Vol 3 No 2 (2024)
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Building International Capacity for an Inclusive Special Education
Marion Felder , Mack D. Burke, Bernd Ahrbeck, January Basela, Staphord Chalamaganza, Alida Sebastian Kauki, Ignasia Mligo, Alphoncina Pembe, Katrin Schneiders, Gunvor Birkeland Wilhelmsen
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) plays a pivotal role in guiding the capacity building, systems change, and shaping inclusionary school reform initiatives for students with disabilities. This paper explores the impact, perspectives, and implications of using the CRPD framework across three countries—Germany, Tanzania, and the United States—each representing distinct educational systems and frameworks. Varied approaches to responding to the CRPD, inclusionary school reforms, and special education are examined at the local level within these nations, highlighting the unique challenges and issues encountered. The paper investigates critical issues surrounding inclusive education reform, with a particular emphasis on the debate over full inclusion and its implications for special education practices. By reviewing disability and inclusion issues in these diverse settings, this paper underscores the complexities of implementing inclusive special education policies that effectively include students with disabilities while considering sociocultural and national contexts.
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Psychoanalysis of Stereotype Accuracy and Inaccuracy: Commonsense Wisdom and Historical-Political Biases Toward Asians and Asian Americans
Yueh-Ting Lee , Wenting Chen, Yongping Zhao
Stereotypes are scientifically more complicate than people usually think politically. The EPA (Evaluation-Potential-Accuracy) cubic theory of stereotypes by Lee and colleagues (Lee, Jamnik & Chen, 2023; Lee, Vue, Seklecki & Ma,2007; Lee & Zhao, 2019) helps to address it in this paper. The authors first examine stereotypes as a common-sense wisdom in a daily interaction. Next, they analyze the degree to which the stereotypes of Asian Americans as foreigners or hi-tech slaves (rather than leaders) actually reflect social injustice and discrimination against Asian Americans, including the unfair immigration policy toward Asians and Asian Americans in the past, and the glass ceiling effect against Asian Americans in higher education, business, government settings or other arenas. Historically and statistically, most Asian Americans who did not come to the USA until after the Hart-Cellar Act was passed in 1965, are relatively new (or foreign) and speak English with an accent. While Asian Americans were better educated than other groups with regard to professional or other degrees from higher education, they were least likely to be put in leadership roles. Finally, it is concluded that in order to change negative and accurate-inaccurate stereotypes, we must get unfair social realities and structures changed, which also requires Asian Americans to get actively involved in this change process.
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Therapeutic Alliance and Treatment Outcomes Among Treatment Seekers with Behavioral Expressions of Addiction: A Preliminary Study
Ryan Hing-yan Wong, Elda Mei-Lo Chan, Fung Yee Ching, Vanice W.Y. Chan, Matthew A. Tom, Alessandra B. Grossman, Alexander S. LaRaja, Karen A. Amichia, Howard J. Shaffer
Therapeutic alliance (TA) refers to the quality of the working relationship between a therapist and client. Clinicians and researchers have long hypothesized that the TA is an instrumental aspect of psychotherapy (Martin et al., 2000; Del Re et al., 2012). Given the considerable overlap between behavioral and chemical expressions of addiction, and previous TA research with chemical addiction, it is important to consider how TA is associated with those seeking treatment for behavioral expressions of addiction. This study evaluates the impact of TA on addiction treatment outcomes among those seeking care at a treatment center designed to care for a variety of addiction expressions and other mental health disorders. We successfully recruited 346 treatment seekers (i.e., 72.1% of eligible treatment seekers) from the pool of treatment seekers at three clinical addiction service locations. This study advances the field and contributes novel findings by including a diverse group of addiction treatment-seekers. The results provide partial support for the following hypothesis: A more favorable TA from the client’s point of view at intake is associated with reductions of the addictive behavior despite negative consequences at termination. We suggest that clients need to develop, recognize, and maintain a strong TA with their treatment provider early in the treatment process, to maximize the effectiveness of such treatment.
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Breast Cancer and Family Support Scale: Validation of the Greek Version
D Charos
The family support scale (FS-12) was designed to assess family support patients with chronic diseases. The aim of this particular study was to validate the psychometric properties of the FS- 12 scale in the Greek language. The study involved 130 patients diagnosed with breast cancer. The FS-12 scale was translated and culturally weighted to be used in the Greek language. Analyzes performed were to check reliability, validity and convergent validity. The weighted FS-12 scale had a good Cronbach α index (α = 0.77) and strong split-half reliability index (Spearman-Brown= 0.729, Guttman Split Haft= 0.728). Factor analysis was performed using principal component factor analysis. Based on the results of the study, the FS12-GR scale is a valuable tool to assess the family support of the breast cancer patient.
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