Just us,just discussing: imagined homogeneities in the Gender Studies classroom

This article explores practices of othering through formations of normative sameness in discussion-based seminar classrooms. It takes literary scholar Stanley Fish's question, ‘Is there a text in this class, or is it just us?’, back into the classroom to explore the formation of a ‘just us,’ an imagined homogeneous interpretive community which, I argue, has discriminatory effects by normalising some voices and practices. It draws on feminist and anti-oppressive theory to discuss ways to pedagogically trouble the enactment of homogeneous interpretive communities in the Gender Studies classroom. As the Gender Studies teacher, I devised pedagogical practices based on the allocation of specific roles as a way to work towards an anti-discriminatory classroom by de-mystifying academic practice and framing seminar practice as a social genre. The article critically reflects on students' subsequent reluctance to take on roles and their preference for free-flowing discussions, doing what comes naturally, a ‘doing' of academia which, I suggest, is linked to social privilege.     

Challenging Students’ Intuitions—the Influence of a Tangible Model of Virus Assembly on Students’ Conceptual Reasoning About the Process of Self-Assembly

A well-ordered biological complex can be formed by the random motion of its components, i.e. self-assemble. This is a concept that incorporates issues that may contradict students’ everyday experiences and intuitions. In previous studies, we have shown that a tangible model of virus self-assembly, used in a group exercise, helps students to grasp the process of self-assembly and in particular the facet “random molecular collision”. The present study investigates how and why the model and the group exercise facilitate students’ learning of this particular facet. The data analysed consist of audio recordings of six group exercises (n?=?35 university students) and individual semi-structured interviews (n?=?5 university students). The analysis is based on constructivist perspectives of learning, a combination of conceptual change theory and learning with external representations. Qualitative analysis indicates that perceived counterintuitive aspects of the process created a cognitive conflict within learners. The tangible model used in the group exercises facilitated a conceptual change in their understanding of the process. In particular, the tangible model appeared to provide cues and possible explanations and functioned as an “eye-opener” and a “thinking tool”. Lastly, the results show signs of emotions also being important elements for successful accommodation.     

Gender,Behaviour and Achievement: A preliminary study of pupil perceptions and attitudes

This article reports on one element of a project undertaken in Leeds Local Education Authority (LEA) during the academic year 1995/96. The article makes some preliminary observations based on questionnaire data gathered in one of the project's schools. The data provide some useful insights into boys' and girls' attitudes towards their academic work, their behaviour, their perceptions of the relationship between the two and gender-related differences in these areas. The data also provide evidence of changes in these perceptions and attitudes with age. The analysis of the results and subsequent discussion suggests 'affective factors' which may be useful both in terms of helping to explain individual differences in performance and in the continued search for strategies which improve boys' and girls' performance.     

Attitudes towards Science Learning among 10th‐Grade Students: A qualitative look

The twenty‐first century is characterized by multiple, frequent and remarkable scientific advancements, which have a major effect on the decisions that govern everyday life. It is therefore vital to give proper comprehensive scientific education to the population and provide it with the right tools for decision‐making. This in turn requires that we foster a positive attitude among students towards science studies and encourage them to choose sciences as their major subjects. The following study examines 10th‐grade high school students in an attempt to understand and document the influential factors underlying their attitudes towards science studies. The study is conducted through a qualitative research methodology, gathering data based on interviews. This methodology exposes the students’ feelings, views and beliefs, and explores the characteristics of the factors influencing students’ attitudes. Of these factors, we found the most significant for high school students to be interpersonal interaction between teacher and student, the relevance and authenticity of the topics being studied, and the diversity of the teaching methods. We therefore suggest that these three elements should be given particular emphasis by teachers and teacher educators.     

A teachable-agent-based game affording collaboration and competition: evaluating math comprehension and motivation

This paper presents an educational game in mathematics based on an apprenticeship model using a teachable agent, as well as an evaluative study of how the game affects (1) conceptual understanding and (2) attitudes towards mathematics. In addition, we discuss how collaborative and competitive affordances of the game may affect understanding and motivation. 19 students played the game in pairs once a week during math lessons for 7?weeks (the game-playing group) while another 19 students followed the regular curriculum (the control group). Math comprehension scores increased significantly for the game-playing group but not the control group (p?<?0.05). However, there was no significant difference in attitude change between the two groups. Post hoc analyses indicated that game-playing primarily affected students?? confidence in explaining math to a peer, but not their enjoyment of doing so. Collaborative and competitive activities seem to carry a strong motivational influence for students to play the game.     

Voyeurism and Resistance in Rap Music Videos

Longstanding explanations of the controlling effect of white consumers/producers on minority production can obscure the negotiation and struggle of artists over their images, and particularly the ways in which dominant ideologies can be disarticulated from their meanings and rearticulated as critical observations on contemporary social relations. Rap group dead prez's video for the song “Hell Yeah!” is most accurately read from the perspective of articulation theory, since the group's oppositional use of the “gaze” reworks dominant representational discourses of race and class.     

Emotional identification with teacher identities in student teachers’ narrative interaction

The paper suggests that narrative interaction in student teacher peer groups is an important context for emotional identification with culturally available teacher identities. It addresses issues pointed out as problematic in research on teacher identity formation: focus on the individual and the underestimation of context. A positioning analysis of narrative interaction in a conversation between two student teachers depicts the ways in which they express and negotiate feelings related to out loud reading. The results show that this approach can be a complement to the extensive body of knowledge on the place of emotions in teacher identity formation as it shows how emotions are negotiated among student teachers in a way that challenges the predominant focus on individual students’ expressions of emotions.