate the armed forces. Sampson moved to Maine in the early 1950s with her husband, Richard Sampson, a Bates College mathematics professor, and she played a unique and critical role in the state until her death in 1996. Over the course of her life in Maine, she served as the founder of the first chapter of the NAACP in Maine, local and …

2013 Massachusetts Family Impact Seminar: Youth At Risk, Part 2, Denise A. Hines, Fern L. Johnson, Donna Haig Friedman, Deborah A. Frank

Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise

The youth of Massachusetts are of primary concern to legislators and citizens. This briefing report features three essays by experts — Fern Johnson, Deborah Frank, and Donna Haig Friedman — who focus on three aspects of children in need: children in foster care who need adoption, children who are hungry, and children who are homeless. Each report has further and more detailed suggestions for helping these children in need; below is a summary of the problems we face.

Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

People around the globe have embraced democracy to bring about positive social change to address our environmental, economic, and militaristic challenges. Yet, there is no agreement on a definition of democracy that can guide social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model is a unifying theory of democracy to guide healthy, sustainable, and just social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model consists of ten elements, organized as five polarity pairs: freedom & authority, justice & due process, diversity & equality, human-rights & communal-obligations, and participation & representation. In this model each element has positive aspects and negative aspects and …

Breakfast And Lunch Participation In Massachusetts Schools, Center For Social Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Massachusetts Budget And Policy Center, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Eos Foundation

Center for Social Policy Publications

The Center for Social Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston (CSP), the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MassBudget), and the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI), with support from the Eos Foundation, established a research team to examine school food and related programs in Massachusetts.

While the team developed an overview of all federally funded food programs in Massachusetts, the focus of our work was on school meal programs and several aspects of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP). The full project is composed of several individual pieces of research and analysis, most of which were primarily undertaken by one …

"The Need For Nature: Exploring Youth Leadership Development Through Outdoor Activities", Margaret A. Dudley

Capstone Collection

Youth are increasingly spending more time indoors. A young person spends hours in front of different screens, tuned out to their natural surroundings. When numerous studies have linked spending time outdoors to physical, mental, and emotional health, this increase in indoor time is disturbing. Youth living in apartment complexes in the Western Suburbs of Minneapolis do not have a lot of natural outdoor space close to their homes or transportation to parks, to enrich creativity and promote independence. This paper explores what has been called, the nature-deficit disorder, among youth today, and how one organization, the CONECT (Community Organizations Networking …

Pathways To Family Success Final Evaluation Report, Berna Kahraman, Ghazal Zulfiqar, Donna H. Friedman, Alice Carter

Center for Social Policy Publications

This report presents findings from the second year of the evaluation of the Pathways to Family Success Programs (PFS) funded by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) and conducted by the Center for Social Policy (CSP) for the period September 2010 through June 2011. The 2010-2011 evaluation aimed to determine the extent to which PFS activities and interventions were effective in supporting learning outcomes and goal attainment for participating families and their children, and to identify strengths and areas of growth for the PFS Programs and partners. There were four Program sites implementing the PFS indepth project during …

Working With Parents In Early Years Services, Anne Fitzpatrick

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Challenges Facing The Egyptian Education System: Access, Quality, And Inequality [Arabic], Caroline Krafft

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This brief analyzes and summarizes young people's responses to the 2009 Survey of Young People in Egypt (SYPE) to identify the greatest challenges facing the Egyptian educational system, focusing specifically on primary through secondary schooling. Results show that access to school has improved, but some youth, especially females in rural Upper Egypt, remain outside the school system and are increasingly marginalized. The Egyptian school system is delivering low-quality education that is irrelevant to the labor market and has problems with repetition, absenteeism, and drop out which reduce the efficiency of the education system. Unequal distribution of resources in the education …

Is Early Childhood Care And Education A Good Investment For Egypt? Estimates Of Educational Impacts, Costs, And Benefits [Arabic], Caroline Krafft

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This summary details the impact of early childhood education in Egypt. The results show that early childhood care and education has an impact on educational attainment that is both statistically significant and sizeable. Such interventions increase overall educational attainment by approximately one year, primarily due to decreased primary and preparatory drop out. The impact on educational attainment is reflected in improved school performance, such as higher test scores, decreased grade repetition, and improvements in school tracking, during the early years. Investments in early childhood education can be a powerful approach to improving educational outcomes, and the research suggests that increases …

Who Benefits From Early Childcare Subsidy Design In Ireland?, Bernie O'Donoghue Hynes, Noirin Hayes

Articles

Best Newcomer Article

The design of policy tools reveals underlying biases that are not easily identified in policy documents. A review of two early childhood education and care subsidies in Ireland aimed at different target populations exposes differential treatment of children, parents and service providers. It also demonstrates how in a split system ‘early education’ is prioritised over ‘childcare’. The designs serve to reinforce stereotypes that enable the powerful and advantaged to accrue benefits while those perceived to be less deserving are burdened through the maldistribution of resources.