The challenges of establishing social learning spaces at a Johannesburg university student residence: Student views

This article reports on two cycles of a Participatory Action Research (PAR) study on student experiences of the process of establishing social learning spaces in a Johannesburg university student residence. We draw on Wenger’s (2009) notion of ‘social learning spaces’ to explore the manner in which students mediate their social and institutional identity, expose power imbalances in terms of decision-making and determine influences on their learning. We argue that learning is facilitated by social engagement and suggest that the conceptualisation and implementation of social learning spaces, although a complex and protracted process, is valuable for students’ social and academic development, particularly in a residence environment. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews, analysed using content analysis, and interpreted through a Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) lens. The findings point to the complexity of establishing social learning spaces (SLS) in a student residence environment with students experiencing multiple tensions in the process, including struggles with collaborative learning, difficulties in developing agency and the challenges of traversing power relations.     

20世纪50—70年代维吾尔族长诗中凸显的话语权与性别文化意识

20世纪50-70年代的维吾尔长诗中由于话语权属于男诗人,所以他们按照自己的社会性别观将作品中的男女人物赋予了各种性别意义。其结果,那些人物成为了集体和个人性别意识的符码。与占主导地位的男性话语权相应,长诗中的叙事视角同样成为了男性视角。这一时期的长诗中,描绘了各种各样的母亲形象和女性形象。虽然这呈现了多样女性形象画廊,但她们身上打下了明显的政治的烙印,较为突出地融入了社会性别意识。     

Social Learning: a new perspective on learning in participatory systems

In many cases experiential learning is located in individuals. Sometimes it is agreed that experiential learning can also be located in groups or social systems. Yet, little effort has been made to conceptualise these processes of “social learning”. In this contribution the authors point out the importance of social learning against the backdrop of changing circumstances in times of reflexive modernisation. Drawing on research, they develop an overall picture of four basic axes of social learning: action, reflection, cooperation and communication. They argue that social learning is all about balancing between various tensions which influence the decisions and directions of the learning systems. They also outline how power, responsibility and creativity hereby play a role. Finally, they formulate some insights about how these processes of social learning can be influenced by external or internal partners of participatory systems.     

The social experience of early childhood for children with learning disabilities: inclusion,competence and agency

This paper tells of the social experiences of three four‐year‐old children with learning disabilities as they negotiate their daily lives in their homes and early education settings in England. We apply a social model of childhood disability to the relatively unexplored territory of young children and use vignettes drawn from video observation to explore the interactive spaces contained in settings with different cultures of inclusion. Using a multimodal approach to the data we show the nuanced ways in which the children enact their agency. We explore the relationships between agency, culture and structure, and argue that children with learning disabilities are active in making meaning within social and relational networks to which they contribute differently depending on the barriers to doing and being that each network presents. Thus, the paper provides an original use of the notion of distributed competence.     

In the forests of the night: an inquiry into the relevance of social dreaming for action research

This paper explores the potential for using dream material and social dreaming in action research. Access to emotional dimensions of experience is increasingly recognised as an issue for action researchers, raising questions about how to enable such inquiry and how material from the imaginative sphere may be brought into socially constituted spaces to generate new insights. Dreams provide entry into the world of image as opposed to concept. But until recently, meanings derived from dream analysis have been restricted to the private, individual sphere. Social dreaming, on the other hand, is a new technique where meanings from dreams are created by and for a socially constituted group. Drawing on a wide range of oneirological literature, studies in social dreaming and dream-sharing, and the author’s own dreams, two working assumptions are articulated to guide inquiry into how dreaming may be used in action research, one relating to the nature of dream experience and the other about practices for bringing dream material into social spaces. These assumptions guided two group-based inquiries to explore the significance of dreaming for action-based research, at meetings of action researchers and practice developers. Material from these inquiries contained a similar dream image, a house in a forest, and the image’s significance to participants and to the author is explored. Participants found that relating their dreams to their work as action researchers and practice developers was fruitful. Questions and insights were uncovered for the practice of action research, and for the practice of social dreaming for social benefit through action research.     

南朝人物的地理分布及其成因

南朝四代历史人物的地域分布特点如下虽然各朝分布的省区数量比较接近,但每省区拥有的人物数量却极不均衡,更为突出者各朝的人数分布呈明显的高聚集性特征;具体到各省区,其人物大体上都是以零星分布为主,仅少数地区呈密集型分布.造成这种差异的原因有家族政治地位、区域文化、移民等重要因素,也与区域政治、经济控制的加强有关.据此可知,南朝四代政治力量地域分布的特点是南方政治力量不断上升,但南方政治力量始终弱于北方.     

流传凝炼特征：白马藏族故事从史到事的表述

白马藏族民间故事流传通道的三种形式,表现着在汉语介质下的“他者描述”之变动不居,由此而凝练出它最主要的特征,即白马藏族故事从史到事的表述。这种特征有四个方面的表现,总的意图在于白马藏族民间故事对本族的历史加以重新的审视、包装与修饰,努力在为历史事件或历史人物灌注时代的气息。白马藏族民间故事中原始的社会理想意识等所共同组成的人生未来意识,主导了在当时社会条件下以及将来自马藏族的故事观念和文学理想。     

Mapping the educational work of governesses on Australia’s remote stations

This article is about the educational work of governesses on Australia’s remote cattle and sheep stations. These stations occupy vast tracts of land in the outback, and form part of global food supply chains exporting meat to countries around the world. The article explores the nature of governesses’ work, the boundaries they negotiate to perform their work, and the spaces and places in which it takes place. The governess occupies a unique position within the occupational and social hierarchy of the station. She lives and works in the same domestic space as the family/employer, unlike other station employees, and is valued for her success in managing the social and spatial dynamics of power both with the students/children and the employer/family. The article focuses on the negotiation of boundaries between domestic/public spaces, paid/unpaid, affective and educational labour involved in governess roles.     

Modeling imitation and emulation in constrained search spaces

Social transmission of behavior can be realized through distinct mechanisms. Research on primate social learning typically distinguishes two forms of information that a learner can extract from a demonstrator: copying actions (defined as imitation) or copying only the consequential results (defined as emulation). We propose a decomposition of these learning mechanisms (plus pure individual learning) that incorporates the core idea that social learning can be represented as a search for an optimal behavior that is constrained by different kinds of information. We illustrate our approach with an individual-based model in which individuals solve tasks in abstract “spaces” that represent behavioral actions, results, and benefits of those results. Depending on the learning mechanisms at their disposal, individuals have differential access to the information conveyed in these spaces. We show how different classes of tasks may provide distinct advantages to individuals with different learning mechanisms and discuss how our approach contributes to current empirical and theoretical research on social learning and culture.     

自我损耗的后效述评

自我损耗会消耗人们有限的自我控制资源,使其在日常生活中无法进行有效的自我控制。因此,研究自我损耗的后效对于社会适应不良的预防和干预有着重要的理论和实践价值。从心理学的分析框架看,自我损耗的后效作用往往涉及两个方面:一方面,个体的基本认知能力和社会性认知,个体对情绪的知觉和调节,以及个体的意志力、选择决策、亲社会性和攻击性等行为,都会受自我损耗的直接影响;另一方面,自我损耗还会通过个体差异产生间接影响,即在自我损耗条件下,人格对某些行为表现的预测力可能会被放大或被削弱。在由自我损耗导致的诸多后效中,有些是短暂并可逆的,有些则会是长期和稳定的,其影响的持续时间往往由自我损耗的强度所决定。     

Keeping them in line: choreographing classroom spaces

This paper provides teachers with an opportunity for thinking about the kinds of ‘people’ constructed in their classes, the kinds of ‘dances’ choreographed and the ways space is organised for learning. We argue that this is essential for teachers to think about if they are to enact socially just professional practices. In this study, we explore the ways in which students learn to be particular kinds of people. We understand this as happening through their participation in communities of practice. Becoming a member of a community of practice, of a classroom and of a school is a process of developing a particular identity, modes of behaviour and ways of knowing. It is through these ‘normalising’ practices that power is constituted, boundaries constructed and certain ‘kinds of people’ are recognised, represented and constituted, whilst others are not. All individuals are implicated in these processes and active in the construction of their own as well as others’ identities. This paper locates this discussion using social relations of gender and ethnicity, and considers how diversity and difference are actively constituted and play out in one primary school classroom. How students participate in the spatial practices and the construction of pedagogical spaces, what identities are available to them in these spaces and which they take up, is explored. The metaphor of dance is used to analyse these spaces, a metaphor which helps us to understand the complexity of classroom relationships and the way macro‐social practices are both reflected and reconstituted in classroom practices. We argue that the ways teachers think about how they place students, space students and construct students are crucial for student and teacher learning.     

Ambience in social learning: student engagement with new designs for learning spaces

An imperative to develop the social experience of learning has led to the design of informal learning spaces within libraries. Yet little is known about how these spaces are used by students or how students perceive them. Field work in one such space is reported. The general private study practice of undergraduates was captured through audio diaries, while activity in the learning space was directly observed, and students provided reflective perspectives in focus groups and through spot conversations. Results suggest such spaces are popular and yet stimulate limited group work. Yet other, less intense, forms of productive collaboration did occur and a taxonomy of four such types of encounter is offered. Of particular importance to students was access to a ‘social ambience’ for study. The results encourage institutions to design for a mixed economy of student choice over learning spaces and to consider modes of encouraging diversity in their use.     

异化劳动理论的几个相关问题——从差异角度分析

人是社会的存在物,因而人的劳动也必然是社会性的劳动,劳动产品总体上也理当属于整个社会.但是,由于人类内部群体、个体之间差异及其相应利益分离的客观存在,人们对劳动产品的占有也就出现了分化和分离,劳动者的劳动付出不仅得不到相应的回报,而且反过来成为统治劳动者的外在力量——这就是劳动的异化.马克思关于异化劳动的理论是从四个方面展开的,其中人与人关系的异化是异化的总体根源,其他三个方面是这一根源下的几种表现形式.由于差异是异化劳动的内在根基,异化劳动是差异的社会化、制度化恶性发展,因此消除异化劳动的根本途径不是消除差异本身,而是消除让差异恶性发展的不合理的社会制度.     

PREDICTING MULTIPLE CRITERIA OF CREATIVE ACHIEVEMENTS WITH MODERATOR VARIABLES1

A moderated regression technique was applied to two samples, one of males and one of females, each of which had multiple predictor, moderator, and criterion information. One moderator was found that consistently identified a group of predictable individuals regardless of both sex and the three creative achievement criteria. This moderator was a modification of the Drews sociability scale and it indicated that those individuals who had little or no inclination towards social functions tended to be considerably more predictable than the remainder of the sample or when the group was taken as a whole. Within the low social groups, girls appeared to be somewhat more predictable than boys on two of the three creative achievement criteria, however the greatest discrepancy appeared in the writing criterion where the girls were substantially more predictable. Finally, the low sociability groups were characterized by greater predictive accuracy regardless of whether subgroup or overall prediction equations were used.     

Mean girls,homosociality and football: an education on social and power dynamics between girls and women

Relationships between girls and women have typically been explored through the lexicon of ‘friendship’ or, where there is a presence of sexual desire, ‘lesbian’. This article suggests the complexity and impact of female (same-sex) sociality, and its relationship to heteronormativity and power dynamics between girls and women runs deeper than the terms ‘friendship’ or ‘lesbian’ give rise to. Exploring social and power dynamics amongst girls and women, this article explores how gender is policed and negotiated within a framework of homosociality. Drawing on empirical research within a women's Australian Rules football team, I explore the complexity of female same-sex bonds, the negotiation of gender embodiment and performance within female homosocial spaces, and the emergence of women's own lexicons in making sense of their relationships with other women in this particular social sphere, further considering how this might be applied to other female homosocial spaces, including same-sex educational and sporting sites.     

民办高校大学生性别角色与社会适应关系研究简

对福建省民办高校大学生的性别角色与社会适应水平的关系进行研究,结果发现不同的性别角色导致大学生的社会适应能力表现出显著差异。在四种性别角色类型中,男性化和双性化的社会适应能力比女性化和未分化更高,而社会适应能力最好的性别角色是男性化,其次为双性化,未分化的社会适应能力一般,而女性化的社会适应能力最差。这一结果和前期大部分研究支持双性化是理想型性别角色的观点稍有不同。福建省三所民办高校大学生中普遍表现出社会适应性一般。     

Collaborative Testing Improves Performance but Not Content Retention in a Large-Enrollment Introductory Biology Class

Collaborative testing has been shown to improve performance but not always content retention. In this study, we investigated whether collaborative testing could improve both performance and content retention in a large, introductory biology course. Students were semirandomly divided into two groups based on their performances on exam 1. Each group contained equal numbers of students scoring in each grade category (“A”–“F”) on exam 1. All students completed each of the four exams of the semester as individuals. For exam 2, one group took the exam a second time in small groups immediately following the individually administered test. The other group followed this same format for exam 3. Individual and group exam scores were compared to determine differences in performance. All but exam 1 contained a subset of cumulative questions from the previous exam. Performances on the cumulative questions for exams 3 and 4 were compared for the two groups to determine whether there were significant differences in content retention. Even though group test scores were significantly higher than individual test scores, students who participated in collaborative testing performed no differently on cumulative questions than students who took the previous exam as individuals.