Using Popular Culture Texts in the Classroom to Interrogate Issues of Gender Transgression Related Bullying

This article examines how undergraduate instructors of pre-service educators can address complex issues of sexuality and sexual orientation within the classroom. First, we explain our own backgrounds and positionalities to provide a context for our ensuing ideas and discussions. Second, by reviewing the literature on homophobic bullying, we outline why it is imperative that preservice teachers understand and mobilize around issues of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex rights. Third, we offer suggestions as to how to relate to undergraduate students when talking about sexuality and sexual orientation. We propose that using popular culture is an effective and engaging way of connecting to preservice teachers who have not previously had to confront their own homophobia and heterosexism. We suggest that using popular films or TV shows, such as Ugly Betty, has the potential to open up space for dialogue and critical engagement with issues such as explicit or implicit homophobia. We believe that critical media literacy skills are necessary tools for young people who are constantly bombarded with oftentimes stereotypical images and personifications of GLBTQI people within the mainstream media. Consequently, although we propose that popular culture be used as an educative space within the undergraduate classroom, it must be used both carefully and critically. Finally, we discuss why it is imperative that undergraduate professors address these issues within the classroom by referencing recent tragedies that are directly connected to homophobic bullying.     

Are students really connected? Predicting college adjustment from social network usage

The rapid growth in popularity of social networking sites has spurred research exploring the impact of usage in a variety of areas. The current study furthered this line of research by examining the relationships between social network usage and adjustment to college in the academic, social, personal-emotional and university affiliation domains. Realising the number of students with social networking accounts, some universities have developed strategic plans for social media. Thus, this study also compared two universities, one with a social media strategic plan and one without, to determine if the planning process had an influence on students. Results indicated that social network usage was related to college adjustment. Specifically, those students who reported higher rates of social media use reported lower levels of adjustment to college in all domains. However, there were no differences between the two universities, indicating that having a social media strategic plan does not influence students in the area of college adjustment. These results are discussed in light of retention rates and changing practices within higher education.     

A defensive mindset: A pattern of social information processing that develops early and predicts life course outcomes

The hypothesis was tested that some children develop a defensive mindset that subsumes individual social information processing (SIP) steps, grows from early experiences, and guides long-term outcomes. In Study 1 (Fast Track [FT]), 463 age-5 children (45% girls; 43% Black) were first assessed in 1991 and followed through age 32 (83% retention). In Study 2 (Child Development Project [CDP]), 585 age-5 children (48% girls, 17% Black) were first assessed in 1987 and followed through age 34 (78% retention). In both studies, measures were collected of early adverse experiences, defensive mindset and SIP, and adult outcomes. Across both studies, a robust latent construct of school-age defensive mindset was validated empirically (comparative fit index = .99 in each study) and found to mediate the impact of early child abuse (38% in FT and 29% in CDP of total effect) and peer social rejection (14% in FT and 7% in CDP of total effect) on adult incarceration.     

How students reason about matter flows and accumulations in complex biological phenomena: An emerging learning progression for mass balance

In recent years, there has been a strong push to transform STEM education at K-12 and collegiate levels to help students learn to think like scientists. One aspect of this transformation involves redesigning instruction and curricula around fundamental scientific ideas that serve as conceptual scaffolds students can use to build cohesive knowledge structures. In this study, we investigated how students use mass balance reasoning as a conceptual scaffold to gain a deeper understanding of how matter moves through biological systems. Our aim was to lay the groundwork for a mass balance learning progression in physiology. We drew on a general models framework from biology and a covariational reasoning framework from math education to interpret students' mass balance ideas. We used a constant comparative method to identify students' reasoning patterns from 73 interviews conducted with undergraduate biology students. We helped validate the reasoning patterns identified with >8000 written responses collected from students at multiple institutions. From our analyses, we identified two related progress variables that describe key elements of students' performances: the first describes how students identify and use matter flows in biology phenomena; the second characterizes how students use net rate-of-change to predict how matter accumulates in, or disperses from, a compartment. We also present a case study of how we used our emerging mass balance learning progression to inform instructional practices to support students' mass balance reasoning. Our progress variables describe one way students engage in three dimensional learning by showing how student performances associated with the practice of mathematical thinking reveal their understanding of the core concept of matter flows as governed by the crosscutting concept of matter conservation. Though our work is situated in physiology, it extends previous work in climate change education and is applicable to other scientific fields, such as physics, engineering, and geochemistry.     

Is the repugnance about betting on terrorist attacks misguided?

Prediction markets designed to predict terrorism through traders’ investments on the likelihood of specific terrorist attacks are, strictly speaking, enabling those traders to bet on terrorism. Betting on terrorist attacks, like some other forms of betting on death, has been accused of being repugnant. In this paper, it is argued that while government-backed effective intelligence-gathering prediction markets on terrorism (PMsoT) might elicit feelings of repugnance, those feelings are likely to be misguided. The feelings of repugnance arise because PMsoT are assumed to be associated with terrorism in encouraging and endorsing ways and with human death in a disrespectful way. However, it is argued that these feelings of repugnance are misguided in the case of government-backed effective intelligence-gathering PMsoT because the purpose and effect of such prediction markets, and (on balance) the trading they encourage, is to prevent and renounce terrorism and show respect for matters of life and death.     

The Educator's Dual Role: Expressing Ideals While Educating in Nonideal Conditions

In this essay, Jennifer Morton discusses educators as central examples of agents who engage in ideal and nonideal ways of thinking. The educator, as a representative of the political community, is tasked with two aims. The first is nurturing students with the skills and knowledge they need for the world as they will find it. In pursuing this goal, the educator is assuming certain social facts, some of them unjust, that constitute the present nonideal world. The second aim is civic — educating future citizens. Insofar as the educator is involved in pursuing this goal, his or her role is to work at making certain future social facts true, in the hope of making the future slightly more ideal. Morton argues that if we think of these two aims instrumentally, they can come into conflict. She does not suggest a resolution to this conflict, but rather develops an alternative expressive account of the civic role of the educator. Ideal thinking by educators, Morton maintains, should be thought of as constituting an expression of respect toward their fellow citizens here and now. Ultimately, she argues that this expressive component of the educator's job is crucial to the educator's role in the political community.     

CURRENT AND FUTURE SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS’ PREPAREDNESS TO WORK WITH LGBT STUDENTS: ROLE OF EDUCATION AND GAY‐STRAIGHT ALLIANCES

This study sought to assess current and future school psychologists’ attitudes toward and preparedness to address the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students in schools. Two‐hundred seventy‐nine school psychologists (n = 162, 58%) and school psychology graduate students (n = 117, 42%) were included in the study. Participants completed measures of attitudes toward LGBT students, preparedness to address the needs of LGBT youth, and social desirability. For both school psychologists and graduate students, increased education was associated with improved attitudes and increased preparedness to treat LGBT youth. For school psychologists, presence of a gay‐straight alliance was associated with increased knowledge about LGBT youth, as well as higher ratings of preparedness to treat LGBT youth; the same associations did not hold true for the graduate students. These findings have implications for the training and practice of school psychologists in addressing the needs of LGBT youth in schools.     

Using pig die and simulation to explore probability and expected values

We present a variant of the Game of Pig to introduce the concepts of probability, simulation and expected value.