A sociocultural investigation of pre-service teachers’ outdoor experiences and perceived obstacles to outdoor learning

Abstract

This study utilizes a sociocultural approach to explore how pre-service elementary teachers’ experiences in both outdoor and formal school settings have contributed to their intentions for taking their students outdoors and perceived obstacles to doing so. The participants were pre-service elementary teachers (N?=?95) enrolled in an elementary science education methods course at a public university in the Midwestern United States. This study builds on the qualitative research methodology established in a prior research study, whereby after reading Richard Louv’s book entitled Last Child in the Woods, pre-service teachers completed written essay responses to prompts about their past outdoor experiences, their intentions for taking their students outdoors, and additionally in this study, perceived obstacles to doing so once they become teachers. Analysis of the data indicates the importance of participants’ youth experiences in the outdoors and positive intentions for taking students outside. In addition, findings describe major obstacles discussed by pre-service teachers, and we use sociocultural theory to analyse the context of these findings. Implications for teacher educators working to better equip pre-service teachers to overcome these perceived obstacles are discussed.     

The Power in Pleasure: Practical Implementation of Pleasure in Sex Education Classrooms

Pleasure is an important aspect of healthy sexual development. Moreover, public health researchers and feminist scholars suggest that pleasure-inclusive sex education is effective for reducing pregnancy and rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections and may create a more inclusive classroom environment for underserved individuals. Although scholars have called for the integration of pleasure into sexual health education, these theoretical suggestions have rarely translated into classroom practices. Educators often face myriad challenges in including positive messages about pleasure in sex education curricula. Resources are needed to make the inclusion of pleasure easier for educators. This article helps address this gap in two ways. The first part offers a new, holistic definition of pleasure, exposes deficits in current classroom practices, and explores how including pleasure may address many axes of inequality and enhance classroom experiences for diverse adolescents. The second part applies this understanding of pleasure to offer guidance for performing a curriculum analysis of pleasure deficits and then provides clear recommendations for how educators can fill those deficits by incorporating pleasure into their existing curricula. The analyses and resources presented here will, first, help educators better address the sexual health needs of students and, second, provide feminist academics with a new definition and theoretical approach to pleasure.     

Academics’ views on publishing refereed works: A content analysis

Survey research was carried out with academics (N=205), from a large regional Australian university, to explore their views about publishing or not publishing in refereed sources and their perceived worth of this activity. Several open-ended questions were included in the survey to elicit information about the factors that either encourage or discourage these academics from publishing. Additionally, questions were posed to allow the respondents to discuss ways that the University could further support them in their endeavour to produce at least some or more scholarly publications. The responses to these questions were content analysed to discover key categories and frequencies were calculated on the most salient categories. The results of this analysis are reported and comparisons are made on the responses of male and female academics. The implications of the results for higher educational practice are considered.     

The Way to a Boy's Heart? New mechanisms for making boys better

This paper situates the current educational focus on boys in the wider context of a workplace culture of performativity and enterprise. The authors argue that the present focus on reclaiming boys' emotions parallels important shifts in the corporate sector to privilege the 'soft skills' of service and social interaction over the hard skills of boss management. However, in a departure from an earlier generation of correspondence theorists, the authors do not understand the 'correspondence' of schooling and industry needs as merely repressive. The new work culture is a service culture, and boys are being expected to have the requisite skills (of social service) in order to have jobs in the future. The first part of the paper provides a critique of the new essentialism that appears to underpin many of the social and educational intervention programs being conducted on behalf of Australian boys. The second part of the paper explains how such programs work as part of a larger logic about the sort of skills necessary to the 'globalised' workplace. The argument is made here that, for better and worse, this work which teachers are being asked to do allows boys to be redeemed as victims of their biology rather than 'behavioural problems'. In being re-formed from villain to victim, boys can be become 'better' and more productive at the same time.     

Seductress or schoolmarm: On the improbability of the great female teacher

This paper explores the question of the relation of gender and pedagogy by inquiring into the importance of gendered bodies in the construction of the great teacher as a cultural phenomenon. I ask whether men's teaching — male diction as a mobilizing of desire becomesmalediction (seduction) when it is produced out of the pedagogical performances of women. In examining this question, I do not adhere to the predictable tradition of critical feminist scholarship, given the extent to which, paradoxically, this tradition can make examination of the issue more difficult. I do allude to the newer tradition of psychoanalytic feminism, but, in the main, I draw on literary criticism as a more fertile theoretical terrain because of its potential to disrupt theory and to disturb the disciplinary boundaries which prevent feminists from “saying it otherwise.” Questions raised include: Must the image of a great female teacher be a contradiction in terms? Has it been otherwise? Could it again be so? What conditions would be necessary to achieve this?     

Sport development and physical activity promotion: An integrated model to enhance collaboration and understanding

As inactivity and obesity levels continue to rise, calls are being made for sport development action to be further directed towards capitalising on the value of community participation for health and social benefits. This paper seeks to highlight a current disconnect between physical activity and sport management research, and identify opportunities for collaboration. To date, the sport management literature has predominantly focused on sport as a form of entertainment with spectatorship outcomes, where professional codes are a commonly used setting of research inquiry. There has been less focus on organisational issues related to participation in sport and recreation. This is identified as a gap, given the current push towards increasing focus on sport and recreation promotion for community wellbeing. The present paper sought to examine physical activity and sport management research, to identify commonalities and potential for integration and co-operation. The outcome of this review is a conceptual framework, integrating socio-ecological models, taken from physical activity research, and sport development concepts derived from sport management theory. The proposed conceptual framework seeks to provide sport management researchers with direction in their efforts to promote participation in sport, recreation and physically active leisure domains, particularly for community wellbeing purposes. Furthermore, such direction may also enhance the capacity of researchers to capitalise on opportunities for collaboration and integration across domains of inquiry.     

“This School Helps A Lot”: Personal Agency Among Black Youth Within a Supportive School Environment

The Urban Review - We collected field observation notes, accessed student demographic data, and interviewed sixteen Black high school youth (50% male; Mage?=?16.1) to explore...