A study of the difficulties of care and support in new university teachers’ work

This paper discusses some findings from a small‐scale qualitative study involving ‘new’ teachers in a medium sized, regional English university. Using Grounded Theory methods to inform and guide the research, the study explores participants’ views on working as both teachers and researchers whilst also managing considerable amounts of ‘caring work’ with a diverse body of students who often need academic and pastoral support in excess of that assumed within the university academic timetables or support networks. The voices of these teachers suggest that care is an overlooked aspect of university teachers’ work, yet it plays an important part in maintaining their and their students’ sense of scholarly endeavour. Further, our findings suggest that within the university at large there is a ‘discourse of difference’ in the way that many academics conceptualize and represent the student body and students’ needs to be supported. This discourse impacts on the development of new teachers’ identities and aspirations. Some implications of these findings for implementing strategies for supporting teachers to develop both academic and pastoral roles within universities are discussed.     

Becoming individual in education and cyberspace

This article traces key competences that are necessary to master as teachers are increasingly obliged to orchestrate learning as initiation into individual autonomy. The context is one that acknowledges that learning increasingly dissipates out into cyberspace.Inspired by Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, the article explores preconditions for professionalizing the teacher using project work as a generalized case. Project work claims to anticipate initiation into autonomy and reflects new power relations between professionals and clients as well. It is assumed that project work illustrates the transition from traditional school forms to a more individualized society where Information and Communication Technologies media (ICT) are increasingly integrated in learning. It is likewise assumed that the procedures and rules governing project work—as a way of shaping the image of oneself as an individual—correspond in ambivalent ways to competences that one must master in order to navigate as an up‐to‐date employee, citizen, and parent, and so on.     

Drunk and Alone in a K‐Mart Parking Lot: The Pedagogy of Simulations and Contemporary Attitudes Toward Drinking and Driving

This article introduces readers to the philosophy and design of team-based learning (TBL), a method developed by Dr. Larry Michaelsen that was influenced by literature in organizational psychology and pedagogy documenting what actually motivates adults to learn and how they master higher order learning skills. We describe how TBL was implemented in several criminal justice courses and illustrate how this method has drastically reduced student apathy, increased attendance, improved performance, and eliminated frustration for both instructors and students. Additionally, we reflect on how this method has reshaped our roles as educators.     

Lombroso's Legacy: The Miseducation of Criminologists

This study examines the extent to which criminal justice and criminology Ph.D. students are exposed to contemporary biological and genetic findings associated with aggression and violence. Drawing on multiple sources of information, we find little evidence showing that Ph.D. students are exposed to any biological research on crime and offending. We examine the consequences for this “trained incompetence” and offer suggestions for remedying this deficiency.

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. (John Stuart Mill)     

Profiles in Change: An Alternative Look at the Marshall Hypotheses∗

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once argued that informed opinion would oppose the death penalty for all but those who support it for retributive reasons. We examine the validity of these claims with data from a series of one‐group pre‐test–post‐test designs which stem from a formalized learning outcomes assessment for several courses on the death penalty. Results show solid, but imperfect, support for these claims. The analysis then proceeds by profiling those who changed their opinions consistent with these claims, those who did not change their opinions, and those whose opinions changed in a manner opposite to these claims.     

Teaching Biosocial Criminology I: Understanding Endophenotypes Using Gottfredson and Hirschi’s Self‐Control Construct

Criminology is experiencing a paradigm shift in theory and research that articulates a more interdisciplinary, biosocial mode of inquiry. Unfortunately, however, graduate‐level criminal justice education rarely encompasses biosocial training. The current review is the first in a series of works that seeks to fill this biosocial training void by providing instruction on concepts in the biological sciences and neurosciences that have direct relevance to criminal justice education and criminology. Here we introduce endophenotypes and demonstrate their relevance to the study of crime using the self‐control construct from Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory. Because biosocial criminology is in its nascent stage, it is critical that biosocial criminologists provide service and instruction to their social science‐trained colleagues.     

The pains of imprisonment: Exploring a classic text with contemporary authors

While classic texts on the prison have long been an important resource for those teaching courses on corrections, prison life has changed dramatically since many of these works were written. For this reason, some instructors may choose to drop classic texts in favor of more recent works. This essay examines recent firsthand accounts of prison written by Ted Conover, Victor Hassine, and Leonard Peltier and argues that such works may be used in conjunction with classic texts to provide students with an exciting, contemporary, and theoretically sophisticated account of prison life. By comparing these recent works to a particular classic text, Sykes's Society of Captives, this essay illustrates this potential for symbiosis and demonstrates some of the ways in which new works provide opportunities to extend our understanding of the classics. When used with classic texts, recent firsthand accounts offer instructors opportunities to illustrate and explain the significance of abstract concepts, to examine issues of continuity and change in corrections theory, and to encourage critical thinking on important issues.     

The formal report project as shared‐document collaboration: A plan for co‐authorship

The four‐phase project described here is based both on current social theories of writing and on contemporary studies of writing on the job and in the classroom. Phase one suggests methods for team organization, phase two the proposal submission, phase three the individual discussion chapter component, and phase four group components and team editing. Both teacher and student provide input for report evaluation. The author's survey of 29 formal report groups found positive attitudes toward both the formal report and collaborative writing.     

Examining the Validity of Standards-Based Assessments for Initially Fluent Students and Former English Language Learners

To date, assessment validity research on non-native English speaking students in the United States has focused exclusively on those who are presently English language learners (ELLs). However, little, if any, research has been conducted on two other sizable groups of language minority students: (a) bilingual or multilingual students who were already English proficient when they entered the school system (IFEPs), and (b) former English language learners, those students who were once classified as ELLs but are now reclassified as being English proficient (RFEPs). This study investigated the validity of several standards-based assessments in mathematics and science for these two student groups and found a very high degree of score comparability, when compared with native English speakers, for the IFEPs, whereas a moderate to high degree of score comparability was observed for the RFEPs. Thus, test scores for these two groups on the assessments we studied appear to be valid indicators of their content knowledge, to a degree similar to that of native English speakers.