An Ecological Approach to a University Course that Develops Partnerships Impacting Health and Wellness in K-12 Schools and Communities

Over the past several decades, there has been an increased focus on health promotion as opposed to individual health determinants and disease prevention. Given the association between health and academic success, health promotion is a vastly overlooked lever for establishing effective K-12 schools. Student, organizational, and community well-being are intricately linked, and thus, focusing on any one of these alone will not eliminate achievement gaps and health disparities. We assert that university–community collaboration is instrumental in promoting student and family well-being. Moreover, employing an ecological systems lens to inform partnership and health promotion practices facilitates collective action and magnifies results. In this article, we describe the philosophical and theoretical orientations that guide our teaching, service, and scholarship. We explain how a university undergraduate course that utilizes service-learning has leveraged theory to build university–community collaboration. Using illustrative examples of several service-learning projects, we show how an ecological systems orientation has enhanced the course; supported a systemic approach to health promotion in schools and communities; and facilitated strategic, mutual, and sustained partnerships. We conclude by highlighting the implications of an ecological approach to university–community collaboration, including organizational capacity building, implementation of evidence-based practices, and the need to enhance preservice teacher education.     

The Necessity of Studio Art as a Site and Source for Dissertation Research

The issue raised by the authors in this article question why studio art continues to be ignored as a site and source for research in art education. The necessity of the field to be able to participate within the research community in addressing cultural, social, educational and political concerns is acknowledged. It is argued, however, that the exclusive use of methods of inquiry that align with the conventions of social science research has been done at the expense of fully appreciating the capacity of artistic research undertaken in studio contexts. This tendency is especially prevalent in doctoral research in higher education. Three accounts of dissertation research are given that incorporate studio activity as a central agency of inquiry in conceptualising and theorising issues. Each highlights the capacity of art practice to reveal insights that are a consequence of what the researcher did in the studio setting as issues, ideas and interpretive stances emerged, and problems were re‐conceptualised. What is different in these accounts from more mainstream approaches to research is the readiness to accept that constructing new knowledge is a creative and critical process.     

The state and the liberal universities in South Africa: 1948–1990

Only the liberal (or open) universities in South Africa publicly opposed the National Government and itsapartheid policies, but for the most part only over issues of university and, later, academic freedom. The history of the period is not simply one of conflict between state and universities, however. It is also one of co-operation in, for example, a programme of state-financed university expansion (from which all races benefited). This article explores the bases for both conflict and co-operation. These include a degree of government respect for higher education and, on the other hand, the availability to the universities of certain political resources. The universities came under considerable pressure from a repressive government, but the story is not a simple one of good against evil or freedom against totalitarianism. It is both more complex and (in my view) more interesting.     

Theory of mind and relational complexity

Cognitive complexity and control theory and relational complexity theory attribute developmental changes in theory of mind (TOM) to complexity. In 3 studies, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds performed TOM tasks (false belief, appearance-reality), less complex connections (Level 1 perspective-taking) tasks, and transformations tasks (understanding the effects of location changes and colored filters) with content similar to TOM. There were also predictor tasks at binary-relational and ternary-relational complexity levels, with different content. Consistent with complexity theories: (a) connections and transformations were easier and mastered earlier than TOM; (b) predictor tasks accounted for more than 80% of age-related variance in TOM; and (c) ternary-relational items accounted for TOM variance, before and after controlling for age and binary-relational items. Prediction did not require hierarchically structured predictor tasks.     

Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers: the time of friendship

ABSTRACT

This paper provides an introduction to the enduring friendship between Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers. It shows how their intellectual development as public educators was sustained by their ongoing dialogue which flourished not in spite of but because of their huge differences of circumstance and personality. This friendship between two renowned scholars raises – by implication at least – the question as to what part friendship plays in academic and intellectual development and to what extent institutions, in their administrative systems and practices, encourage or even allow for the kind of friendship that Arendt and Jaspers shared. The paper does not seek to address these questions directly, but rather to ground them in the particularities of a unique correspondence between two major public intellectuals and to highlight their relevance for those currently working in the higher education sector.     

Higher Education in a Global Market: The Case of British Overseas Provision in Israel

In recent years there has been a major expansion by higher education institutions in setting up ‘for-profit’, offshore programmes and campuses. It has been claimed that for-profit provision in a free, or unregulated market, responds to student demand and acts as a catalyst for innovation, thus fuelling arguments for a global ‘free market’ in higher education. There are few opportunities to test these claims since higher education is overwhelmingly provided within national systems of education and is generally subject to strong local regulation. Israel, in the 1990s, offered a rare case of an unregulated market in higher education for foreign providers, albeit one which contained significant distortions: British institutions took the leading part in developments. This article examines that experience in the light of documentation in the public domain and of practitioner research and argues, contrary to unsubstantiated claims, that provision fell below acceptable standards. The article concludes that, in this field, consumer demand did not operate on the basis of quality and that the market-place cannot assure standards of higher education in overseas provision. Furthermore, until international standards are agreed, governments have a responsibility to regulate provision which directly affects the lives of their citizens.