Frederick II: Tyrant or Benefactor of the Latin East?

Recent historians have suggested that the involvement of the western emperor, Frederick II, in the kingdom of Jerusalem during the 1220s was regarded with concern by the Latin Christian inhabitants of the Holy Land. However, this study seeks to review the evidence pertaining specifically to that decade and to suggest that our understanding of the Franks' image of the emperor at that time has been largely coloured by hostile assessments made by contemporaries after the crusade of 1228–1229. First, Philip of Novara's account of the emperor trying to leave Acre secretly, but being spotted and ldquo;pelted... with tripe and with bits of meat”, has created an enduring impression of Frankish animosity towards Frederick. This has been compounded by patriarch Gerold of Jerusalem's vitriolic condemnation of Frederick made after the conclusion of the Treaty of Jaffa in February 1229. The effect of these attacks has been to skew modern perceptions of Frederick's reception in the Holy Land in 1228. However, an examination of the evidence for relations between the Latin East and the western empire before Frederick's arrival in the Holy Land suggests that such a negative interpretation of the Franks' attitude towards Frederick needs to be dramatically revised. The traditional view of Frederick's marriage to the heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem, Isabella, is that it was a western initiative foisted on the Latins in the East to encourage the emperor's fulfilment of his crusade vow and that the Frankish barons then had to endure imperial attempts to assert alien rights and privileges in their territories. In other words, he was deeply unwelcome. However, it is plain that a significant body of the Franks strenuously sought to encourage Frederick's active participation in the politics of the Latin East during the 1220s in the interests of the survival of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The Frankish leaders then established a unique relationship with the western emperor. Even during the fraught period of Frederick's stay in the Latin East, a number of the Syrian barons continued to recognise the emperor's authority and supported his rule in the kingdom.     

Women Taking Positions Within Computer Science

In this study the authors argue that women situated within a masculine domain like computing can be seen as taking various positions within that domain rather than a position based on a gender-specific pattern. The authors' work is based on a conventional computer science course and students' experiences in a specific unit taken in year one. Through a deconstruction of aspects of this course, the authors analyse the subject positions of some of the women involved and show that the commonality in their relationship to computing is based upon a standpoint grounded in their complex positioning as both insiders and outsiders in that domain. This standpoint enables them to engage with 'the rules' in various ways. A woman tutor takes a position committed to providing access to students by attempting to integrate practice and abstraction, and the women students develop alternatives to the given rules, i.e. approaches to programming which work for them.     

’Your Daughters Are Not Daughters but Sons’: field notes on being and becoming a woman teacher in Nepal and in Canada

The low numbers of Nepalese female teachers, potentially acting as role models for girls, was the entry point for me to travel to Nepal from Canada to listen to women teachers’ stories that have yet to be heard. A contest over whose voices will be heard in the public debate over educational reform in Nepal has up to now evaded what a focus on ‘women's/girl's multiple and fragmented experience’ on being and becoming a teacher calls into question. In essence, I had worked to find the opportunity to enter into the larger public domain, as intermediary, to search for my own and other women teachers’ understandings and interpretations of their experiences which have been, until very recently, a significant sacrifice in the rite of passage to teaching.

     

Counselor Education—Quo Vadis?

Counselor education programs are faced with a perplexing problem: With minimal staff, how can counselors be prepared to function competently in both an educational and a community-based mental health environment? Two approaches to deal with the issue are presented; one traditional, the other innovative. A suggested model of counselor education is given in response to the changes dictated by current trends in the field.     

Children's Museums: The Serious Business of Wonder,Play, and Learning

If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused—a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love—then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimiliate. Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder     

The making of South Africa's National Curriculum Statement

This paper explores the social construction of the Revised National Curriculum Statement (Grades R–9) in South Africa between 2000–2002. The author, a participant in the process, uses the experience of the insider to tell the story. The paper discusses the relationship of different lobbies, voices, and interests to the curriculum, and argues that a neat translation between interests and curriculum outcomes is not possible, but that the echoes of struggles, which take both a material and symbolic form, are evident within the final version. The paper describes the influences of a vocational lobby, environmental and history interest groups, university‐based intellectuals and non‐governmental organizations, teachers' unions, and the Christian Right. It contends that there was no neat alignment of interests; they were sometimes internally fractured and alliances were unstable over time.     

Standing Alone,Working Together: Tensions surrounding young Canadian women's views of the workplace

This qualitative study explored how young Canadian women view the role of work in their present and future lives. Semi-structured interviews and focus group sessions were conducted with 12 high school girls, ranging in age from 16 to 19 years. Results indicate that all of the young women plan to work for at least part of their adulthood, but do so with varying degrees of commitment to the role of formal work in their lives. The workplace which they envision will support both their need for individual development and their desire to maintain meaningful relationships. Their plans for participation in this workplace, however, suggest that the interfacing of professional and interpersonal goals remains problematic and confusing for young women today. Implications for education and intervention are discussed.