Labouring to Learn: Students'Debt and Term Time Employment in Belfast

This paper presents the results of a survey into the labour market experiences of 363 undergraduate students in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at Queen's University, Belfast. The first pan of the paper will look at the debate surrounding the introduction of the Student Loans Scheme and the associated abolition of welfare benefit entitlements. The second pan of the paper will present the findings of the survey. Particular reference will be made to the financial situation facing undergraduate students and the extent to which term-time employment presents a solution to their monetary problems.     

Exploring pupils' perceptions of teacher racism in their context: A case study of Turkish and Belgian vocational education pupils in a Belgian school

This article employs ethnographic data gathered from one Belgian (Flemish) secondary school to explore the meaning Belgian and Turkish‐speaking minority pupils enrolled in technical and vocational education attach to teacher racism and racial discrimination, and to explore variations between pupils in making claims of teacher racism. A symbolic interactionist framework is employed to explore how pupils define teacher racism and how a particular context and interactions between pupils and teachers informs pupils' perceptions of racism. This article builds on a strong research tradition in British sociology of education on racism and discrimination by focusing the analysis on pupils' perceptions of such incidents and by investigating how racism is experienced by a generally neglected group of Turkish minority pupils in a particular Belgian education context.     

Initial Experiences of Creating Multimedia Computer Simulations to Replace Pharmacology Practicals

The replacement of traditional practicals by CAL simulations was prompted by a combination of economic factors, a decreased level of technical support and the requirement for a large capital investment to replace old and broken equipment. In an economic climate which promised only further increases in the number of undergraduates and no assured commensurate increase in resources, CAL appeared to be a possible alternative (Brown et al , 1988). Our only previous attempt to produce our own CAL package had been written in Turbo Basic on a 286 PC. It had involved considerable time and effort and the results were not particularly realistic. The increase in computing power offered by the 486 series of PCs, availability of low cost sound and video capture expansion cards, and the emergence of authoring systems, such as Toolbook, Hypercard and Authorware , appeared to provide an opportunity to produce better simulations (Purcell, 1993; Hartley, 1993).     

Making the Difference to Sociology of Education: Reflections on family-school and gender relations

In the context of the 1970s, the focus of critical theorists was on education and cultural and social reproduction. Emphasis had shifted from a family-education link to a school-economy link, placing the family as a subsidiary institution in the framing of social inequality. Published in the early 1980s, Making the Difference (Connell et al ., 1982) was a timely and much needed intervention in bringing back into focus the realities of the lived experience of young people, and providing sophisticated theorizing around class and gender relations within and between the family and the school. Social class and gender relations, Connell et al . argued, could be found within the dynamics of family, school, and industrial life simultaneously. Twenty years later, we are reaping the benefits of their analysis in terms of understanding the hegemonizing influences of the school--the many subtle and indirect ways that schools produce (rather than reproduce) class and gendered identities, at the same time recognising the increasing dissonance of gender values within class formations.     

The CREATE Strategy for Intensive Analysis of Primary Literature Can Be Used Effectively by Newly Trained Faculty to Produce Multiple Gains in Diverse Students

The CREATE (Consider Read, Elucidate the hypotheses, Analyze and interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment) strategy aims to demystify scientific research and scientists while building critical thinking, reading/analytical skills, and improved science attitudes through intensive analysis of primary literature. CREATE was developed and piloted at the City College of New York (CCNY), a 4-yr, minority-serving institution, with both upper-level biology majors and first-year students interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. To test the extent to which CREATE strategies are broadly applicable to students at private, public, research-intensive, and/or primarily undergraduate colleges/universities, we trained a cohort of faculty from the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania area in CREATE pedagogies, then followed a subset, the CREATE implementers (CIs), as they taught all or part of an existing course on their home campuses using CREATE approaches. Evaluation of the workshops, the CIs, and their students was carried out both by the principal investigators and by an outside evaluator working independently. Our data indicate that: intensive workshops change aspects of faculty attitudes about teaching/learning; workshop-trained faculty can effectively design and teach CREATE courses; and students taught by such faculty on multiple campuses make significant cognitive and affective gains that parallel the changes documented previously at CCNY.     

Rope Sluts,and Bottoms,and Subs,Oh My: 50 Shades of Grey and the Shifting Discourse on Female Submission in Feminist Kink Porn

To date, feminists have conflated (and continue to conflate) historical understandings of bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, and sadomasochism (BDSM) as pathological and representations of BDSM in literature and popular media with the lived experiences of feminist BDSM practitioners. Feminist BDSM practitioner Madison Young’s pornographic film 50 Shades of Dylan Ryan (2012) takes the recent resurgence of the ongoing debate on women, submission, and popular literature as a starting point for reconsideration and possibility. By adapting the discourse surrounding 50 Shades of Grey, Young’s pornographic film points to the ways in which feminism also contributes to that which makes pleasure possible. Young’s film reimagines the dualities that have traditionally dominated feminist cultural critique through concepts the author calls “mediated authenticity” and “formal simultaneity.” Beginning with a brief, rigorous examination of the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon, this article analyzes Madison Young’s 50 Shades of Dylan Ryan and seeks to provide a critical intervention in feminist studies of pornography and popular culture.     

The 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry Presented to Kyriacos C. Nicolaou

The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awards the 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry to Professor Kyriacos C. Nicolaou for his extraordinary contributions to chemistry, biology, and medicine through the advancement of the art of synthesis as exemplified by the elegant total syntheses of some of nature's most complex biologically active molecules. Nicolaou is recognized as a world leader in the field of total synthesis for his work in chemical synthesis and chemical biology. His total syntheses are legendary, distinguished for their elegance and practicality. Among his most celebrated achievements are the total syntheses of calicheamicin γ₁^I, Taxol^®, brevetoxin B, vancomycin, and thiostrepton. The impact of his work transcends total synthesis, for it often leads to the discovery and invention of new synthetic strategies and technologies as well as biological tools and drug candidates, thereby facilitating discoveries in biology and medicine. Nicolaou's influence on science and society extends beyond his research discoveries. Through his didactic lectures and writings, he motivates and inspires students into the sciences and informs the public about the importance of science and education to society.