Extra-Curricular Activity and the Transition from Higher Education to Work: A Survey of Graduates in the United Kingdom

This paper focuses on the effects of extra‐curricular activity on graduates' transition from higher education to the labour market. The study is based on a survey of 119 graduates conducted in 2004 in the UK. The data gathered cover a large range of social and leisure activities that the graduates carried on while students at their universities. Several aspects of their transitional process from student to worker are also covered. Data were analysed by means of linear and logistic regression models. Results show that extra‐curricular activity has a significant influence on the transition process. First, extra‐curricular experience gives access to better occupational status but lengthens the period of unemployment preceding the first job. Second, as compared with the most frequently observed extra‐curricular behaviour, two profiles could be distinguished: the one better performing than average, and the other worse performing. Results suggest extra‐curricular strategies to better enable graduates' effective transition to work.     

A comprehensive survey of IS undergraduate degree courses in the UK

There is little conclusive evidence about the state of the IS curriculum in the UK. This paper presents the results of a detailed survey about the provision of Information Systems (IS) undergraduate degree courses in the UK using the newly developed IS 2010 curriculum guidelines as its basis. IS 2010 identifies three main categories of knowledge that underpin the essence of IS as an academic subject: IS Specific Knowledge and Skills, Domain Fundamentals and Foundational Knowledge and Skills. Our desire to offer a holistic and conclusive representation of the curriculum is supported by the development of an IS curriculum survey framework that caters for the mapping of every subject that populates the IS curricula of undergraduate degrees in the UK, including subjects that are generic or are derived from other hierarchical disciplines.     

“We want to see you sex it up and be slutty:” post-feminism and sports media’s appearance double standard

The notion that women in the United States’ electronic sports media face greater standards of appearance is not new (Sheffer, M. L., & Schultz, B. (2007) Double standard: Why women have trouble getting jobs in local television sports. Journal of Sports Media, 2(1), 77–101). What has not been explored, however, is the persistence of this double standard through a Foucauldian lens. Using Michel Foucault’s (Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality: Vol. 1, an introduction. New York: Vintage Books) power/knowledge paradigm, this Foucauldian discourse analysis uses one-on-one interviews with women sportscasters and textual analysis to grapple with this previously unexplored aspect of one of electronic sports media’s longest standing gendered double standards.

Using these data, this article argues that post-feminist discourses (Gill, R. (2007) Gender and the media. Cambridge: Polity Press; McRobbie, A. (2004) Post-feminism and popular culture. Feminist Media Studies, 4(3), 255–264) have a mutually informing relationship with three manifestations of the electronic sports media’s gendered double standard of appearance: sportscaster hiring and retention, inequitable media consumer evaluations of on-screen appearance, and expectations for sportscaster dress, the latter of which have required many women to wear increasingly revealing clothing, a trend this article refers to as nightclubification. While post-feminist analysis explicates the nuances of the appearance double standard and the electronic sports media’s contributions to our culture’s constructions of gender relations, Foucauldian discourse analysis demonstrates how the appearance double standard has been taken for granted and how it might inform other obstacles women in the industry must navigate.     

Transpacific precarities: responding to Souvankham Thammavongsa’s Found and Rita Wong’s forage in East Asia

ABSTRACT

This essay investigates the stakes involved in responding to transpacific texts in East Asia, specifically in universities in Macau and Taiwan. It focuses on responses to two texts that represent in distinct ways precariatized lives in a transpacific frame: Souvankham Thammavongsa’s Found, a text that uncovers a path from Laos to a refugee camp in Thailand to Canada, a path made legible through a scrapbook kept by Thammavongsa’s father; and Rita Wong’s forage, a text that cuts across and between South China and North America to track the movements of peoples and goods and waste, including the movement of electronic waste (or “e-waste”). By discussing selected responses to these texts, this essay investigates how such responses can be considered as part of a long-term pedagogical process of cultivating imaginations and striving to develop forms of responsibility to what this essay calls transpacific precarities. It suggests that carefully attending to such responses, always partial and in progress, can help us to better understand Asian American studies in East Asia as it continues to evolve through acts of teaching and learning in different sites.     

South African Deaf education and the Deaf community

In a special section of the american Annals of the Deaf, Deaf education and the Deaf community in South Africa are discussed. The special section is organized into 7 segments: a historical overview to establish context, the educational context, educators and learners, postgraduate education and employment, perspectives of Deaf children and their parents, sport and the arts, and spiritual lives and mental health. Throughout the entire section, however, the central focus is on the overall foundation (or lack thereof) of education for Deaf learners in South Africa.     

Israel–Malaysia Relations and the Place of Football

Abstract

While seeking to establish their respective international positions following their foundation, Israel and Malaysia also interacted with each other. However, in light of the Israeli–Arab conflict, and mainly due to Malaysia’s domestic considerations and geo-political interests, the interactions remained limited and official relations were not established. This study relies on the notion that sport is potentially an important tool for engagement between states. It examines contemporaneous Israeli and Singapore press and brings together the various episodes and voices pertinent to the way Israel–Malaysia relations unfolded through football until the 1970s. The paper offers an historical perspective on the relations by focusing on a game that was highly popular in both countries. I argue that, while considering the various limitations that were involved, the Prime Minister of Malaysia and President of the Asian Football Confederation, Tunku Abdul Rahman, cautiously maintained the football channel with Israel open. Accordingly, in light of the significantly low-level of other means of contact, football functioned as a carefully managed yet meaningful line of communication by involving a prime minister, senior sports administrators, athletes, football fans, journalists, and sports readers. The essay thus contributes a case study to the emerging body of literature on football relations between states.