Maximum Product,Even Less Process: Increasing Efficiencies in Archival Processing Using ArchivesSpace

As the archival profession has adapted to new challenges and adopted modern practices like More Product, Less Process, the University of Minnesota has embraced these changes. Even so, implementing new practices can take time and effort. With the adoption of ArchivesSpace in 2016, the University found itself being fast-tracked to even more efficient methods for establishing physical and intellectual control over collections. This article will examine the case studies of two large collections that were in the midst of being processed when ArchivesSpace was implemented at the University of Minnesota. How did the switch to ArchivesSpace impact the processing of these collections, and how will these experiences impact the future of archival processing at the University?     

Pupil Speech during Morning News: the effects of reducing teacher questions and increasing pauses and praise

Classroom discourse patterns were examined in the morning news sessions of a primary school classroom. The effects of reducing teacher questions and increasing rates of teacher pauses, praise and directives were investigated. Child words spoken and child expansions were recorded, as well as class call‐outs and teacher control statements. Frequencies of child words spoken showed no significant changes across the phases of the study. However, reducing teacher questions and increasing teacher pauses significantly decreased child expansions, while reducing teacher questions and increasing teacher praise significantly increased child expansions. Replacing teacher questions with directives had no significant effect upon child expansions. Class call‐outs and teacher control statements showed no significant changes across the intervention phases. The results of this study suggest that, for this teacher and class, teacher questions may be decreased without adversely affecting either child utterances or class behaviour, and that replacing questions with praise may increase children's contributions — particularly in the form of verbal expansions — to morning news talks.     

The effects of isolation and handling on reactivity to footshock and tactile dorsal stimulation

The effects of isolation and handling on the reactivity of rats to two tactile stimuli were assessed in two experiments. In the first experiment, reactivity to more intense footshock was increased in rats raised in isolation but was not affected by handling by an experimenter. In the second experiment, increased reactivity to airpuff stimuli presented to the dorsal surface of isolation-reared rats was reduced by handling. The data suggest that the effects of handling on shock-motivated behaviors are not due to altered reactivity to shock and that the effect of housing or handling must be considered in behavioral tests in which reactivity to tactile stimulation might play a role as dependent or independent variables.     

Political and educational springboard or straitjacket? Theorising post/human subjects in an age of vulnerability

Contemporary discourses of social justice in education, disability, mental health, social policy and feminist studies are refracted increasingly through concerns about psychological and structural vulnerabilities created by the crises of late capitalism. Focusing on developments in British social policy generally and educational research specifically, this paper uses the authors' contrasting perspectives on two discernible discourses of vulnerability emerging in these contexts. One elevates the recognition of collective vulnerability as a springboard for new conceptualisations of resistance that disrupt materialist narratives of the human subject as a coherent, unified and rational agent of history. A second discourse offers a materialist understanding that locates vulnerability as both driver and product of a ‘therapeutic culture’, arguing that a psycho-emotional focus for vulnerability offers a diminished and ineffective subjectivity that belies rhetorics of resistance. These contrasting perspectives generate and emerge simultaneously from new understandings of the human subject. The paper evaluates the implications of using vulnerability to frame expectations of human subjects for everyday educational practices and relationships. It concludes by suggesting empirical questions that need exploring.     

Increasing cesarean birth rates: a clash of cultures?

Cesarean birth rates in the United States reached a high of 27.6% in 2003, a 6% increase over 2002. A cultural conflict appears to exist between the views of those who believe that birth is normal and many cesareans are unnecessary and the views of those who feel that higher rates are justifiable. Childbirth educators can share cultural concepts of normal birth in their classroom.