Media Portrayals of Tiger Woods: A Qualitative Deconstructive Examination

The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine televised media portrayals of Tiger Woods from a cultural studies perspective that is sensitive to historical patterns of minority participation in golf. A deconstructive strategy was undertaken to analyze the type, style, and kind of media images of Tiger Woods' life history and golf accomplishments. The underlying meanings of these images were analyzed in an effort to expose how popular culture reflects and promotes hegemonic practices in golf. The results revealed that the meanings and images of Tiger Woods articulated within the media were inconsistent and in direct contradiction to common sense views that minorities have made advances in the golf subculture. In fact, a closer examination of the media texts showed that the underlying media messages actually reinrorce historical practices and common stereotypes of the golf community. In this paper we argued that media portrayals of Tiger Woods were characterized by an underlying racist, sexist, and classist ideology masked by cummon sense images and views of sport.     

The Academic Influence of Mentoring Upon African American Undergraduate Aspirants to the Professoriate

In this study, I examine academic influences of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation Summer Research Opportunity Program’s mentoring component. Interviews with African American undergraduate student participants of the faculty–student mentoring initiative suggest mentorship’s influence upon the academic experiences of participants and illustrate the importance of faculty-directed research in preparing racial minorities for graduate education.     

Degree apprenticeships,the ‘joy of learning’ excellence framework,and the common good

Degree Apprenticeships are fairly recent in the landscape of UK Higher Education. As is often the case with initiatives that try to build bridges between the world of work and the world of university education, there is suspicion that in such relationships higher education becomes servant to the needs of business and industry. Alternatively, Degree Apprenticeships perhaps offer a way for Higher Education to add value to the students’ working life. In our paper we try to argue for ways in which the value of the University-side of the provision within Degree Apprenticeships might reflect something of the value of the common good, and of the value of the joy of learning. Leaning on the venerable history of the triangle in the Western philosophical canon, and in Plato in particular, we demonstrate ways in which Degree Apprenticeships and Plato’s famous example of education as the journey to and from the cave can be brought together. In passing, we are claiming that Higher Education in all its forms would do well not to lose sight of its responsibilities to education as a servant of the common good, and above all, to the joy of learning.