Identifying Sequences of Advice-Giving in Online Military Discussion Forums

Advice can be beneficial yet risky, particularly when offering suggestions in sensitive and unique situations. Applying the integrated model of advice-giving as a guiding framework, we examined 916 supportive messages exchanged on 12 web-based military discussion forums to investigate the link between the characteristics of support-seeking requests and the types of support provided. Only 1% of replies displayed the theoretically preferable sequence of emotional support, analysis of the problem, then advice. Individuals who used sad language were less likely to receive advice only and more likely to receive emotional support upfront. Users who sought advice often encountered responses that contained only advice. Responses to individuals who discussed their troubles or requested only emotional support followed a slightly different pattern. We discuss implications for advice-givers/receivers and users of military online forums.     

The Importance of Community Knowledge in Learning to Teach: Foregrounding Māori Cultural Knowledge to Support Preservice Teachers' Development of Culturally Responsive Practice

Culturally responsive teaching is an essential component of reframing educator preparation for equity and has particular resonance when working in partnership with indigenous communities. As teacher educators in Aotearoa New Zealand, we continually seek to enhance our practices to ensure that Māori cultural values, pedagogies, and epistemologies inform all aspects of our teacher education curricula and support Māori educational aspirations. In this article we describe a preservice teacher education program co-constructed with our local Māori community that foregrounds Māori cultural knowledge. We focus particularly on two signature features of the program, a co-constructed framework for teacher growth and development and community-based learning experiences, highlighting the ways that these features engage preservice teachers in learning through Māori epistemological perspectives and pedagogies. We conclude by reflecting on the generative nature of engaging community expertise and knowledge to create contextually meaningful learning experiences for preservice teachers that support their development as culturally responsive teachers.     

Developing the next generation of engaged youth: Inspire Aspire – Global Citizens in the Making

School-based character education (CE) programs provide an opportunity to increase the moral fortitude of adolescents. This study is a preliminary evaluation of Inspire Aspire, a CE program that was implemented with 13- to 14-year-olds in Scotland. A relational developmental systems meta-theoretical approach and person-centered analyses were employed to understand whether teacher implementation variability is associated with student outcomes. The study aimed to: assess variation in program implementation across teachers; assess student poster quality, which served as a youth outcome measure; and, assess the relationship between variations in program implementation and poster quality. Teachers who fully integrated Inspire Aspire with the broader curriculum (as opposed to using it as a standalone program) as well as teachers who made more modifications to Inspire Aspire tended to have students with higher quality posters. This finding stands in contrast to the common narrative regarding evidence-based programs that requires teachers to strictly adhere to program guidelines in order to maintain implementation fidelity.     

LivingPlessey in the context ofBrown: Cultural politics and the rituals of separation

This article examines the rituals of exclusion present in some public schools in southern Georgia. While ostensibly desegregated nearly twenty years afterBrown, many of these schools still articulate the concept of “separate but equal” through ritualized curricular practices. Such acts fly in the face of the stated purposes of integrated public schools. The writer analyzes this phenomenon relative to ritual theory and poststructural conceptions of power. Working from the analytics of Foucault and the work of McLaren, the writer argues that regardless of the rationales of the stated discourse of inclusion, the discourse of exclusion and separation is clearly the dominant form of social practice. The writer then discusses the impact of these discursive practices relative to the continuing problem of self-imposed segregation in schools and posits some possible courses of action. Extended implications of these practices are illustrated through interviews concerning the symbolic inequalities extant throughout the region.     

Assessment Measures: management's yardstick

Nonprofit organizations' constituents, trustees and donors find financial reports confusing and too detailed. Advocates of Service Efforts and Accomplishments and assessment measures suggest that disclosing both financial and nonfinancial indicators will make the reports more useful. With hundreds of possible measures, ratios and data available, the nonprofit manager must select measures that portray the institution's condition and performance. This article presents a process and rationale for determining the measures. Also presented is a set of measures developed from interviews with presidents and administrators which were selected by a quantitative process that models complex decisions. The information selected for display both describes and measures the organization's condition and performance.