Developing an Eating Disorder Peer Advocate Program on Campus: A Report on the Eating Disorder Awareness and Advocacy Program (EDAAP)

ABSTRACT

This article describes the development and implementation of a peer advocate program for eating disorders and body image outreach on a college campus. Empirical and conceptual literature on the use of peer educators and peer advocates in college student mental health is reviewed. Peer advocate program mission, history, implementation, and training components are described. Learning outcome assessment findings of peer advocate learning are discussed. A counseling center perspective on benefits, challenges, and limitations of facilitating this peer advocate program is shared.     

Preschool inclusion in the United States: a review of research from an ecological systems perspective

Using an ecological systems conceptual framework proposed by Bronfenbrenner, research on the inclusion of preschool children with disabilities in programs with typically developing children was reviewed. Drawing mainly from studies conducted in the United States, research on child characteristics (biosystem), classroom practices (microsystem), family perspectives (mesosystem), social policy (exosystem), culture (macrosystem), and changes in variables across time (chronosystem) is described. Positive developmental and behavioral outcomes occur for children with and without disabilities in inclusive settings, although as a group, children with disabilities are not as socially integrated as their typically developing peers. Parent attitudes are generally positive although they voice some concerns about inclusion. Several social policy issues within the U.S. system (e.g., enforcement of standards, fiscal issues) serve as barriers to and facilitators of implementation of preschool inclusion, and cultural variables shape the nature of inclusive classrooms as well as family access to inclusive settings.     

The stifling silence around scholarly creativity in doctoral education: experiences of students and supervisors in four disciplines

The demand for developing creativity among doctoral students is found in a number of educational policies all over the world. Yet, earlier studies on Swedish doctoral education suggest that doctoral students’ creativity is not always encouraged. Based on a critical hermeneutic approach and cases in four different disciplines, the aim of this study was therefore (1) to explore different shapes of doctoral students’ creativity in Swedish doctoral education and (2) to reveal and find possible explanations to some of the conditions stifling doctoral students’ scholarly creativity. Interview data was collected from 28 participants, constituting 14 dyads of students and supervisors in four disciplines. Through hermeneutic interpretative analysis of the disciplinary cases, the results show that creativity kept on playing in musical performance, was an unexpected guest in pedagogical work, was captured in frames in philosophy and put on hold in psychiatry. Across the cases, students’ scholarly creativity was essentially encapsulated in silence. This silence seemed to emanate from controlling intellectual, political and economic agendas that enabled stifling conditions of the students’ scholarly creativity, where it was as follows: restricted by scholarly traditions, embodying supervisors’ power and unrequested in practice. Based on these findings, the article ends in suggestions for preventing such conditions, holding that it is important to establish a discourse on scholarly creativity in doctoral education, to view doctoral students as capable creative agents and to actually ask for their scholarly creativity.     

Die Bedeutung des pädagogisch-psychologischen Wissens für die Qualität der Klassenführung und den Lernzuwachs der Schüler/innen im Physikunterricht

In the present study it was investigated whether the pedagogical knowledge of teachers has an influence on the process quality of physics instruction and on the learning achievement of students as well. Pedagogical knowledge, conceptualized as knowledge about strategies in classroom instruction that is domain-general and relevant for teaching behaviors, was measured using a paper-and-pencil test with two scales: one scale on declarative knowledge, the other on conditional-procedural knowledge (Lenske et al. 2015). As a basic aspect of the process quality of classroom instruction, classroom management was assessed using video ratings of two lessons from each participating teacher. Students’ learning achievement was assessed using standardized domain-specific knowledge tests in a pretest-posttest design. The sample included 34 teachers from higher-track secondary schools and their students (N?=?993). A complex bootstrapping mediation model shows that teachers’ pedagogical knowledge, mediated by their classroom management, has a positive effect on their students’ learning achievement.     

From Obstacle to Growth Dewey's Legacy of Experience‐Based Art Education

In the last decades theories that emphasise visitors’experience as the key element in the process of meaning‐making have influenced art education in museums considerably. However, there is remarkably little evidence in practice that museums shape their exhibits and educational tools by the actual experiences of visitors. Because museum education is still too much knowledge‐based, people often do not come to understanding or engagement of thinking. This article demonstrates this inconsistency and its consequences based on visitors’conversations during a museum visit while looking at contemporary art. In order to engage visitors into their own thinking and create lasting experiences, the article also investigates Dewey's ideas about experienced‐based education and inquiry learning. The study especially shows that experiences felt as obstacles for interpretation are extremely suitable to stimulate, deepen and improve visitors’engagement in the inquiry cycle.     

Speechlessness,anxiety, and confusion in a teacher education student group

The aim of the study was to explore the tensions, as experienced by student teachers, in a teacher education program that is based on psychodynamic theory. Previous research shows that students have had orientation problems in innovative university studies because it involves students having to take steps toward their discomfort zone. It was therefore considered important to study the mismatch or match of the training model and student experiences. The data were gathered through student interviews. The data analysis utilized a case study methodology and proceeded from thematic network analysis toward a deeper interpretation of the data. The analysis shows students struggle to understand the meaning and practices of psychodynamic-oriented pedagogy. The analysis also shows that students were unable and unwilling to share their learning experiences with students outside the new program. This can be understood as a tension between different conceptual understandings of learning.     

Geographic dispersion and co-location in global R&D portfolios: Consequences for firm performance

We examine how the ways in which firms geographically configure their global portfolios of R&D units influence the effectiveness of firms’ own R&D investments and of external technical knowledge in enhancing firm performance. Our analysis indicates that the strength of these effects depends on the extent to which firms spread their R&D units across countries (geographic dispersion of R&D) and the extent to which firms establish multiple R&D units within each country (co-location of R&D). We show that geographic dispersion and co-location are associated with distinct value creation and value capture mechanisms and in turn lead to different performance outcomes. Although geographic dispersion enhances the effects of a firm’s own R&D on its performance, R&D co-location limits such effects. These relationships are reversed when we consider the effects of external technical knowledge on firm performance. R&D co-location, rather than geographic dispersion, is what renders the exploitation of external knowledge more effective in enhancing firm performance. Our results suggest that future research should shift its focus from the degree of R&D globalization to how a portfolio is globalized and geographically structured.     

The relevance of Foucauldian art-of-living for ethics education in a military context: Theory and practice

How can ethical decision-making in organizations be further reinforced? This article explores the relevance of Michel Foucault’s ideas on art-of-living for ethics education in organizations. First, we present a theoretical analysis of art-of-living in the work of Foucault as well as in the work of two philosophers who greatly influenced his work, Friedrich Nietzsche and Pierre Hadot. Next, we illustrate how art-of-living can be applied in ethics education. In order to examine some of the benefits and challenges of applying the art-of-living in the practice of ethics education, we discuss an example of how the art-of-living concept has been used in a train-the-trainer course on military ethics. We suggest that Foucauldian art-of-living may foster awareness of power dynamics which are in play when military personnel face moral dilemmas.     

Permanent and temporary work practices: knowledge integration and the meaning of boundary activities

Knowledge integration is a critical topic in current knowledge management research and practice. Research on this topic focuses primarily on how knowledge is integrated within a work setting. A less researched area is knowledge integration between different work groups. The purpose is hence to describe and analyze how knowledge is integrated between different work groups. We present two intensive case studies – one permanent and one temporary (project) work settings – which were studied using a practice-based perspective. A main result of the study is that knowledge integration in the two cases was more complicated than the literature suggests. Both differences and similarities were found between the two cases. Differences were seen in the use of boundary spanning activities and boundary objects, whereas similarities were found in the organizational structures and mechanisms, that is, purposes, rules, and infrastructures, which facilitated the integration of knowledge and/or functioned as obstacles and impediments.