Kawaii Killers and Femme Fatales: A Textual Analysis of Female Characters Signifying Benevolent and Hostile Sexism in Video Games

ABSTRACT

Game developers potentially convey socio-cultural values about gender through design choices. This study interpreted the designs of 11 purposively selected female game characters, developed by studios located in the United States and Japan, through the lens of ambivalent sexism. This social psychological theory posits that sexism consists of hostile and benevolent attitudes about women. Two themes emerged across characterizations: bodies as objects, bodies as weapons and (in)dependence. Both consisted of empowering qualities paired with problematic beliefs about women. This analysis contributes to interdisciplinary literature by using an empirical perspective to interpret gender representations in video games.     

Wearable technologies for students with disabilities

Students with disabilities typically experience academic, social, and behavioural challenges in school. Some of these students also often experience anxiety and stress associated with school situations and events. Wearable technologies are an emerging innovation in the United States that can support students with disabilities during stressful academic or social situations. This article discusses issues associated with wearables, offers questions to consider when considering a wearable device for a student, and describes several wearable technologies for students with disabilities.     

Assessing General Education and Special Education Majors’ Self‐Efficacy for Teaching Reading

In an era of teacher quality reforms, one overlooked area for assessing readiness for teaching is education majors’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. This gap is unfortunate, as teaching reading is a common responsibility among general and special education teachers. In the current push for RTI—one in which more general education teachers are increasingly called upon to provide reading support to students with learning disabilities, in addition to the support received from special educators—it is important to determine preservice teachers’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. Self‐efficacy is an important construct to consider as it is related to eventual teacher attrition. The purpose of the current study was to develop a scale to measure elementary and special education majors’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. With a sample of 110 education majors, a three‐factor scale was developed and demonstrated strong psychometric properties. Implications for the future of teacher education programs are discussed.     

Only a game? Player misery across game boundaries

ABSTRACT

Videogames often confront players with frustratingly difficult challenges, fearsome enemies, and tragic stories. As such, they can evoke feelings of failure, sadness, anger, and fear. Although these feelings are usually regarded as undesirable, many players seem to enjoy videogames which cause them. In this paper, I argue that player misery often originates from a fictional or lusory attitude which brackets game events from real-life, making the player’s emotions solely relevant within the game context. As they are part of the game themselves, these negative emotions can be enjoyed and easily relativized, since players can acknowledge that their cause is ‘only a game’. However, there are feelings of misery associated with the playing of videogames which are not caused by either the game’s fiction or challenge. In the last part of this paper, I describe a qualitatively different kind of player misery: one that is caused by elements that are not perceived as part of the game by the player, and is not bracketed from real life by a lusory or fictional attitude.     

Building student-teacher relationships and improving behaviour-management for classroom teachers

Teachers can at times view behavioural intervention procedures as time-consuming. Thus, socially-valid classroom-based interventions are a critical component to behavioural success. This study examined the effects of traditional behavioural interventions with two kindergarten students presenting with challenging behaviours, including aggression, tantrums and noncompliance. Notably, it was found that traditional behavioural procedures were not sufficient to substantially reduce the behaviours alone. Therefore, a relationship-building component was added to target positive student-teacher relationships. Student outcomes resulted in a significant reduction in challenging behaviour as well as teacher-reported behaviours showing a reduction across all measured periods. Ongoing teacher consultation, increased student-teacher relationships (STRs) and use of effective classroom management strategies are necessary for effective models of behaviour support.     

Text Analysis in R

Computational text analysis has become an exciting research field with many applications in communication research. It can be a difficult method to apply, however, because it requires knowledge of various techniques, and the software required to perform most of these techniques is not readily available in common statistical software packages. In this teacher’s corner, we address these barriers by providing an overview of general steps and operations in a computational text analysis project, and demonstrate how each step can be performed using the R statistical software. As a popular open-source platform, R has an extensive user community that develops and maintains a wide range of text analysis packages. We show that these packages make it easy to perform advanced text analytics.     

An Insidious Poison or a Door to the Story?

The aim of this paper is to grasp the influence of the newsroom on frame-building processes. First, journalists’ own understanding of “frames” and “framing” is discussed. Second, from an academic interpretation of these concepts, journalists’ framing practices are studied. To this end an ethnographic study was conducted at two newsrooms, one in Belgium and one in the Netherlands. The findings reveal that while the noun “frame” is sporadically used as a tool, the verb “framing” is considered as something from which a journalist should refrain. This is explained by the associations journalists make with strategic framing from sources as well as by the newspapers’ explicit attempt to no longer view the world from a single ideological frame. It is argued that the studied newsrooms have replaced ideology by, respectively, a counterframing strategy that strives to disprove existing frames (deframing) and a narrative approach that, one the one hand, sharpens existing frames but, on the other hand, offer more opportunities to create alternative frames (reframing) for events.     

Advise with Permission?: The Effects of Advice Solicitation on Advice Outcomes

Two studies examine reactions to permitted (offered and permission granted), volunteered (given without offer or assent), and imposed advice (offered and given even though declined). In Study 1, participants’ ratings of advice quality and implementation intention were higher for volunteered and permitted than imposed advice. Only for a task that was highly personal did recipients have a significantly higher intention to use permitted than volunteered advice. Study 2 replicated results from Study 1 with a nonstudent sample. In addition, Study 2 found stronger differences between volunteered and permitted advice, with permitted advice rated more positively. Study 2 also examined the effect of using you pronouns, which have been linked to confrontation and criticism, when giving advice, but found no consistent effects on advice outcomes.