Suchergebnisse

This book examines the ways in which a minority of primarily white, male, French philanthropists used their social standing and talents to improve the lives of peoples of African descent in Saint-Domingue during the crucial period of the Haitian Revolution. They went to great lengths to advocate for the application of universal human rights through political activities, academic societies, religious charity, influence on public opinion, and fraternity in the armed services. The motives for their benevolence ran the gamut from genuine altruism to the selfish pursuit of prestige, which could, on occasion, lead to political or economic benefit from aiding blacks and people of color. This book offers a view that takes into account the efforts of all peoples who worked to end slavery and establish racial equality in Saint-Domingue and challenges simplistic notions of the Haitian Revolution, which lean too heavily on an assumed strict racial divide between black and white.

Identifying sources of variation has been used extensively in educational research as a tool to identify potential drives of variances in student achievement. However, prior research predominantly relied on findings from national- or international-level data, and thus their conclusions remain very broad-based. This study contributes new insight by assessing if and where there is variation in standardized testing performance for entire populations of cohorts of students in a single, large urban school district in the United States. Specifically, this study evaluates variance in Stanford Achievement Test Ninth Edition (SAT9) reading and math scores for all elementary school students in the School District of Philadelphia over four academic years and within three analytical levels of the educational experience—student, classroom, and school. To do so, this study employs three-level hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to determine how the overall variance in testing performance can be partitioned within classrooms, between classrooms, and between schools. The initial results indicate that the overwhelmingly largest contributor to total variance in achievement is within classrooms at the student level. However, incorporating a full span of covariates into a three-tiered model of student achievement explains the majority of the between classroom and between school variance, though only half of the within classroom variance. Implications are discussed.

AbstractObjectiveTop two primary systems have been touted to increase moderation in politics. In a top two primary, the two candidates with the most votes continue on to the general election even if they are from the same political party. Candidates no longer have to cater to the extremes of their party in order to make it through the primary, so the thought is that candidates would be encouraged to be moderate throughout the election cycle to attract the median voter.MethodsWashington State adopted a top two primary system in 2008, which allows us to look at empirical evidence about whether the top two primary actually encourages moderation in politics. We analyze voting records of elected officials before and after the adoption of the top two primary.ResultsWe find evidence that the top two primary correlates with moderation in the voting behavior of elected officials, ceteris paribus.ConclusionPolicymakers may want to consider the structure of primaries and how they could be changed to help encourage moderation in the voting of elected officials.