Obscenity and fabrication in equity and widening participation methodologies

Equity and widening participation (EWP) initiatives in Australia are increasingly reimagined in policy as sites where participants are constructed as competitor-individuals, with education considered only in terms of employability, social mobility and nation-state market competition. In the context of EWP outreach, and with school students in particular, this can transpire into demands for narrow forms of ‘legitimate’ aspirations. Goffman defines obscenity as when (1) the very intimate is forced into the public sphere, while (2) the humanising dimensions or contexts are stripped away, with an example being pornography—where intimate encounters are reproduced as de-contextualised acts while being made public. This article argues that dominant approaches to practicing and evaluating EWP risk obscene consequences if they force community members to present static future-oriented valuations of intimate, fluid aspirations and experiences of education against a backdrop of increasingly individuated, competitive and standardised educational institutions. In this article, firstly we detail the context to establish a foundation for theorising consequences of particular socio-educational discursive practices. Secondly, we engage with notions of frame, keying and fabrication as a toolbox to reveal some of the unintended (obscene) dynamics risked via certain approaches to programmatic practice and evaluation. Thirdly, we review the diversity of approaches to evaluation (and their attendant debates), highlighting the importance of these debates and diversities, making a case against methodological imperialism.     

Joining forces for public value creation? Exploring collaborative innovation in smart city initiatives

Creating public value is a key goal of public administrations, both in their daily business and in the growing field of smart government and smart cities, which focuses on IT-enabled innovations in the public sphere. However, many public administrations still struggle with such innovations due to complex technologies, high investments, and the numerous stakeholders involved. To address this issue, some local governments in continental Europe have turned to collaborative innovation approaches, partnering with (semi-)public utility companies in the hope that their additional innovation assets will boost innovativeness. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how exactly such collaborations should be governed to ensure that the focus remains on creating public value, as utility companies may have their own agendas. To explore this question, we conducted a comparative case study in the context of smart city initiatives with four cases in Swiss local governments. Drawing on agency and stewardship theory, we then propose a model of public-value-focused collaborative innovation, enabling us to explore various collaboration characteristics and their effects on public value creation. Our findings suggest that both agency- and stewardship-based collaborations increase innovativeness. However, while agency collaborations tend to produce smart city innovations that mainly serve the utility companies' business interests, stewardship relationships lead to innovations that are focused more on public value creation. As such, our study extends the literature on the effects of collaborative innovation on public value, and it provides practical recommendations on how such collaborative innovation should be designed.     

Embedded Technical Expression: Code and the Leveraging of Functionality

In this article, I argue that a key problem for understanding the social ramifications of software is an implicit separation of software programs into two separate elements: expressive aspects, which are seen as socially driven and affectual, and functional aspects, understood as scientific and rational. In order to overcome this binary, I develop an alternative framework that examines the ways software expresses best practices, correct behaviors, and social organization. A key element of this framework is an understanding of software programs as simultaneously rhetorical and tangible objects. Given that Western society is dependent on sociotechnical systems in which software plays a crucial role, understanding the complex ways software expresses normative tasks, practices, and social orders is increasingly important.     

Self-directed learning: A fundamental competence in a rapidly changing world

International Review of Education - Self-directed learning is a fundamental competence for adults living in our modern world, where social contextual conditions are changing rapidly, especially in...     

游戏化研究性学习案例比较研究

将游戏应用到研究性学习课程的教与学中,目前已经成为教育技术领域新的研究热点。在对大量文献及实证研究项目调研的基础上,精选了四个国内外学者对游戏在能力培养和通识课程中应用的实证研究案例,分析了游戏环境支持下的研究性学习(游戏化研究性学习)的实施过程,重点比较了案例中知识整合、学习过程和师生角色三个方面的异同点,总结了游戏化研究性学习的实施特点和注意事项。这对于我国的研究性学习课程的教学,具有一定的参考价值。     

Fun with numbers: Alternative models for predicting salary levels

The increasing awareness and concern with equity issues in higher education, along with the escalating litigation, has prompted institutions to undertake salary prediction studies. Four prediction models (built on a males only and total sample) were compared: (1) entering all variables, (2) excluding rank and tenure, (3) using predicted rank and tenure, and (4) using only objective variables. Models were tested using all permanent full-time faculty at a large midwestern university. Using predicted rank and tenure was the most suitable for equity studies. Including all variables yielded the best results for explaining/predicting reward systems. The other two models did not appear appropriate for either purpose. The males only sample consistently produced the largest bias effects. Institutions considering a salary prediction study should find these outcomes helpful in determining appropriate analytical strategies.     

Effects of the correlation between a positive and negative US on conditioned suppression in rats

For three groups of rats, an auditory CS, presented while the animals were responding on a variable-interval schedule for food reinforcement, was terminated on half of the trials with a noncontingent footshock. For two groups, half of the trials were also followed after 5 sec by the delivery of free food. In the positively correlated condition (PC) the free food was presented on shocked trials and in the negatively correlated condition (NC) on the nonshocked trials, while the remaining group (S) never received free food. In a fourth group the shock was omitted and free food delivered on half of the trials. Although all shocked groups showed a significant suppression, the magnitude was greater for Group PC than for Groups NC and S, which did not differ. Suppression did not result from the pairing of the CS with food alone. These results do not support the counterconditioning hypothesis that the pairing of a normally noxious stimulus with food reduces its aversiveness.     

Identifying English Language Learners with Learning Disabilities: Key Challenges and Possible Approaches

The need for effective approaches for identifying English language learners with learning disabilities is great and growing. Meeting this need is complicated by recent developments in the field of learning disabilities that are unrelated to the English language learning status, and by limitations in existing knowledge specific to the identification of English language learners with learning disabilities. We review recent developments in the field of learning disabilities concerning the need for earlier identification, the need for a more appropriate conceptualization of learning disability, and the need for more effective assessments and treatments. We discuss challenges to assessment and identification of English language learners with learning disabilities, provide examples of two approaches to meeting these challenges, and describe some remaining challenges.     

Residential school placements and disabled children: the contrasting views of local education authorities and of parents

Despite government commitment to the inclusion of children with special educational needs in mainstream schools, significant numbers of disabled children are placed in residential special schools. In the face of a distinct lack of information about the numbers or needs of these children, or about their experiences of living away from home at residential schools, the authors carried out research to examine why disabled children went to residential school, and their experiences of being there. This article focuses on the circumstances leading to a residential school placement, and the decision-making process from the point of view of local education authorities, and of parents. The paper reveals wide variations in the use of residential schools by local authorities, and conflicting views between and within authorities on the suitability of such placements. Parents' experiences are characterised by a lack of support in making very difficult decisions about the best place for their child to be, and a decision-making process dominated by delays, lack of information and conflict.     

Assessing pre-service teachers’ skills for analyzing teaching

This study investigated the learning-from-practice skills that pre-service teachers possess when they enter teacher preparation programs in the United States. Two subskills were hypothesized to represent, at least in part, what is required to learn from practice: (1) the ability to collect evidence about students’ learning in order to analyze the effects of instruction, and (2) the ability to use the analysis to revise the instruction. Because it seems likely that different teaching situations and contexts reveal these learning-from-practice skills in different ways and to different degrees, this study examined the skills that pre-service teachers exhibited under two experimental conditions. Thirty pre-service teachers were asked to analyze the effects of a videotaped mathematics lesson on student learning, to support their analysis with evidence, and to use their analysis to revise the lesson. Based on the results, it appears that many entry level pre-service teachers can carry out a cause-effect type of analysis of the relationships between specific instructional strategies and students’ learning, and can use this analysis to make productive revisions to the instruction. However, prospective teachers’ ability to collect evidence that supports their analysis appears to be less developed. In addition, the type of analysis that prospective teachers carried out about the effects of instruction on students’ learning differed dramatically across the two experimental task conditions.Preparation of this article was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant #0083429 to the Mid-Atlantic Center for Teaching and Learning Mathematics). The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Foundation. Thanks to James Hiebert for his comments on earlier drafts of the paper.