Symbolic resources and marketing strategies in Ontario higher education: a comparative analysis

Existing research on marketing within PSE tends to focus on homogeneous groups of high-status organisations. This study ameliorates this gap in the literature, conducting a comparative analysis of promotional materials produced by public universities and community colleges in Ontario, Canada. We find that these two groups draw on unique strategies to communicate their quality to external constituents. Public universities emphasise faculty and institutional-level accomplishments, such as research grants and rankings. Meanwhile, community colleges, lacking access to these symbolic resources, employ corporate-like strategies, such as taglines and non-traditional logos.     

The Relationship of Selected Community College Faculty Attitudes,Socialization Experiences,and Reference Group Identities

Abstract

This study was designed to explore the relationship of selected attitudinal variables among community college faculty members, using a framework derived from symbolic interaction of theory. A survey questionnaire was administered to 627 faculty members in five Pennsylvania community colleges in autumn of 1973. Attitudinal variables are operationally defined through the use of factor analysis, and are related to one another and to socialization experience and reference group identity proxy variables through multiple and partial correlational analysis. Hypotheses concerning variations in attitudes toward the community college philosophy and orientations toward education as consequences of differences in socialization experiences and reference group identities are supported.     

Implementing Education for All—Whose agenda,whose change? The case study of the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition

With the onset of the Education for All (EFA) agenda in 1990, the international development community has seen new forms of international cooperation forming around the pledge for EFA. This paper analyzes a case study of activities and challenges of a civil society coalition, the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), in pursuing the goals of Education for All within the national context of Ghana. The key findings of this case study concern the major challenges that GNECC faces as a national education coalition implementing the global agenda of EFA. These challenges include broad goals and objectives, unsustainable funding, and a lack of local participation and ownership of activities. The research concludes that while GNECC has been successful in implementing certain aspects of national and international programming, at the local level it remains woefully behind as a result of inadequate funding of community level activities, poor participation, and external impetus. In essence, GNECC has been operating as a national activity implementing NGO as opposed to a collaborative community coalition aimed at resolving educational issues, leading to the conclusion that an externally initiated coalition is not the most influential tool for achieving progress on international agendas such as EFA.     

Students' mental load,stress, and performance when working with symbolic or symbolic–textual molecular representations

In science education, representations are necessary inter alia for the understanding of relationships between structures and systems. However, several studies have identified difficulties of students when working with representations. In the present study, we investigated students' responses (regarding their preference, test performance, mental load (ML), and stress) toward two kinds of representations: symbolic representations, which only use abstract symbols, versus combined symbolic–textual representations, which additionally comprise textual elements. Therefore, students were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups: one group worked on test tasks accompanied by symbolic representations, and the others worked on the same tasks, but with symbolic–textual representations. Thereafter, the students' test performance and ML were assessed. The level of perceived stress and the salivary cortisol concentration were measured before and after the test and again a few minutes later. Additionally, heart rate variability parameters were assessed continuously. We found a strong preference of the test version with symbolic representations. Additionally, the students showed better test performance and lower ML when they worked with symbolic representations. However, the level of perceived stress was comparable between both groups and there was no strong physiological stress response: The cortisol concentration decreased in both groups and the heart rate was relatively similar. However, during the second half of the test, we observed a significantly higher ratio between low and high heartbeat frequencies in the group with symbolic–textual representations and we found an indirect influence of the kind of representation on test performance through its effect on ML. The poorer test performance and higher ML in connection with symbolic–textual representations confirm previous studies, which found that symbolic–textual representations pose major problems for students. Thus, teachers should enable students to understand symbolic–textual representations and consider carefully whether they can use symbolic representations instead, especially when they teach complex content.     

Community identity discourse and the heritage academy: colorblind educational policy and white supremacy

This study focuses on the case of The Heritage Academy (THA), a predominantly white charter school in rural North Carolina. Through a critical race analysis, this article suggests that predominantly white charter schools like THA benefit from colorblind educational policies in a whitestream and white supremacist society. Specifically, this case study focuses on how white community activism around the creation of THA strengthened a community school identity discourse founded on the principles of whiteness as property. Because of the privilege of whiteness, predominantly white and middle‐class charter schools like THA may have greater access to economic and symbolic resources that ensure their success. This article raises questions about the use of school choice rhetoric as a raceless metaphor in the charter school movement that may result in race‐based inequality, separation and segregation.     

校企融合途径研究

社会经济飞速发展,对校企联合提出更加严格的要求.为促进高校和企业的合作,实现企业高端人才和专业教师的双师身份的形成,从校企合作现状出发,深入分析校企合作的主要模式及特点、亟待解决的问题,并提出了校企合作的高层次融合模式.     

Community College Faculty Attitudes,Socialization Experiences,and Perceived Teaching Effectiveness

Abstract

This study seeks to determine whether variance in teaching effectiveness of community college faculty, as assessed by students, can be attributed to particular attitudes and/or socialization experiences of these faculty. A theoretical model derived from symbolic interaction theory is tested by path analysis. Data to test the model were obtained through a 1973 survey of faculty and students at five community colleges in Pennsylvania. On the basis of this analysis, the authors conclude that the “predictor” variables used in this study and often by administrators in developing faculty selection policies do not correlate highly with teaching effectiveness.     

Education and symbolic violence in contemporary Turkey

This article examines the perceptions of education in Turkey, which refer to a nebulous package of formal education and a cultured stance. Guided by the literature on symbolic violence, we argue that underprivileged groups misrecognize arbitrary hierarchies by considering them just and inevitable. Elite tastes have been internalized by other groups in a particular historical context of education and culture. We investigate the historical roots of this seemingly ahistorical constellation of power relations around education and then consider the implications for the neoliberal period. Then, we contextualize the responses to symbolic violence. Subordinate groups complicate the effects of symbolic violence by exhibiting diverse responses that range from outright submission to implicitly questioning cultural and moral boundaries, creating class and ethnic others in the process. This occurs by constructing cultural and moral boundaries, especially targeting the ‘vulgar’ culture of celebrities and Kurds.     

The Los Angeles County response to child abuse and deafness: a social movement theory analysis

There is increasingly strong evidence that children with disabilities are at higher risk for maltreatment when compared to children without disabilities. There is also concern about the adequacy of child welfare services for children and parents with disabilities, particularly those disabilities that result in a communication impairment. This article describes a successful community practice effort in Los Angeles County that resulted in the establishment of a comprehensive array of linguistically and culturally competent child abuse prevention and treatment services for the maltreated deaf child and for the deaf parent at risk for child abuse perpetration. Social movement theory is used to analyze a change effort that was developed and implemented by a broad coalition of members of the Deaf and hearing communities. Elements of the problem, social movement theory, the coalition, the change strategy, and the results are described.     

Myths about Russia

This article provides an interdisciplinary theoretical analysis of contemporary social mythology and summarizes the results of an empirical study. The main groups of mythologized images of Russia in the consciousness of modern youth include: mythologized images of Russian domain and the historical perspective of Russia; symbolic and metaphorical images of Russia; and the types of social world views that young people have. The aspects of the constructive and destructive impacts of myths about Russia described in this article may be used to analyze and interpret individual and group images of Russia among young people and to develop recommendations for preventing the destructive impact of the mythologization of Russia's image on the social processes and consciousness of modern youth.     

The Association between Language and Symbolic Play at Two Years: Evidence from Deaf Toddlers

The association between expressive language and symbolic play was investigated in 3 groups of 2-year-olds: deaf children with hearing parents (dH), deaf children with deaf parents (dD), and hearing children with hearing parents (hH). (Each group included 6 girls and 4 boys.) 3 language-level groups were defined. The highest group was well into the vocabulary "explosion" and frequently produced multiword/sign utterances; a middle group was beginning the period of vocabulary expansion and occasionally produced utterances of more than 1 word/sign; a third group produced single word/sign utterances only, and had a limited vocabulary. Hearing status was associated with duration of symbolic play (deaf > hearing). Higher language levels were associated with more canonically sequenced and preplanned play, even when language delays were due to exogenous factors.     

What's Civic About Technical Communication? Technical Communication and the Rhetoric of Community

Although the concept of community has been advanced in technical communication as a moral reference point for civic rhetorical action, this concept is typically used in romantic, redemptive, and essentializing ways. This article argues for a radical and symbolic/rhetorical view of community, regarding it a discursive construct purposefully invoked by technical writers for strategic reasons.     

Non-prescribed spaces,creativity and narrative formation: a systems-based examination of a community art group exploring food poverty

ABSTRACT

This article describes a year-long participatory arts project carried out as part of a community–university partnership in the South of England. The research sought to examine the relationship between the ‘user-led’ ethos of the Brighton Unemployed Centre Families Project (BUCFP) and emergence within it of creatively working and self-managing groups, examining how an environment that did not adhere to a prescribed use of space might enable groups to make sense of their experiences. The research used ethnographic methods and a theoretical framework informed by systems theory, critical health psychology and narrative analysis to explore the group’s experiences of food poverty. The research demonstrates ways in which the group provided community members with a space in which to examine, define and make legitimate their experiences and how this can be thought of as an educational and community knowledge-building practice that has important implications, particularly for notions of well-being.     

The vacuous rhetoric of diversity: exploring how institutional responses to national racial incidences effect faculty of color perceptions of university commitment to diversity

Abstract

Recent news cycles have illuminated the disparate, racialized experiences of Black people in the United States but university leadership responses have been reactionary, or worse non-responsive. This study examines how university responses to national racial incidences such as the police brutality affect how faculty of color in one discipline understand the university’s commitment to diversity and ultimately how it affects the faculty experience. Illuminating how university actions affect not only faculty attitudes, but also faculty work has implications on broader university diversity outcomes and rectifying the racist, colonial founding of universities as national institutions. Findings show that there was increased race-related service taxation that was paired with resiliency and resistance tactics, and self- and community-driven coalition building. There are implications for institutional leaders around increasing a diversified student body through attention to community incidences and redefining community relationships to the university.     

OCCUPATIONAL EDUCATION SUPPORTIVE SERVICES IN THE TWO‐YEAR COLLEGE: WHAT THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY SHOULD BE

This longitudinal study examined a cohort group of 3,159 students’ community college attendance patterns over a five‐year period. The cohort was a group of students enrolled in credit courses for the first time in a public two‐year community college. The analysis revealed that approximately 30% of the students attended one semester, 50% attended intermittently and 13% obtained credentials. Analysis of demographic variables between the groups did not reveal significant differences. Limitations in the research and implications for practice are discussed.     

英汉颜色词象征意义浅析

在英汉两种语言当中表示各种不同颜色或色彩的词语很丰富,但除了它们本身基本的意义以外,由于两个民族之间的文化历史背景以及不同的审美心理,这些颜色词在英汉语言环境当中又有不同的含义。本文通过列举白色、红色、黑色等几种主要颜色,对比分析它们在英汉语言环境中不同的象征意义。     

Community Cultural Wealth: Uyghurs,Social Networks,and Education

This article employs Yosso’s framework of ‘community cultural wealth’ to explore the ways in which educated Uyghurs, one of China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups, build on social networks like family and friends to improve their own social standing and contribute to the benefit of their communities. Through Yosso’s lens, ethnic minorities have their own cultural capital, which is distinct from the dominant group, and which can also be maximized to garner a successful status within society. This study undertook to discover: (a) In what ways do Uyghurs draw from their own community resources to navigate within a Mandarin Chinese-dominant education and economic system? (b) In what ways do Uyghurs support others within their own community for success? The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork collected within Xinjiang during the fall of 2013, interviews conducted with educated Uyghurs in Xinjiang and eastern China during multiple visits between the years of 2010-2013, and an analysis of interactive Uyghur language websites during the Spring of 2014.     

School-level Education Policy under New Labour and New Zealand Labour: A Comparative Update

This article compares the school-level education policies of the Labour-led coalition government elected in New Zealand in late 1999 with those of New Labour in England. It illustrates that the policies being introduced by the Labour coalition have been generally less managerial and market-oriented than New Labour's even though neo-liberal pressures are likely to constrain what appears to be a shift to the left in New Zealand. The difference between the two settings is explained through reference to party political and contextual factors and policy and research implications are also discussed.     

The adaptation of groups to the needs of potentially abusing mothers

A group for mothers who feared they would abuse their children was established at Queen Victoria Medical Centre, Melbourne in 1974. Its success has led to additional groups being set up. The circumstances and attitudes of these mothers are described, the group organization is discussed and the group process is analyzed.The mothers attending these groups come from an economically and socially deprived section of the community. The groups provide a nurturing and hopeful atmosphere. This has facilitated the mothers' abilities to reach valuable insights about their feelings and behaviour, and to develop their ego strengths. Consequently they have learned to exercise greater control over their behaviour and therefore to separate emotion from action, and as a result they are less likely to abuse their child either physically or emotionally.A pragmatic approach is adopted by the therapist. Pertinent information is provided, relevant theories are invoked, and community facilities utilized whenever appropriate to meet the diverse needs of these potentially abusing mothers.These groups have fulfilled their preventive function, and the relationship between mother and child has improved.