A world I don’t inhabit: disquiet and identity in Second Life and Facebook

The authors use their own experiences with social software to argue for the need for caution in its uses in education. They particularly draw attention to difficulties in engagement, the effects on identity, an emphasis on superficial issues, lack of coherence, and problems with authenticity and trust. While Facebook and Second Life appear to have potential for educational applications, the disquiet associated with them may need to be taken into account: and this can affect both students and their teachers. One of the authors is a student on an online course and extracts from her blogs and journal capture the emotional and psychological effects of engaging in these new worlds at the time it happened. Both authors have noticed changes in their responses over time and point to the need for integration and coherence for “virtual identities” to play an appropriate part in higher education. The paper raises more questions than it answers and suggests that there is an urgent need to theorise online identity, the roles of academics and students, and the codes of practice in such environments. If social software has a serious place in academic life, these issues will need to be widely debated.

Eine Welt, die ich nicht bewohne: Unruhe und Identität in Second Life und Facebook

Die Autoren lenken die Aufmerksamkeit auf Schwierigkeiten beim Engagement, der Wirkung auf Identität, die Betonung auf oberflächlichen Angelegenheiten, dem Mangel an Kohärenz und Probleme mit Authentizität und Vertrauen beim Verwenden von Facebook und Zweiten Leben. Während Facebook und Zweites Leben Potenzen für Bildungsnutzung zu haben scheinen, sollte die mit ihrer Nutzung entstehende Unruhe sowohl von Studenten als auch ihren Lehrern als Beeinflussung in Betracht gezogen werden muss. Beide Autoren weisen auf die Notwendigkeit nach Integration und Kohärenz hin, damit “virtuelle Identitäten” einen angemessenen Anteil in der höherer Bildung spielen können. Das Papier wirft mehr Fragen auf, als es beantwortet und weist auf die dringende Notwendigkeit hin, Online‐Identität theoretisch zu klären und die Rolle von Akademikern und Studenten sowie die verwendeten Codes in einer solchen Umgebungen zu analysieren.

Un Monde dans lequel je n’habite pas: inquiétude et identité dans Second Life et Facebook

Les auteurs attirent l’attention sur les difficultés à s’engager, les effets sur l’identité, l’accent mis sur les problèmes superficiels, le manque de cohérence et les problèmes d’authenticité et de confiance qui surgissent lorsqu’on utilise Facebook et Second Life. Bien que Facebook et Second Life semblent offrir des possibilités pour des applications éducatives il est peut‐être nécessaire de tenir compte de l’inquiétude qu’ils suscitent: cela peut en effet affecter aussi bien les étudiants que les professeurs. Les deux auteurs insistent sur le besoin de cohérence et d’intégration pour que les « identités virtuelles » jouent un rôle approprié dans l’enseignement supérieur. Cet article soulève plus de questions qu’il n’apporte de réponses et avance l’idée qu’il y a un besoin urgent de théorisation de l’identité en ligne, du rôle des professeurs et des étudiants et des codes de pratique dans des environnements de ce type.

Un Mundo en el cual no vivo: inquietud y identidad en Second Life y Facebook

Los autores llaman la atención sobre la dificultades de comprometerse, los efectos sobre la identidad, el énfasis en las cuestiones superficiales, la falta de coherencia y los problemas de autenticidad y de confianza que surgen cuando se utiliza Facebook y Second Life. Aunque aparentemente Facebook y Second Life tienen cierto potencial para ofrecer aplicaciones educativas, puede ser necesario tomar en cuenta la inquietud que conllevan; esto puede afectar tanto a los estudiantes como a los profesores. Ambos autores indican que hay una necesidad de integración y coherencia para que las « identidades virtuales » puedan desempeñar un papel adecuado en la enseñanza superior. Est artículo plantea muchas preguntas y no responde a todas y apunta la idea de una necesidad urgente de teorizar la identidad en línea, los respectivos papeles de los profesores y estudiantes así como los códigos de actuación en esos entornos.     

“It’s not just learning English,it’s learning other cultures”: belonging,power, and possibility in an immigrant contact zone

This ethnographic investigation of a multiethnic, multilingual classroom examines the ways in which immigrant students’ goals for community and belonging were mediated by their vibrant cultural and linguistic practices. Findings demonstrate how youth formed a community of practice through brokering acts, resource pooling, and linguistic play across national, cultural, and linguistic differences. As such, immigrant students were agentive transcultural navigators whose practices broach new understandings of social life and learning, and present a pedagogy of possibility. It is argued that immigrant classrooms in contact zones must be reenvisioned – from reductive spaces where educational goals are to acculturate the immigrant into a fading US homogeneous mainstream – to cutting edge spaces of twenty-first-century learning.     

The Recruitment of New Teachers from Minority Ethnic Groups

This article reports on part of a larger, ongoing two-year investigation supported by the Teacher Training Agency into the recruitment of new teachers from minority ethnic backgrounds via Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses in England. The authors focus here on interviews with admissions tutors, course directors and other senior staff at teacher training institutions. The interviews revealed differences between institutions in the measures taken to attract minority ethnic students. The research indicates a need for much clearer guidelines for admissions tutors on the issues surrounding the question of 'positive action' on the recruitment of new teachers from minority ethnic groups.     

Friendship Fictions: The Rhetoric of Citizenship in the Liberal Imaginary

This introductory essay makes the case that rhetorical studies as a field and the Quarterly Journal of Speech as the journal of record for that field are racist. Racism need not imply that evildoers in pointy hoods are pulling the strings of the journal and field; indeed, the assumption that racism is rooted in the bad thoughts and deeds of intentional individuals is part of the problem and is further evidence of the field's ignorance on the subject. Drawing inspiration and guidance from Ibram X. Kendi's work on antiracism, and anchoring my analysis in Paula Chakravartty et al.'s “#CommunicationSoWhite,” I make an honest effort to diagnose aspects of rhetoric's racism problem and suggest some of the attitudinal and material shifts that will be necessary to challenge the whiteness of rhetorical studies. An introduction of the remaining essays in this #RhetoricSoWhite forum concludes the introduction.     

The lay sister in educational history and memory

A tiered and hierarchical system of membership has in the past characterized many Catholic religious teaching orders.¹ In women's orders, those who undertook domestic duties were usually referred to as lay sisters. Those who undertook teaching and administrative duties were called choir nuns. Histories of Catholic education have tended to include scant references to the system and virtually no systematic exploration of its meaning in the culture of Catholic schools. The aim of this paper is to provide an exploration of the construction of lay sisters in a particular religious order and school setting. The exploration is informed by poststructuralist theory; in particular, notions of ‘discourse as practice’, the symbiotic and hierarchical relationship between the binary oppositions, individual consciousness as the site of the discursive struggle, and investment in discourse. These notions are drawn upon to explore the construction of the category of lay sister within educational histories, texts that pertain to the order in question and interviews undertaken with choir nuns, one lay sister, ex-students and ancillary staff. The narrative of one lay sister is explored in order to locate her understanding of the construction.     

How to Go Green: Creating a Conservation Culture in a Public High School Through Education,Modeling, and Communication

This case study examines how energy conservation efforts in one public high school contributed to both sustainability education and the adoption of sustainable behavior within educational and organizational practice. Individual role models, school facilities, school governance and school culture together support both conservation and environmental education, specifically through the application of principles from behavior theory, including modeling commitments, values, expectations, and behaviors. In addition, role models with the traits of charismatic leaders can be especially instrumental. In this school, communication is the thread connecting the multiple aspects of modeling, helping to create the synergistic relationship between conservation efforts and environmental education. This study demonstrates that conservation efforts, when modeled successfully in a public school setting, can simultaneously and synergistically meet the goals of conservation and sustainability education.     

An International Perspective on Gifted Education: An Interview With Kirsi Tirri

Expectancy-value motivation profiles were identified in a sample of US ninth-grade students in 2009 (n = 19,259) using latent profile analysis. Of four distinct profiles, two were high, one typical, and one low in math and in science. In each area, the two high profiles were distinguished by (1) high self-efficacy with lower utility value and (2) high utility value with lower self-efficacy. High-ability was identified by a math score at least one standard deviation above the mean within the race/ethnicity group. Forty-one percent of high-ability students had high math motivation, while only 27% had high science motivation. Evidence of disidentification was observed. Some high-ability students had low motivation in math (15%) and science (28%). Implications for talent development and gifted education are discussed.     

Changes in children’s cognitive development at the start of school in England 2001–2008

Since 1997, England has seen massive changes in the Early Years including the introduction of an early childhood curriculum, free pre‐school education for three‐year‐olds and local programmes for disadvantaged communities. Many of these initiatives took time to introduce and become established. Beginning in 2001, and each year thereafter until 2008, the authors collected consistent data from thousands of children when they started school at the age of four on a range of variables, chosen because they are good predictors of later success. These included vocabulary, early reading and early mathematics. Children from the same set of 472 state primary schools in England were assessed each year. This paper contributes to the existing studies of educational trends over time by examining the extent to which children’s scores on these measures changed over that period; in general, they were found to have remained stable.     

The last place to look: the place of pupil councils within citizen participation in Scottish schools

This article critically examines pupil councils as a means of developing pupils’ citizenship participation. It draws on findings across two research projects. The first study is a mixed method study commissioned by Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) that reviews the range of participatory activities in Scottish schools and their contribution to Scotland’s major curriculum revision, the Curriculum for Excellence (CFE). The second is a longer ethnographic study examining young people’s experience of participation projects in more detail. The findings lend strength to the argument that pupil councils as a stand-alone approach are not an effective means of citizenship participation. When pupil councils are complemented by other participation activity across spheres of school interaction, young people’s understanding of and interest in participation can be greatly enhanced. The article examines the cross curricular linkages schools are making, the barriers that impede such linkages and the benefits derived from successful coordinated approaches in light of criteria for ‘graduated participation’ developed through decades of work internationally on children’s participation.