Selling Translation Rights to an American Publisher

American publishers publish few books in translation, so making a deal for American publishing rights is reason for congratulations, however, American publishing contracts are complex documents and variations in house policies on important issues make them seem even more complex. The article includes a chart that may be useful for navigating a typical contract an American publisher will issue to a foreign proprietor from whom it is buying translation rights.     

Strategies for using feedback students bring to higher education

This article explores strategies for acting on feedback that students bring to their higher education, by exploring student perceptions on the guidance they received from their teachers in school or college. Whilst assessment issues have been the subject of a range of research studies, it is the contention of this article that little research has been undertaken to identify the strategies that students possess for ‘using’ feedback. This small‐scale research study was stimulated by M.R. Weaver’s 2006 Weaver, M.R. 2006. Do students value feedback? Student perceptions of tutors’ written response. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(3): 379–394. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar] finding that only a quarter of students had received guidance on how to use feedback prior to university. This exploration identifies the guidance for using feedback that 350 students in Humanities brought to their degree course. Analysis of responses revealed the strategies that students had been introduced to, identifying nine indigenous categories. Whilst almost 40% of these students indicated they had received guidance for using feedback, scrutiny of responses showed that many of these students confused ‘actual feedback’ with ‘guidance on how to use’ feedback. The implications of such starting positions for students and staff are considered: questioning the adequacy of such a foundation for students to be able to make effective use of the feedback they will receive in their degree course, and finally suggesting initiatives by which staff could enable students to get more out of feedback.     

‘The power to squash people’: understanding girls’ relational aggression

While researchers and concerned adults alike draw attention to relational aggression among girls, how this aggression is associated with girls’ agency remains a matter of debate. In this paper we explore relational aggression among girls designated by their peers as ‘popular’ in order to understand how social power constructs girls’ agency as aggression. We locate this power, hence girls’ agency, in contradictory messages about girlhood that, although ever‐present ‘in girls heads,’ are typically absent in adult panic about girls’ aggression. Within peer culture, power comes from the ability to invoke the unspoken ‘rules’ that police the boundaries of acceptable femininity. We thus challenge the notion advanced by Pipher and others that girls’ empowerment entails (re)gaining an ‘authentic voice.’ In contrast, we suggest that such projects must be informed by an interrogation of how girls are positioned as speaking subjects.     

Development of an alexithymia instrument to measure the diminished communication of affect

Although scholars recognize the importance of the communication of affect to the study of communication, no valid operationalization of the motivation and / or ability to communicate affect exists. This study describes alexithymia—an individual variable reflecting the reticence to communicate affect—and reports the reliability and validity of an instrument to measure alexithymia.     

Teaching lifespan development: an experiential approach

The main purpose of this article is to describe a student exercise about ageing which is part of a university course about the lifespan for social workers. The year‐long course covers development from infancy to old age. In order to describe the context for the ageing exercise, the article also summarises exercises done by students prior to that about ageing. The ageing exercise could be generalised to shorter courses, to ones dealing solely with the elderly, and is suitable for both applied and theory‐based curricula, and to both undergraduate and continuing education. This exercise is compatible with an experiential and reflective approach to learning. Dealing with elderly people is often personally challenging for students as the elderly are at a different part of the life cycle from that of students’ usual friends and acquaintances. The exercise helps students to cope with the unfamiliarity of dealing with individuals unlike themselves, and often proves to be an enriching experience for them. At the same time it enhances their understanding and subsequent ability to relate to the elderly.     

Predictors of course outcomes: early indicators of delay in online classrooms

Studies have long shown that students who begin or submit their work later tend to have negative academic outcomes. The measures of procrastination used in those studies may not have provided information timely enough for instructor intervention. This article focuses on delay in the online environment among graduate students. We propose two new measures of delay that can be disclosed in a timely manner, enabling instructors to help students who are prone to late submissions to succeed. Date of class registration and date of initial class posting are negatively associated with final letter grades. Date of first class posting can serve to alert instructors to those with potential delay problems. The results for date of class registration are less clear.     

Exploring who we are in the context of global reforms in education: the Second Level Support Service in conversation

How will the Second Level Support Service (SLSS), established to support curriculum reform and the professional development of teachers, sustain its own professional development and identity in a climate of change and uncertainty? How will the SLSS maintain its vision of continuous professional development in the midst of educational reform? This article reports on a research project undertaken jointly by the SLSS and the Department of Education and Professional Studies, University of Limerick, designed to support the professional development of the SLSS, as it addressed, in a reflexive way, the questions posed above. The article outlines: the context, including the public policy context, in which the research was undertaken; the research design which incorporates narrative enquiry and collegial conversation; and some of the main themes which emerge from the three focus groups, whose conversations provided the research data. Chief among these themes is the degree to which the vision and practice of the SLSS supports or challenges the view of teachers and teaching which underlies the reform of education. The article offers some concluding remarks which relate the project to critical theory and organisational development.     

A systematic review of school-based physical activity interventions on children’s wellbeing

Purpose: The aim of this study was to review the effect of school-based physical activity interventions on children’s wellbeing.

Method: A systematic search of school-based physical activity studies was conducted using EBSCOhost PsycInfo, EBSCOhost Medline and Web of Science. Initially 995 studies were retrieved and, following the removal of duplicates, the titles and abstracts of 984 studies were screened. This screening identified 53 relevant studies from which 42 were excluded, resulting in 11 articles being reviewed.

Results: Three studies reported a positive increase in wellbeing; however, only one of those studies also significantly increased physical activity. It was apparent that the measurement of wellbeing and physical activity was inconsistent across studies, making conclusions difficult to draw. The wellbeing measures used neglected to account for the children’s perspectives of wellbeing.

Conclusions: The effect of a physical activity intervention on increasing wellbeing appears to be more complex than originally believed. The complexity may in part be due to methodological issues and the choice of wellbeing and physical activity measurement. We recommend that future physical activity interventions include a measure of wellbeing developed from the child’s perspective, and that future reviews narrow the search to only interventions that have had success at increasing physical activity before exploring effects on wellbeing.     

What Lies Beneath Seemingly Positive Campus Climate Results: Institutional Sexism,Racism, and Male Hostility Toward Equity Initiatives and Liberal Bias

This study investigates what preservice elementary school teachers assume about children's capacities to learn about equity issues and how teachers might translate teaching for social justice into actual classroom practices. Participants said they did not see the age of their students as a barrier to teaching for social justice, although their ways of conceptualizing this varied considerably, and those teaching grade 4–6 students were generally more risk-taking in the curricular and pedagogical choices they made. We found that the concepts of childhood innocence and developmental appropriateness mediated the topics and approach to topics that beginning teachers considered. Roughly half the participants believed that younger children are relatively uninterested in the events of the day, are incapable of forming nuanced opinions, and are unable to analyze political issues; while the other half disagreed. Participants concerned about engendering negative emotional responses from elementary students made more limited and generic responses to name-calling or teasing rather than naming specific forms of oppression or prompting students to reflect critically on hurtful language and behavior.