A binding tie: Supportive communication of family kinkeepers

Families are an important source of social support and little scholarship exists regarding how family members stay in touch and provide support for one another. Kinkeepers are said to provide support and keep family members informed about one another, yet there has been little research on who family kinkeepers are and how they communicate and enact this role. Two studies were undertaken. The first study used surveys to provide demographic data on kinkeepers and to ascertain information on their activities. The second study used diaries and interviews to document the activities of a set of kinkeepers and to describe outcomes of kinkeeping communication. These studies revealed that kinkeepers are mostly females between the ages of 40–59, who use the telephone and personal visits predominantly. Five outcomes of kinkeeping communication were identified: providing information, facilitating rituals, providing assistance, maintaining family relationships, and continuing a previous kinkeeper's work.     

Responding to the Americans with disabilities act: Contributions of interpersonal communication research and training

The enactment of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), has resulted in considerable misinformation and resistance, especially when ablebodied individuals and persons with disabilities interact. This essay reviews contributions of interpersonal communication researchers who address the challenges persons with disabilities face when communicating with ablebodied others, suggesting ways to mitigate communication discomfort and to reduce problems in helping situations. The authors suggest foci for future research and training which can contribute to the acceptance and effectiveness of ADA and to facilitate communication between ablebodied persons and persons with disabilities.     

A curriculum philosophy for higher education: socially critical vocationalism

In highlighting a gulf between inclusive policy intentions inherent in the advent of mass higher education in the UK and the lived experiences of students and staff, this paper aims to stimulate critical debate about the impact of this changed environment upon traditional personal tutoring relationships. In drawing upon qualitative research with a sample of students and personal tutors from one school in a post-92 university, this paper explores their respective experiences, expectations, needs and concerns. Although some students and tutors reported clear satisfaction with their personal tutoring relationships, this paper highlights the detrimental impact of the mass system upon the ability of many staff and students to engender such connectedness.     

Reducing Task-related Variance in Performance Assessment Using Concept Maps

Task-related variance causes scores from performance assessments not to be generalizable and thus inappropriate for high stakes use. It is possible that task-related variance is due, in part, to students’ inability to transfer their knowledge consistently from one assessment task to another. Therefore, concept-mapping, a cognitive tool, might be useful to aid this transfer. This study examines the effects of concept maps on the task-related variance components of Political Science performance assessments. On three quizzes, some students used concept maps while writing two essays, while other students did not. The task variance components remained unchanged across groups, but the person main effect components increased and the task-by-person interaction components decreased for those using concept maps. Also, the scores from the concept mapping groups had higher generalizability coefficients than for those who did not use a concept map.     

The Aesthetics of the Internet in St. Petersburg: Why Metaphor Matters

This article proposes that the metaphors with which people imagine the Internet are more central to its political constitution than might at first be supposed. Instead of focusing on discourses of whether the Internet is a progressive force, a capitalist or anticapitalist space, digital commons or artifact of controlled interests, this article shows that metaphors of social relations themselves frame the politicization of the Internet. The way social actors are conceptualized in turn informs the senses in which a technology could be considered an object of political constitution, and the senses in which policy is a relevant mode of social engagement. An ethnographic account of uses of the Internet in St. Petersburg, Russia is presented with a view to framing Western metaphors of sociality.     

Connect,build, develop: Forming effective liaison strategies through peer mentoring and partnership

Many studies show that e-book awareness and usage is growing. Using vendor-supplied usage statistics for business and economics e-books, the authors sought to determine if a few titles accounted for a large percentage of usage. If proven, the authors hoped to be able to develop collections strategies to maximize e-book usage. Focusing on three providers, SpringerLink, NetLibrary, and eBrary, results showed that annually, a small number of titles accounted for a large percentage of usage. However, over the collection's lifetime, a higher percentage of titles were used. A small collection of Patron Driven Acquisition eAudio books were also examined.     

“All of Her Changes Have Made Me Think About My Changes”: Fan Readings of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice Series

This essay follows the insights of reader response theory to examine how readers of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice McKinley series negotiate textual meaning and construct particular identities in relation to the series’ controversial content. Ranking second on the American Library Association’s top one hundred list of banned and challenged books for 2000–2009, and criticized by conservative groups and feminist scholars alike, the Alice series may be understood as belonging to a widely-denigrated genre of relational reading material largely consumed by girls. The study analyzes over 2 years of reader posts to the Offical Alice Blog, the major fan website to the series, to argue that reading Alice is a means by which fans shape their social and cultural identities in sometimes contradictory ways. While Alice fans display an uncritical adoption of some traditional beliefs around gender and sexuality in their reading of the series, their discussion simultaneously reveals how their recognition of the series as transgressive and liberating in its presentation of matters related to female adolescent identity enables readers to construct particular identities for themselves as readers, teens, and young women that are formed in opposition to some conservative and traditional ideologies. Moreover, in their engagement with the series’ progressive sexual politics fans move closer to claiming agency as sexual subjects.     

Education research Australia: a changing ecology of knowledge and practice

Processes of national research assessment, such as Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) are a type of audit technology that confronts and steers established institutional identities and traditions. This nexus between policy and practice drives boundary work that diffracts prevailing policy logics, organisational practices, and habits of mind. We use this notion of ‘boundary work’ as an analytical lens for understanding the nature and effects of ERA in the Australian educational research space. This paper explains the methodology that informed the AARE–ACDE research reported in Strategic Capacity Building for Australian Educational Research. It documents the policy logic of ERA and the way it cuts across the established ecology of educational research, revealing social and symbolic work that is remaking the boundaries of educational research. We report on the historical trajectory of Australian educational research, the way ERA codes research outputs, and how educational researchers are repositioning in this shifting research space. We argue that there are specific loci of boundary work where capacity building in Australian educational research can make a difference to future educational knowledge building.