Objectives: To examine academic performance in dystrophinopathy as a function of dystrophin gene mutation position as well as intellectual function, executive skills, socioeconomic status (SES), behavior, and physical ability. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, boys with dystrophinopathy (ages 5–17; n=50) completed tests of academics (Woodcock-Johnson-III: spelling, reading, calculation and total scores), executive functioning (selective attention/inhibitory control, set shifting, working memory, and processing speed), single word comprehension and nonverbal reasoning. Motor skills were assessed and parents provided demographic information and child behavioral assessments. Dystrophin gene mutation positions were dichotomized into groups (upstream versus downstream of exon 43, location of isoforms previously linked to intellectual impairment). Genetic mutation groups were compared on measures of academic achievement, and multiple regression analyses examined unique and joint contributions of executive skills, intelligence quotient (IQ), SES, motor abilities, behavior, and mutation positions to academic outcomes. Results: Academic performance was slightly, yet significantly, lower than IQ and varied as a function of dystrophin gene position, wherein boys possessing the downstream mutation exhibited greater impairment than boys with the upstream mutation. Digit span forward (indexing verbal span), but no other measure of executive function, contributed significant variance to total academic achievement, spelling and calculation. Conclusions: Weak academic performance is associated with dystrophinopathy and is more common in downstream mutations. A specific deficit in verbal span may underlie inefficiencies observed in children with dystrophinopathy and may drive deficits impacting academic abilities. (JINS, 2018, 24, 928–938)

The focus of this paper is upon the educational background of academic lawyers in England and Wales and the extent to which qualifications from certain institutions may be seen as acting as a proxy for social class. In recent years higher educational background and socio-economic background have been significant topics of research relating to entry to the legal professions and judiciary in England and Wales. There is a relative absence of such research relating to academic lawyers. The research discussed in this paper aims to close that gap. The paper argues that critiques relating to the elite nature of the traditional legal professions in terms of educational background have parallels within the academic legal community, evidenced by a dominance of those educated at Cambridge, Oxford and other Russell Group institutions, with relatively lower proportions of graduates from other sectors, most notably the post-1992 universities. The paper further argues that economic hurdles to entry to an academic legal career are significantly higher than those for other law related careers, potentially exacerbating issues of socio-economic exclusion. The conclusion drawn is that law schools should engage proactively with measures to expand opportunities for entrants into the academic legal community from candidates from a much wider range of educational backgrounds.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to demonstrate the utility of an evidence-based assessment (EBA) model to establish a multimodal set of tools for identifying students at risk for perceived post-injury academic problems. Methods: Participants included 142 students diagnosed with concussion (age: M=14.95; SD=1.80; 59% male), evaluated within 4 weeks of injury (median=16 days). Demographics, pre-injury history, self- and parent-report measures assessing symptom severity and executive functions, and cognitive test performance were examined as predictors of self-reported post-injury academic problems. Results: Latent class analysis categorized participants into “high” (44%) and “low” (56%) levels of self-reported academic problems. Receiver operating characteristic analyses revealed significant discriminative validity for self- and parent-reported symptom severity and executive dysfunction and self-reported exertional response for identifying students reporting low versus high academic problems. Parent-reported symptom ratings [area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC)=.79] and executive dysfunction (AUC=.74), and self-reported ratings of executive dysfunction (AUC=.84), symptoms (AUC=.80), and exertional response (AUC=.70) each classified students significantly better than chance (ps<.001). Hierarchical logistic regression indicated that, of the above, self-reported symptoms and executive dysfunction accounted for the most variance in the prediction of self-reported academic problems. Conclusions: Post-concussion symptom severity and executive dysfunction significantly predict perceived post-injury academic problems. EBA modeling identified the strongest set of predictors of academic challenges, offering an important perspective in the management of concussion by applying traditional strengths of neuropsychological assessment to clinical decision making. (JINS, 2016, 22, 1038–1049)

The vision of the recently created Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) Academic Section is to promote high-quality emergency patient care by conducting world-leading education and research in emergency medicine. The Academic Section plans to achieve this goal by enhancing academic emergency medicine primarily at Canadian medical schools and teaching hospitals. It seeks to foster and develop education, research, and academic leadership amongst Canadian emergency physicians, residents, and students. In this light, the Academic Section began in 2013 to hold the annual Academic Symposia to highlight best practices and recommendations for the three core domains of governance and leadership, education scholarship, and research. Each year, members of three panels are asked to review the literature, survey and interview experts, achieve consensus, and present their recommendations at the Symposium (2013, Education Scholarship; 2014, Research; and 2015, Governance and Funding).

Research is essential to medical advancement. As a relatively young specialty, emergency medicine is rapidly evolving to adapt to new diagnostic tools, the challenges of crowding in emergency departments, and the growing needs of emergency patients. There is significant variability in the infrastructure, support, and productivity of emergency medicine research programs across Canada. All Canadians benefit from an investigation of the means to improve research infrastructure, training programs, and funding opportunities. Such an analysis is essential to identify areas for improvement, which will support the expansion of emergency medicine research. To this end, physician-scientist leaders were gathered from across Canada to develop pragmatic recommendations on the improvement of emergency medicine research through a comprehensive analysis of current best practices, systematic literature reviews, stakeholder surveys, and expert interviews.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relation between openness to diversity in terms of linguist, visible, value and informational heterogeneity and group processes depicted by group trust and group conflict. We collected data using a web-based survey among 498 academics in multicultural departments. The departments were located in four different Danish universities. We found openness to value diversity and informational diversity to have a positive association with group trust and a negative association with group conflict. Openness to linguistic diversity had positive relationships with group trust. The findings of this study suggest that openness to diversity should be highly prioritized by human resource managers in demographically diverse organizations. Possible interventions include organizational culture change programs, diversity training at individual and team levels as well as rewarding group oriented behavior.

Māori and other Indigenous scholars have been calling for the Indigenisation of academic space for decades. But what is the day-to-day experience of Māori academics within Aotearoa–New Zealand universities, and how does this experience reveal or enact the commitments to claim space? We interviewed 12 Māori academics and analysed and organised their experiences in the following way: the university can be understood as a site of (1) mobilisation of Māori staff and students; (2) sit-in, or infusing the institutional system with Indigenous values; (3) speaking out, thereby educating not only students, but staff and the public about Indigenous issues; and (4) at which confrontation is part of the academic terrain. The most common outcome of confrontation was negotiation and reclamation of space for Māori people, norms and values. In spite of this apparent willingness of the university to compromise, we find that capitulation (being moulded to the norms of the academy) and (self-)eviction (reconciling difference by leaving the university) are ever-present possibilities for Māori academics. In shaping and presenting the Māori academic occupation as a 4-stage commitment to affirm Māori identity, norms and scholarship, we present a framework within which Indigenous and minority academic work may be understood.

This is another contribution by Lesley Dingle to an expanding audio and photographic archive, which focuses on the careers of prominent academics who have a long affiliation with the Faculty of Law at Cambridge University.

This is the second contribution by Lesley Dingle and Daniel Bates to an expanding audio and photographic archive, which focuses on the careers of prominent academics who have a long affiliation with the Faculty of Law at Cambridge University.