What Facilitates and Supports Political Activism by,and for,Undocumented Students?

Historically, undocumented students have been unable to attend public and private institutions of higher education in the United States. Lack of citizenship and/or financial aid precludes many from ever applying to college or other post-secondary institutions. This can create feelings of oppression, stigmatization, and/or inferiority for undocumented youth, who had no say in their ever coming to the United States. In the absence of a sustainable federal law that facilitates higher education attainment for this population, some states have enacted their own permissive policies. The present study utilizes a critical consciousness framework and a constant comparative approach to explore one permissive policy in a focal state. To this end, the authors attempt to answer the question of what motivates undocumented students, through the lens of critical consciousness, to engage in political activism, and what is the role of adult-allies? Findings support and extend our understanding of critical consciousness dimensions, vis-à-vis the revelation of ten themes and subthemes unique to this sample. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are also discussed.     

8 Political and financial support for school‐based and child‐centred reforms

This chapter concentrates on the nature and focus of education reform efforts in city school systems during the late 1980s and early 1990s. A thesis is developed that political, and closely related financial, support for continuing efforts to reform or restructure education depends on two primary factors. The degree of agreement about values and goals among stakeholders within and external to school systems appears to influence the likelihood of a given set of reforms. Adoption and implementation of reforms also depend on the level of intensity of action devoted by those groups. This framework is used to examine whether current reform activities in urban environments engender political and financial support that might be essential for future reform initiatives. The paper concludes that future reform initiatives will need to consider changes in the delivery of non‐educational services to garner sufficient political support for meaningful education reform. Yet there must be agreement among values and interests of diverse agencies and sufficient intensity of action of all groups to bring about meaningful change.     

Public Reason and Teaching Science in a Multicultural World: a Comment on Cobern and Loving: “An Essay for Educators…’ in the Light of John Rawls’ Political Philosophy

This is a comment on the article “An Essay for Educators: Epistemological Realism Really is Common Sense” written by Cobern and Loving in Science &; Education. The skillful analysis of the two authors concerning the problematic role of scientism in school science is fully appreciated, as is their diagnosis that it is scientism not universal scientific realism which is the cause of epistemological imperialism. But how should science teachers deal with scientism in the concrete every day situation of the science classroom and in contact with classes and students? John Rawls’ concept of public reason offers three “cardinal strategies” to achieve this aim: proviso, declaration and conjecture. The theoretical framework is provided, the three strategies are described and their relevance is fleshed out in a concrete example.     

Guilt Transformation and Redemption——A Character Analysis of Charlie in Fitzgerald’s Babylon Revisited

Babylon Revisited is F.Scott Fitzgerald’s most renowned and most considered work of short fiction.In the short story "Babylon Revisited,"F.Scott Fitzgerald generally centers on a theme of defining American character.The central figure in Babylon Revisited,Charlie Wales,serves as the lens through which readers observe the events of the story and the life that once thrived in Paris.The controversial questions are also explained in this paper.     

A TRAGEDY OF TIMES AND INDIVIDUAL——George Orwell and His Political Fable Animal Farm

乔治·奥威尔是个在东西方受到截然不同评价的英国作家兼记者。其作品在前社会主义阵营多年遭禁。他的人生轨迹是从一个反帝国主义的左翼作家向右转为一个对斯大林领导的苏联的尖刻批评家的过程 ,其中《动物农场》是其代表作。这个过程不仅表现出他敏锐的观察力及追求社会进步的努力中的个人局限 ,也足以促使我们思考半个世纪前他所揭示的问题 ,推动我们探索社会主义发展的历史道路 ,并对国际共运中的一些问题有更深刻、更全面的理解     

Language and Thought——The Inspiration for Kindergarten Education

Based on the four famous theories of the relationship between language and thought,the author will endeavor to find out the nature between them and apply it to the kindergarten education in the dissertation,aiming at the concrete help to all nursery teachers.     

Universities——Drivers for regional innovation culture and competitiveness

The actual infrastructure of the information society sustains the globalization trend and increases the importance of the information and knowledge. The development of the knowledge society is the direct consequence of the mix of economic, social and cultural processes, which involve the knowledge creation and its equitable distribution, access and sharing. Universities, as poles of knowledge, creativity and innovation, play a key part in the regional development and the global competitiveness. The universities are active promoters of the innovation culture at the regional and international level, by increasing the synergy among education, research and innovation. The article focuses on the role of the academic area in the development of the learning and creative society at the regional level, contributing to the design of new knowledge and technology embedded products, services and organizational processes, which represent the premises of the global competitiveness. The most important challenge the academic environment faces in the new economy is to bridge the gap between the political decision, the governance and the labour market, offering innovative solutions and developing the intellectual capital to address the various issues of the knowledge economy. The article highlights the role of the universities as regional development drivers, by analyzing the economic performance of the Bucharest-llfov region and the direct influence of the trinomial equation： education-research-innovation.     

Citizens now and for the future? Leaders,learners, and 14–19 Reform in England. Messages from research

How do researchers and practitioners understand and interrogate education reform when it is heralded as the solution to many problems, not all of which are educational? As importantly, how can applied educational researchers delve ‘beneath the skin’ of ‘given’ problems to solve or report, and suggest a range of explanations? In this article, the issue is leadership for ‘citizenship’ and the research project, conducted in 2007–2008, refers to participants’ understandings about 14–19 Reforms to ‘produce’ confident and responsible citizens. From contested theoretical and policy as well as research perspectives, this paper explores how citizenship is being framed and understood. Specific attention is given to students’ voices. Findings suggest that educating for citizenship is far from uppermost in the minds and reported activities of many who work or study in the organisations sampled. Implications for practitioner and academic communities are considered, not least the appropriate promotion of education for citizenship that is coherent, holistic, and feasible rather than peripheral or rhetorical.     

Educational research for development—Contributions and challenges

Abstract

The study was designed to assess changes in farmers' knowledge of farmer seed production through schools (FSPSs) in Vietnam. A set of 25 questions covering five technical areas of the seed production process was used for pre and post knowledge testing at 12 FSPSs in the provinces Binh Dinh, Nam Dinh, Nghe An and Dong Thap. The main findings show an overall increase in farmer's knowledge scores after attending the FSPS. FSPS-farmers with low scores on the pre-field school test (ex-ante) scored much better on the post field school test. Gender had no effect on the test scores. Binh Dinh province had significantly higher mean scores on the post field (ex-post) school test compared to farmers in Nam Dinh, Nghe An and Dong Thap provinces. The increase in knowledge score is linked to the application of good practices learned in the field school as farmers who applied good quality seeds, low seed rates and the transplanting method showed a large increase in scores. The results of this study indicate that the tests provide insight into the knowledge gaps.     

"From Morality to Character": Conservative Progressivism and the Search for Civic Virtue, 1910-1930∗

In the years following World War I, conservative progressive educators in the United States made a concerted attempt to re-envision moral education for an emerging corporate industrial society. Fueled by their expertise in scientific curriculum design and their desire for predictable social efficiency, influential educators such as David Snedden, Franklin Bobbitt, and W.W. Charters championed a new vision of moral training that was rapidly adopted by the many states initiating programs in the postwar period. This shift was self-consciously described as a move from moral to character education, a shift that emphasized civic-oriented social practice over the more circumscribed "manners and morals" approaches of the prewar period. While prewar moral education had focused upon social deportment and proper manners with respect to interpersonal relationships, the new brand of character education focused upon one's contributions to the larger social order in terms of efficient service. Following larger trends in conservative progressive curricular theory, character educators sought to codify traits that would characterize "good Americans". Such qualities, they noted, could best be elucidated through activity analysis, a process of determining virtues by looking at the daily activities of exemplary citizens. From this, lists of concrete activities could be listed to clarify and standardize the meaning of "worthy character". This could also open the way to measurable character rating on the basis of the completion of such activities, enhancing the scientific quotient of such training. In all things, the goal was order and predictability. By providing a platform in which young citizens would emulate the best exemplars of worthy adult life, these educators desired to promote a generational continuity that had been decimated by the war and its aftermath. Within a context of moral erosion in this era, many saw such codification as an important means of attaining an elusive stability in a rapidly shifting culture. Conservatives saw themselves as developing the character necessary for the individual and corporate health of an increasingly urban, industrial society. Most critical for this was a sense that virtue was rooted, not in personal moral perspicuity, but rather in self-denial for the common good. Because of this orientation, the virtues emphasized in such programs were often "corporate" in emphasis, highlighting cooperation, teamwork, loyalty, and conformity. While nineteenth-century moral educators thought of the good society as a collection of moral individuals, each devoted to personal moral conviction and self-mastery, mainstream character educators by the 1920s had begun to define the moral person as someone who could fit smoothly into group efforts, conforming to public opinion and fulfilling efficiently the obligations of his/her role. Fostered through group activities, this vision became the dominant theme of postwar "character" education among conservative progressives. While such an approach certainly muted any attempts to utilize character education for social reconstruction, it did promote a changing perspective on morality and moral sanction. The process of activity analysis relativized morality by placing its foundation in the consensus analysis of contemporary citizens rather than moral absolutes. In addition, the emphasis on conformity to public opinion, fostered through group activities, enhanced the other-directedness of American moral culture. Rather than appealing to an internalized conscience developed through early training in moral tradition, this new model emphasized civic conscience, the ongoing ability of individuals to submit themselves to the changing collective will. This paper argues that the conservative progressive character education movement after World War I in the United States actually destabilized moral training by subjecting it to a continually shifting standard.     

Developing Character and Values for Global Citizens: Analysis of pre-service science teachers’ moral reasoning on socioscientific issues

Character and values are the essential driving forces that serve as general guides or points of reference for individuals to support decision-making and to act responsibly about global socioscientific issues (SSIs). Based on this assumption, we investigated to what extent pre-service science teachers (PSTs) of South Korea possess character and values as global citizens; these values include ecological worldview, socioscientific accountability, and social and moral compassion. Eighteen PSTs participated in the SSI programs focusing on developing character and values through dialogical and reflective processes. SSIs were centered on the use of nuclear power generation, climate change, and embryonic stem cell research. The results indicated that PSTs showed three key elements of character and values, but failed to apply consistent moral principles on the issues and demonstrated limited global perspectives. While they tended to approach the issues with emotion and sympathy, they nonetheless failed to perceive themselves as major moral agents who are able to actively resolve large-scale societal issues. This study also suggests that the SSI programs can facilitate socioscientific reasoning to include abilities such as recognition of the complexity of SSIs, examine issues from multiple perspectives, and exhibit skepticism about information.     

“Thank You for Being Republican”: Negotiating Science and Political Identities in Climate Change Learning

When engaging with socioscientific issues, learners act at the intersection of scientific, school, and other societal communities, drawing on knowledge, practices, and identities from both in and out of the classroom to address problems as national or global citizens. We present three case studies of high school students whose classroom participation in a unit on the politically polarizing topic of climate change was informed by their political identities and how they situated themselves in climate change’s sociocultural, historical, and geologic context. We describe how these students, including two who initially rejected human-influenced climate change but revised their understandings, negotiating dissonant identities in the classroom through repeated engagement with conflicting political and scientific values, knowledge, and beliefs. These case studies problematize building bridges between formal and informal learning experiences and suggest that it may be necessary to leverage disconnections in addition to building connections across settings to promote productive identity work. The results further suggest that supporting climate change learning includes attending to identity construction across ecosocial timescales, including geologic time.     

Bullying and School Liability—Implications for School Personnel

Bullying is a serious and escalating problem in public schools across America. Each day, thousands of students face taunts and humiliation stemming from bullies. Bullying victims experience emotional and psychological problems that may persist for a lifetime. Other victims commit suicide or retaliate against bullies out of fear for their own safety. Because the courts presume that schools are safe places, teachers and administrators have a leading responsibility to protect students from the harmful behavior exhibited by bullies. They are expected to foresee that bullying is a harmful activity and initiate appropriate steps to eliminate it.

This article discusses the magnitude of the problem of bullying in public schools and the threat of liability for school personnel who fail to respond to bullying incidents. It concludes with a set of guides that should assist teachers and administrators in protecting students from foreseeable harm while minimizing their legal exposure to law suits based on negligence.     

Zhenghe''''s Touring the West by Water and Columbus'''' Long Voyages——A Comparative Analysis under the Political Visual Angle

郑和下西洋为什么没有后继者,没有使中国更加开放、更加富强?而为什么晚于郑和近百年的哥伦布等西欧航海家的远洋探险航行却揭开了西欧殖民扩张和资本主义大发展的序幕?这两个问题是学术界早就讨论过的:有主要从海洋意识、海权观念方面考虑的,也有主要从历史背景方面考虑的。本文使用政治学中有关利益的理论,从目的与利益的关系的角度尝试对这两个问题进行回答。     

A Contrastive Analysis of English and Chinese Pronunciation——Take Rhythm and Intonation for Example

This thesis demonstrates a contrastive analysis of the pronunciation of British English and Standard Chinese(Putonghua,PTH for short) from the following two parts:Contrastive Analysis of rhythm in English and Chinese and tones in English and Chinese.Thus find out the transfer errors in English made by Chinese learners from Chinese and some alternative approaches will be listed to avoid these errors so as to give some useful suggestions for English pronunciation teaching in China.     

Graphene — An exciting two-dimensional material for science and technology

One atom thick graphene is derived from graphite and is a new material; however, graphite has been a part of human history for centuries. In this article we discuss why it generates so much excitement in a wide variety of scientific disciplines. We emphasize its electronic and mechanical properties with an eye towards applications that may impact our lives sooner, rather than later. We also review methods to make this wonder material, including the famous ‘scotch-tape’ technique that led to the Nobel-Prize winning research.