Skills in motion: boys' trail motorbiking activities as transitions into working-class masculinity in a post-industrial locale

During an ethnographic research project exploring young people's perceptions of living in a post-industrial semi-rural place, boys aged 13/14 years revealed their semi-clandestine motorbiking activities across mountains trails. It was found that riding motorbikes and fixing engines were potential resources for young boys' transitions into adult working-class masculinity and sources of competence, pride and enjoyment that mimetically referenced the industrial past. The study engages with Deleuze and Guattari's theory to explore relations among rider–machine–territory as dynamic Assemblages that fuse elements from technical, psychological and cultural media to show how motorbiking in different situations afforded boys more or less autonomy. The study argues that an epochal shift in the UK from an industrial to post-industrial base has changed the value attached to motorbike riding on mountain trails creating biking Assemblages that territorialise boys as social nuisances and potential criminals under police surveillance.     

Pedagogic discourse and sex education: myths,science and subversion

This paper elaborates possibilities and limitations for sex education in schools by mapping the consequence of introducing the topic ‘sex’ within a range of scientific and informal discursive settings. The organising and regulating structures of the school maintain the boundaries between common‐sense and scientific discourses. Bernstein made a distinction between vertical discourse and horizontal discourses. Vertical discourses characterise scientific discourses that are coherent, explicit and systematically principled structures. Horizontal discourses characterise common‐sense discourses that are local, segmented and context‐dependent. The implications for teaching sex education through vertical discourses such as science, English and art as opposed to personal and social education, which is a horizontal discourse, are discussed. Yet, all discourses are unstable, and the notion of a ‘tipping point’ is introduced to demonstrate the potential for sex education when vertical discourses collapse.     

More Than a Number: Unexpected Benefits of Return on Investment Analysis

In 2010–2011, University of Colorado (CU) librarians implemented a multi-campus pilot study to measure the institutional value of library resources used by faculty in their research. The study incorporated quantitative methods including return on investment (ROI), cost benefit analysis (CBA), and citation analysis of journal articles published by faculty; and qualitative methodologies such as in-person interviews with faculty. The study resulted in a CU ROI model that can be used to measure faculty perceptions of value and the economic benefits of electronic journal collections for faculty research in terms of ROI. The CU ROI methodology provides outcomes beyond a single ROI number and led to unexpected benefits for informing collection development decisions and strategies.     

What's the delay? Managing e and p publication dates

This case study describes the challenges of acquiring eBooks on an approval plan due to publication delays between print and electronic formats. The purpose of this analysis was to determine the average delay between print and eBook publication dates so that appropriate hold periods could be built into the libraries' approval plan. Print publication dates were compared to eBook publication dates for approximately 30,000 eBooks to calculate the average delay between print and eBook availability. The data was further analyzed to calculate average delays for select publishers and subjects.     

Reading Within Families: Taking a Historical Perspective

This article draws on a study which was designed to extend understanding of habitual and committed adolescent readers. The study brought together four theoretical perspectives – the social, cultural, spatial and historical – as a way of re-imagining the field of reading. The historical perspective is the one foregrounded here, offering views of reading as a long-term, intergenerational process, in this instance constructed through setting adults’ comments about reading alongside those of their children or grandchildren. Analysis of data from two of the research methods employed in the study – semi-structured small-group interviews and interviews conducted by the students themselves with a parent or grandparent – suggests that there is a strong argument to be made for attending more closely to adolescent readers from a historical perspective, as well as from social, cultural and spatial perspectives, in order to understand better some of their subtle characteristics as they shift over time rather than as they appear when viewed merely in the here-and-now.     

Fostering uncertainty tolerance in anatomy education: Lessons learned from how humanities,arts and social science (HASS) educators develop learners' uncertainty tolerance

Uncertainty tolerance, individuals' perceptions/responses to uncertain stimuli, is increasingly recognized as critical to effective healthcare practice. While the Covid-19 pandemic generated collective uncertainty, healthcare-related uncertainty is omnipresent. Correspondingly, there is increasing focus on uncertainty tolerance as a health professional graduate “competency,” and a concomitant interest in identifying pedagogy fostering learners' uncertainty tolerance. Despite these calls, practical guidelines for educators are lacking. There is some initial evidence that anatomy education can foster medical students' uncertainty tolerance (e.g., anatomical variation and dissection novelty), however, there remains a knowledge gap regarding robust curriculum-wide uncertainty tolerance teaching strategies. Drawing upon humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) educators' established uncertainty tolerance pedagogies, this study sought to learn from HASS academics' experiences with, and teaching practices related to, uncertainty pedagogy using a qualitative, exploratory study design. Framework analysis was undertaken using an abductive approach, wherein researchers oscillate between inductive and deductive coding (comparing to the uncertainty tolerance conceptual model). During this analysis, the authors analyzed ~386 min of data from purposively sampled HASS academics' (n = 14) discussions to address the following research questions: (1) What teaching practices do HASS academics' perceive as impacting learners' uncertainty tolerance, and (2) How do HASS academics execute these teaching practices? The results extend current understanding of the moderating effects of education on uncertainty tolerance and supports prior findings that the anatomy learning environment is ripe for supporting learner uncertainty tolerance development. This study adds to growing literature on the powerful moderating effect education has on uncertainty tolerance and proposes translation of HASS uncertainty tolerance teaching practices to enhance anatomy education.     

Co-designing and piloting an Integrated Digital Literacy and Language Toolkit for vulnerable migrant students in higher education

Education and Information Technologies - This paper presents the process of co-design, co-production, piloting, evaluation and revision of an Integrated Digital Literacy and Language Toolkit for...     

A phenomenological exploration of children’s school life and well-being

Learning Environments Research - This phenomenological study explored children’s school life as it relates to their subjective well-being in the United States (N?=?22). It was...     

Factors discriminating among profiles of resilience and psychopathology in children exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV)

ObjectiveTo evaluate the social and emotional adjustment of 219 children in families with varying levels of intimate partner violence (IPV) using a model of risk and protection. To explore factors that differentiate children with poor adjustment from those with resilience.MethodologyMothers who experienced IPV in the past year and their children ages 6–12 were interviewed. Standardized measures assessed family violence, parenting, family functioning, maternal mental health, and children's adjustment and beliefs.ResultsUsing cluster analysis, all cases with valid data on the Child Behavior Checklist, Child Depression Inventory, General Self-Worth and Social Self-Competence measures were described by four profiles of children's adjustment: Severe Adjustment Problems (24%); children who were Struggling (45%); those with Depression Only (11%); and Resilient (20%) with high competence and low adjustment problems. Multinomial logistic regression analyses showed children in the Severe Problems cluster witnessed more family violence and had mothers higher in depression and trauma symptoms than other children. Resilient and Struggling children had mothers with better parenting, more family strengths and no past violent partner. Parents of children with Severe Problems were lacking these attributes. The Depressed profile children witnessed less violence but had greater fears and worries about mother's safety.ConclusionFactors related to the child, to the mother and to the family distinguish different profiles of adjustment for children exposed to IPV who are living in the community. Resilient children have less violence exposure, fewer fears and worries, and mothers with better mental health and parenting skills, suggesting avenues for intervention with this population.Practice implicationsFindings suggest that child adjustment is largely influenced by parent functioning. Thus, services should be targeted at both the child and the parent. Clinical interventions shaped to the unique needs of the child might also be tested with this population.     

Hurricane Sandy Exposure Alters the Development of Neural Reactivity to Negative Stimuli in Children

This study examined whether exposure to Hurricane Sandy‐related stressors altered children's brain response to emotional information. An average of 8 months (M_age = 9.19) before and 9 months after (M_age = 10.95) Hurricane Sandy, 77 children experiencing high (n = 37) and low (n = 40) levels of hurricane‐related stress exposure completed a task in which the late positive potential, a neural index of emotional reactivity, was measured in response to pleasant and unpleasant, compared to neutral, images. From pre‐ to post‐Hurricane Sandy, children with high stress exposure failed to show the same decrease in emotional reactivity to unpleasant versus neutral stimuli as those with low stress exposure. Results provide compelling evidence that exposure to natural disaster‐related stressors alters neural emotional reactivity to negatively valenced information.