First-generation students: what we ask,what we know and what it means: an international review of the state of research

In the course of educational expansion, student populations have become more diverse. This paper represents an international literature review on the topic of first-generation students (FGS), i.e. students whose parents have not obtained a higher education qualification. On the basis of more than 70 research articles and reports on FGS from several countries, we find that the focal points in FGS research concern their pre-college characteristics, mobility factors, decisions about institution, degree and subjects, FGS’ experiences at university, and academic outcomes. Summarising the state of research on these topics, we point to two problems: (1) the international incommensurability of data on FGS due to differences in how FGS are defined and researched; (2) the depiction of FGS’ problems as individual rather than structural problems. We recommend that structural changes such as making organisational structures in higher education institutions more transparent are in order instead of offering special support programmes only for FGS.     

The widening participation agenda: the marginal place of care

This paper is based upon two empirical studies, which identify care‐giving responsibilities as a key mediator of mature students’ – a target group within the widening participation strategy – experiences of higher education. Employing a feminist lens on care, we identify a disjuncture between how students experience the challenges of negotiating care and study, and the narrow and economistic way care is addressed within higher education policy. We point to the broader recognition of care emerging within New Labour’s policies on the reconciliation of paid work and family life and argue that in the context of increasing expectations that learning is for life, care needs to be recognised in a broader form at the interface of both education and employment. Drawing on the notion of a ‘political ethics of care’, we conclude by identifying elements that should be included in a higher‐education ‘care culture’.     

Isolation,resilience, and faith: Experiences of Black Christian students in biology graduate programs

To increase participation of students of color in science graduate programs, research has focused on illuminating student experiences to inform ways to improve them. In biology, Black students are vastly underrepresented, and while religion has been shown to be a particularly important form of cultural wealth for Black students, Christianity is stigmatized in biology. Very few studies have explored the intersection of race/ethnicity and Christianity for Black students in biology where there is high documented tension between religion and science. Since graduate school is important for socialization and Black students are likely to experience stigmatization of their racial and religious identity, it is important to understand their experiences and how we might be able to improve them. Thus, we interviewed 13 Black Christian students enrolled in biology graduate programs and explored their experiences using the theoretical lens of stigmatized identities. Through thematic content analysis, we revealed that students negotiated experiences of cultural isolation, devaluation of intelligence, and acts of bias like other racially minoritized students in science. However, by examining these experiences at the intersection of race/ethnicity and religion, we shed light on interactions students have had with faculty and peers within the biology community that cultivated perceptions of mistrust, conflict, and stigma. Our study also revealed ways in which students' religious/spiritual capital has positively supported their navigation through biology graduate school. These results contribute to a deeper understanding of why Black Christian graduate students are more likely to leave or not pursue advanced degrees in biology with implications for research and practice that help facilitate their success.     

Mobile technology,learning, and achievement: Advances in understanding and measuring the role of mobile technology in education

Studying mobile learning – the use of personal electronic devices to engage in learning across multiple contexts via connections to media, educators, peers, experts, and the larger world – is a relatively new academic enterprise. In this special issue, we interrogated the promise and unexamined expectations of mobile learning, the theories and ideas developing around it, and the devices that afford it. The articles introduce mobile and wearable technologies as key components of empirical research and demonstrate ways that learning conducted with such devices (1) affects the process and products of learning via interactions with other psychological constructs; (2) affords new opportunities to directly influence learning process or outcomes; and (3) provides opportunities to collect previously unobtainable data that improve understanding and modeling of the learning process. In this introduction, we overview the emergence of mobile learning theory and its contemporary conceptualization. Then we highlight ways that mobile technologies can be used to enhance learning processes and an understanding of them. All special issue contributors conceptualize and align their work with both psychological theories of learning and instruction as well as emerging theories of mobile learning. The commentary authors appraise mobile learning research critically and analytically, and recommend ways mobile learning theory might build upon research methodology and knowledge grounded empirically in psychological and sociocultural theories of learning. Overall, we believe this special issue achieved our goal to produce a balanced consideration that highlights the advancements in learning and learning theory mobile devices might afford, and to temper any premature enthusiasm about these potential benefits.     

Journeys across educational and cultural borders: international postgraduate students with young children

There is substantial research about international postgraduate students but little research about their experiences as parents or their children’s experiences. We focus on four postgraduate international students with young children navigating early childhood education and care in New Zealand. A narrative analysis, informed by socio-cultural understandings of learning and post-structuralist understandings of identity, revealed emotional complexities, stress and transformation as parents and children made many transitions. Parents wanted their own culture respected and their host culture decoded. Families experienced tensions around the use of home and host languages as they juggled children’s present and future linguistic needs. Supporting international students in their family identity has positive effects for them, their children and their doctoral studies, and hence for universities. Further research about the experiences of international students who are parents and of their children could assist in the formulation of policies to effect such support.     

Commentary: Implications,Themes, and Next Steps

The author presents a commentary on a special issue of the Journal of College Counseling. The articles included in the issue describe the mental health needs and counseling center utilization patterns of the diverse population of college students. The establishment of the Center for Collegiate Mental Health has created the opportunity to study representative groups of diverse students that have previously been difficult to access. The articles in the special issue are focused on studies that offer important clues to mechanisms that will serve as a springboard for future research.     

Advances in research on classroom dialogue: learning outcomes and assessments

The goal of this special issue is to examine how certain modes of classroom dialogue might contribute to students' learning outcomes. The articles in this special issue share the idea of classroom talk as a problem-oriented dialogue. In other words, an interactional configuration based on exchanges among students and teachers that go beyond the predominantly monologic approaches of classroom talk. In each of the contributions to this special issue, different types of learning outcomes were studied as a result of specific ways of orchestrating classroom dialogue. All in all, the studies in this special issue yield a picture of the field as a productive research area: they provide evidence for the plausibility of the assumption that dialogic orchestrations of classroom talk may produce various desired learning and developmental outcomes in students, depending on what outcomes we want to articulate, and how they are assessed. Although the studies in this special issue yield promising results for future improvements of classroom practice more (preferably longitudinal) research is required.     

马克思主义实践观的人文意蕴对我国大学生理想教育的启示

改革开放以来,理想教育作为大学生思想政治教育的核心内容,一直是国内思想政治教育研究领域的一个热点课题。目前我国大学生理想教育的效果不佳,部分学生的理想状况令人担忧。要解决这个难题,可以借鉴马克思主义实践观的人文意蕴,为理想教育注入人文关怀,从而达到理想教育应有的效果。     

Expectations and experiences of off-campus PhD students in Australia

This study describes research examining the expectations and experiences of PhD students undertaking a PhD in off-campus research institutes and hospitals that are affiliated with an Australian research-intensive university. Much of our knowledge of the expectations and experiences of PhD students in Australia stem from those that undertake research training in the classical university structure and that progress towards research training directly from their undergraduate studies. However, increasing numbers of research higher degree students are based in off-campus research institutions, which are becoming increasingly fertile training grounds for research higher degree students in the sector. While participants’ experiences and expectations were largely consistent with our current understanding of the Australian PhD experience, many reported a perceived lack of support programmes. Workload and time commitments, pressure to produce results and their off-campus location potentially conspire to reduce access to on-campus support services offered by the university. Opportunities therefore exist for student advisors, service providers and university leaders to increase accessibility to academic development programmes and pastoral care, including both online and off-campus provision as appropriate, to enhance the PhD experience for this growing cohort of students.     

Family selection and child care experiences: implications for studies of child outcomes

Studies of the impact of child care experiences on child outcomes must consider family selection factors because children from more advantaged families tend to attend higher quality child care and are more likely to be in center care than children from less advantaged families. Although this issue is widely recognized, developmentalists and economists have used different statistical methods when testing whether child care experiences are related to child outcomes and have drawn different conclusions from their analyses. This paper discusses some of the family selection issues that should be considered in child care research and provides empirical evidence demonstrating why each issue should be considered. These issues include whether causal inferences can be made from observational studies and the impact on conclusions from regression analyses that include highly correlated measures of child care experiences, nonrepresentative samples, and family covariates with bi-directional effects on child care quality.     

Understanding stories of professional formation during early childhood education and care practice placements

Narrative inquiry as a methodological approach enables us to examine how people represent their experiences and selves through storytelling (Chase, S. E. 2005. ‘Narrative Inquiry: Multiple Lenses, Approaches, Voices.’ In The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln, 651–679. London: Sage). To understand these constructions, other kinds of knowledge are required. Theories of social life, for example, help to interpret areas which narrative inquiry is good at revealing about human experiences such as the animation of temporality, sociality and place (Clandinin, J., V. Caine, A. Estefan, J. Huber, M. S. Murphy, and P. Steeves. 2015. ‘Places of Practice: Learning to Think Narratively.’ Narrative Works 5 (1). Accessed November 30, 2017. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/NW/issue/view/1799). Drawing on interviews with practice educators and final-year undergraduate early childhood education and care (ECEC) students in North-West Ireland, this paper considers how narrative inquiry and education theories work together to illuminate key learning experiences of ECEC undergraduate students during 12-week practice placements. In this paper I attempt to show how two education theories – ‘Threshold Concepts’ and ‘Communities of Practice’ – shed light on the nature of these key learning experiences. The paper suggests that narrative inquiry offers an emancipatory research approach by uncovering human and reflective elements of learning journeys made by ECEC students during their practice placements.     

Intercultural PhD supervision: exploring the hidden curriculum in a social science faculty doctoral programme

International knowledge markets rely heavily on a ready supply of highly mobile doctoral students, many of whom are from the global South, to bring in revenue. The supervision of these PhD students, however, can reproduce neo-colonial knowledge relations, often in subtle ways. In settler nations, international PhD students may find that they are assigned subaltern status in their university departments and this can have a significant impact on their learning. This paper explores the experiences of a group of international PhD students in a social science faculty in a New Zealand university during the first two years of their doctoral studies. It examines how they responded to the displacement of their cultural values and priorities, the way they navigated intercultural engagements with supervisors, and their ensuing relationships with indigenous and ethnic allies in the faculty. Despite considerable pressure to conform to the dominant modes of academic knowledge production that characterise universities in settler nations, it is concluded that international students find ways of speaking out, often in highly coded forms, that complicate their subaltern academic status.     

Being ‘fun’ at work: emotional labour,class, gender and childcare

This paper reports on data drawn from an Economic and Social Research Council‐funded project investigating the experiences of UK‐based students training on level‐2 and level‐3 childcare courses. We focus on the concept of emotional labour in relation to learning to care for and educate young children and the ways in which the students’ experiences of emotional labour and the expectations placed upon their behaviour and attitudes are shaped by class and gender. We consider the ways in which students are encouraged to manage their own and the children's emotions and we identify a number of ‘feeling rules’ that demarcate the vocational habitus of care work with young children. We conclude by emphasising the importance of specific contexts of employment in order to understand workers’ emotional labour and argue for more recognition of the intense demands of emotional labour in early childhood education and care work.     

少数民族中专生思想政治教育之人文关怀

人文关怀对体现少数民族中专生思想政治教育的特殊性、少数民族中专生健康成长的内在需要、构建和谐校园具有现实意义。实现少数民族中专生思想政治教育人文关怀就要求确立少数民族中专生在思想政治教育中的主体地位,坚持尊重民族风俗习惯、以解决实际问题为核心的教育理念,注重少数民族中专生之间的个体差异和重视民族团结教育。     

人文关怀视域下高校贫困生思政工作探讨

高校贫困生作为一个特殊群体有着自身的心理特点,需要思政工作者给予更多的关心和帮助。人文关怀提倡以人为本,尊重人的主体地位,促进人的全面发展等观念适用于高校贫困生思想政治教育工作。给予高校贫困生群体更多的人文关怀,对这一群体的成长成才和促进高校校园的和谐稳定具有重要意义。     

高职院校加强师德建设的思考

市场经济条件下,人们传统的世界观、价值观受到来自社会多方面的强烈冲击,师德建设遇到前所未有的挑战.随着人们认识的理性回归,为新时期师德建设注入了新的内涵.高职院校教师更要甘于寂寞,勇于奉献,加强自身师德理论修养,诚实守信、关爱学生、为人师表.     

从权利到地位:学生法律地位的法律追溯与权利保障

学生的法律地位是教育法学研究的基本理论问题,也是我国教育法治进程中的重大实践问题。学生的权利与义务是学生法律地位的体现。基于现行教育法律关于学生权利义务的规定,可将学生的法律地位归纳概括为民法上的特殊民事主体和行政法上的特殊行政相对人。但当前学生受教育权的可诉性、程序性、公正性不足,有必要将受教育权的救济纳入行政司法审查的范围,对学生权利进行全面救济,并兼顾实体权利与程序权利,依法保障学生受教育权的实现。     

Community support programme: support for Chinese trans* students experiencing genderism

Abstract

Previous research on school experiences has often focused on lesbian and gay students. Far fewer studies have examined trans* students’ experiences, especially with respect to community support. And none of this work has addressed relevant issues in an East Asian Chinese cultural context, where transgender equality has been a hotly debated issue in recent years, and prejudice towards members of this ‘invisible’ population still persists. This paper highlights the school experiences of trans* students based on a literature review of international, regional and Hong Kong publications. A case study analysis of one Hong Kong community support programme is used as an example to highlight the important role that this kind of work can play in filling a gap left by the formal education sector. Findings suggest that, given the influence of genderism and deficiencies of in school environments, community support services provided by non-government organisations can play a significant role not only in raising public awareness, but also in filling education and service gaps for sexual and gender minority students.     

Where is the learning in mobile technologies for learning?

Mobile technology – such as tablets, cell phones, and wearable devices – has the potential to play a useful role in promoting academic learning. This potential motivates this special issue on “Mobile Technology, Learning, and Achievement: Advances in Understanding and Measuring the Role of Mobile Technology in Education” edited by Matthew L. Bernacki, Jeffrey Greene, and Helen Crompton. Research on learning with mobile technology should focus on three research questions: Do students learn academic content better with mobile technology than with conventional media (media comparison question)? Which instructional features afforded by mobile technology cause learning (instructional method question)? Under what conditions do students learn academic content better with mobile technology than with conventional media (boundary condition question)? A research agenda is proposed.     

Being a mobile international postgraduate research student with family in the United Kingdom: Conflict,contestation and contradictions

The internationalisation of higher education has influenced the dramatic rise in the mobility of students, academics and knowledge across borders. There has been growing research interest focusing on international students studying abroad. While the student experience is an area of education that is often researched, most research focuses on experiences of undergraduate students. Also in the context of international students, greater research emphasis has been placed on the academic experiences and support available for undergraduates. While such research is important, less attention has been paid to the non-academic experiences of International Post-Graduate Research Students with Families (IPGRSF). This article seeks to fill this gap by focusing on the social worlds of IPGRSF in the UK, examining students’ nuclear family contexts that are often marginalised in discourse. The article legitimises the IPGRSF subaltern world by focusing on how students negotiate its demands; how they negotiate their roles as research students with their other roles as spouses and parents, and the interrelationships among these roles; and how the university as an institution interacts with the students’ subaltern world. The findings show that language plays a significant role in shaping the process of mobility as well as influencing the students’ and their families’ integration and networking in the host country. Also, the findings suggest that students often had positive experiences at departmental level, but felt let down by the wider university support.