On the Rebound: Critical Race Praxis and Grassroots Community Organizing for School Change

This ethnographic research was conducted over a three-year period, and documents the efforts of a committed group of parents and community members who through community-based research sought to address the disproportionate underachievement of African American students within their city??s public school system. Specifically, the parents and community members who make up the group Parents of Children of African Ancestry (POCAA) offer a refreshing theory of action that explicitly addressed issues of racial inequity, and called upon the larger community to respond with the urgency the youth deserved. In effect, POCAA challenges dominant views of African American parents and re-envisions their involvement in school reform as a site of radical resistance.     

Gender differences in the strength of association between motivation,competency beliefs and reading skill

Background:?There is concern in the education community regarding gender differences in reading, as girls regularly outperform boys. There is also concern about the consequences of low motivation for children's engagement in reading and learning. An important question is whether boys' motivation is more closely linked to their attainment compared with girls.

Purpose:?The aim of the study was to examine how closely children's reading skill correlates with their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and competency beliefs. There was a particular focus on gender.

Sample:?There were 492 children (240 boys) aged 7–11 in this study from four primary schools in England, UK.

Design and methods:?Children completed a reading comprehension assessment and a questionnaire examining intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and competency beliefs relating to reading and schoolwork. For analysis, children were split into a younger (age 7–8) and older (age 9–11) age group.

Results:?In both the younger and older groups, the boys' competency beliefs in reading and intrinsic motivation for reading and schoolwork were significantly more closely associated with their level of reading skill, in comparison with the girls.

Conclusions:?The closer reciprocal relationship between boys' intrinsic motivation, competency beliefs and reading skill could be interpreted in at least two ways. Firstly, boys' motivation and beliefs in their ability may be more dependent on their success in reading. Alternatively, boys' motivation and competency beliefs may play a more significant role in the effort they put into reading.     

Children's perceptions of wider reading: to what extent do 7- and 8-year-old children read beyond the scheme books?

A case study was conducted with a class of twenty 7- to 8-year-old children in a primary school in the North West of England, to explore possible links between the use of a school reading scheme and children's involvement in wider reading. A questionnaire was administered to all children in the class, followed by semi-structured interviews with three children. The findings revealed that the vast majority of the children held extremely positive views of their reading scheme books but were also very enthusiastic wider readers, be it either independent reading or reading with a parent or carer. Further findings emerged suggest that environmental factors, such as access to books at home and library usage, also play an important part in children's involvement in wider reading.     

Examining the supervision of mathematics student teachers through analysis of conference communications

Student teaching is often a capstone experience in the preparation of mathematics teachers. Thus, it is essential to better understand key aspects of the experience. We conducted a qualitative study of post-lesson conferences led by supervisors (classroom cooperating teachers and a university supervisor) working with mathematics student teachers. Analysis of conference communications revealed differences in the types and content of communications in conferences led by the cooperating teachers and by the university supervisor. Cooperating teachers tended toward evaluative supervision that lacked a focus on the mathematics of the lessons while the university supervisor tended toward educative supervision, guiding student teachers to reflect on and learn from their own classroom experiences including the mathematics of their lessons. Differences are discussed, and suggestions concerning the supervision of student teachers are made along with recommendations for further research.     

How to be a responsible slave: managing the use of expert information systems

Computer ethicists have for some years been troubled by the issue of how to assign moral responsibility for disastrous events involving erroneous information generated by expert information systems. Recently, Jeroen van den Hoven has argued that agents working with expert information systems satisfy the conditions for what he calls epistemic enslavement. Epistemically enslaved agents do not, he argues, have moral responsibility for accidents for which they bear causal responsibility. In this article, I develop two objections to van den Hoven’s argument for epistemic enslavement of agents working with expert information systems.     

Consensus statement on placebo effects in sports and exercise: The need for conceptual clarity,methodological rigour,and the elucidation of neurobiological mechanisms

In June 2017 a group of experts in anthropology, biology, kinesiology, neuroscience, physiology, and psychology convened in Canterbury, UK, to address questions relating to the placebo effect in sport and exercise. The event was supported exclusively by Quality Related (QR) funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The funder did not influence the content or conclusions of the group. No competing interests were declared by any delegate. During the meeting and in follow-up correspondence, all delegates agreed the need to communicate the outcomes of the meeting via a brief consensus statement. The two specific aims of this statement are to encourage researchers in sport and exercise science to

1. Where possible, adopt research methods that more effectively elucidate the role of the brain in mediating the effects of treatments and interventions.

2. Where possible, adopt methods that factor for and/or quantify placebo effects that could explain a percentage of inter-individual variability in response to treatments and intervention.     

Time of day and short-duration high-intensity exercise influences on coagulation and fibrinolysis

Exercise has been demonstrated to have considerable effects upon haemostasis, with activation dependent upon the duration and intensity of the exercise bout. In addition, markers of coagulation and fibrinolysis have been shown to possess circadian rhythms, peaking within the morning (0600–1200?h). Therefore, the time of day in which exercise is performed may influence the activation of the coagulation and fibrinolytic systems. This study aimed to examine coagulation and fibrinolytic responses to short-duration high-intensity exercise when completed at different times of the day. Fifteen male cyclists (VO_2max: 60.3?±?8.1?ml?kg^?1?min^?1) completed a 4-km cycling time trial (TT) on five separate occasions at 0830, 1130, 1430, 1730 and 2030. Venous blood samples were obtained pre- and immediately post-exercise, and analysed for tissue factor (TF), tissue factor pathway inhibitor (TFPI), thrombin–anti-thrombin complexes (TAT) and D-Dimer. Exercise significantly increased plasma concentrations of TF (p?p?p?p?p?=?.004) and TFPI (p?=?.031), with 0830 greater than 1730 (p .001), while 1730 was less than 2030?h (p?=?.008), respectively. There was no significant effect of time of day for TAT (p?=?.364) and D-Dimer (p?=?.228). Power output, TT time and heart rate were not significantly different between TTs (p?>?.05); however, percentage VO_2max was greater at 1730 when compared to 2030 (p?=?.04). Due to a time-of-day effect present within TF, peaking at 0830, caution should be applied when prescribing short-duration high-intensity exercise bout within the morning in populations predisposed to hypercoagulability.     

(Re-)designing higher education curricula in times of systemic dysfunction: a responsible research and innovation perspective

There is an urgent need to address the grand sustainability challenges of our time, and to explore new and more responsible ways of operating, researching, and innovating that enable society to respond to these challenges. The emergent Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) policy agenda can act as a catalyst towards the development of new and more responsible research and innovation efforts. Inevitably, higher education needs to be closely attuned to this need and agenda, by preparing students to engage in RRI efforts. This paper makes a first step towards guiding the embedding of RRI within higher education. It does so by bringing together academic knowledge with phronesis or practical knowledge about what should be done in an ethical, political, and practical sense. It draws on a literature review and on the reflective practices of partners in the European Commission funded project EnRRICH (Enhancing Responsible Research and Innovation through Curricula in Higher Education), as well as on interviews and case studies gathered as part of the project. The paper suggests elements, especially design principles and a competence framework, for (re)designing curricula and pedagogies to equip higher education students to be and to become responsible actors, researchers, and innovators in a complex world, and to address grand sustainability challenges. In addition, this paper proposes that contemporary higher education teaching and learning policies and strategies, especially those promoting neoliberal agendas and marketized practices, need to adopt a more responsible and responsive ethos to foster the renewal of higher education in times of systemic dysfunction.