Susan F. Stager

A Reexamination of Body Build Stereotypes.

Abstract Using semantic differential and discriminant analysis techniques, the study sought to determine (a) the existence of body build stereotypes, (b) the extent of identification with these stereotypes, and (c) the effect of identification upon the childs self-evaluation. The subjects were 406 children in Grades four to eight from a midwestern community. All subjects were white and had predominantly middle-class backgrounds. Subjects completed the Piers-Harris Childrens Self Concept Scale, semantic differential ratings of the Global self-concept, and the body build concepts of “SKINNY GIRL,” “FAT GIRL,” “SKINNY BOY,” and “FAT BOY,” and the situationally specific self-concepts of “MYSELF IN THE CLASSROOM,” “MYSELF AT LUNCH/RECESS,” and “MYSELF WHEN LOOKING IN A MIRROR,” Measures of weight and height were obtained using a standard weighing scale and wall chart. Fat child and skinny child stereotypes were found to be invariant across age and sex groups and did not appear to be gender specific. Actual fatness was found to be generally related to identification with the body build stereotypes, but not strongly so. Low self-esteem was a concomitant of identification with the fat child stereotype. The majority of children identified with the average child in all settings.

Determinants of self-esteem among labeled adolescents.

Previous research has suggested that deviant social labeling does not always result in lowered self-esteem. In fact, the conditions under which self-esteem is lowered are not well understood. The current study investigated three hypothesized determinants of self-esteem in a sample of labeled deviant adolescents. The self-esteem of the deviant group was not significantly different from a sample of their normal peers. However, within the deviant group, subjects who believed that the societal view of their group was similar to tfie self, and who had a negative evaluation of the deviant label, had lower self-esteem. The findings suggest that low self-esteem is not inevitable among labeled deviants. However, when the individual sees his or her label as similar to the self and also has a negative evaluation of that label, self-esteem is more likely to be lowered.

Determinants of Self-Esteem Among Incarcerated Delinquents

The current study tested Rosenbergs (1979) hypothetical determinants of self-esteem among incarcerated delinquents. The results generally suipported his model in that self-esteem was lower for delinquents who accepted the personal relevance of the delinquent rolelidentity, for those who were aware of negative societal views of delinquents, andfor those who agreed with these negative views. However, the specific pattern of determinants varied for global as opposed to role-specific self-esteem. Greater centrality of the delinquent rolelidentity was also associated with lower self-esteem. These findings are consistent with a view of self-concept formation based on reflected appraisals, in that having a socially unacceptable rolelidentity that is relatively central to self-definition is also more damaging to self-esteem.

Externality, environment, and obesity in children.

On the assumption that external responsiveness and environmental characteristics jointly determine whether a child will achieve an excessive weight gain, perpetuating and maintaining obesity, probability hierarchy was hypothesized and tested. Ss of the study were 24 obese and 24 average-weight, white boys, mean age 9 years, 5 months. An auditory distraction task and Kagans Matching Familiar Figures Test were used to measure auditory and visual responsivity to external cues, respectively. Socioeconomic status was used as an indicator of the childhood environment. As predicted, the greatest percentages of obese children were observed in the lower-socioeconomic, external group, followed by the lower-socioeconomic, internal group and middle-socioeconomic, external group. The smallest percentage of obese children was observed in the middle-socioeconomic, internal group.

“Heads Up” for information technology policies: emerging policy issues for Universities and K-12

Universities and colleges have rapidly incorporated information technology into their communities for teaching, learning, administration, and service. They use technology for both the work and the play of the community. As faculty, staff and students use and develop these technologies behaviors occur that cause conflicts and confusions. A number of values and ethical issues have been identified. ‘With experience in the use of the technology has come the need for development of policies and guidelines to assist the (community. Discussion, debate, consensus building, and, ultimately, policies have been needed. Clarifying copyright issues in the use of software and images, examining the :processes of electronic mail monitoring and surveillance, and determining personal rights and responsibilities in (electronic communications are only a few of the issues that ‘have been tackled. While universities and colleges have been able to identify some of the issues they face in the new electronic environments, others arise daily as new technological capabilities are developed and as experimentation goes on. What are the new issues to be faced? Why are such issues as the use of Social Security number as a common identifier, and storage of digitized facial images, being identified as significant upcoming policy issues on some campuses? Can we share our experiences with each other in order to be better prepared for the future? K-12 organizations are now rushing to connect to the networks and to increase their use of information technology. As university and college people enthusiastically encourage this move, what responsibilities exist for preparing them to address the policy issues that will be important to their populations? How can insights and experiences be shared with K-12 leaders in order to assist them to be better prepared for the policy issues of the shadowy future? This panel, interacting with the audience, will reflect upon and identify the current and future information technology policy issues facing universities and colleges. It will then specify the known policy issues that K-12 populations should address prior to “hooking up”. With the audience, it will identify the three most significant ways in which K-12 organizations might prepare themselves to address the new policy issues that will surely arise within their communities. INTRODUCTION The panel members, each in a role of policy development and promulgation, represent three different Universities, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, and the University of Michigan, respectively. Each member has had different experiences in identifying the issues of most concern on their campus. Each has approached both the issues and the solutions in ways that were consistent with the values and beliefs of their particular community. There are commonalties, however, in their experiences, in their concerns for future policy work, and in the issues they identify as important to the K-12 populations. While the panel itself will present some of these concerns in abbreviated fashion, we expect that one of the major benefits of the panel will be the interaction with the audience and the expanded list of current and future policy Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its data appea~ and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery, to copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee ano70r specijic permission. I 01994ACM 0-89791-656-5/94/459940

Seeding, fertilizing, and growing faculty and classroom computing at IUB

3.50 Meet the Shadowy Future 21 issues that will be generated in that fomm. Additionally, this interaction between university information technology policy administrators and the audience will identify the key issues that we recommend K-12 leaders address before, or early in, their participation on the Information Highway. POLICY ISSUES FOR UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES Thus far in our experience, we have tended to see the policy issues that we have already faced in the college and university environment as topical. For example, we have struggled with how to deal with harassment over the campus network, how to interpret copyright law for intellectual property transmitted on the network, and how to deal with E-Mail surveillance. The new issues arising are also topical and seem specific in nature at first glance. We will need to address some of the following: Should we use and expand the use of Social Security numbers as common identifiers on our databases? Does permission to use a piece of personal information, such as a home address, continue to be valid when the scope of the access changes dramatically, such as from local access in a campus directory to international access? How can we use digital signatures and how secure will they be? Should facial images that are used on identification cards be digitally stored for future uses and if so, by whom, how, and for what uses with what level of permissions? As topical and specific as these issues seem at first glance however, there are categories into which they seem to fall-categories of rights and responsibilities— categories that reflect the institutional values and ethics. As we move forward to further integrate network and computer technology into our daily work at these institutions, we need to strive to identify a set of general principles that will provide guidance for members of the community. Such guidance is required in order to maintain appropriate consistency in response to the variety of issues that arise and to help define responses in areas where specific policies have not yet been generated. Principles have been and will continue to be needed in at least the following four major areas: Cku’ijJing the concepts ofprivate vs.public What is private electronic space and how do we recognize and maintain it? How do we communicate personal boundaries in electronic media? What resources within a university can be considered private or are all considered public? Are services like electronic mail, conferencing, and bulletin board systems public forums in which freedom of speech is protected or are they resources that are provided by the university for specific and limited purposes? Is there privacy in electronic communications, in E-Mail, in bulletin boards, in conferences, in news groups, in writings, in files, or are some or all of these clearly public? What will the institutional role be in helping people to maintain personal and private space, information, communications? Will the institutional need for efficiency in management and for access to information take precedence over individual personal privacy and ownership of information? Balancing the values of security vs. ease of use How tightly will institutions hold and manage their resources in order to maintain their integrity and security? What is an open community of sharing? Is such a community possible when security is so easily compromised? How does a community become informed about what are open and public information resources and what are restricted and sensitive, for privileged access only? How can we maximize and encourage information access while at the same time require the collection, storage and handling of sensitive and private information from individuals? Interpreting copyright and patent hzw-public vs. private ownership When the very substance of the laws, the nature, form, storage, and fixing of information and images, is fundamentally changing and at such a rapid pace, how shall we interpret the law? Who owns what, when documents and media are mixed? How do we ensure integrity when alteration of the documentlimage is so easily accomplished and without detection? How shall we implement policies when the law is so dramatically lagging behind technology-” cal developments? Balancing issues of social responsibility vs. experimentation and learning When do the rules of citizenship and responsible group behavior cause individual rights to be lessened? Is this a “new frontier” where cowboys and cowgirls can roam and behave at will or is it really a place of responsible learning and teaching? Does the individual’s right to privacy cause institutional rights to be lessened? When does the value that universities place on personal experimentation and learning outweigh the value it places on civility, and citizenship within a community? How do we define and handle such issues as virus and worm development, anonymous and pseudonymous communications, electronic stalking, monitoring and intrusions into individual work and social spaces and successfully balance these individual and group rights? We have seen that these issues are not new. Their solutions do not entail new ethics. We know that the issues are often more difilcult to sort out because they are intertwined with technology. They are human issues of conflict between individuals, between groups, and between individuals and institutions. They represent behaviors at different points of development in the management of impuises, in social understanding, and in maturation in general. Searching for general principles, creating conceptual understandings of the issues, and sharing solutions with each other will help us to become increasingly ethical communities while

What user services staff should ask about computer ethics

How does a university successfitlly plan and nurture individual computing eflorts on a large, diversified campus? It is important to encourage new and innovative uses of computing technology. It is important to ensure that computing grows in the strategic directions of the university. And, it is important that the central computing organization has the stafland expertise to support those who maintain the hardware and software acquired by departments. The dean of academic computing in the Office of lnformation Resources has taken a leadership role in the growth of computing at Indiana University. Two programs, the Departmental Computing Planning Program (DCPP) and the Student Technology Program (STP), were established to help University Computing Services (UCS) guide the development of distributed computing on the Bloomington campus. Since 1985, over six million dollars has been providedfrom the dean’s budget for DCPP, and a portion of thefitnds collectedfrom the student technology fees since 1988 about one million dollars has been awarded forfaculty and classroom computing equipment through a competitive proposal process. Over the years, participation in these programs has grown, and the nature of the projects recommended forfunding has been changing. The requests forfunding are usually about four times the amount of money available, regardless of the size of the funding pool. In this presentation we will of provide an overview of both programs and discuss: l Sources offitnding l Annual funding cycles l Expectation management l Proposals formats l Peer review committees l Impact of the programs Copies of the proposal form and other documents will be available.

Practical management of computer ethics: computer center and computer science department approaches

As technology use explodes on college and university campuses, the number of violations of the campus use policy increases. Immediately, systems administrators realize that the computer use document that took one year to write and two years to get approved by the campus, does not providle the answers to many important questions. The uncertainty that system administrators feel ultimately impacts the user service SW who must deal directly with faculty, stti, and students. One anecdote from a large public university will make this relationship between imprecise computer use policies, system administrators, and user services staff clear, Indiana University first drafted a computer use policy in the late 1980s. Eighteen months later the eight-campus system finally approved the policy. The policy makes no mention of computer games per se, yet during the past academic year a major use of resources at Indiana was the playing of computer games. Students were standing in long lines waiting to use public workstations to finish homework assignments, while many workstations were being used by game players. Faculty complained that they could not log into the central systems, at the same time user system administrators suspected that many logins were being used by game players. User services staff desperately needed an interpretation of the computer use policy regarding game playing, and the system administrators were at a loss. System administrators appealed to the central administration of the computing organization for an interpretation, and received an interpret~tion that only muddied the waters. Without a clear policy to communicate and enforce, user services stafl~ were viewed as inconsistent, unfair, and incompetent. The credibility of system administrators also stiered. The origin of the problem is the fact that computer use policies cannot address all issues in a rapidlly changing technology environment. Consequently, a significant amount of interpretation of computer use policies is necessary. What issues do existing computer policies address? Leslie Burkholder, Carnegie Mellon, has content analyzed computer use policies. Disciplinary action resulting from code violation 79% Respect for the property and privacy rights of other users of the system 71% Respect for software license agreements, copyright and patent laws, etc. 66% Encroaching on other users fair use of system resources 61% Harassing or annoying other users 58% Use of system or parts of it only for authorized purposes 58% Unauthorized lending accounts, user-ids, passwords 47% Degrading system performance 42% Use of system or parts of if only by …

Intergroup Contact and Social Outcomes for Mainstreamed EMR Adolescents.

For the average person, the “dark side” of the computing environment first came to light when a student terrorized systems across the nation and when a computer detective non-fiction book hit the New York Times bestseller list. Typically two university units, the department of computer science and the computer center, are involved in overseeing compliance with the “computer use” policy and policing the “dark side”. Because these two units represent two different computing cultures, in some instances different approaches are used in creating policy, in dealing with infractions, and in dealing with issues of academic freedom, security, confidentiality, access, censorship, waste of bandwidth, and other academic “badness”.