Double Third Festival Celebrated in Tang Paradise

<正>Shangsi Festival,also known as the Double Third Festival,is an ancient Chinese festival celebrated on the third day of the third month of the Chinese lunar c...     

Optimizing the Power of Choice: Supporting Student Autonomy to Foster Motivation and Engagement in Learning

Choice plays a critical role in promoting students' intrinsic motivation and deep engagement in learning. Across a range of academic outcomes and student populations, positive impacts have been seen when student autonomy is promoted through meaningful and personally relevant choice. This article presents a theoretical perspective on the motivational role of choice in learning, based on self‐determination theory. Theoretical principles and current research on student motivation and engagement are described. Conditions under which choice promotes students' intrinsic motivation are then presented.     

Nursing Care Preferences among Filipino Elderly: A Conjoint Analysis

While nursing care has been investigated in the context of patient satisfaction, health care delivery, nursing skill, and patient centered care, elderly patients’ nursing care preferences have not been fully explored nor identified from the lens of utility analysis. This study is a purposive sample of 300 Filipino geriatric patients from the regions of Calabarzon and National Capital Region (NCR) participated and were asked to rank cards from 1 to 12 relative to the following five attributes: waiting response time, nursing uniform, empathetic capacity through time spent and eye contact, and nursing skill based on their preferences. Results of conjoint analysis via Sawtooth Software 18 indicated that nurse attire was the most important attribute (57.26%) while empathetic capacity through eye contact was least important to Filipino elderly (2.27%). Significant differences were found in the respondents’ profile. Among the given attributes, nursing uniform had the most impact in determining an elderly choice of services. Conversely, eye contact had minimal importance. In the health care setting, utilization of this study would allow nursing care to refocus nursing care delivery to maximize satisfaction and hospital loyalty. Future research may explore the cultural and regional differences in terms of preferences among the elderly.     

Measures of Political Talk Frequency: Assessing Reliability and Meaning

Although many insights about political conversation have been gleaned from survey data, researchers have yet to engage in serious and intense scrutiny of the measures used to assess political discussion habits. Analyzing three types of data (two three-wave panel studies, social network data from 25 intact groups, and a cognitive interview), this paper examines the reliability of (and meaning ascribed to) self-reported political discussion frequency measures. Results of Study 1 and Study 2 suggest that self-report measures of political discussion exhibit strong internal consistency at a given time point, but substandard reliability within individuals over time and between members of a dyad. Study 3 demonstrates substantial variability in survey respondents’ definitions of political discussion, with more expansive definitions of politics related to higher reports of political discussion frequency. Directions for future research to enhance understanding and improve the reliability of political discussion measures are addressed.     

College Students’ Appreciative Attitudes Toward Atheists

Atheists are often marginalized in discussions of religious and spiritual pluralism on college campuses and beyond. As with other minority worldview groups, atheists face challenges with hostile campus climates and misunderstanding of their views. The present study used a large, multi-institutional sample to explore predictors of non-atheist college students’ appreciative attitudes toward atheists. Substantial differences were found across identities; secular and spiritual worldview groups hold the most positive views, whereas Christians and Muslims have the most negative attitudes. Interactions with worldview diversity—but not general religious/spiritual engagement—consistently predict more positive attitudes, and these relationships sometimes vary based on students’ own worldviews. These results suggest that colleges and universities can create more inclusive environments for atheists, who constitute a sizable minority group on today’s college campuses.     

Terror(ism) in the classroom: censorship,affect and uncivil bodies

This paper examines an event in a US secondary classroom where a Muslim student was disciplined for reading lesbian erotica in class. While many students read and exchanged erotica in the school, this student in particular was targeted for a disciplinary hearing. I explore this as an affective event, a moment of sensation and excess, to think about how the taken-for-granted dramas of the classroom might be manifestations of larger scale events and geopolitical forces. Here post-9/11 practices of surveilling and managing Muslim bodies and ambivalent affects around Muslim women coalesced to escalate an ‘event.’ As mainstream media increasingly report incidents of Islamophobia in schools, educational research needs pay heed to the experiences and voices of Muslim students. Here a student’s outspokenness, agency, and animated affect were positioned as insubordinate and deemed threatening to the sanctity of the school. Incivility and dissent, rather than insubordinate, are important affects to make space for in secondary schools, particularly for students of color. This paper also explores several concepts in relation to qualitative research including data as affect, affective pedagogies, and glitch methodologies.     

Assessing the gender climate of an evangelical student subculture in the United States

This study explored the gendered experiences of students belonging to an evangelical Christian religious community on a university campus in the United States. As some religious traditions harbour distinctive views on gender differences and roles, the study focused on community characteristics that pertained to beliefs about gender and the behaviours that emanated from those beliefs. The findings revealed that the community was defined by masculine norms, the endorsement of essential gender differences and separate roles for men and women with respect to leadership, modesty and dating/marriage. Suggestions for improving the conditions for women in religious groups and the broader college campus are discussed.     

Humble Cave Witnesses Eternal Love

Humble Cave, a dilapidated cave shelter located in Wujiapo near the Big Goose Pagoda in the southern part of Xi＇an, is a historic ruin which has been now turned into a Iove-themed park within the Qujiang Lake Site Park, Three Chinese calligraphic characters, meaning ＂ancient humble cave＂, are inscribed at the cave＇s entrance, it is said that Wang Baochuan, a faithful lover, waited in this cave for the return of her husband Xue Pinggui for 18 years, In front of the cave＇s window is an ancestral temple in which the couple＇s statues are enshrined. A pair of calligraphic couplets is inscribed on the temple＇s pillars, praising the faithful love between the couple.