Biopedagogies and Indigenous knowledge: examining sport for development and peace for urban Indigenous young women in Canada and Australia

This paper uses transnational postcolonial feminist participatory action research (TPFPAR) to examine two sport for development and peace (SDP) initiatives that focus on Indigenous young women residing in urban areas, one in Vancouver, Canada, and one in Perth, Australia. We examine how SDP programs that target urban Indigenous young women and girls reproduce the hegemony of neoliberalism by deploying biopedagogies of neoliberalism to ‘teach’ Indigenous young women certain education and employment skills that are deemed necessary to participate in competitive capitalism. We found that activities in both programs were designed to equip the Indigenous girls and young women with individual attributes that would enhance their chances of future success in arenas valued by neoliberal capitalism: Eurocentric employment, post-secondary education and healthy active living. These forms of ‘success’ fall within neoliberal logic, where the focus is on the individual being able to provide for oneself. However, the girls and young women we interviewed argued that their participation in the SDP programs would help them change racist and sexist stereotypes about their communities and thereby challenged negative stereotypes. Thus, it is possible that these programs, despite their predominant use of neoliberal logic and biopedagogies, may help to prepare the participants to more successfully negotiate Eurocentric institutions, and through this assist them participants in contributing to social change. Nevertheless, based on our findings, we argue that SDP programs led by Indigenous peoples that are fundamentally shaped by Indigenous voices, epistemologies, concerns and standpoints would provide better opportunities to shake SDP's current biopedagogical foundation. We conclude by suggesting that a more radical approach to SDP, one that fosters Indigenous self-determination and attempts to disrupt dominant relations of power, could have difficulty in attracting the sort of corporate donors who currently play such important roles in the current SDP landscape.     

Knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about HIV/AIDS among Hindu students from a government women's college of South India

The purpose of the study was to determine the attitudes of Hindu students from a government women's college of South India toward people with AIDS, to assess their beliefs about HIV/AIDS, to determine their knowledge level about HIV/AIDS and to determine how they gain information about HIV/AIDS. The sample consisted of four hundred female students at a government funded Women's University in Southern India who participated in an AIDS survey research project. Participants completed a survey asking about their knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about HIV/AIDS. Results indicated that a majority of the participants learned about HIV/AIDS from reading material while some learned about HIV/AIDS from school classes, and only a few learned from family members. Thirty-nine percent had never communicated to any one about HIV/AIDS. The results indicated that the majority of Indian women in this study did not know about explicit sexual behaviors which transmit the virus. The study also showed that those Indian women university students, by and large, are accepting of people with AIDS but still have fears of getting HIV/AIDS. This data suggest a need to increase educational efforts at the university. It was suggested that counselors take responsibility for helping this population of Indian women become self advocates, particularly in a society which permits men to have multiple sexual relationships. Educators and counselors working with this population must initiate programs that impart accurate and specific knowledge to these female college students and begin to address the multiple psychosocial issues related to HIV/AIDS.     

Talking modelling: examining secondary science teachers’ modelling-related talk during a model-based inquiry unit

This study examines the classroom talk about models and modelling of two secondary science teachers implementing a model-based inquiry instructional unit. The goal was to better understand the opportunities for explicit metamodeling talk in the science classroom. The findings revealed the ways in which they used language to frame the modelling work of the classroom. Instances of modelling talk were identified in classroom videos, and coded using a framework for metamodeling knowledge. Findings revealed that, while instances of metamodeling talk were common, they were largely implicit. This shows that the teachers were aware and knowledgeable about metamodeling ideas (e.g. the nature of models, process of modelling, etc.), but often did not make these ideas explicit to their students. Such findings suggest a trend of focusing on models of phenomena rather than supporting student engagement in the epistemic practice of modelling for reasoning about phenomena. The findings also revealed specific opportunities for explicit metamodeling talk by the teachers including during share-out sessions and the negotiation of explanation criteria. Further implications for classroom practice and research are discussed.     

Examining the Impact of School Type on Physical Activity Participation in High School Students

Changing education philosophies and technological advancement have altered the way educational content can be delivered to students. One format growing in popularity is virtual institutions which allow students to complete their secondary education completely online. While the format has been in existence for two decades, little information has been presented regarding how the shift from a traditional brick and mortar environment to a virtual one impacts the physical activity of the students. The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of school type on physical activity participation. One hundred fifteen high school age students attending brick and mortar and virtual institutions completed a survey regarding their physical activity participation. Results indicate students who attend virtual institutions are more likely to be physically active than their brick and mortar counterparts.     

Lay therapy intervention with families at risk for parenting difficulties: The Kempe Community Caring Program.

OBJECTIVE: To determine which areas of family functioning lay therapy intervention can improve in a home visitation program for first time mothers at high risk for parenting difficulties, including the potential for child abuse and neglect. METHODS: Families were assessed for risk of parenting difficulties using the Parent Readiness and Risk Assessment Checklists. Lay therapists completed the Scale of Family Functioning pre- and postintervention with 108 high risk families for whom they provided support, education, and referrals. RESULTS: Paired t tests were done to determine whether the eight categories of the Scale of Family Functioning improved from baseline to termination of the service. Four categories showed statistically significant improvement: social support (p = .001), self-esteem (p < .001), confidence as a parent (p < .001), and affective relationships (p = .003). CONCLUSIONS: Statistically significant improvement occurred in four of the eight categories on the Scale of Family Functioning indicating that home intervention programs can improve some categories of family functioning. Longer intervention and an increased focus on improving parent/infant interactions may be able to increase parental sensitivity and expectations. In this study, the categories of family conflict and stability/meeting basic needs were not amenable to change with lay therapy intervention.     

Assessing Multimedia Influences on Student Responses Using a Personal Response System

To date, research to date on personal response systems (clickers) has focused on external issues pertaining to the implementation of this technology or broadly measured student learning gains rather than investigating differences in the responses themselves. Multimedia learning makes use of both words and pictures, and research from cognitive psychology suggests that using both words and illustrations improves student learning. This study analyzed student response data from 561 students taking an introductory earth science course to determine whether including an illustration in a clicker question resulted in a higher percentage of correct responses than questions that did not include a corresponding illustration. Questions on topics pertaining to the solid earth were categorized as illustrated questions if they contained a picture, or graph and text-only if the question only contained text. For each type of question, we calculated the percentage of correct responses for each student and compared the results to student ACT-reading, math, and science scores. A within-groups, repeated measures analysis of covariance with instructor as the covariate yielded no significant differences between the percentage of correct responses to either the text-only or the illustrated questions. Similar non-significant differences were obtained when students were grouped into quartiles according to their ACT-reading, -math, and -science scores. These results suggest that the way in which a conceptest question is written does not affect student responses and supports the claim that conceptest questions are a valid formative assessment tool.     

History of mathematics and history of science reunited?

For some years now, the history of modern mathematics and the history of modern science have developed independently. A step toward a reunification that would benefit both disciplines could come about through a revived appreciation of mathematical practice. Detailed studies of what mathematicians actually do, whether local or broadly based, have often led in recent work to examinations of the social, cultural, and national contexts, and more can be done. Another recent approach toward a historical understanding of the abstractness of modern mathematics has been to see it as a species of modernism, and this thesis will be tested by the raft of works on the history of modern applied mathematics currently under way.