Communicating variations of blackness: An intersectional trans and intersex Africana studies perspective

Courses: This unit is intended for courses that center inquiries in critical communications, including communications studies, Africana studies, ethnic studies, and women, gender, and sexuality studies.

Objectives: The purpose of this course is to illuminate silences around race, gender, and sexuality and interrogate absences in communication studies and other interdisciplinary fields. This course asserts an intersectional framework for radically inclusive pedagogies and centers voices often marginalized and discounted.     

School-to-school support within a competitive education system: views from the inside

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on evidence from a study carried out in England to explore how schools can support one another’s improvement within a policy context that emphasises competition. The findings offer some reasons to be optimistic, and are suggestive of the capacity and potential of the school system in England to “self-improve” through collaborative means. However, light is also thrown on a number of barriers that need to be overcome to make such an approach work. The paper argues that developing a greater understanding of the social complexities involved in school-to-school support requires research that takes account of the views of those involved. With this in mind, the paper reflects on the experiences of a group of school leaders in England, leading to lessons that are likely to be relevant to those in other national contexts where competition is seen as a driver for school improvement.     

Making Sense of the Role of Culture in School Improvement

Addressing the need to find new ways for examining workplace cultures quickly and effectively in order to facilitate school improvement efforts, this article proposes a technique for carrying out such enquiries. By exploring the nature of school cultures and how they impact upon day-to-day encounters in classrooms, it illustrates how critical incidents can be analysed so as to help those in schools to understand themselves better in terms of those factors that shape their practice. It is argued that the proposed method has the potential to go beyond systems of external monitoring in such a way as to enable schools to develop procedures for self-review.     

Implementing community-based comprehensive sexuality education with high-risk youth in a conservative environment: lessons learned

Although comprehensive sexuality education programmes have the potential to improve the sexual health and well-being of young people, many socially conservative rural states in the USA have laws and policies restricting school-based comprehensive sexuality education and supporting abstinence-only education. This paper describes the process of building a community-university partnership to implement a community-based comprehensive sexuality education peer education programme for high-risk young people and presents preliminary findings from a longitudinal evaluation. Through purposive recruitment, the sample included 386 young people (mean age) who were more diverse than the local community. Important university-community partnership components included (1) establishing local connections and legitimacy, (2) adapting and tailoring programmes to meet community context, (3) sustainability planning, and (4) flexibility, persistence, and patience. Building community trust and capitalising on the mutual benefits of community-university partnerships are effective methods of building community sexuality education programming in a conservative environment. Tailoring evidence-based approaches to comprehensive sexuality education in a politically restrictive environment shows promise in improving the sexual and reproductive health of young people.     

Film Bibliographies

Alan R. Dyment's The Literature of the Film: A Bibliographical Guide to the Film as Art and Entertainment 1936-1970 (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research [London: White Lion Publishers, Ltd.], 1975---$35.00)

Mel Schuster's Motion Picture Performers: A Bibliography of Magazine and Periodical Articles Supplement No. 1 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1976---$27.50)

A.G.S. Enser's Filmed Books and Plays: A List of Bpoks and Plays From Which Films Have Been Made 1928-1974 (New York: Academic Press [London: Andre Deutsch], 1975---$24.00)

American Film (December 1975, and January-Bebruary 1976 issues)

Hollis Melton's “Museums with Film Programs,” (Educational Film Library Association, 17 West 60th St., New York 10023---$5.00/$3.00 to members, paper)     

Inside a self-improving school system: Collaboration,competition and transition

The idea that school systems should become self-improving is a growing trend internationally. Put simply, this involves the strengthening of links between schools so that they can provide mutual support and challenge. So far, however, there is little research that throws light on what is involved in attempts to introduce this approach for the first time. Drawing on its authors’ privileged access over a 4-year period, this paper analyses what happened as one education system explored such a move. In particular, it looks at the challenges involved in strengthening collaboration between schools within policy contexts that continue to emphasise competition as a means of achieving improvements. It also examines the nature of the transitional arrangements that are required in order to move from existing organisational conditions to more collaborative ways of working. Drawing on lessons from these experiences, the paper concludes with a series of principles that are intended be useful to those in other policy contexts that are involved in introducing similar reforms.