Research on Tai Chi as a sport in health care

This article examines the content and methodology of studies on Tai Chi as a sport in health care. We investigate the concept behind the rather simple name “Tai Chi,” concluding that this concept is manifold and highly variable. How did researchers deal with this variability when studying the effects of Tai Chi as a health-care intervention? We then explore how scientific research on Tai Chi has been conducted to date and draw the interim conclusion that the variability was barely taken into consideration. Our analysis of seven Tai Chi interventions reveals that two interventions referred to as Tai Chi may differ considerably in their content. The variability poses difficulty in repeating the intervention and drawing causal inferences. This problem is discussed in the current literature under the term “complexity in health-care interventions.” On the basis of a summary of this debate, we discuss the challenge of researching Tai Chi from a complex perspective—with the aim of achieving solid results that can be repeated.     

Between the Structural and the Personal: Situated Sense-Makings of “Race” This research was supported by a grant from the MOSAIC Multicultural Center at San Jose State University.

Using a critical intercultural communication perspective and cultural studies interviewing method, this study traces individuals’ subjective sense-makings of diversity through the trope of “race.” Such sense-makings represent the key (and taken-for-granted) locus of the structural and personal where social actors live out the constructions of diversity and race in deeply felt ways. Our study reveals how individuals articulate and understand race via raceless diversity encodings (whereby race is seemingly stripped of its power inequalities, and all racial/ethnic groups are made equal) and racial pivoting (whereby participants both discursively pull away from and move toward race to suit their individual experiences).     

Providing Effective Mentoring for Alternate Rout Beginning Teachers

Abstract

This two‐semester study compared two designs of coursework and field experience in a teacher preparation program. Participants were 62 preservice teachers. Data were collected from their observations of mentor teachers’ instruction and their analyses of these observations. Data were analyzed by constant comparative analysis and analytic statistics. The study found that the design, organized to bring the field experience into the methods course, enhanced preservice teacher abilities to understand and explain instructional observations. The results have implications for the integration of methods coursework and field experience, likely across content areas.     

The evolution of the operational earthquake forecasting community of practice: the L’Aquila communication crisis as a triggering event for organizational renewal

The scientific community of earthquake experts has long grappled with how to communicate earthquake probabilities successfully to non-scientific publics. Perhaps most central to their concern is the widely held belief that scientists can actually predict earthquakes when, in fact, they cannot. The potential consequences of this miscommunication problem were appallingly realized as a result of the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy. Failed risk communication among scientists, a public official, and L’Aquila residents prior to the earthquake resulted in 309 deaths, 1500 injuries, and 65,000 people displaced from their homes, as well as the sentencing of six scientists and one public official to six years in prison for manslaughter. This paper examines how and why the L’Aquila Earthquake communication crisis ultimately redefined the international scientific earthquake community of practice and its discourse beyond that of community resilience to organizational learning and renewal.     

The IDEA Model as a Best Practice for Effective Instructional Risk and Crisis Communication

This study presents the IDEA (internalization, distribution, explanation, action) model as an easy-to-use and situationally generalizable framework for quickly developing effective messages instructing people on how to protect themselves before and during high-risk events, crises, disasters, and other emergencies. The model consists of four elements: helping message recipients internalize the potential impact of the risk or crisis event, identifying appropriate channels and strategies for distributing the risk or crisis event messages, offering a brief and intelligible explanation of the nature of the risk or crisis, and providing specific self-protective action steps for people to take. The model may be used to design messages in any risk, crisis, or emergency context. Through a posttest-only quasi-experimental cross-sectional research experiment, this study measured the perceived message effectiveness, cognitive understanding, and behavioral intentions of those viewing a television news story about a crisis situation employing the IDEA model compared to those viewing a similar story replicating typical crisis event news stories delivered to general publics. This comparative examination revealed that the message designed according to the IDEA model was significantly more effective than the status quo message and resulted in greater behavioral intentions to engage in appropriate self-protective actions in the event of an acute risk or crisis situation. Strategies for implementing the model are also provided.     

Occupational branding for diversity: managing discursive contradictions

In line with recent efforts to increase the representation of women in the field of computing and information technology (I.T.), the National Center for Women and Information Technology has spearheaded an occupational branding campaign that seeks to encourage more women to enter this field. We use this campaign as a case study to investigate how representations of work in an occupational branding campaign (“official branding discourse”) compare with the ways in which practitioners represent this work (“unofficial branding discourse”). Through our analysis, we show that whereas the official branding discourse represents computing and I.T. as a field where women are valued, unofficial branding discourse represents this field as hostile to women. We then propose three avenues through which these contradictions can be managed: (1) acknowledging the challenges expressed by practitioners, while simultaneously discussing how to foster a more inclusive occupational culture, (2) changing the primary goal of the campaign from increasing the number of women in computing and I.T. to making the culture of computing and I.T. less hostile, and (3) committing fewer resources into organized branding campaigns and more resources into direct organizational interventions that seek to make work environments inclusive.     

Educators as Authors: Teaching Beyond the Classroom

This article discusses why educators might consider writing and submitting papers for consideration of publication in professional journals and magazines. A general overview of teachers’ challenges to the writing process and corresponding responses is provided.     

“Ready,Set, Grow!” Nurturing Young Children Through Gardening

This editorial describes one class’ experience of participating in a community-funded gardening project entitled “Ready, Set, Grow!” Children at risk who lived in an urban setting were encouraged to plant fruits, vegetables, and flowers in order to learn about healthy eating and active living. Numerous easy to implement strategies for how educators can replicate this program and engage young children in a container gardening program in their own classrooms are included throughout the text.