Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the process of applying formulas in particle motion problems, students often forget the power of how these formulas are connected. By exploring the concept of average velocity via both a position function's secant line slope on an interval and the average value of it's corresponding velocity function on that interval, students can come to a better appreciation of the power of the FTC.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: I model representatives' voting behavior as a weighted average of constituency and party positions. These weights can then be used to investigate hypotheses about the components of member behavior, its causes, and its consequences.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In December 2007, a commencement speaker cited a figure that drew gasps from the audience: "The average age of a homeless person is nine." Surprised, I looked into the claim, which turned out to be untrue. That said, this seemed like a great class example for an Introductory Statistics course; ask the students to research the number, discuss their discovered answer, then examine how the error was made and propogated. In the first attempt, some parts of this lesson succeeded, while others, well, did not. This talk will discuss the problem and lessons learned, as an example of how to better integrate real life claims into first courses in statistics.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Objective: To define, quantify and compare high-risk behaviors by youth in disadvantaged urban communities to the U.S. average.
Method: Data from the “Youth Violence Survey” conducted in 2004 and administered to students (N=4,131) in a high-risk school district were compared to the 2003 national Youth Risk Behavior Survey and the Add Health Study conducted in 1995/96. The differences in prevalence of risk and protective factors among 9th grade students from the three studies were assessed using Chi Square tests.
Results: Youth in high-risk urban areas were significantly more likely than their peers across the country to report vandalism, theft, violence, and drug selling. High-risk youth also reported significantly less support from their homes and schools, and less monitoring by their parents. Moreover, high-risk youth were significantly less likely to binge drink or initiate alcohol use prior to age 13 than youth across the U.S.
Conclusions: High-risk urban youth tend to report significantly higher prevalence of some, but not all, risky behaviors than average US youth which should be considered when defining and planning new research and programming targeting high-risk youth.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In recent years, social psychologists have begun to pay increasing attention to how lesbians and gay men in Christian congregations engage in identity work to resolve conflicting identities (e.g., Thumma 1991; Rodriguez and Oulette 2000; Wolkimir 2001). These studies have emphasized how processes of meaning-making--or meaning re-making--offer lesbian and gay Christians a sense of belonging and moral identity. However, race and gender differences in this identity negotiation have not yet been taken into account.

Using participant observation and in-depth interviewing in two lesbian and gay affirming, mainline Protestant congregations in the southeast, I explore how interconnections among race, gender, sexuality, and religion shaped the "identity work" strategies (Snow and Anderson 1987) lesbian and gay participants used to deal with conflicting identities. I identify three strategies-–minimizing, normalizing, and valorizing--lesbian and gay members used to resignify the homosexual identity. Although these strategies differed by race and gender, I argue that they reproduced male supremacy and heteronormativity by reinstating boundaries between “good” and “bad” LGBT people. Ironically, participants' attempts to construct "good Christian" identities sometimes reinforced the same identity dilemma they began with. Findings shed light on how oppositional identity work reproduces social inequality and suggest that race, gender, and sexuality should not be analytically isolated in religious research.