‘Getting fit basically just means,like, nonfat’: children's lessons in fitness and fatness

Current concerns about a childhood obesity crisis and children's physical activity levels have combined to justify fitness lessons as a physical education practice in New Zealand primary (elementary) schools. Researchers focused on children's understandings of fitness lessons argue that they construct fitness as a quest for an ‘ideal’ (skinny or muscular) body. The conflation of fitness with thinness, however, is complex and problematic. In this paper, we draw from research conducted with a class of primary school children in New Zealand. Drawing on the theoretical tools of Foucault and utilizing a visual methods approach, we examine how children experience school fitness lessons and construct notions of fitness, health and body. The children's responses illustrated that obesity discourses and body pedagogies ‘collided’ in a way that shaped understandings of fitness lessons in ways inextricably connected with the avoidance of being fat. The children assumed that fitness lessons increased fitness and that being fit was demonstrated by a ‘correct’ corporeal appearance. We argue that body pedagogies inside and outside the school gates shape children's ideas about the body in ways which exclude other understandings of bodies, health, and physical activity.     

GCAT-SEEKquence: genome consortium for active teaching of undergraduates through increased faculty access to next-generation sequencing data

To transform undergraduate biology education, faculty need to provide opportunities for students to engage in the process of science. The rise of research approaches using next-generation (NextGen) sequencing has been impressive, but incorporation of such approaches into the undergraduate curriculum remains a major challenge. In this paper, we report proceedings of a National Science Foundation-funded workshop held July 11-14, 2011, at Juniata College. The purpose of the workshop was to develop a regional research coordination network for undergraduate biology education (RCN/UBE). The network is collaborating with a genome-sequencing core facility located at Pennsylvania State University (University Park) to enable undergraduate students and faculty at small colleges to access state-of-the-art sequencing technology. We aim to create a database of references, protocols, and raw data related to NextGen sequencing, and to find innovative ways to reduce costs related to sequencing and bioinformatics analysis. It was agreed that our regional network for NextGen sequencing could operate more effectively if it were partnered with the Genome Consortium for Active Teaching (GCAT) as a new arm of that consortium, entitled GCAT-SEEK(quence). This step would also permit the approach to be replicated elsewhere.     

Primary teachers’ self-assessment of their confidence in implementing digital technologies curriculum

Educational technology research and development - Technology has significantly impacted our work and leisure spaces, but education is still working to build a bridge between the technological...     

Piloting a Mathematics‐Writing Intervention with Late Elementary Students At‐Risk for Learning Difficulties

High‐stakes mathematics assessments require students to write about mathematics, although research suggests students exhibit limited proficiency on such assessments. Students with LD may have difficulties with writing, mathematics, or both. Researchers employed an intervention for teaching students how to organize mathematics writing (MW). Researchers randomly assigned participants (n = 61) in grades 3–5 to receive instruction in MW or information writing. Students receiving MW outperformed control students on a researcher‐developed measure of MW (d = 1.05). Component assessment revealed MW students improved in writing organization (d = 1.49) but not in mathematics content (d = 0.11 ns). Results also indicated MW students outperformed control on percentage of correct MW sequences (d = 0.82). Future directions for MW intervention development are discussed.     

Integrated water resource management: a platform for higher education institutions to meet complex sustainability challenges

Higher education institutions in Sweden are increasingly exposed to international market conditions and rising competition from a more mobile student body. This increases the need for universities to adapt to their social and economic environment and to their clients, including the political trends and financial opportunities in Sweden and EU, if they are to successfully implement sustainability reforms. In this regard, we examine the barriers faced by a ‘post-normal’ education for sustainable development (ESD) inherent within the structures of a ‘normal’ University. We pose the question whether Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) as a post-normal process can contribute to increased capacity of normal higher education institutions to address complex sustainability problems? IWRM is conceptualised as an interactionist process of social learning and adaptive management to reflect on the experiences from one particular case, namely the Master Programme in IWRM at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. We illustrate how IWRM can contribute to address conflicts of interests in education arising from competing claims of stakeholders in real life management situations, but also to reconcile the conflicts associated with institutional adaptation under conditions characterised by a new international educational regime and rapidly changing market conditions. The paper brings together the discourse on ESD with lessons from IWRM and contends that the interactionist approach might offer a useful alternative to realist conceptions of ESD in learner-centred and institutional systemic approaches. Contrary to other reports on IWRM education, this paper reflects on this role of IWRM within higher education per se.     

Psychological impact of childhood sexual abuse on male inmates: the importance of perception.

OBJECTIVE: The current study examined the association between childhood sexual victimization and adult psychiatric disorders among male inmates. It further assessed the association between the perception of an event (as sexual abuse or not) and psychiatric diagnoses. METHOD: A sample of 211 randomly-selected male inmates were interviewed. The Diagnostic Interview Schedule (Version III-R) was used to assess psychiatric diagnoses. An additional questionnaire assessing childhood sexual abuse and perception of childhood sexual abuse was also administered. RESULTS: Forty percent of the inmates met standard criteria for childhood sexual abuse, which far exceeded rates found in the general population. Significant differences were found between inmates who had a history of childhood sexual abuse and those who did not for a variety of psychiatric diagnoses. Forty-one percent of those who met criteria for childhood sexual abuse did not consider themselves to have been abused. Those who did not consider themselves to have been abused had higher rates of alcohol abuse/dependence, while those who considered themselves to have been abused had higher rates of posttraumatic stress and obsessive-compulsive disorder. CONCLUSIONS: This study emphasizes the importance of perception or "cognitive appraisal" of the sexual experience (as abusive or not) and the need for further study regarding the potential mediating role of cognitive appraisal. Other implications of these findings include the need for primary prevention programs designed to reduce childhood sexual abuse, and inmate rehabilitation programs with an emphasis on the connection between victimization and criminality.     

Facilitating student well-being: relationships do matter

Background: Alongside academic and vocational goals, schools are increasingly being called upon to address student well-being. Existing evidence suggests that strong relationships and a sense of connectedness in school communities are important for fostering subjective well-being. However, identifying the specific nature of such relational dynamics, and accommodating the ‘personal’ within school cultures increasingly dominated by ‘performance’ narratives, remains a problematic task.

Purpose: This paper draws on Honneth’s recognition theory to offer fresh insight into how relationships act to facilitate and limit the experience of well-being at school. We suggest that such an approach holds considerable potential for developing teachers’ understanding of the tacit and explicit ways they and their students experience being cared for, respected and valued and the ways in which such actions impact on well-being.

Design and methods: The paper reports the qualitative findings from a large mixed-method study, involving students and staff across primary and secondary schools in three regions of Australia. The qualitative phase involved focus groups with 606 primary and secondary students and individual interviews with 89 teachers and principals.

Results: Across the focus groups and interviews, students and teachers placed substantial emphasis on the importance of relationships, while reporting differences in their views about which relationships support well-being. Alongside this, there were differences in the importance teachers and students placed on each of the three strands of Honneth’s recognition theory (translated for this study as being cared for, respected and valued) for influencing student well-being.

Conclusions: The findings affirm the critical role that relationships play in promoting well-being in the context of schools. Using recognition theory to analyse students’ and teachers’ views and experiences of well-being provides much greater insight into how these relationships are enacted – this being through the mutual experience of being cared for, respected and valued – within the context of schools.