Universities and the humanities,then and now

Over the centuries, universities have functioned as gatekeepers and treasurers of received knowledge, while concomitantly furthering innovative contributions to society. Yet, when cultivating research ‘silos’, universities encourage scholars to explore in seeming isolation. Out of such tensions, universities have supported, and will continue to pursue, different kinds of, and approaches to, furthering knowledge and creativity. In the past, the humanities had been central to this mission. More recently, however, the efficient and global acceleration of consumer-oriented ‘knowledge production and consumption’ seems to form a critical factor upsetting the centrality of the humanities in university cultures. In this context, exploring the academic communities of the late middle ages proves to be a useful exercise. Forged in strong relationships with ecclesiastical and secular powers, mediaeval universities nonetheless share critical concerns with today’s academic institutions; thus, they too were constrained by the need to attract and exact excellence, to navigate relationships with their immediate environs, and to train professionals, who could ensure continuity in academic communities, the church, and the imperial courts. In other words, mediaeval universities also experienced polarising tensions that reveal consonances between then and now and that can gloss today’s acceleration driving the consumer model of knowledge production and consumption, while also encouraging scholars to form more explicit links to external constituencies.     

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory in the context of globalization

The article reviews the social-educational theorization of the early Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky (1896–1934) in the light of the impact of communicative globalization in educational practice. Vygotsky proposed four “genetic domains” for investigating higher cognitive processes: the phylogenetic (humans undergoing natural evolution), the cultural-historical (social activity of humans), the ontogenetic (individual lifespan), and the microgenetic (immediate events). Vygotskian sociocultural theory is widely used in educational research, especially Vygotsky’s notion of mediated development via tools and signs. Since Vygotsky, communicative globalization has transformed educational potentials. Nevertheless, provided adjustments are made to Vygotsky’s genetic method to incorporate time-space compression, the mutual presence of the genetic domains, and the glonacal heuristic, Vygotskian theory continues to be useful in socially-situated investigations of educational development and transformation, and opens another way into the global, for example investigation of the role of global mediation in learning.     

Film scenes in interdisciplinary education: teaching the Internet of Things*

The Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining importance in education owing to its rapid development. This study addresses the importance of interdisciplinary education between technology and the humanities. The use of films as a teaching resource is suitable for interdisciplinary education because films represent creative forecasts and predictions on future human society, helping the public realize what could occur in the future. By utilizing films in instruction, students can be trained to understand the three key functions of IoT and acquire the ability to develop creative applications of IoT. An IoT teaching model using the films Minority Report (2002), Big Hero 6 (2014), Iron Man 3 (2013), Her (2013), and Transcendence (2014), all of which depict various applications of IoT that could be helpful in the teaching of the functions and concepts of IoT, is suggested; an interdisciplinary class is carried out for 15 weeks following the model. The effectiveness of the class is measured using quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, and reflection journals. The findings show that students developed interdisciplinary capacity through education using films.     

Socio-Politically Relevant Pedagogy for Immigrant and Refugee Youth

In this article, the authors discuss how one public high school became a site for socio-politically relevant pedagogy for immigrant and refugee youth, building on the concept of culturally relevant pedagogy that has been discussed in educational scholarship (Howard, 2001, 2003; Ladson-Billings, 1994, 1995a, 1995b). By exploring newcomer youth's understandings of their experiences, self-conceptions, and positioning in the global economy, the authors draw on a three-year qualitative case study utilizing ethnographic methods to highlight the key tenets of a socio-politically relevant pedagogy for youth who lead transnational lives. The key tenets proposed include: (1) the cultivation of critical consciousness around global inequalities and transnational migration; (2) the creation of formal and informal avenues for reciprocal learning between families/communities and schools; and (3) support and care for the material conditions of students' and families' lives.     

Doing good while performing well at Flemish universities: benchmarking higher education institutions in terms of social inclusion and market performance

Universities, and higher education institutions in general, are ever more influenced by output-driven performance indicators and models that originally stem from the profit-organisational context. As a result, universities are increasingly considering management tools that support them in the (decision) process for attaining their strategic goals. The growth-share matrix is one of these tools that has proven its value in diverse business and competitive contexts in the past few decades. The present study’s contribution is twofold. First, we apply and interpret the growth-share matrix as part of a strategic positioning analysis in a strategic university context. Second, we extend this tool by incorporating social inclusion as a third dimension in the analysis. In recent years, discussions on the rising social disparity among adolescents in higher education have increased and different types of actors have raised the motivation to create more equal opportunities for prospective students who rank among the group of socially disadvantaged adolescents. The findings of an empirical case of the proposed model for a particular Belgian academic programme show that increased social inclusion and higher performance parameters, such as growth in student enrolments and diplomas, can be reached simultaneously.     

Utilization of online educational resources in teaching: A moderated mediation perspective

The study builds on a newly modified Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to substantiate the motivation and operation of teachers’ utilization of online learning resources. A ‘Comprehensiveness’ construct is proposed in the modified TAM to reflect the breadth and depth of rich online knowledge. This new construct serves as the mediator between ‘Usefulness’ and ‘Behavioral Intention’ in the new TAM structure. In addition, the ‘Ease of Use’ factor in conventional TAM is proposed to moderate the mediation in the modified TAM. Survey data are collected from 301 teachers undertaking certified training in Macau and Structural Equation Model (SEM) technique is used to assess the model. Moderated mediation is evaluated using both multi-group bootstrapping method and moderated path analysis method. Both methods verify the presence of moderated mediation with partial mediation in high Ease of Use values and full mediation in low Ease of Use values. Theoretical implication of the current study extends the coverage of TAM applications and academic implication suggests the strengthening in teachers’ professional development and government sponsorship in building repositories of online resources.     

Parents’ Perceptions of and Responses to Children’s Emotions: Relations With Meta-Emotion Philosophy and Adult Attachment

Objective. This study investigated how parents’ perceptions of, feelings toward, and anticipated responses to children’s emotions relate to parents’ meta-emotion philosophy and attachment. Design. Parents (112 mothers and 95 fathers) completed an online research study where they viewed photographs of unfamiliar girls and boys (aged 10–14 years) displaying varying intensities of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and neutral expressions. Parents labeled the emotion, identified the emotion’s intensity, and reported their mirrored emotion and responses. They also completed measures assessing their meta-emotion philosophy and attachment. Results. Meta-emotion philosophy predicted parents’ responses to children’s negative emotion, in that greater emotion-coaching predicted greater accuracy in labeling emotions (boys only), a greater likelihood to interact with children, and for mothers to be further from the mean in either direction in their mirrored emotion. Attachment also predicted parents’ responses to children’s negative emotions: Parents higher in anxiety reported more mirrored emotion, and those higher in avoidance reported less mirrored emotion, lower intensity, and less willingness to interact (boys only). In exploratory models for positive emotion, parents’ meta-emotion philosophy did not predict their responses, but parents higher in attachment avoidance rated girls’ positive emotions as less intense, reported less mirrored emotion, less willingness to interact, and less supportive responses, and those higher in anxiety showed the opposite pattern. Conclusion. Despite methodological limitations, results offer new evidence that parents’ ratings on a standardized emotion perception task as well as their anticipated responses toward children’s emotion displays are predicted by individual differences in their attachment and meta-emotion philosophy.     

Nonnative English-Speaking Professors’ Experiences of English-Medium Instruction and Their Perceived Roles of the Local Language

This study examines the experiences of nonnative English-speaking faculty instructors teaching subject courses in English-medium instruction (EMI) at a Korean university and reveals the perceived roles of the local language in the context. The data consist of questionnaire responses of 91 Korean professors and qualitative interviews with 15 who had answered the questionnaires. Findings showed that the participants perceived the local students’ performances and the amount of interaction between local and international students negatively. Their perceived need for the local, Korean language correlated negatively with the interaction between Korean and international students. In the qualitative interviews, the local language in the EMI context, despite the full-fledged EMI policy being implemented top down, was represented as crucial for social and instructional purposes and for their own time management. These perceived roles were found to be associated with their multiple identities, as instructors and researchers, required and practiced in the context. The findings are discussed to provide information on how to support an EMI policy for internationalization of higher education, especially in non-English-speaking societies.     

“I’ve Tried and I’ve Died This Year”: First-Year Teachers Reflect on Literacy Reform

This article describes the challenges associated with outcomes-based education reform as experienced by two novice elementary teachers. Interviews with the teachers provide insights into the tensions between their teaching beliefs and the practices employed in their local contexts. Specifically, pressures to both focus on standardized measures of student achievement and to conform to the social norms of the schools are explored. The authors advocate for the need for situated discussions about these tensions during the first year of teaching and recognition of the complexity of teaching and learning by all stakeholders.