“Bridging the Gap”: Difference,Dialogue, and Community Organizing

The purpose of this study is to understand a citywide initiative to increase diversity and inclusion in a predominantly white US city with a tragic racial history. This research reveals prevailing struggles with communicating about diversity and race and taking meaningful actions to promote social change. Using theories of difference and dialogue, we analyze in-depth, qualitative fieldwork with three voluntary organizations: The Chamber of Commerce; The Network; and Minorities in Business. Our work answers calls to center race and embodied differences and extends theorizing on dialogic sensibilities. The findings reveal that difference organizes dialogue through: (1) the ongoing construction of context; (2) the mobilizing of social change efforts; and (3) the intermingling of economic and racial justice discourses. Ultimately, we hope this work encourages further conversation about difference, race, and engaged scholarship.     

Exploring Knowing/Being Through Discordant Professional Practice

Despite an increasing array of ‘quality indicators’ and substantial investments in educating professionals, there continues to be clear evidence of discordant, or even negligent, practice by accredited professionals. We refer to discordant professional practice as being ‘out of tune’ with what is accepted as good practice. In a conceptual/theoretical analysis, we use discordant practice as a backdrop to exploring ways of being professionals. Our analysis is grounded in Heidegger’s notion of being-in-the-world. We explore how being-in-the-world can be uncanny and discordant, while at the same time, dwelling in the world implies familiarity and a sense of being ‘at home’. We also draw upon Merleau-Ponty’s arguments that know-how is performed, settling in the body to become habitual, while also incorporating others and things in the accomplishment of practice. We argue that conceiving know-how as knowing/being provides insights into what is entailed in learning to be professionals.     

Politicising action research through queer theory

Queer theory and action research together offer possibilities for exposing the deep injustice of both homophobia and heterosexism. Underpinning identity categories of sexuality and gender, these forms of social injustice lurk in schools, families, religions, communities, and nation‐states. For educators and educational researchers, addressing homophobia and heterosexism in schools and other educational institutions may be enabled through action research that takes up the premises of queer theory. The inquiry part of queer theory and research is interested in how gender, sex, desire, and sexuality organise all human behaviour. Action research can materialise the radical potential of queer theory through research projects that provide opportunities for homophobic and heterosexist teachers, students, administrators, counsellors, parents, and even researchers towards asking questions about how they identify self and other and how this in turn is implicated in a social hierarchy that devalues those whose sexual practices are different from the norm.     

Dialectical Tensions of Small Group Leadership

This study examined dialectical tensions faced by leaders of small task-oriented groups. Interviews with 10 male and 13 female group leaders revealed three major categories of internal dialectical tensions: group control by leader/by members, leader's focus on task-related/nontask-related concerns, and leader's focus on group process/outcome. Tensions were nonbinary; for example, task concerns contrasted with three different types of nontask concerns. Future research should investigate the relationship between group leader effectiveness and dialectical tension management, the relative importance of managing specific tensions, and the consistency of group leader/member perspectives.     

Luria y la escuela soviética en el contexto actual

RESUMEN

Se hace una síntesis de la obra de Luria. Luria emerge de la escuela rusa reflexológica pauloviana, que había dado un nuevo enfoque a la psicología, acercándola a la fisiología y utilizando el método experimental. La metodología está muy desarrollada en la obra de Luria, que define tres líneas de investigación: el método de análisis estructural (planteamiento de problemas experimentales a personas con objeto de estudiar su actividad mental y comportamiento dirigidos a alcanzar una solución); el método genético-experimental (consistente en el estudio de la evolución de los procesos psíquicos superiores en el niño); y el método patológico-experimental (análisis de la conducta de cerebros dañados). Luria sitúa a la psicología en la interacción entre la fisiología y la biología, pero también dio importancia a la interacción entre individuo y su medio. El medio humano es la sociedad. El sistema nervioso regula la búsqueda del equilibrio entre los procesos psicológicos y el medio.     

A faculty–librarian collaboration for developing information literacy skills among preservice teachers

Preservice teachers enrolled in the first portion of an undergraduate education program at the Florida State University were assigned to develop case studies based on their experience working in local elementary schools. The case studies were to include research from the scholarly literature of the field using a rubric developed by the instructor for evaluating sources. After inadequate results were recorded from the initial semester's projects, the course instructor paired with a liaison librarian to provide a workshop to improve the use of scholarly resources in the following semester's class. This article reports on a citation analysis of student bibliographies from the two classes, finding that the number of scholarly resources cited increased significantly when the librarian's presentation accompanied the use of the instructor's rubric. The results affirm earlier research that a combination of library instruction and clear faculty-established guidelines and requirements for the use of scholarly resources results in increased quality of student research.     

The keyword method compared to alternative vocabulary-learning strategies

Imagery and sentence versions of the keyword method of vocabulary learning were contrasted with three nonkeyword verbal-contextual alternatives. Subjects' definition learning in the imagery keyword condition was substantially higher than when subjects were presented the vocabulary in sentence contexts, when they generated sentence contexts for the words, when they made decisions about whether the words were used correctly in sentences, or when they were left to their own devices to learn the words. The learning benefits associated with the sentence keyword version were not as dramatic as in the imagery keyword condition. They were more evident when recall of any part of the definition was considered correct than when recall of the entire definition was necessary. These results indicate that the keyword method is a potent alternative to vocabulary-learning techniques that are regarded as effective by curriculum experts in reading.