Social Justice,Democratic Education and the Silencing of Words that Wound

In recent years, research within the sociocultural perspective on moral learning has contributed important knowledge about how individuals develop their moral ability by participating in sociocultural activities. To a lesser extent, sociocultural research has focused on the role of individual continuity in these processes. The purpose of this article is to contribute to the progress of the sociocultural perspective by suggesting an approach that allows for an in situ analysis of how individuals' prior experiences take part in the processes of moral meaning‐making, which also takes sociocultural activity into consideration. The philosophical and methodological basis for this approach consists of a combination of Dewey's transactional perspective on meaning‐making and Wittgenstein's first‐person perspective on language use. The article contains an empirical example that illustrates this approach. This analysis shows how prior experiences are re‐actualised in an event and thus participate in the process of moral meaning‐making, as well as contributing to the substance of the meanings made.     

Harnessing the power of film in the primary classroom

This paper explores one way that teachers can develop creativity within potentially limiting confines and pressures of curriculum guidelines. The researcher considers the inclusion of film as a creative, engaging and effective strategy for teaching reading using data from a small‐scale research project. Hypotheses are based on analysis of activities that use moving image as an alternative text to printed books. During the project's teaching sequence, children are familiarised with film as a moving image, ideas are captured, the teacher demonstrates the use of techniques in meaning making, before the children finally show their understanding through their work. In this instance, the children were involved in making their own films, acting as directors, film crew, sound technicians, illustrators and narrators. As the partial purpose of the study was to explore the practical logistics of developing a creative teaching style within a structured curriculum, tight timings were an essential aspect of the validity of the work. All the teaching was completed within the normal hourly lesson for literacy, and the basic structure of lessons was maintained – an introduction with whole‐class work, followed by individual/paired or group work and concluded with a plenary. The researcher values the creative use of film as a powerful experience in itself and the study aimed to substantiate these beliefs by exploring both the accessibility and the results of harnessing the power of film within literacy teaching.     

Acknowledging and appreciating the full spectrum of the human condition: School Psychology's (limited) focus on positive psychological functioning

This study is a content analysis of a random selection of 20% (N = 1,168) of articles from School Psychology Quarterly, Psychology in the Schools, the Journal of School Psychology, and School Psychology Review. Across the four journals, 27% of the articles had a positive focus, and the percentage of articles focused on the positive has been between 25% and 33% for the past 50 years. Of the 76 positive constructs/processes we coded for, 51% were not discussed/operationalized. Furthermore, topics that have received much recent research attention with adults and much attention in the media were rarely studied, if at all. For example, happiness was the topic of four articles, optimism was the topic of three, and purpose/meaning was the topic of none. Although studying pathology is important, we urge school psychologists to devote more attention to making contributions to a science and practice that give equal attention to positive well‐being. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Multiplicities in Motion: A Turn to Transliteracies

ABSTRACT

In an effort to draw attention to the mobile dimensions of meaning making, this article proposes a pedagogy of transliteracies, supporting educators and learners in critically reflecting on how people, media, and things are connected across space and time. Expanding on the New London Group’s (1996) multiliteracies vision of communicative and ideological multiplicities, we articulate the importance of moving from multi- to trans- to highlight the mobile and emergent aspects of meaning making. We work through a classroom example to consider the contours of literacies and learning practices for making meaning on the move. We argue that in a mobile and digitally networked world, a pedagogy of transliteracies draws much needed attention to people and things connecting, relating, and intersecting, and also to how these connections, relations, and intersections occur in unequal ways that support some learners and disenfranchise others.     

Making Movies Matter or Whatever Happened to the Sabre‐Tooth Curriculum?

This paper argues that media education has developed its own orthodoxies that are preventing it both from addressing the realities of the media as they exist today, and from being taken seriously by policy‐makers. The example of Making Movies Matter, the 1999 report of the Film Education Working Group, shows how a policy‐making ‘window’ can be exploited, not only to make new arguments for media education, but also to construct new frameworks for teaching and learning. The report had also provided the British Film Institute with a new agenda for UK‐wide activities designed to develop education about the moving image media. A version of this paper was originally presented at the Summit 2000 conference in Toronto, Canada, in May 2000.     

Educational Media and ‘Agit Prop’: I. The legacy of Vertov

A 75 year‐old educational media process, involving interactive multimedia, formative evaluation, and a sophisticated distance education system, is described. Although these techniques are mainstays of modem educational technology, their origins in the work of 1920s' film director Dziga Vertov have not previously been recognised. This article (the first of a 2‐part paper) registers the techniques' roots on the Leninist ‘agit prop’ film train, and their development by Vertov for social intervention purposes. It describes their essence, a feedback process whereby media footage is viewed and discussed by its producers and the people it portrays, and used as a catalyst for mass education and change. The Vertov Process culminated during the 1930s in the work of Alexander Medvedkin before being suppressed by Stalin. The article charts the subsequent influence of Vertov's educational techniques on the European schools of film documentary led in Britain by John Grierson, and in France by the avant‐garde movement and by the anthropologist film‐maker Jean Rouch. In 1996, Vertov's centennial year, the two articles indicate the film‐maker's role as an unsung founding father of the modern educational media, and political and cultural reasons for the lack of recognition which his visionary educational impact has received.     

‘We’re from the generation that was raised on television’: a qualitative exploration of media imagery in elementary preservice teachers’ video production

In this article the authors present their analysis of preservice teachers’ video production. Twenty‐eight students in the first authors’ Social Foundations of the Elementary Curriculum course produced a 5‐ to 10‐minute video as the major assignment for the class, interviews were conducted with six of the seven video production groups and the videos were analyzed with regard to the interviews and theories of visual culture. The authors suggest that in the video products and in the production process the students exhibited a cultural logic of media imagery. The particular logics of audience and entertainment served as a concealed organizing principle for how the students thought about their videos and the processes involved in making them. Embedded in this logic was an overarching concern that their work occupy a public space, thus troubling the boundaries of consumption and production that frame how we consider the role media culture plays in the processes of human meaning‐making.     

The Unconscious Fear of Success

The hidden cumculum has served the very useful purpose in educational discourse of alerting educators to the complexity of physical education teaching and learning. However, the ambiguity of the phenomena the term attempts to describe has led to a certain notoriety, and there is now considerable confusion over the meaning of the term hidden curriculum. This paper reviews selected studies of the hidden curriculum in physical education and other literature. The aim of this review is to assess its potential for helping us to better understand physical education as a cultural practice. Building on this review, it is suggested that the terms discourse and ideology locate the hidden agendas of physical education teaching and learning within the realm of communication and meaning making. The implications of this perspective for physical education teaching and research are examined. It is suggested in conclusion that the more precise identification of the hidden curriculum as an aspect of communication and meaning making is important, given new pressures deriving from mass media and popular culture that impact on physical education teaching and learning in subtle ways.     

Non‐optimal uses of video in the classroom

This paper examines some instructional practices concerning the non‐optimal uses of video, films and other mass media in the K–12 classroom. Based on a six‐year process of observing and interviewing teachers regularly in two school districts in Massachusetts, USA, this paper presents a typology of seven common patterns of non‐optimal media use, instructional practices that diminish or weaken the value of film and video viewing as a learning tool. A telephone survey was conducted with a purposive sample of 130 middle‐school and high‐school teachers to provide additional evidence concerning teacher perceptions of the frequency of their colleagues' non‐optimal use of video. Teachers in the USA report that their colleagues frequently use media for non‐educational purposes, including to fill time, to keep students quiet, as a break from learning, or as a reward for good behavior. The implications of non‐optimal media use are considered in light of renewed interest in integrating media literacy into K–12 instruction.     

Systematic review of young children's writing on screen: what do we know and what do we need to know

Writing is part and parcel of children's active meaning‐making on and with screens, but it has been relatively neglected in the literature focused on children's digital literacies. This study synthesises existing empirical evidence focused on young children's (aged between 2 and 8 years) writing on screen and identifies the relationships between dominant themes in published literature and contemporary theories of children's technology use. A systematic literature review that included studies from diverse disciplines yielded 21 papers. Constant comparative analysis generated five themes that indicate four key directions for future research. We call attention to researchers' theoretical framing to supplement mono‐disciplinary approaches and single levels of analysis. We suggest that future research should provide greater specification of the purpose of children's writing on screen and the different types of tools and applications supporting the activity. We also highlight the need for interdisciplinary approaches that would capture the composing stages involved in the writing process with and around screens. Finally, we point out possible age‐related differences in documenting and reporting the composing process in classrooms. Overall, limitations in the current evidence base highlight the need for research conducted from a critical perspective and focused more directly on multimodality.     

电影《看上去很美》的符号学解析

电影作为一种现代化的大众传播媒介,有其重要的符号意义。本文从符号学角度分析了国产电影《看上去很美》中的象征符号及其象征意义,阐述了符号学在电影创作中的具体运用,并进一步阐释了符号学的研究及运用对于电影产业乃至各人文学科的重要意义。     

Interest,not Preference: Dewey and Reframing the Conceptual Vocabulary of School Choice

School choice positions parents as consumers who select schools that maximize their preferences. This account has been shaped by rational choice theory. In this essay, Terri Wilson contrasts a rational choice framework of preferences with John Dewey's understanding of interest. To illustrate this contrast, she draws on an example of one parent's school decision‐making process. Dewey's concept of interest offers an alternative conceptual vocabulary attentive to the complex, value‐laden, and evolving process of choosing a school. Her analysis considers how schools might not just appeal to the preexisting preferences of families, but might instead actively shape those interests to democratic ends.     

Trauma,Meaning Making,and Loneliness in College Students

ABSTRACT

The present study (N = 621) explored relationships between meaning making (i.e., meaning presence and meaning search) and loneliness in college students who have experienced trauma. In addition, the study examined group differences in meaning variables and loneliness, comparing college students who have and have not experienced trauma. The results suggest that loneliness and meaning search are more present in college students who have experienced trauma. Further, meaning presence and meaning search both predict experiences of loneliness within this sample.     

The researcher/interviewer in intercultural context: a social intruder!

The search for improved understanding in cross‐cultural contexts is resulting in a correspondingly high increase in cross‐cultural studies in diverse fields and disciplines. Globalization, economic universalism and internationalization of technology, as well as increased international mobility, immigration and relocation accelerated by the communication explosion, are drawing the world closer, but with an increasing awareness of differences, particularly across the given historical and eco‐political divides. The challenge to research is to communicate meaningfully across these divides. This article explores the issues surrounding cross‐cultural interviewing. Against the backdrop of growing emphasis on cross‐cultural research, there is an emerging need to reconsider interviewing as a research tool with a focus on the interview participants' subjectivities and the subsequent interplay with data collection and making meaning. This entails a recognition of the deep consequences of culture — the embedded patterns of behaviour and the processes of making meaning — and the significance of how these impact on doing research across cultures.     

Educational Media and ‘Agit Prop’: II. The Vertov Process repatriated

In the preceding article, a 75‐year old educational media process involving interactive multimedia, formative evaluation, and a sophisticated distance education system, was described. Although these techniques are mainstays of modem educational technology, their origins in the work of 1920s' film director Dziga Vertov have not previously been recognised. The previous article registered the techniques' roots on the Leninist ‘agit prop’ film train, and their development by Vertov for social intervention purposes. It described their essence, a feedback process whereby media footage is viewed and discussed by its producers and the people it portrays, and used as a catalyst for mass education and change. The Vertov Process culminated during the 1930s in the work of Alexander Medvedkin before being suppressed by Stalin. The article charted the subsequent influence of Vertov's educational techniques on the European schools of film documentary led in Britain by John Grierson, and in France by the avant‐garde movement and by the anthropologist film‐maker Jean Rouch. In 1996, Vertov's centennial year, the two articles indicate the film‐maker's role as an unsung founding father of the modern educational media, and political and cultural reasons for the lack of recognition which his visionary educational impact has received.

Part II of the series examines the adoption of Vertov's techniques by French‐Canadian film‐makers, notably Michel Brault and Fernand Dansereau, in the early 1960s, and the manner in which their origins were further eclipsed by cultural and political discord within Canada's National Film Board. The implications of the process for educational media practitioners in the 1990s are discussed, and its 1995 repatriation on the railroads of the former Soviet Union by a team of educational media specialists from Britain, Canada, and Ukraine are described. The Vertov Process is seen as having unique modern potential, both as a catalyst for social change and as a means to maximise the effectiveness of the media's current and future content.     

论电影艺术视觉文化的原发性与生成性

电影作为综合艺术是以视觉造型艺术为基础的,视觉是电影艺术的第一感觉和基本元素。电影视觉是在艺术与现实关系中建构的,是视觉生理心理原发性生成及视觉文化的建构过程。电影具有现代大众媒介的视觉造型艺术革命的特质,使视觉利用工具技术而得以扩大延长,也使电影的复原性与虚幻性的对立统一张力为影像创造和接受提供了视觉想象的空间,电影因之成为人类艺术化和审美化生存的一种重要方式。     

Meaning‐making,adult learning and development: a model with implications for practice

Where the meaning of life can be found, and how people make meaning in their lives are age‐old questions pursued by philosophers, clergy, psychologists and educators. More recently, there has been a focus on the role of meaning‐making in learning and development in adulthood. Several writers have proposed that meaning‐making is what adult learning is all about, and a few have explicitly linked meaning‐making activity to development. First reviewed in this article are some of the basic understandings of meaning‐making advanced by classical and contemporary writers. Next, models of cognitive and ego development that directly link with meaning‐making are examined. Finally, a model of the relationship of meaning‐making to learning and development is presented and implications drawn for applying the model to adult education practice.     

Intention and Meaning in Young Children's Drawing

In this article I present some ideas, based on qualitative research into young children's drawing, related to the developing discourse on young children's thinking and meaning making. I question the relationship between perception and conception and the nature of representation, challenging traditional ideas around stage theory and shifting the focus from the drawings themselves to the process of drawing, and thus to the children's own purposes. I analyse examples of my observations (made in naturalistic settings within a nursery classroom) to reveal the range of representational purposes and meaning in children's drawing activity. My analysis shows that, rather than being developmentally determined, the way children configure their drawings is purposeful; children can recognise the power of drawing to represent, and that they themselves can be in control of this. I explore aspects of the process, including transformation and talk to show the importance of understanding drawing in its specific contexts. I show how children's drawing activity is illuminated by the way in which it occurs and the other activities linked to it, presenting drawing as part of children's broader, intentional, meaning‐making activity. As an aspect of the interactive, communicative practices through which children's thinking develops, representation is a constructive, self‐directed, intentional process of thinking in action, through which children bring shape and order to their experience, rather than a developing ability to make visual reference to objects in the world. I suggest that in playing with the process, children are actively defining reality rather than passively reflecting a given reality.