Cases of Censorship in Public Libraries: Loudoun County,VA

ABSTRACT

In 1998, a group of adult library patrons and individuals in Loudoun County, Virginia, brought a suit against library trustees, board members, and the director of the county’s public library, claiming that the library’s use of Internet blocking software was an infringement on their First Amendment rights, leading to the federal court case Mainstream Loudoun v. Board of Trustees of the Loudoun County Library (1998). Using an in-depth case study approach and going beyond a review of the court documents, the author uses a series of qualitative interviews with individuals connected to the court case to gather more in-depth information regarding events surrounding this case of censorship in public libraries and investigate the phenomenon of librarians acting as censors themselves.     

An Exploration of “Hyper-Local” Community-University Engagement in the Development of Smart Cities

The use of big data in smart cities poses new questions about higher education and community-university engagement practices in addressing longstanding social and economic exclusion in urban communities. Drawing on transdisciplinary ideas in higher education, cultural theory, and science and technology studies, primary concerns in the era of big data are considered with current conceptualizations of higher education engagement and anchor institution purposes. Tensions in the narratives of civic engagement and democratic practice for community well-being are juxtaposed with tensions in the smart citizen narrative implied by the idealized smart city design. A new framing of community-university relations under what I term “hyper-local” engagement is suggested for more justice-oriented and democratic practices when universities interact with their surrounding communities given the impending and sweeping changes occurring from the use of big data in social policy.     

Sharing best practices in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago: patterns of policy implementation and resistance

This article outlines policies from multilateral organisations that advocate sharing best practices between developing nations. The article discusses the degree to which these best practices are implemented by small states as indicated by teachers, academics and policymakers in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. For the purpose of this article, a best practice refers to pedagogy, curriculum or programme that contributes to student achievement. Currently, a number of influential multilateral organisations advocate that developing nations should share their best practices in education with each other. Despite encouragement by multilaterals however, best practices are not shared. At best, foreign ideas are used to legitimise local policies. While these policies are intended to help countries reach their Education for All (EFA) goals, they do not account for the differences between islands and their vulnerability towards larger countries. Attempts to innovate the curriculum by implementing foreign ideas failed due to the forces of tradition. It can thus be concluded that resistance – non‐compliance or opposition – to sharing educational best practices, as well as to the implementation of new curricula, stems from echoes of colonialism and globalisation. Although this study focuses on two islands, there are implications for other developing countries and small states as they fall under the same policy auspices of UNESCO and the Commonwealth Secretariat.     

Internationalisation of the higher education curriculum in criminology: a role for the southern criminology project

Contemporary issues of global significance for criminology include transnational crimes and relative inequality. To equip higher education students to become global citizens who can contribute to solutions, internationalisation of the curriculum is essential. This paper documents the process of a first cycle of internationalisation of the criminology curriculum. As an emerging paradigm, southern criminology provides direction for the process. The paper critically reflects on the institutional and disciplinary contexts at an Australian university. It evaluates the extent to which the materials for a core theory unit reflect an internationalised curriculum and outlines next steps to be undertaken. This documented process highlights southern criminology as a valuable lens through which to identify knowledge gaps and plan personalised professional development. It acknowledges the need to engage in ongoing cycles of internationalisation and make improvements in response to new resources and knowledge. The paper invites further discussion and examples of approaches to internationalisation.     

Pictures are necessary but not sufficient: Using a range of visual methods to engage users about school design

It has been argued by both educationalists and social researchers that visual methods are particularly appropriate for the investigation of people’s experiences of the school environment. The current and expected building work taking place in British schools provides an opportunity for exploration of methods, as well as a need to establish ways to achieve this involvement of a range of school users, including students. This article describes a consultation that was undertaken in a UK secondary school as part of a participatory design process centred on the rebuilding of the school. A range of visual methods, based on photographs and maps, was used to investigate the views of a diverse sample of school users, including students, teachers, technical and support staff and the wider community. Reported here is the experience of using these tools, considering the success of different visually-based methods in engaging a broad cross section of the school community and revealing useful information. Using a range of visual methods allows a complex, but coherent, understanding of the particular school environment to be constructed and developed. It is further argued that such a range of visual and spatial methods is needed to develop appropriate understanding. The study, therefore, contributes to knowledge about specific visual research methods, appreciation of the relationship between tools, and a general methodological understanding of visual methods’ utility for developing understanding of the learning environment.     

How do pre-kindergarteners spend their time? Gender,ethnicity, and income as predictors of experiences in pre-kindergarten classrooms

The current paper considers how children spend their time in state-funded pre-kindergarten programs and how time use relates to ethnicity, gender, and family income, based on the assumption that how time is spent in pre-kindergarten is relevant for the programs’ success in narrowing achievement gaps. Classroom observations of 2061 children in 652 pre-k programs in 11 states were analyzed. Findings indicated that the pre-kindergarten day was roughly equally divided among free choice, teacher-assigned activities, and meals/routines. Children spent much of their time in language/literacy, social studies, and art, and less time in math and gross motor activities. Much of the pre-k day was spent in ‘no coded learning activity.’ Children in classes with lower proportions of Latino and African American children and higher average income-to-need ratios were generally engaged in richer and more stimulating experiences. The child-level variables of ethnicity and income were generally unrelated to how children spent their time, above and beyond the effects of classroom-level ethnicity and income. There were generally small, but significant gender differences – always in the gender-stereotyped direction – in how time was spent, especially during free choice time.     

Children’s oral narrative and reading skills in the first 3?years of reading instruction

This research investigated the link between oral narrative and reading skills in the first 3 years of reading instruction. Study 1 consisted of 61 children (M = 6:1 years) who had experienced 1 year of reading instruction on average. Children’s story retelling was scored for memory and narrative quality. The quality of children’s narratives correlated positively with their reading skill at this age, but narrative quality did not uniquely predict their reading skill 1 year later. Study 2 consisted of 39 children (M = 7:0 years) who had experienced 2 years of reading instruction on average. At this age, the quality of children’s narratives uniquely predicted their reading skill concurrently and 1 year later, even after controlling for their receptive vocabulary and early decoding. These findings have implications for theories of the oral language foundations of reading and for assessment in the early years of reading instruction.     

Observations in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum: doing gender in Cooperstown

This study explored the extent and type of men and women's relationship to baseball at the end of the 20th century. Unobtrusive observations of the behaviors and comments of visitors to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, were undertaken during a 7-day period to explore how men and women related to baseball. The "doing of gender" by visitors was observed in several areas: (a) historical and personal connection to baseball, (b) ability to experience a bond with others through baseball, and (c) approach to touring the Hall of Fame and Museum. Women generally were seen as outsiders and peripheral to baseball and often connected to the sport in a manner different from men.