Students typically lose knowledge and skills during the summer, particularly low-income students. Districts and private providers can benefit from the evidence on summer programming to maximize program effectiveness, quality, reach, and funding.

Nils Christie’s (1986) seminal work on the ‘Ideal Victim’ is reproduced in full in this edited collection of vibrant and provocative essays that respond to and update the concept from a range of thematic positions. Each chapter celebrates and commemorates his work by analysing, evaluating and critiquing the current nature and impact of victim identity, experience, policy and practice. The collection expands the focus and remit of ‘victim studies’, addressing key themes around race, gender, faith, ability and age while encompassing new and diverse issues. Examples include sex workers as victims of hate crimes, victims’ experiences of online fraud, and recognising historic child sexual abuse victims in Ireland. With contributions from an array of academics including Vicky Heap (Sheffield Hallam University), Hannah Mason-Bish (University of Sussex) and Pamela Davies (Northumbria University), as well as a Foreword by David Scott (The Open University), this book evaluates the contemporary relevance and applicability of Christie’s ‘Ideal Victim’ concept and creates an important platform for thinking differently about victimhood in the 21st century.

RAND is conducting a longitudinal study that examines the implementation and effectiveness of voluntary summer learning programs. This second report in the series provides research-based advice for school district leaders developing summer programs.

The New York City Department of Education asked RAND to conduct an independent longitudinal evaluation of its 5th-grade promotion policy. The findings of that study, conducted between March 2006 and August 2009, provide a comprehensive view of the policy's implementation and its impact on student outcomes, particularly for students at risk of retention and those who were retained in grade.

The Wallace Foundation’s National Summer Learning Study, conducted by RAND and launched in 2011, offers the first assessment of district-run voluntary summer programs over the short and long run. This report, the second of five that will result from the study, looks at how summer programs affected student performance on math, reading, and social and emotional assessments in fall 2013.

Teachers for a New Era (TNE) is one of the latest efforts aimed at teacher education reform. Eleven institutions participate in TNE, which emphasizes evidence-based decisionmaking, collaboration between education and arts and sciences faculty, and teaching as an academically taught clinical-practice profession. The authors studied the 11 TNE sites to examine the process by which reform will result in highly qualified teachers capable of producing improvements in student learning.

This book critically analyses how men in prison act out their masculine identities. It considers how men negotiate their time in prison, which can involve being placed into a feminine position relative to other men, and particularly looks at the subversion of heteronormative gender positionings through bodies, spaces, time, and relationships. Vulnerability is also taken as a key consideration, and men are shown to act out their masculinities for the benefit of an audience that matters to them. However, that audience is shown to be subject to change at any point in time. Using extensive ethnographic data drawn from adult male prisoners, the book adopts the viewpoint of the individual prisoner as a frame to consider masculinity. It also advances ethnographic research in criminology by reflecting upon the identity of researchers in prisons, particularly the female researcher's gendered identity in such environments. It will be of great interest to scholars of penology, gender and ethnography.

This study examines alternative ways that government can carry out its activities. It should prove useful to government agencies and decisionmakers who are considering options for organizing themselves or their functions in different ways.

This study examines alternative ways that government can carry out its activities. It should prove useful to government agencies and decisionmakers who are considering options for organizing themselves or their functions in different ways.

RAND researchers assess voluntary, district-led summer learning programs for low-income, urban elementary students. This third report in a series examines student outcomes after one and two summers of programming.