Alternative education and social justice: considering issues of affective and contributive justice

This article considers the ways in which three alternative education sites in Australia support socially just education for their students and how injustice is addressed within these schools. The article begins with recognition of the importance of Nancy Fraser’s work to understandings of social justice. It then goes on to argue that her framework is insufficient for understanding the particularly complex set of injustices that are faced by many highly marginalised young people who have rejected or been rejected by mainstream education systems. We argue here for the need to consider the importance of ‘affective’ and ‘contributive’ aspects of justice in schools. Using interview data from the alternative schools, we highlight issues of affective justice raised by students in relation to their educational journeys, as well as foregrounding teachers’ affective work in schools. We also consider curricular choices and pedagogical practices in respect of matters of contributive justice. Our contention is that the affective and contributive fields are central to the achievement of social justice for the young people attending these sites. Whilst mainstream schools are not the focus of this article, we suggest that the lessons here have salience for all forms of schooling.     

‘Luring the academic soul’: promoting academic engagement in South African universities

There is widespread pressure that universities should become more responsive and accountable to multiple demands in their local, national and global contexts. Academics grapple to identify appropriate organisational responses to the pressures of state steering and incentive programmes. The empirical focus of the paper is a survey of academics' community engagement activities, mapping their interaction with external partners at five South African universities. The paper addresses a basic question: Who are the academics that engage, and what are their main academic influences? We argue that engagement is more likely to ‘lure the academic soul’ when it is driven by substantive growth in a disciplinary field and enhances reputations. The analysis seeks to identify how disciplinary, institutional and positional attributes are correlated with engaged activities. ‘Luring the academic soul’ through an understanding of the influences on academics' propensity to engage can facilitate more effectively targeted incentives and policies.     

索菲娅·科波拉:名门才女的“迷失与寻获”

就像"肯尼迪"这个在美国政治圈影响力非凡的姓氏,冠上"科波拉"的名号在电影圈行走,别人会不自觉地对你肃然起敬。索菲娅·科波拉是好莱坞"任人唯亲"的受益者。索菲娅早年在父亲的电影中皆有出场表演机会,那些让多少人争得头破血流的机会,她唾手可得。她不缺乏机会、贵人、名利和奉承,但她需要真正意义上的认可和赞美。所以,她努力过,尝试过,摔倒过,思考过,终于,在导演这条路上,她找到了自己一直需要的如鱼得水和刮目相看。她的导演风格与父亲的恢弘大气完全不同,她喜欢小情调、小地方,她热衷于用女性的细腻捕捉那些生活中的曲调和故事,直戳观众的心窝。     

泰勒·斯威夫特:我歌写我心,错爱亦无憾

在纳什维尔一个冰冷的二月天,斯威夫特在SIR录音室为其进行中的47城巡回演唱会进行排练,宣传自己的专辑《红》(2012)。她当时正漫不经心地弹着一把镶着珍珠母的泰勒吉他,那是她最钟爱的品牌。斯威夫特擅长写很好听的流行歌曲,这些歌余音袅袅,萦绕你心头就像是棒棒糖粘在你的头发上一样。她的嗓音有时会为人诟病,因为纤细单薄,但是听着很甜美优雅,还带着那么点乡村鼻音。斯威夫特在自己的录影带中塑造笨拙可爱的形象,通常在其中她扮演不     

Work Values of Community College Students

Evaluation often is seen as one of the critical issues facing the two‐year college. This is true in the sense that evaluation is not used as frequently as it should be to aid in making major decisions, but this perspective can exaggerate the intrinsic importance of the field to schools. It is more profitable to view evaluation as a tool for studying other issues. Needs assessment, implementation evaluation, formative evaluation, and summative evaluation constitute the major types of evaluation for making decisions. Each type suggests the general categories of information that must be collected, analyzed, and interpreted, as illustrated by the example of staff development at a two‐year college. Together, the four types, the categories of information and the order in which the types of evaluation occur form a general model of evaluation. Diverse methods for carrying out each type have been developed that permit selection of one appropriate to most situations that may be encountered.     

‘What's next for masculinity?’ Reflexive directions for theory and research on masculinity and education

Research on masculinity has become an important area of gender and education that includes a wide range of empirical concerns and theoretical approaches. This article identifies a number of studies that are asking questions about the conceptual usefulness of masculinity within educational contexts. The first section explores how educational researchers are beginning to suggest alternative ways that hegemonic masculinity may be configured. The second section draws upon work that interrogates the disconnection of gender from sex. Such work considers the importance of understanding schooling worlds through an untethering of gender categories from physical bodies. The third section suggests the possibility of a post-masculinity position by exploring research that questions the viability of masculinity as a conceptual frame to understand gender. In conclusion, the paper argues that such developments can be used heuristically to inform the critical reflexiveness of future research in the area.     

Serious game‐based and nongame‐based online courses: Learning experiences and outcomes

When combining the increasing use of online educational environments, the push to use serious video games and the lack of research on the effectiveness of online learning environments and video games, there is a clear need for further investigation into the use of serious video games in an online format. A mix methods model was used to triangulate statistical and qualitative findings on student performance, completion time, student intrinsic motivation, as well as desirable, undesirable, helpful and hindering aspects of serious game‐based and nongame‐based courses. Students in the game‐based course were found to have performed significantly better and to have taken significantly longer. Students and teachers in the game‐based course provided more reasons for student motivation along with more desirable, more helpful and less hindering aspects compared to students and teachers in the non‐game‐based course. In addition, students and teachers in both courses provided an equal number of undesirable aspects. The results from this study inform instructional designers, teachers, education stakeholders and educational game designers by providing research‐based evidence related to the learning experiences and outcomes of the serious game‐based online course.     

The World Trade Center Attacks and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Reflective decision making is an important component in a teacher's professional expertise, and aptness for integrating it into professional practice can be nurtured in most teachers. This article uses vignettes from student teachers’ journals to describe four modes of thinking that can provide a useful framework for fostering growth in novice and veteran teachers’ conceptualization of reflective decision making and the ability to incorporate it into their repertoire of professional competencies.