Conversations about sexuality on a public university campus: perspectives from campus ministry students and leaders

Little is known about university campus religious organisations’ influence on students’ sexuality-related attitudes and behaviours. This study sought to better understand sexuality-related communication within the context of campus ministries by exploring students’ and campus ministry leaders’ conversational experiences at a public university in the south-east USA. Data sources included an online survey of undergraduates participating in student religious organisations (n = 57), focus groups with campus ministry students (n = 36), and individual interviews with campus ministry leaders (n = 19). Findings indicated student satisfaction with the focus and frequency of conversations about romantic relationships and sexual health within the context of campus ministries. However, both campus ministry students and leaders indicated discomfort in discussions of sexuality. Leaders acknowledged their need for better strategies to engage students; students focused on how to integrate religious messages about sexuality with messages from other sources. These findings suggest campus ministry leaders may benefit from focused training and support to communicate more effectively with college students about sexuality.     

Student Engagement in U.S. Urban High School Mathematics and Science Classrooms: Findings on Social Organization, Race, and Ethnicity

   This paper reports results of intensive field work in urban high school mathematics and science classrooms based on research with students attending eight high schools located in large, disparate urban sites across the U.S. During the course of our observations and interviews we recorded students’ activities as well as their impressions of classroom processes over the course of a week in each classroom using the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). ESM allows students to record information about their classroom experiences at intervals during daily mathematics and science classroom lessons. We measured levels of student engagement and examined relationships between student engagement and an array of predictors. We take a social organizational approach to interpreting classroom processes, examining the extent to which classroom activities influence student perception of class and communication among students and how these intervening factors affect student engagement during on-going classroom activities. Results suggest that there is variation between group members’ reactions to classroom activities. Specifically, as an example, Latino Students in Chicago, Miami and El Paso were far more engaged and responsive to classroom lessons during the time they spent in small problem-solving groups during class. Student Engagement in High School Mathematics and Science. Kazuaki Uekawa is affiliated with the American Institutes for Research, Washinton DC, USA. Kathryn Borman and Reginald Lee are affilated with the The University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA. Address correspondence to Kazuaki Uekawa, American Institutes for Research, Washinton DC, USA; e-mail: kuekawa@air.org     

An end of innocence: African-American high school protest in the 1960s and 1970s

This paper considers African-American student protests in secondary schools during the 1960s and early 1970s. Taking a national perspective, it charts a growing sense of independence and militancy among black students as they made the schools a focal point of activism. Activist students challenged established civil rights organisations on a variety of questions. They also engaged in an escalating series of protest activities to make schools change. Much of this focused on curricular change, particularly adding black history courses and hiring African-American teachers and principals. Generally, these protests proved quite successful. Black students also protested against conditions encountered in integrated schools, where they often met hostility from whites. Distinct regional patterns characterised such activities, with more protest over school issues in the North and greater conflict regarding desegregation in the South. By the mid-1970s the era of black secondary student protest concluded, although its legacy continues to live.     

Enhancing the undergraduate student experience via fund-raising partnerships: an action research project

This project was developed from practitioner action research and considers the impact of integrating fund-raising activities into the formal curriculum with a target group of undergraduate students. The main aim of this project was to evaluate the impact of developing fund-raising activities as an integral aspect at both module and programme levels, grounded within practitioner action research. A core component of this aim was to develop value-added structures into established modules to support the student experience and student identity. Furthermore, the project sought to broaden, develop and strengthen links with the local wider community, recognising the value such interactions can bring. Finally, the project set out to develop integration opportunities between the students and organisations in order to develop the students’ awareness of workforce options as future professionals. This study is based within one post-1992 higher education institution and consisted of three inter-related but distinct phases. The project involved 60 students during Phase 1, building to some 200 students by Phase 3. The findings suggest that fund-raising activities built into the formal curriculum can be a useful medium for promoting student identity whilst providing a ‘value-added’ component to existing programmes of study.     

Linking Community,Industry and Tertiary Education Community‐based Student Units in Social Work Education

Professional social work education in Australia requires students to undertake supervised and assessed field practice in addition to theoretical classroom‐based education. Field education placements take place in a wide range of social and community service organisations ‐ often partly funded by these organisations. However, in a climate of economic restraint and cutback, the social and community services sector increasingly looks to education for resources for field education. One solution is the development of student units, especially designed to offer practice‐based experience for students. This paper is motivated by the high value Phillip Institute of Technology places on student units in field education. It addresses the question, “What are student units?”, presents a tentative categorisation of types of social work student units and concludes with a possible framework for evaluation.     

The securitisation of refugee flows and the schooling of refugees: examining the cases of North Koreans in South Korea and Iraqis in Jordan

Drawing on data collected in South Korea, Jordan and the USA, this paper examines the degree to which security concerns impact the schooling of North Korean refugees in South Korea and Iraqi refugees in Jordan. Operating from a framework examining the intersection of migration and securitisation, the authors find that accounts of negative images of and identity concealment among North Korean students present the most compelling linkages to a larger phenomenon of societal securitisation. At the same time, South Korean perceptions of North Koreans’ level of preparedness for working in a capitalist society present the most compelling linkages to economic securitisation. With respect to Christian Iraqi refugees in Jordan, plausible connections can be drawn between societal security and an Iraqi identity generally. With respect to economic concerns in Jordan, measures taken to restrict Iraqi integration into the labour force can be seen as security actions.     

Unleashing student potential through democratic participation in decision making: controversies and prospects

The idea of students participating in decisions that affect them as individuals, organisations and/or communities is recent and urgent. The participation of students in decision making has gained global support, yet it does not seem to be regarded as a main vehicle for promoting democracy in educational institutions. This conceptual paper aims at demonstrating the difficulties perceived to hinder student participation in educational institutions. It further proposes strategies that may favour the increased and improved involvement of students in decision making processes. The reviewed literature on student participation informing this article highlights positive outcomes from engaging students as decision makers in education.     

The value of formal host-country education for the labour market position of refugees: Evidence from Austria

Refugees hosted in countries with advanced economies often work in low quality jobs, regardless of the education they obtained in their home countries. In this paper, I analyse the long-term impact of formal host-country education for refugees on labour market outcomes, using 22 years of microcensus data on Bosnians arriving in Austria during the 1992–1995 Bosnian war. I estimate local average treatment effects using age at the time of forced migration as an instrument for the probability of receiving education in Austria instead of Bosnia. I find that receiving a formal degree in Austria significantly reduced the probability of work below educational attainment and low-skill employment for two decades after arrival. There are visible income differences between holders of Austrian and Bosnian degrees beyond this period. Female refugees benefited significantly more from obtaining host-country education than males.     

Faculty and student perceptions of outstanding university teachers in the USA and Russia

The majority of research that relates teacher characteristics to student learning in the university has come from Western universities. Using various methodologies, research continues to examine the characteristics of outstanding university teachers. Much of that research in the USA assesses faculty and student perspectives. However, there are nearly no cross‐cultural comparisons on this issue. We examined faculty and student perspectives about outstanding university teachers in the USA and in Russia. Faculty members and students at the University of Central Arkansas, Orel State University and Moscow City University rated the qualities of outstanding teachers on the Teacher Behaviors Checklist (TBC). Results showed significant positive correlations for the relative importance of teacher characteristics across the six participant groups. There did not appear to be any substantial differences between the American and Russian counterparts for 21 of the 28 specific teacher characteristics. The comparison of American and Russian faculty and students suggests more universality than cross‐cultural differences in the characteristics of outstanding university teachers.     

美国社区学院课程国际化策略研究

美国社区学院在自上而下的政策、经济全球化及财政状况的需要、文化传承与学生个体发展的要求以及对教学质量与学术的追求等四个因素的推动下,采取了设置国际化学科、丰富外语课程、利用国际学生资源、把国际议题注入课程与教学活动以及开发国际项目等策略推进课程国际化。我国高职院校应借鉴美国社区学院的成功经验,有效利用政策和财政投入的引导作用、全面开展课程国际化,并充分调动各种资源以应对全球化带来的困境。     

Barriers to student success in engineering education

In the UK, the USA and Australia, there have been calls for an increase in the number of engineering graduates to meet the needs of current global challenges. Universities around the world have been grappling with how to both attract more engineering students and to then retain them. Attrition from engineering programmes is disturbingly high. This paper reports on an element of research undertaken through an Australian Learning and Teaching Council-funded Fellowship that investigated the factors leading to student attrition in engineering programmes, by identifying barriers to student success. Here, we contrast a review of the literature related to student barriers and success with student perceptions, gathered through a series of focus groups and interviews at three Australian universities. We also present recommendations for action to try to remove barriers to student success.     

Opportunities for older learners: Older students in the open university

This paper discusses research carried out by the Older Students' Research Group in the UK Open University between 1982–87. It examines the motivation, experience and performance of OU undergraduate students aged 60 and over and compares older OU students with the rest of the OU student body and with older students in a variety of other educational organisations. It argues that the success of older students in the Open University indicates that distance education has considerable potential as a mode of study for older people.     

项目管理模式在高校学生活动中的应用探究

高校学生活动是高校思想政治教育工作的重要载体,对营造良好的校园文化氛围,提升学生的综合素质,培养兴趣爱好有直接影响,文章基于项目管理原理,对高校学生活动进行项目定义,制定项目目标,进行工作分解,对项目的质量、成本、进度以及项目的运行风险进行控制,对项目实施效果进行评估和有效性分析。     

论如何组织好学生课外科技活动

学生课外科技活动是学生进行探索、实践、合作、创新、创造乃至创业的重要平台和载体,是创新人才培养的有效途径。分析了学生课外科技活动的基本特点和评价活动效果的基本要素,并就如何组织好学生课外科技活动进行了一些思考。     

Involvement and growth of students in three academic programs

The purpose of this study was to provide further evidence on potential determinants of college student involvement in curricular and cocurricular campus activities, particularly on the importance of student enrollment in three academic programs. The study focused on how students in two special academic programs—an honors program and a transition program to assist academically disadvantaged students adjust to college—as well as students in the regular curriculum become engaged in a variety of experiences and how their quality of effort (involvement) in the activities is related to student growth and development. The relationship between level of student activity and achievement supports the claims of previous research that involvement contributes to students' development and gains in intellectual and interpersonal areas. However, the strength of relationship between student effort and gain varied for the three groups. Overall, the honors and transition students appeared to get more for their effort than did the regular students.     

Achieving holistic care for refugees: The experiences of educators and other stakeholders in Surrey and Greater Vancouver,Canada

In 2020, the global number of refugees reached record levels, pressuring asylum countries to determine more effective methods for facilitating integration. This article explores an array of stakeholder practices towards refugees in Surrey and Greater Vancouver, Canada. It is based on questionnaires and interviews that elicit the perceptions and struggles of 40 settlement workers, health and mental health professionals, Members of Parliament, educators, librarians, scholars and grassroots organisations, who work with refugees. The findings show that stakeholders often feel isolated, ‘working in silos’ and wasting time and money due to uncoordinated services and a lack of interagency communication. They feel it is also unreasonable to expect Government-Assisted Refugees (GARs) to learn English and complete job training in preparation for independent living within 1 year of support. Both refugee adults and children suffer from high levels of trauma, often compounded by interrupted or no schooling. Since education is essential to refugee success, I argue that teachers play a role in filling the gap, often uniquely positioned to form ongoing, safe and trusting relationships with refugee students and their families. For many teachers, it is an ethos of care, compassion and social justice acquired in teacher education programmes that increases refugee resilience, sense of belonging and wellbeing. This article identifies what new collaborations between teachers and other stakeholders might accomplish, including communication back to government policymakers. Recommendations encompass initiating online registries of services and low-cost housing in neighbourhoods where community schools and services are interlinked, possibly achieving holistic care for all refugees.     

Factors that Differentiate Mathematics Students in Cyprus,Hong Kong,and the USA

The purpose of this study was twofold: to examine how attitudinal and instructional variables differentiated 4th-grade students in Cyprus, Hong Kong, and the USA; and to determine how those variables were related to math performance on the TIMSS test. A discriminant analysis was performed to examine how those variables differentiated the students in the 3 countries. The most striking result was that the students from all 3 countries, who were similar to the average students in Cyprus, had the highest achievement within their countries. Thus, 4th-grade students who liked math, who thought it was important to do well in math for their friends, who did not need private instruction, and who had not been taught using computers or small group procedures, tended to be the better students. However, students who were similar to the average USA student had the lowest achievement within each of the 3 countries.     

An investigation into the role played by research assessment in the socio-geographic fragmentation of undergraduate economics education in the UK

Student engagement in academic activities is a critical factor contributing to the overall success of students studying in higher education institutions. Yet the factors influencing student engagement in academic activities are still largely unknown. This study begins to address this knowledge gap by investigating the influence of student connectedness (relationships with peers and teachers), motivation to study (sense of purpose) and perception of workload upon student engagement in academic activities. During 2015, a total of 209 students responded to a survey distributed to first-year undergraduate students enrolled in a university business school in Queensland, Australia. Structural equation modelling was used to investigate the proposed relationships. Results suggest that student-student (peer) relationships, teacher-student relationships, and students’ sense of purpose for studying a higher education degree, were central to student engagement in academic activities. In addition, teacher-student relationships, and a strong sense of purpose were central to perceptions of student workloads. Finally, sense of purpose was found to moderate the relationship between both teacher-student and student-student relationships and also, perceptions of workload and student engagement. The findings from this study support the importance of developing effective teacher-student relationships, facilitating positive student-student relationships and communicating a clear sense of purpose to students, so as to improve their engagement in academic activities and optimise perceptions of workloads.     

学生创新能力在参与教师科研中的培养探索

创新能力指人在顺利完成以原由知识经验为基础的创建新事物的活动中表现出来的潜在的心理品质。学生生参与教师科研,积极开展学生科技创新活动,通过科技创新活动,进一步增强了学生创新意识,提高了学生创新能力。