But I want to fly too!: Girls and superhero play in the infant classroom

This article describes a study which was conducted in an inner-city school in the north of England, in a base which contained 57 children aged 6 and 7 years old. The purpose of the study was to explore the potential role of popular culture in the literacy curriculum. During the project, a socio-dramatic role-play area which was related to a popular superhero icon was set up in the classroom. Children's play in the area was recorded using a variety of methods, including field notes, video recording and photographs. Some of the previous research on superhero play has focused on the attraction the discourse has for boys or suggested that girls take on a non-female persona in such a play. The findings from this study suggest that superhero play is strongly attractive to girls, who explore agency and autonomy through such play and actively position themselves as females within a heroic discourse.     

Guiding reinvention of conventional tools of mathematical logic: students’ reasoning about mathematical disjunctions

Motivated by the observation that formal logic answers questions students have not yet asked, we conducted exploratory teaching experiments with undergraduate students intended to guide their reinvention of truth-functional definitions for basic logical connectives. We intend to reframe the relationship between reasoning and logic by showing how logic emerges within students’ mathematical activity. This activity entails reflecting on and systematizing their own language use across diverse semantic content. We present categories of students’ untrained strategies for assessing the truth-values for mathematical disjunctions. Students’ initial reasoning heavily reflected content-specific and pragmatic factors in ways inconsistent with the norms and conventions of mathematical logic. Despite this, all student groups reinvented the standard truth-functional definition for simple disjunctions. We demonstrate how this learning depended upon particular forms of reasoning about logic. We also contrast various strategies for assessing quantified disjunctions and their different affordances in students’ mathematical activity.     

Social impact of participatory health research: collaborative non-linear processes of knowledge mobilization

Social impact, defined as an effect on society, culture, quality of life, community services, or public policy beyond academia, is widely considered as a relevant requirement for scientific research, especially in the field of health care. Traditionally, in health research, the process of knowledge transfer is rather linear and one-sided and has not recognized and integrated the expertise of practitioners and those who use services. This can lead to discrimination or disqualification of knowledge and epistemic injustice. Epistemic injustice is a situation wherein certain kinds of knowers and knowledge are not taken seriously into account to define a situation. The purpose of our article is to explore how health researchers can achieve social impact for a wide audience, involving them in a non-linear process of joint learning on urgent problems recognized by the various stakeholders in public health. In participatory health research impact is not preordained by one group of stakeholders, but the result of a process of reflection and dialog with multiple stakeholders on what counts as valuable outcomes. This knowledge mobilization and winding pathway embarked upon during such research have the potential for impact along the way as opposed to the expectation that impact will occur merely at the end of a research project. We will discuss and illustrate the merits of taking a negotiated, discursive and flexible pathway in the area of community-based health promotion.     

Want to improve sexual health education for girls? Include body image

Research suggests body image is related to sexual behaviors, which can impact sexual health across the lifespan. This paper aims to explain the necessity for including body image content in sexuality education to improve outcomes among girls. Our recommendations, supported by theory and empirical research include (a) an assessment of existing curricula; (b) designing new, theoretically-informed curricula; (c) using innovative technology in sex education; (d) rigorous evaluation of existing and new curricula; and (e) revising the National Sexuality Education Standards. These recommendations are discussed after providing the necessary background and rationale.     

Concurrent Validity of LibQUAL+™ Scores: What Do LibQUAL+™ Scores Measure?

The present study investigated the validity of LibQUAL+™ scores, and specifically how total and subscale LibQUAL+™ scores are associated with self-reported, library-related satisfaction and outcomes scores. Participants included 88,664 students and faculty who completed the American English (n_AE = 69,494) or the British English (n_BE = 19,170) LibQUAL+™ language versions in the 2004 data collection cycle. Results suggest that LibQUAL+™ scores primarily measure satisfaction rather than outcomes.