Factors that contribute to community members’ support of local nature centers

Nature centers can serve as valuable community institutions if they are seen as providing important services to the community. Through survey research in communities surrounding 16 nature centers in the United States, we examine the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that drive hypothetical support for nature centers from local residents. Respondents who recognized centers as institutions that provide opportunities for leisure and connection with nature; contribute to civic engagement; and bolster local economies, community pride, and aesthetics reported the greatest likelihood of donating, volunteering, or responding to threats at local centers. Additional predictors of support included positive evaluations of staff members, perceptions of positive attitudes toward the center held by other community members, familiarity with center activities, pro-environmental attitudes, and past donation or volunteering. The findings highlight the potential returns for centers that expand their activities and operations beyond more traditional roles of providing nature-based outdoor recreation and environmental education experiences.     

Tracing the development of international branch campuses: from local founding waves to global diffusion?

ABSTRACT

On the basis of the proliferation of international branch campuses, the paper analyses globalisation processes in higher education and the emergence of a transnational and global higher education market. While most research only refers to a growth and global expansion of branch campuses, this analysis traces and illuminates four waves of international branch campus foundations in different areas of the world and their specific founding conditions. In doing so, it provides a macro-perspective on the emergence of the global higher education market. Although international branch campuses have diversified remarkably, they are neither spatially equal nor distributed on a global scale.     

‘Critical friends’: exploring arm’s length actor relationships to local government in education

Abstract

Discussions charting the changing role of local government in education have often focused extensively on ‘concrete’ policy changes over time, but have provided less detail on the contribution to changing power relations of less tangible shifts. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of discourse and governmentality, in this paper, detailed rationalities of local third-sector and other ‘arm’s length’ actors in English education are explored, with a focus on their relationship to local authority (LA) school admissions teams. The paper aims to provide deeper understanding of tactical struggles for authority which happen within competitive local sociopolitical spaces. Data is utilised from a study of ‘Choice Advice’ (CA) in 10 LAs, within a background context where arm’s length agents deployed to deliver CA have been co-opted into central government marketisation regimes, but local state planning of schooling is arguably more equitable for vulnerable families than are logics advancing a marketisation of education. The research reveals: (1) discourses valourising ‘independence’ and ‘distance’ from local state ‘agendas’; (2) discourses separating the interests of ‘parents’ and ‘schools’, with LAs positioned as representing the latter; (3) dehumanising representations of LA officers as ‘faceless’, obstructive and requiring regulation from ‘critical friends’.     

Virtual local target method for avoiding local minimum in potential field based robot navigation

INTRODUCTIONAutonomousnavigationisoneofthemostimportanttopicsinthemobilerobotareaandcanbecategorizedintotwoparts:reactivenavigation(Haddadetal.,1998)andpathplanning.Thefirstoneislocalpathplanningbasedandthesecondoneplansapathintheglobalworkspace .Localpat…     

A comparative analysis of national media responses to the OECD Survey of Adult Skills: policy making from the global to the local?

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Programme of International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is put forward as a landmark development in the lifelong monitoring and international comparison of education. The first round of PIAAC’s Survey of Adult Skills compared performance in literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments across 24 countries. However, the translation of any OECD agenda into national policies is mediated by many actors, including the media. This paper examines and compares how the national media of Japan, England and France reported on the PIAAC results of their countries and the extent to which these reports mirror key messages from the OECD’s Country Notes. It begins to trace how the OECD PIAAC agendas materialise into national policies. Although their role in this initial period was limited, we argue the roles of the media together with other policy actors must be monitored as they interact to shape possibilities for sustainable adult education policies.     

Are local students disadvantaged? Understanding institutional,local and national sense of belonging in higher education

Research on inequality in higher education (HE) is often dominated by class-based assumptions about traditional and non-traditional students. This binary distinction emphasising students’ socio-economic status tends to oversimply the complexity of educational inequality, neglecting crucial factors which affect the perception of social position. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the understanding of inequalities in HE with new data on the meaning of locality, using evidence from comparative studies of institutions. Locality is interpreted as an inclusive concept capturing place identity as well as local attachments based on language, culture and the natural environment. The qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 192 participants in three distinctly different HE institutions, which were deliberately selected according to their socio-economic, cultural, and institutional status. This mixed methods research confirms the importance of different types of belonging at institutional, local and national levels, and their different effects on student groups. The study captures to what extent geographical mobility is associated with social class, by examining students’ sense of belonging and their interpretation of locality in universities across Wales. It challenges the notion of disadvantaged background, and poses a critical question about cultural and geographical familiarity. This study therefore enriches the current debates about the impact of social inequality alongside social class on students’ belonging, success and retention in HE.     

Student’s local top-up higher education choices

Making decisions about education choices is challenging and difficult for students. Utilising the theory of reasoned action, we specify and estimate a conceptual framework that captures the cognitive process of decision making of students in choosing top-up higher degrees in Hong Kong. Top-up higher or bachelor’s degrees are top-up undergraduate programmes forming a progression route for sub-degree graduates to earn bachelor’s degrees. We argue that attitudes, subjective norms and perceived value influence a student’s top-up higher education choices. Our results show that family members, educators, job availability and security, social image and difficulty of curriculum play critical roles in influencing students’ decision. We also find differences between females and males, between business and non-business students and between Year 1 and Year 2 students in higher education choices. These findings underscore the importance of educational institutions developing effective policies for promoting top-up higher degree programmes by taking cognisance of gender, the field of study and year of study differences and for policy makers to understand the dynamics of higher education.     

What’s faith got to do with it? A scoping study on local faith communities supporting child development and learning

In a scoping study on the role of local faith communities in relation to child development and learning in low- and middle-income countries, we note the need for more scholarly attention on this topic, especially in the areas of ECD and primary and secondary education. We find very little literature that explores the current contributions of these faith communities or the impact of interventions. Most literature focuses on interventions driven by international actors that engage faith-actors in instrumentalist ways. We argue for an approach that seeks to recognize and support faith-communities as existing systems that support child development and learning, and believe such an approach will be more sustainable, respectful, and effective.     

Teachers’ assessment-related local adaptations of a problem-based learning module

Teachers’ implementation of a problem-based learning (PBL) program was examined to determine both how they assessed student learning and their reasons for these assessment practices. Ten 6th grade science teachers used Alien Rescue, a computer-based PBL module, with their students for approximately three weeks. Interviews, observations, and teacher-developed artifacts were analyzed qualitatively. The results suggest that assessment-related issues impacted the way that teachers implemented this PBL program, with teachers using grades as extrinsic motivators, deemphasizing PBL’ usual focus on student reflection on their process and solutions, and adding assignments to the PBL program in order to provide greater structure for students’ process and help prepare them for standardized tests. Some of these adaptations conflict with practices typically advocated in the literature on PBL. The implications of these results for the design of PBL programs are discussed, with an emphasis on supporting teachers’ (a) local adaptations of PBL materials and (b) professional development through educative components embedded in PBL programs.

The contradictory effect of the ‘global’ on the ‘local’: Japanese behaviour and attitudes towards English use in local contexts

This paper aims to establish that globalised social and linguistic changes have a more complicated impact on local behaviours and attitudes than is believed. Based on statistical analysis of nationally representative surveys in Japan, the paper presents evidence against the following two propositions: (1) globalisation increases local demand for English use and (2) local enthusiasm for English-education reforms is a direct outcome of globalisation. The findings of the study suggest a significant disconnect between these discourses and reality. Therefore, this paper discusses the power of discourse in constructing images of globalisation and the global spread of English.     

Turner Wanted to Come to China

TurnerwasbornonNovember3,1980.HewasborninasmallvillagenearRichmondinEngland.HisfamilymovedtoTorontoinCanadafiveyears     

They Decided to Fly to Florida

Onecolddayinthemiddleofawinter,MrandMrsRossdecidedtoflytoFloridaforavacation.MrsRosspackedtheirsummerclothesverycarefullythenightbeforetheirdeparture,andthenextmorningtheygotupearlyanddrovedirect-lytotheairport.Whiletheywerewaitingatthecheck-incounter,MrRossbegantoquestionhiswifeaboutthethingsshehadpacked.“Didyouremembermyredbathingsuit?”heasked.“Ofcourse,”sheanswered.“Youdidntforgetourtennisshoes,didyou?”heaskedagain.“Ofcoursenot,”shereplied.Sud-denlytherewasalongsilence.“Whatsw…     

Constructing learning spaces? Videoconferencing at local learning centres in Sweden

This article explores videoconferencing in the context of local learning centres in Sweden. The practice is described as a ‘learning space’ in which adult learners construct socio-spatial relations. The study goes beyond a sociological apprehension of actors and opposes the idea of the material as neutral, passive and conformed by practice. On the contrary, the classroom layouts and the technical artefacts have a profound impact on interaction, communication and learning. The results of the study concern how human actors have to take on different strategies to escape the influence of material actors. It will be argued that the learning space of videoconferencing is a network of interrelations in which control is handed over from humans to material actors. In terms of learning, we may have to rethink the roles of environments and technical artifacts and reconsider such predetermined and static roles of material objects.     

Attention to Intentions—How to Stimulate Strong Intentions to Change

The implementation of educational reforms requires behavioral changes from the teachers involved. Theories on successful behavioral change prescribe the following conditions: teachers need to possess the necessary knowledge and skills, form strong positive intentions to perform the new behavior, and have a supporting environment for change. However, existing approaches to teacher professional development in the context of educational reforms are predominantly aimed at the development of knowledge and skills and at creating a supporting environment, but lack attention to teachers’ intentions to change. In the study described in this article, we performed “motivating-for-educational-change” interviews (MECI) and explored the influence on teachers’ intentions to change in the direction of the proposed national biology education reform, that is, the introduction of a context-based curriculum. The MECI comprised two tools: building on earlier successful experiences and using lesson segments to rearrange instructional approaches. We explored the influence of the MECI technique on the strength and specificity of participating teachers’ intentions. When conducting the MECI, many participants expressed that they now realized how they had already implemented aspects of the reform in their regular instructional approaches. Furthermore, all the participants formulated stronger and more specific intentions to change their regular instructional approach towards that of the proposed reform while taking their regular instructional approach as a starting point.     

Manifestations of neoliberal discourses within a local job‐training program

The purpose of conducting this study was to understand how neoliberal discourses manifest within the local context of a short‐term, job‐training program offered at a two‐year college in the USA. Ethnographic data were collected at the local site through interviews, observations and document analysis. We then situated these data within a global context represented by a corpus of purposively selected national and international policy texts. Focusing on three components of discourse as social action—genres, representations and identities—the data analysis illuminated three interrelated themes relating to how institutional actors translated neoliberal discourses available at the global scale into practice. The ideological consequences for learners as well as examples of counter‐hegemonic resistance are discussed.     

The ‘local’ fetish as reproductive praxis in democratic learning

This article explores the theoretical conceptualization of the local as the preferential spatial domain for democratic participation and learning. It critiques the ideological nature of educational theory that bifurcates the local from the ‘the global’ through the application of the Marxist concept of ‘fetish’. The argument developed here is that the concept of fetish enables educators to conceptualize how and why this fragmentation of the local and the trans-local ultimately obscures the roots of social inequity and de-radicalizes educational responses to social problems, further generating fragmented forms of social mobilization and resistance.     

Parents＇ views on preschool care and education in local community

In this text, the authors are analyzing preschool care and education in local community. They are focusing on the problem of information transfer between the kindergarten, parents and local community, as well as the model of relationship participation. Cooperation between parents, kindergarten and local community is an important element in the preschool institution quality, because it changes inner relationships, climate and culture. Expectations about cooperation in some authors＇ views （Resman, 1992; Schleicher, 1989; Coleman, 1998; Ryan, 1995） depend on tradition, objectives, social context, legal framework and situational demands. The research data show that Slovene kindergartens have more consumer-like relationships with parents instead of partnership. Kindergartens are clear about important information concerning their pedagogical work and organization, but they do not include parents in making decisions about the developing and executing of programs. 92.3% of parents think that the information they receive is clear, understandable only 89.6% think they are frequent. More then half of the interviewed parents frequently or always participate in kindergarten life and work, only about 43% believe that they can co-influence the development or realization of the programme. Parents also think that the local community is not giving them enough information about preschool care problems, because only 10.2% are included in solving current preschool care problems in their municipality.     

because of,thanks to,owing to和due to 辨析

because of ,thanks to,owing to和due to这四个词组都有“由于;因为”的意思,都不能引导从句。但它们的用法各异,现归纳如下: 一、because of是复合介词,其后接名词、代词或动名词、构成介词短语,作状语。例如: