This study examined the impact of digital versus traditional mandala coloring on death anxiety levels among 69 adults over the age of 50. Participants were randomly assigned to a digital coloring, traditional coloring, or non-art activity (completing a word search) and levels of death anxiety were compared following a death anxiety induction. We…

Gun violence is a critical public safety concern in the United States. In 2006 California implemented a unique firearm monitoring program, the Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS), to address gun violence in the state. The APPS program first identifies those firearm owners who be-come prohibited from owning one due to federal or state law,…

In 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom established the Governor's Council on Holocaust and Genocide Education (the Council) to assess and improve education about the Holocaust and other genocides (Holocaust and genocide education) in California schools. In response to declining youth awareness of these issues and events and to rising hate incidents, the…

This article provides an analysis of Asian American gang violence within the context of racialization and the legacy of imperialism. The analysis is grounded in a specific study of the Van Nuys (CA) Asian Boys gang and the particularities of Asian American gang violence in Southern California during the 1990s. Drawing from historical writings on…

Forbidden Sounds: The Music of the Holocaust considers the historical events of the Holocaust in the context of music. The honors course explores diverse roles that music played during the years 1933-1945, including the Nazi use of music as a means for censorship and discrimination; music performance and creation in various Jewish ghettos and…

The opioid crisis is widely recognized as one of the most important public health emergencies of our time, and an issue that is particularly acute for rural communities. We propose a simple model of how opioids in a community can impact the education outcomes of children based on both the extent of exposure to opioids in the community and the…

That campuses suffer unacceptable levels of violence is undisputable; they are part of a larger American society in which family, community, and institutional violence far exceed levels found in comparable Western nations. And yet, amid the finger-pointing and scapegoating of students as violent, we note a critical lack of evidence-based analysis,…

This research, a phenomenological study, examined four different local churches in Rwanda to identify the key strategies and methods used to establish an orphan care culture and ministry. Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California has partnered with the country of Rwanda to end the orphan crisis. As of today, 35 orphanages in the country of…

A commitment to empathetic understanding shaped the field of religious studies; although subject to critique, it remains an important teaching practice where students are charged with the task of recognizing, and perhaps even appreciating, a worldview that appears significantly different from their own. However, when the focus of the course is…

It has been reported that professional baseball players whose first names begin with the letter "D" tend to die relatively young (E. L. Abel & M. L. Kruger, 2010). However, the statistical evidence for this claim is based on selective data and a statistical test that ignores important confounding influences. A valid test applied to…

Educators at the secondary school level who teach History, or Integrated Social Studies more broadly, may be expected to possess at least some passing knowledge of the Holocaust, the genocide perpetrated against European Jews by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Yet, when it comes to the Pacific War and Japanese war crimes and atrocities…

International revulsion at the violation of human rights during World War II helped spark a global movement to define and protect individual human rights. Starting with the creation of war crimes tribunals after the war, this newfound awareness stimulated a concerted international effort to establish human rights for all, both in periods of war…

The purpose of this study is to see if contact with the dead is associated with lower death anxiety among older Mexican Americans. The data come from a nationwide survey of older Mexican Americans (N = 1,005). The study model specifies that (a) older Mexican Americans who have experienced contact with the dead are more likely to see the…

Natural disasters, as well as crises of the man-made variety, call on leaders of school districts to manage scenarios impossible to predict and for which no amount of training can adequately prepare. One thing all major crises hold in common is their far-reaching effects, which can run the gamut from personal safety and mental well-being to the…

The State of Higher Education for Black Californians is the first in the Campaign for College Opportunity's series of reports on the current state of college access and completion for California's Black; Latinx; and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders. The state of higher education reports also discuss the implications of…