Significant Life Experiences Revisited: a review of research on sources of environmental sensitivity

Beginning with the study of significant life experiences initiated by Tanner, this article reviews a growing body of related research in the form of surveys, interviews, and questionnaires that explore people's accounts of the sources of their environmental interest, concern, and action. The questions, methods, and results of studies in this field are closely compared. In conclusion, the article notes that the experiences that people describe can be understood as exchanges between the ‘outer environment’ of the physical and social world and the ‘inner environment’ of people's own interests, aptitudes, and temperament, and that more attention needs to be paid to the influence of this ‘inner environment’ of individual differences.     

Research Methods to Investigate Significant Life Experiences: review and recommendations

This article reviews different research approaches to understanding the significant experiences that influence people's environmental concern and behavior, with an emphasis on identifying the strengths and weaknesses of existing studies. It also reviews relevant findings regarding the validity of autobiographical memory, as memory is the medium which selects and interprets the significant events reported to researchers. The review notes promising new directions in recent studies, but makes several concrete suggestions regarding how researchers in this field can refine existing methods and broaden their approaches.     

Which worked better for Mississippi State: standing orders or an approval plan?

When Mississippi State University Libraries established a university press approval plan, the Collection Development Department was asked to decide whether to cancel existing standing orders with seven university presses or block these presses from the approval plan. Books were received through both avenues for eight months so that cost, timeliness of delivery, and receipt of titles most appropriate for the Libraries’ needs could be compared. Findings showed a 4.72% cost savings with the approval plan, but 82% of the titles were received earlier through the standing orders. Of books received through the standing orders, 29% were not received through the approval plan, with more than half not matching departmental profiles. Return privileges with the approval plan meant unsuitable titles could be returned, a significant advantage not possible with the standing orders. As a result of the study, the libraries chose to cancel the standing orders and receive books selectively through a university press approval plan.     

The symbolic violence of setting: A Bourdieusian analysis of mixed methods data on secondary students’ views about setting

‘Setting’ is a widespread practice in the UK, despite little evidence of its efficacy and substantial evidence of its detrimental impact on those allocated to the lowest sets. Taking a Bourdieusian approach, we propose that setting can be understood as a practice through which the social and cultural reproduction of dominant power relations is enacted within schools. Drawing on survey data from 12,178 Year 7 (age 11/12) students and discussion groups and individual interviews with 33 students, conducted as part of a wider project on secondary school grouping practices, we examine the views of students who experience setting, exploring the extent to which the legitimacy of the practice is accepted or challenged, focusing on students’ negative views about setting. Analyses show that privileged students (White, middle class) were most likely to be in top sets whereas working‐class and Black students were more likely to be in bottom sets. Students in the lowest sets (and boys, Black students and those in receipt of free school meals) were the most likely to express negative views of setting and to question the legitimacy and ‘fairness’ of setting as a practice, whereas top‐set students defended the legitimacy of setting and set allocations as ‘natural’ and ‘deserved’. This paper argues that setting is incompatible with social justice approaches to education and calls for the foregrounding of the views of those who are disadvantaged by the practice as a tool for challenging the doxa of setting.     

Internationalisation and migrant academics: the hidden narratives of mobility

In this paper, we present an analysis of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (SoTL) which contributes to SoTL both as a field of research practice and as a background to professional development in higher education. We analyse and describe the constitution of the field, and in so doing address its nature in the face of the dilemma of, on the one hand, its diversity and, on the other hand, its generally agreed set of purposes. Our analysis of SoTL knowledge is conceptualised as relational, connecting SoTL practitioners with the work they disseminate to the community at large. We describe and exemplify the internal horizon of the field in terms of five domains: the didactic and the epistemic, which we refer to as the knowledge building domains, and the interpersonal, the moral/ethical and the societal domains, which we refer to as the axiological domains. The external horizon is described in terms of four aspects of the context that can impact the production and implementation of SoTL knowledge: the disciplinary, the professional, the cultural and the political aspects. Methodological emphasis is equally on the axiological underpinnings of SoTL, its values and attitudes, as the ontological and epistemological underpinnings that are predominant.     

Health by stealth – exploring the sociocultural dimensions of salutogenesis for sport,health and physical education research

Sport, health and physical education (SHPE) researchers have increasingly embraced the salutogenic model of health devised by Aaron Antonvosky, to re-understand and problematise the relation between movement, physical activity or physical education on one hand, and health on the other. However, contemporary research employing Antonovsky's theories has almost exclusively focused on the sense of coherence scale. In so doing, we suggest salutogenic researchers have missed opportunities to explore the sociological aspects of Antonovsky's work. In responding to this challenge, we demonstrate the generative possibilities posed by social theory for those seeking to inform and design salutogenically oriented SHPE programmes for children and young people. As such, we first review Antonovsky's theory of salutogenesis to highlight the sociocultural aspects of his model. We then draw on these sociocultural underpinnings to propose additional, alternative approaches to salutogenic research in SHPE, according to the theoretical and methodological tools devised by Michel Foucault [1990. The use of pleasure: The history of sexuality (Vol. 2, R. Hurley, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books]. In conclusion, we propose a schedule of research questions to inspire qualitative endeavours that move beyond privileged biomedical perspectives, to investigate health in terms of how individuals live a good life. In short, we contend that such investigations are best achieved when researchers approach ‘health by stealth’.