Traversing the Challenges of Conducting Research with Young, Immigrant Children: The Case of Korean Children

Based on a qualitative study on young Korean immigrant children’s interpretation of American popular culture, this paper reflects on the researchers’ role by examining the research challenges faced. Prior to discussing the research obstacles in conducting the study, we begin with briefly describing its methodology and design. Next, we discuss the various obstacles we encountered when conducting our study and howwe attempted to overcome these dilemmas by discussing two major struggles during the research process: a) the relationships between the researchers and our young participants, and b) the cultural sensitivity that was needed in initially gaining permission from and working with the parents of our informants. It then illuminates how the researchers attempted to cope with such difficulties by rethinking a researchers’s role emphasizing the importance of cultural context in research. Finally, the paper provides some discussions and implications based on our research experiences.     

Pacem Portantes Advenerint: Ambivalent Images of Muslims in the Chronicles of Norman Italy

The goal of this essay is to call attention to some of the more positive and ambivalent depictions of Muslims in a set of historical texts associated with the Norman takeover of Sicily in the fifth/eleventh and sixth/twelfth centuries. To achieve that aim, it considers social vocabulary applied to Muslims in five sources written by Amatus of Montecassino, Geoffrey Malaterra, William of Apulia, Alexander of Telese, and Hugo Falcandus. Although recent scholarship has posited that medieval identity was often felt through a “self versus other” or “Christian versus non-Christian” dichotomy, this essay questions the notion that the actual language contained in these sources ever devolved into such simplistic, binary terms. On the contrary, though the perceptions and definitions applied to this group of people were, admittedly, sometimes based on uninformed stereotypes, they were more often deliberately constructed images that were highly dependent on the cultural milieu in which they were created.     

Bringing Organisations and Systems Back Together: Extending Clark's Entrepreneurial University

Burton R. Clark's 1998 book, Creating Entrepreneurial Universities, has had a major impact on the field of higher education, especially internationally. In this paper, key aspects of Clark's conceptualisation of organisational pathways of transformation are identified, speaking to its theoretical and empirical contributions to higher education studies, policy and practice. In addition, the larger corpus of Clark's work is built on to offer avenues by which considerations of systems analysis and organisational studies can be brought back together to address the strategic challenges and opportunities for individual universities and state as well as national systems of higher education.     

Changes in intellectual property statutes and policies at a public university: Revising the terms of professional labor

In this paper, we look at the way the state has helped shape the climate for the commercialization of science in a public university, and at how this has shaped the terms of professional labor for faculty. We examine patent policies of a public research university and of its Board of Regents, and the relevant state statutes from 1969–1989. Policies and statutes moved from an ideology that defined the public interest as best served by shielding public entities from involvement in the market, to one that saw the public interest as best served by public organizations' involvement in commercial activities. Claims to the ownership and rewards of intellectual property shifted dramatically in that time, from faculty owning their products and time to complete ownership by the institution. The contract between the university and faculty became increasingly formalized and specified. We believe that such developments augur significant changes in professional labor and in the relationship between the state and higher education. Such changes can best be understood from a post-structuralist perspective that moves beyond the structural dichotomies of public and private, state and higher education administrator and professional, and points to new forms of organization and of professional stratification and interest formation.Despite the changes in intellectual property policies at our university, one of the ongoing terms of our joint professional labor is that we share equally in the research and writing of our work products, which lack commercial relevance but not, perhaps, some value.     

Managing Productivity in an Academic Institution: Rethinking the Whom,Which, What,and Whose of Productivity

Drawing on a review of scholarly literature, this article suggests rethinking productivity in academic institutions along four dimensions: the productivity of whom, productivity for which unit of analysis, productivity according to what functions, and productivity in whose interests. It offers principles for promoting enlightened discussion and pursuit of productivity at all levels of the organization. In contrast to the dominant discourse, which emphasizes focus, centralized standard measures, and accountability, the bias in my principles is toward balance, decentralized diversity, and recalibration. I suggest the ideal is not for employees and units to produce to centrally managed objectives but for all individuals and units to manage individually and collectively to design their work to improve their productivity along multiple dimensions.     

An Assessment of the Quantitative Literacy of Undergraduate Students

Quantitative literacy (QLT) represents an underlying higher-order construct that accounts for a person's willingness to engage in quantitative situations in everyday life. The purpose of this study is to retest the construct validity of a model of quantitative literacy (Wilkins, 2010). In this model, QLT represents a second-order factor that accounts for the interrelationship among three first-order factors: mathematical beliefs, mathematical disposition, and mathematical cognition. Using data from two samples of undergraduate students (n = 186 and n = 184), a series of confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. Results supported the hierarchical three-factor structure and confirmed its factorial invariance across multiple groups of students. Latent QLT scores from the model were used to compare and rank student QLT by gender and class standing.     

Team-based Introductory Research Experiences in Mathematics

Abstract

As part of Middle Tennessee State University’s (MTSU’s) initiative to improve retention of at-risk STEM majors, they recruit first-time, full-time freshman STEM majors with mathematics ACT scores of 19 to 23 to participate in MTSU’s “Mathematics as a FirstSTEP to Success in STEM” project (FirstSTEP). This article overviews MTSU’s FirstSTEP research approach and demonstrates that introductory, early research experiences can be successful for mathematics projects. At the end of their freshman year, mathematics students can develop a foundation to conduct mathematical research, increase depth of content knowledge, and build confidence in their technical abilities.