Unveiling the scientists and engineers in the Southern Appalachian community

Cultural Studies of Science Education - This study explored and documented the science and engineering practices of older adults living in Southern Appalachia. Informed by the body of research...     

Federal policies,state responses,and community college outcomes: Testing an augmented Bennett hypothesis

We estimate the impact of increases in Federal student aid and higher education funding, such as the recently proposed American Graduation Initiative (AGI), on the outcomes of community colleges, including enrollments, list and average tuitions, and educational quality. We develop a reduced form model of state-level education policy in which state policy makers, who have objectives that differ from those of Federal policy makers, respond to changes in Federal policies. Our empirical specification treats state and institutional variables as endogenous; we interpret the coefficients as measuring the responses of state and institution officials to changes in Federal policies. We simulate the effects of AGI and find little evidence that states recapture Federal education resources. AGI would have a significant effect on educational quality but a limited effect on enrollments. An equivalent increase in Federal student aid would have greater impact on access and enrollments, but decrease educational quality.     

The impact of a computerized career information system on a community college in an island state

Equal access to, and delivery of career guidance information to higher education students in Hawaii presents a special geographical problem, since intra-state travel between the various islands which comprise the state can only be accomplished by means of expensive air transportation. Therefore, the recent establishment of a state-wide computer-assisted career information system has been of significant assistance to college students desiring information and data relative to the world of work and occupational choices. This paper presents a report on the development, evaluation, and impact of such a system at a community college in the Hawaiian Islands.     

美国金融危机,中国的机会还是威胁

始于2007年4月的美国次级抵押贷款危机已演变为美国金融危机,并通过传导机制蔓延至世界各国.失于监管和不断延展的金融创新链条是此次金融危机的主要原因;世界经济格局的变化也削弱了美元国际货币"公共产品"地位;中国政策选择的困境在于中美经济的相互依赖和联动性效应.因此,维护中国国家利益的最优政策选择是协助美国应对金融危机的挑战.     

Beyond English hegemony: language,migration and Appalachian schools

Co‐authored by an academic who has worked in ESL teacher improvement programmes under the No Child Left Behind Act, an assistant director of an Appalachian school district, and a trilingual translator and teacher who works with indigenous Mexican populations, this article is narrated in the voice of the first author. The essay addresses how teachers in a Tennessee school district have learned to engage new English speakers and how existing ‘English only’ law affects the process. Contrasting today's immigrants with those of the past, the narrator relates her experience of working with Purépecha children in Morristown and considers the perils of stereotyping others' literacy. The children's comfort with speaking English is affected by their awareness that, as undocumented people, they and their families do not enjoy full citizenship.     

抓住机遇，做大做强——广东轻院发展探索

分析了世界职业技术教育发展趋势、我国高等教育大众化要求以及广东省经济和高等教育发展趋势，结合我院的实际情况论述了我院的发展的机遇和挑战，并对学院发展进行探索。     

抓住教学水平评估契机全面提高教育教学水平

针对本科教学水平评估与提高高等学校教学水平的关系问题,揭示了高校评估工作任务艰巨的主客现成因,指出办学理念、质量意识、保障体系和管理水平是影响人才培养质量的重要因素;总结了评估工作成功的经验;提出应将整改看作是对学校更严峻的考验和更难得的发展机遇;分析了高校人才培养质量中存在的问题和面临的任务;提出了通过建立激励和竞争机制、强化岗位管理、遵循教育规律、完善制度建设和深化改革创新等策略和措施来全面提高教育教学水平.     

Selfies,relfies and phallic tagging: posthuman part-icipations in teen digital sexuality assemblages

Abstract

Inspired by posthuman feminist theory, this paper explores young people’s entanglement with the bio-technological landscape of image creation and exchange in young networked peer cultures. We suggest that we are seeing new formations of sexual objectification when the more-than-human is foregrounded and the blurry ontological divide between human (flesh) and machine (digital) are enlivened through queer and feminist Materialist analyses. Drawing upon multimodal qualitative data generated with teen boys and girls living in urban inner London and semi-rural Wales (UK) we map how the digital affordances of Facebook ‘tagging’ can operate as a form of coercive ‘phallic touch’ in ways that shore up and transgress normative territories of dis/embodied gender, sexuality and age. We conclude by arguing that we need creative approaches that can open up spaces for a posthuman accounting of the material intra-actions through which phallic power relations part-icipate in predictable and unpredictable ways.     

Natural hazard preparedness in an Auckland community: child and community perceptions

Community engagement in natural hazard preparedness is crucial to ensure sustainable initiatives. Children are important members of communities, and can actively contribute to community preparedness. This article presents research undertaken with 11- to 12-year-old students from a school in Auckland, New Zealand, and leaders associated with the school community regarding their perceptions of the role of schools, communities and children in natural hazard preparedness. The findings show that the students believe they can be effective in promoting preparedness in their school, homes and community, and act as leaders in this capacity. Community leaders stated that preparedness actions should be culturally relevant, community initiated and owned and inclusive of child perspectives. From the combined perspectives of students and community leaders, this work concludes that emergency management must engage in culturally responsive ways with Māori and Pacific communities to enable community preparedness initiatives that are tailored to the cultural values and practices of communities most at risk from natural hazards. Further, it concludes that children have an important voice in community preparedness, which could be encouraged through school and community initiatives.     

Becoming an independent field: Societal pressures, state, and professions

This paper inquires about the conditions that enable the rise of new applied undergraduate fields in American universities and colleges. After identifying high-growth fields since 1950, the paper traces their professional development from an embryonic stage until universities and colleges started offering bachelor’s degrees in those fields. The experiences of the six fields of this study show that although pressures for academic differentiation were evident, governmental intervention was ultimately crucial. Qualitative evidence indicates that the independence of a new field hinges on the interaction of four factors: societal pressures, state intervention, academic resourcefulness of the field, and professional institutional processes.     

Between local community and central state: Financing basic education in China

From the early 1980s, China underwent perhaps the world’s largest and most comprehensive experiment of decentralization in education. There has been a shift from decentralization to some degree of recentralization, however, since the mid-1990s, particularly since the early 2000s. The purpose of this shift was to establish a stable and regularized financing mechanism for rural education. Using provincial-level data from between 1997 and 2005, this paper analyzes whether the shift worked as expected. It finds that by the end of 2005, there had been a substantial decrease in the rural–urban gap, the regional disparity, and the overall inequality in per student budgetary expenditure and total spending. Much of the decline occurred in the 2000s. Moreover, the rural–urban gap declined more rapidly than the regional disparity, and inequalities in spending on primary education declined much more rapidly than junior secondary education.     

Interdependence of roles,role rotation,and sense of community in an online course

More and more educational institutions are moving towards online distance learning. Although asynchronous online learning overcomes the constraints of time, place and pace, online distance learners feel isolated due to the lack of real-time communications. One possible solution for overcoming this sense of isolation is regulating student online behavior by assigning specific roles and protocols for participation to learners in order to stimulate online learning activities. This qualitative study explored the use of such a technique in a fully online class in order to find out how the interdependence of roles and role rotation support a sense of community among learners. Data was collected through observations, discussion archives, surveys, and interviews. The results indicate that interdependent roles and role rotation provide students diverse learning experiences and interdependence in different ways. Students’ tendency to depend on their classmates and to participate is enhanced when using the starter-wrapper with roles technique.     

以创先争优为契机 加强大学生社会心态教育

培育大学生和谐社会心态,是加强和改进思想政治教育工作的一项重要内容。在创先争优这个大背景下,具有重要的现实意义。文章从和谐社会心态与创先争优的关系入手,探讨大学生社会心态的矛盾性特征,提出要从大学生共产主义理想信念教育,引导大学生实现社会价值与个人价值的统一,建立社会心态的宣泄机制,鼓励大学生进行自我心理调适等四个方面加强大学生社会心态教育。