Birth of the Suicidal Subject: Nelly Arcan,Michel Foucault,and Voluntary Death

Abstract

Michel Foucault argues that it is not sex but death that is the true taboo in the modern, biopolitical era. The result is that regular death has been privatised and institutionalised, wars are waged in the name of life, capital punishment has become a scandal, and suicide has become a problem for sociological and psychiatric analysis rather than law. In contrast to the dominant view, Foucault portrays suicide not as a mark of pathology but as a form of resistance (tragic or pleasurable) to disciplinary power, and argues for an aestheticisation of voluntary death as part of a beautiful life. Through a reading of the writings of Québecoise author Nelly Arcan, this essay presents but also critiques and expands upon Foucault's accounts of suicide, exploring the thesis that the pathological model of suicide produces the subjects that it intends to treat.     

The Effects of One versus Two Years of Intensive Reading Intervention Implemented with Late Elementary Struggling Readers

We examined the effectiveness of a researcher‐provided reading intervention with 484 fourth graders with significant reading difficulties. Students were randomly assigned to one year of intervention, two years of intervention, or a business‐as‐usual comparison condition (BAU). Students assigned to two years of intervention demonstrated significantly greater gains in reading fluency compared to students who received one year of intervention and the BAU group. Students in both the one‐ and two‐year groups demonstrated similar and significantly larger gains in word reading in comparison to the BAU group. There were no statistically significant differences between the three groups on standardized measures of reading comprehension. We discuss these results in the context of research with late elementary and secondary students targeting reading comprehension.     

Universities Conducting STEM Outreach: a Conceptual Framework

This paper addresses the positioning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach programmes within universities’ operations. Though universities in many respects form a rather homogenous international community, there is wide diversity in regard to the provision of STEM outreach by different institutions. To explain this diversity, a conceptual framework was developed by using the Theory of Legitimacy as an organising concept. The framework considers two opposing scenarios that form a continuum between them, namely: ‘top‐down’ initiative by the university governance versus ‘bottom‐up’ grass‐roots initiative. Using the Theory of Legitimacy, internal and external outreach relationships are characterised and explained under the two scenarios. The framework was applied to two settings chosen due to their essential differences in outreach provision, namely, Australia and Israel. The differences that were found in internal and external legitimacy provide a useful lens for examining the low‐performing, fragile system in Australia as compared with the high‐performing, thriving system in Israel.     

Is That Even Checkable? An Experimental Study in Identifying Checkable Statements in Political Discourse

The first step in journalistic fact-checking of political discourse is identifying whether statements contain “checkable facts” (i.e., not opinions). This randomized controlled experiment investigated how different demographic factors (age, gender, education, profession, and political affiliation) are associated with the ability to discern if statements contained checkable or noncheckable facts, as well as what impact training in identifying checkable facts can have on overall outcomes. A total of 3,357 participants identified checkable and noncheckable statements from a fictional political speech extract containing eight statements. Overall, participants were able to correctly identify an average of 69% of statements. Specific demographic factors (being male, young, and university educated) were positively associated with increased performance as well as working in professions that commonly analyze data, such as research. Participating in a short training session significantly increased participants’ performance. Initial political affiliation slightly reduces the ability to assess whether statements made by named politicians contained checkable facts.     

Bidirectional relationships of physical activity and gross motor skills before and after summer break: Application of a cross-lagged panel model

Background:Gross motor skills are postulated to have a bidirectional relationship with physical activity(PA);however,no study has tested this relationship before and after a summer break.The purpose of this study was to examine the bidirectional relationships between school PA and gross motor skills in children before and after a summer break.Methods:Participants were a sample of 440 children recruited from 3 low-income schools(age=8.9±1.2 years,mean±SD).PA was assessed as average school-day step counts using Yamax DigiWalker pedometers(Yamasa Tokei Keiki,Tokyo,Japan)worn for 5 consecutive school days.Gross motor skills were assessed using the Test for Gross Motor Development,3 rd edition.Data were collected at 2 timepoints:at the end of spring semester(T1)and at the beginning of the subsequent fall semester(T2).An age-and body mass index-adjusted cross-lagged model was employed to relate T1 school step counts with T2 gross motor skills and T1 gross motor skills with T2 school step counts.Results:T1 gross motor skills significantly predicted T2 school step counts(β=0.24,95%confidence interval(95%CI):0.08-0.40,p=0.003);however,Tl school step counts did not predict T2 gross motor skills(β=0.04,95%CI:-0.06 to 0.14,p=0.445).The model explained 35.4%and 15.9%of the variances of T2 gross motor skills and T2 school step counts,respectively.Additional analyses indicated that these relationships were driven primarily by ball skills.Conclusion:The relationship between gross motor skills and school PA was not bidirectional;however,higher gross motor skills,specifically ball skills,predicted higher school PA after a 3-month summer break.     

‘Economic rewards are the driving factor’: neo‐liberalism,globalisation and work attitudes of young graduates in Australia

Successive Australian governments have adopted neo‐liberal ideological imperatives of engaging with globalisation. This has been particularly noticeable in the policy areas of employment and higher education. Frame analysis and sensemaking are deployed to examine the ways in which neo‐liberalism has influenced the perspectives young people graduating from two Australian universities have towards work and education. Our findings show that the ways in which students made sense of their environment reflected neo‐liberal conceptions in that their attitudes to work and education were framed in mainly instrumental, economic terms. It is concluded that although neo‐liberalism is ascendant, it is not all pervasive.