Interpersonal communication: A conceptual framework

A conceptual framework based on the fundamental psychological needs of recognition and belonging, permits a classification of communication situations which puts into clearer perspective the relationship of these psychological needs to favorable and unfavorable attitudes in communication.     

Action research: A situated perspective

Rigoberta Menchú has become an icon for the struggles of oppressed peoples for justice and self-determination. For many academics and activists around the world, the accusations of lying made against Ms. Menchú by David Stoll brought into sharp focus the politics of "truthmaking" and the absolutist categories of fact and fiction. In this attempt to discredit Ms. Menchú, and through her, the Mayan experience of genocide by the Guatemalan military and its U.S. sponsors, important questions have been raised about how and when Third World women can speak, the conditions under which they will be heard, and the strategies used to silence them. In this paper, the author draws upon some of the lessons of the Rigoberta Menchú case to examine the politics of truth making in Canada in a recent controversy regarding a speech she made criticizing American foreign policy and urging the women's movement to mobilize against America's War on Terrorism. The highly personalized nature of the attacks on the author by political and media elites sought to accomplish a closing down of public space for informed debate about the realities of U.S. foreign policy and to silence dissent. Repeatedly emphasizing her status as an immigrant outsider, this controversy also contributed to the (ongoing) racialization of people of color as a treacherous "enemy" within the nation's geographical borders, against whom "Canadians" had to be mobilized.     

The development of intentions for adapted teaching and inclusive education seen in light of curriculum potential. A content analysis of Norwegian national curricula post 1980

This article analyses and discusses the development of the principles of adapted teaching and inclusive education in the three most recent Norwegian national curricula, seen in light of curriculum potential as an overarching perspective. This potential highlights teachers' opportunities for choosing and adapting their teaching content. The area of problems is first related to relevant curriculum theory and choice of method. Our qualitative text analyses and then examines the relevant curricula and other national documents which provide guides and intentions for schooling in Norway. The analysis will also be viewed in an international perspective in relation to OECD evaluations of Norwegian schooling. The discussion highlights the fact that the Norwegian curriculum reforms are affected by these international evaluations. This particularly applies to the relationship between the central governing of the school's content and the individual school's curriculum potential.     

Negotiating the context of online in-service training: ‘expert’ and ‘non-expert’ footings

This paper focuses on how people working in the Swedish food production industry engage in in-service training by means of computer-mediated communication. The empirical material consists of archived chat log files from a course concerning quality assurance and food safety hazards control in the preparation and handling of foodstuff. Drawing on Goffman and the concepts framing and footing, the analytical focus in this study is on how participants frame the web-based training activity, and what participation frameworks they enact in the activity. The analysis shows that the participants enact and shift footings when they write, and these shifts in footings result in a hybridity of framings. However, as the analysis also shows a thematic continuity and a progression in the online discussions are rendered possible as the participants draw on a participation framework of one more knowledgeable recipient (teacher and/or representative of the authority) and some less knowledgeable recipients (students and/or representatives of branch organisations). In this manner, shifts in footing are found to be a productive means of serving both specific communicative and pedagogical purposes in the online in-service training environment.     

Reproducibility of objectively measured physical activity: Reconsideration needed

ABSTRACT

Reliability of accelerometer-determined physical activity (PA), and thus the required length of a monitoring period, appears to depend on the analytic approach used for its calculation. We compared reliability of objectively measured PA using different resolution of data in a sample of 221 Norwegian 2–6-year-old children providing 2–3 valid 14-day periods of accelerometer monitoring (ActiGraph GT3X+) during September–October, January–February, and May–June 2015–2016. Reliability (intra-class correlation [ICC]) was measured for 1–14 days of monitoring across the measurement periods using linear mixed effect modelling. These results were compared to reliability estimated using different resolution of data using the Spearman–Brown formula. The measured reliability improved only marginally with increased monitoring length and levelled off after 5–6 days. Estimated reliability differed substantially when derived from different resolution of data: 3.9–5.4, 6.7–9.2, 13.4–26.7 and 26.3–87.7 days of monitoring was required to achieve an ICC = 0.80 using an hour-by-hour, a day-by-day, a week-by-week and a period-by-period approach, respectively. Reliability could not be correctly estimated from any single resolution of data. We conclude that reconsideration is needed with regard to how reproducibility of objectively measured PA is analysed and interpreted.     

Exchange relations on the dark web

This article examines exchange relations on Silk Road, an anonymous online black market formerly located in a concealed portion of the Internet, the dark web. The federal court case of Ross William Ulbricht, Silk Road’s architect and executive operator, constitutes the core of my source material, along with Ulbricht’s online statements. I argue that Silk Road represented an aggressively capitalist mode of exchange, marked by an absence of state economic regulation, a lack of status codes, an ineffective reputation system, and a resulting deluge of blackmail, scam, coercion, and monopoly. Contrary to its founder’s vision of a libertarian utopia, the digital free market in contraband was plagued with fraudulent economic practices, underwritten by a market logic that exploited the site’s unique infrastructure. The salient principle of economic relationality on Silk Road was not cooperation and freedom but deception and intimidation.     

Where Are the Liberal Arts?

Research in Higher Education - Responses to the College Student Experiences Questionnaire at each of five types of institutions (Selective Liberal Arts, General Liberal Arts, Comprehensive Colleges...     

Navigating Windows Into Past Human Minds: A Framework of Shifting Selves in Historical Perspective Taking

This article presents a framework for understanding historical perspective taking (HPT), the effort to use historical material to explore the internal states of past people. It addresses gaps in HPT research by (a) linking HPT to theories and research from the social science disciplines on perspective taking and the self and (b) proposing a way to analyze how different tasks may elicit different kinds of HPT. The framework is grounded in a study in which 4 young adults thought aloud while taking the perspective of a victim or a perpetrator at the Salem Witch Trials and in a Holocaust-era massacre. Four shifting self perspectives were identified, whereby participants thought as their present-day selves, constructed hypothetical and imagined past selves, and made timeless generalizations about humans. To demonstrate the utility of the framework, I then use it to consider how task characteristics may elicit differential use of the self perspectives. It is argued that close attention to these self perspectives is a novel and crucial way to bring nuance to the concept of HPT, and implications for multiple learning environments are discussed.     

The Development of Process Indicators to Estimate Student Gains Associated with Good Practices in Undergraduate Education

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the development of psychometrically sound process indicators of student performance is described. Second, the results are reported of a test of the utility of these indicators with six samples of men and women students (n = 911 in each group) from 19 baccalaureate, 27 master's, and 29 doctoral-granting institutions. Process indicators represent behaviors associated with desired outcomes of college and estimate the extent to which students are engaged in these activities. Selected items from the College Student Experiences Questionnaire were used to create measures of three good educational practices: faculty-student contact, cooperation among students, and active learning. Active learning and cooperation among students in that order were the best predictors of gains for both women and men at all three types of institutions. Student background characteristics had only trivial influences on educational gains. Implications are discussed for institutional policy and further research.