Creating original knowledge in and for the workplace: evidence from a practitioner doctorate

The workplace is becoming acknowledged, if not without some contention, as a site of knowledge production that can have equal validity with academic and other research-oriented contexts. One way of investigating practice-based knowledge generation is through doctoral work that is based on research and development in the workplace. Examination of a selection of outputs from a doctorate geared specifically to work-based candidates confirms the workplace as a site of valid knowledge production, and also indicates that real-life projects concerned with development and change rather than explicitly with research can, if pursued with intellectual rigour and critical reflection, be a powerful source of new knowledge.     

Social Activism in Elementary Science Education: A science,technology, and society approach to teach global warming

As part of a large‐scale instructional intervention research, this study examined elementary students’ science knowledge and awareness of social activism with regard to an increased greenhouse effect and global warming. The study involved fifth‐grade students from five elementary schools of varying demographic makeup in a large urban school district in the United States. The study was based on the analysis of students’ responses to a writing prompt addressing an increased greenhouse effect and global warming at the beginning of and at the completion of instruction over the school year. The results indicate that students with adequate science knowledge tended to express activism more frequently, and that their expression of activism increased as they gained better science knowledge after the instruction. The results highlight the importance of effective instruction of this contemporary and controversial issue with K‐12 students, so that they come to be aware of this societal problem, take action in solving the problem, and become socially responsible youth and adults.     

GERONTOLOGICAL NURSING EDUCATION: A PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL CHALLENGE FOR FUTURE BACCALAUREATE FACULTY AND STUDENTS

Investigators in this study wanted to know if student nurses were increasing their factual knowledge and changing their attitudes about the elderly, as well as, desire to work with them. Respondents included two groups of undergraduates from a main campus (n = 87) and two from a satellite campus (n = 47) of a Baccalaureate College of Nursing (BSN) in a southern university during 1992‐1995. E. D. Palmore's (1990) quizzes (FAQ1, FAQ2, FAMHQ) were used as pre‐tests (upon entering the junior year) and post‐tests (upon completion of the senior year). E. D. Palmore's (1988) “documentation” and “classification” of items were used to calculate knowledge and attitude scores. Feelings about working with the elderly were part of demographic data, as were “determinants” in E. D. Palmore's (1982) “Theoretical Model.” Mean scores within groups were by dependent t tests. Grand Means for comparison between campuses were by independent t Jests at a ≤ .05 level of significance. Students from the main campus scored significantly less on the FAQ2, significantly more on the FAMHQ for knowledge, with significantly less negative attitudes on post‐tests. Subjects from the satellite campus scored significantly higher on FAQ1 for knowledge, with somewhat less negative attitudes on post‐tests. From 25% to 52% of all students checked “really like” working with the elderly on post‐tests. Recommendations include evaluation and revisions of BSN curricula for gerontological content, assisting faculty to enhance expertise in gerontology, and encouraging students to pursue career tracks in gerontology.     

Not Your Child's Playground: Workplace Bullying Among Community College Faculty

Community colleges have provided an entree into higher education for many women. Yet, women faculty perceive the overall climate of community colleges as “chilly.” To deconstruct the interpersonal dynamics that may lead to perceptions of a chilly climate, this study examines the prevalence of workplace bullying among and between community college faulty. The purpose is to understand the nature of harassment, the ways in which women define and respond to it, and the importance of contextual factors in the prevalence. Workplace bullying is a form of interpersonal aggression that has implications for how individuals perceive the organizational climate, job productivity, and job satisfaction. Findings from this study indicate that workplace bullying among faculty includes many subtle practices characterized by informal and formal use of power, faculty workplace bullying is affected by several enabling structures specific to the context, and victims typically respond with avoidance. This study has implications for harassment policies, faculty involvement in institutional governance, and the gendered nature of interpersonal dynamics.     

Mass Communications

Ted Perry (ed.) Performing Arts Resources: 1974 (New York: Drama Books Specialists/Theater Library Association, 1974—price not known)

George N. Gordon's Communications and Media: Constructing a Cross-Discipline (New York: Hastings House, 1975—$12.50/6.95)

Francisco J. Lewels Jr.'s The Uses of the Media by the Chicano Movement: A Study in Minority Access (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1974— $15.00)

Lester Asheim and Sara I. Fenwick's Differentiating the Media (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975—$5.95)

C.A. Schicke's Revolution in Sound: A Biography of the Recording Industry (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974—$6.95)

T. Jan Wiseman and Molly J. Wiseman's Creative Communicati Teaching Mass Media (Minneapolis: National Scholastic Press Association at the University of Minnesota, 1974—price not given, paper)     

Learning disabilities in minority adolescents

Summary Seventy “predelinquent” disadvantaged seventh-grade students and 30 controls were compared on fifteen variables. It was found that the experimental group was significantly behind the controls in reading, grade-point-average, IQ test scores (verbal and nonverbal), as well as on measures of visual-motor and auditory perceptual functioning. It appears that the experimental youngsters display a syndrome usually considered to evidence specific learning disabilities. However, in this type of population it is difficult to separate the effects of environmentally determined deficits from inherent deficits. Therefore, it was not possible to estimate the incidence of true specific learning disabilities. On the other hand, it was suggested that regardless of the etiology of the deficits, these children could profit from the same types of educational opportunities as have been found well-suited to aid children with learning disabilities.     

The Effects of Maternal Alcohol Consumption and Cigarette Smoking during Pregnancy on Acoustic Cry Analysis

During the last trimester of pregnancy, 127 primiparous Irish mothers were interviewed to ascertain their history of alcohol and tobacco use. Confounding effects due to other drugs were not a factor in this sample. Mothers consumed an average of .21 ounces absolute alcohol (AA) per day, with 62% classified as moderate drinkers, 10.6% as heavy drinkers, and 26% as nondrinkers. Neurobehavioral status was measured using acoustic characteristics of the infant's cry, collected on the third day of life. Multiple regression analysis showed that more ounces AA per day was related to more dysphonation and higher first formant, while more cigarette smoking was related to higher pitch, higher second formant, and more variability in the second formant. Analysis of variance comparisons of these 3 alcohol groups demonstrated significant cry effects on infants of heavy drinking mothers.     

Passive education

Abstract

This paper does not present an advocacy of a passive education as opposed to an active education nor does it propose that passive education is in any way ‘better’ or more important than active education. Through readings of Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida and B.S. Johnson, and gentle critiques of Jacques Rancière and John Dewey, passive education is instead described and outlined as an education which occurs whether we attempt it or not. As such, the object of critique for this essay are forms of educational thought which, through fate or design, exclude the passive dimension, either within or outside of formal educational settings. An underlying component of this argument is therefore also that education does occur outside of formal educational settings and that, contra Gert Biesta and his critique of ‘learnification’, we may gain rather than lose something by attending to it as education.     

Educational Plasticity: Catherine Malabou and ‘the feeling of a new responsibility’

Abstract

This paper attempts to reintegrate the concept of plasticity into educational philosophy. Although John Dewey used the concept in Democracy and Education (1916) it has not generated much of a critical or practical legacy in educational thought. French philosopher, Catherine Malabou, is the first to think plasticity rigorously and seriously in a contemporary philosophical context and this paper outlines her thinking on it as well as considering its applicability to education. My argument is that her definition not only successfully reintroduces the concept in a way which is generative for contemporary educational philosophy and practice but that it also significantly extends the remit of educational plasticity as previously conceived by Dewey. This paper will examine the concept of educational plasticity as providing an opportunity as well as ‘the feeling of a new responsibility’ towards the plastic subject in philosophical approaches to education.