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Twenty sociology graduate students attending a research- intensive university were asked, during semi-structured interviews, to reflect on their teaching assistant experiences and comment on the ways in which those experiences affected their firsttime teaching. It was clear teaching assistantships could be used more effectively as opportunities for teaching and professional development. Specifically, participants indicated the value of teaching practice, seeing the 'nuts and bolts' of decisions in teaching, mentorship, constructive and meaningful evaluation, and assistantships aligned with research interests as ways to improve both teaching assistantships and first-time teaching experiences. The graduate students recognized the importance of pedagogical training to their professional development and yearn for opportunities to practice teaching and, importantly, to talk about teaching, formally and informally, in a safe, supportive community comprised of faculty and students alike. For them, teaching required a similar level of focus and professional development as research. Although the study was based on the experiences of sociology students, the findings may also be transferable and relevant to other disciplines and departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on gang activity in Canada indicates a proliferation of Aboriginal youth gangs, and the research tells us that child welfare involvement is a significant risk factor for gang participation. This article examines the child welfare and youth gang literature, and analyzes the complex interaction of structural factors facing Aboriginal youth in Canada in order to contextualize youth gang involvement within the larger system of social distress facing Aboriginal people. This paper scrutinizes the veracity of youth gang statistics and interrogates the Aboriginal youth gang discourse to discover that, although a problem clearly exists, the scope and substance of the situation in Canada needs to be more thoroughly researched in order to be accurately portrayed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]