Homelessness as the Unforgiving Minute of the Present: The Rhetorical Tenses of Democratic Citizenship

Popular discourse and advocacy efforts characterize homelessness as a social problem bound by the present-centered concerns of physical affliction and material deprivation. Wayne Powers's documentary film Reversal of Fortune exemplifies this tendency by performing a “social experiment” to investigate how giving a homeless man $100,000 would change his life: the film chronicles the intervention in terms of an ever-fleeting opportunity that the man ultimately fails to utilize. Such discourses deny the future-oriented grounds for identification between homeless and housed as citizens sharing a common political destiny. Discourses of homelessness thus provide an important opportunity for questioning how the rhetorical tenses of democratic citizenship can be cultivated or suppressed, and how such rhetorical work can contribute to a more dynamic democratic culture.     

Developing the Theory and Practice of Action Research: a South African case

The three tales told here concern my experiences of teaching educational action research. I first became involved in action research in 1973 while a doctoral student working on peace and cultural studies education curriculum in Northern Ireland where project teachers inquired into their own classrooms so as to facilitate the teaching of contentious social and political issues for mutual understanding across the religious–political divide. My three tales of teaching action research are rooted in three very different settings: one working with gypsy education projects in inner-city Dublin; the second as part of a small university–school collaborative in rural North Carolina, and the last a tale of a doctoral seminar at East Carolina University.     

Playing among the stars: Science in Sport,or the Pleasures of Astronomy (1804)

In 1804, John Wallis published a game that converted learning about astronomy into a race to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. This essay uses Science in Sport to explore the cultures of Georgian recreative science, analysing how the rules and conventions of playing a game affected the gaining of natural knowledge. New familial audiences and markets, a ‘public culture’ of science, and a vogue for rational amusement led to a boom in the publishing of instructive pastimes around 1800, of which Wallis’s firm was a leading innovator. Revised and approved by author and educator Margaret Bryan, Science in Sport sought to inculcate accurate ideas about the heavens in a domestic setting, and through the penalties and rewards of an entertainment. By investigating the story of The Pleasures of Astronomy the author demonstrates the ideas, actions, morals and experiences that were brought into play when astronomical education became a game.     

The role of cognitive “performance orientation” in communication anxiety

This study examined cognitive patterns involved in communication anxiety, particularly in public speaking situations. The cognitive patterns were represented by Motley's (1990) theoretical‐clinical conceptualization of either a “performance” or a “communication” orientation to public presentations. The mediating role of public self‐consciousness in these anxious cognitive patterns was also examined.

Results indicated that Motley's measurement of performance orientation (i.e. the presentation has to be perfect and will be closely scrutinized for delivery by the audience) was not associated with communication apprehension, public speaking anxiety, nor with public self‐consciousness. Although other scales performed as expected, the Performance/Communication Orientation scale proved to be multi‐factored and internally unreliable.     

Funny Students Cope Better: Patterns of Humor Enactment and Coping Effectiveness

Increasingly, college students are employed in jobs outside of class—and contend with additional stressors as a result—when they attempt to balance work and academic demands. Enacting humorous communication is one productive way to handle such stress. In a college student, the replication of the process of using humor to cope with job stress (i.e., higher humor orientation, HO) was associated with higher ratings of effectiveness, greater self-perceived coping effectiveness, and subsequently with higher job satisfaction. Path analysis demonstrated that, as the transactional theory would predict, students' trait HO influences their job satisfaction through its effect on heightened coping efficacy. Results indicated that, across two very different sample populations, college students and fully employed adults are extremely similar in the process and benefits of using humor to cope.     

范德堡留学趣闻

Toru其人 Toru来自日本,全名叫Toru Takahata。在每周一次的英文会话班上,我们一起练习口语。英文会话班学生流动性很大,每周都有新而孔．因此每节课开始前,     

What’s next? Experiences of a formal course for academic developers

A growing impetus for disciplinary status for academic development has prompted efforts to construct a principled knowledge base in this emerging field. This paper considers the impact of academic developers’ access to structured knowledge through a systematic process. In 2011, the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning at Rhodes University implemented a postgraduate qualification for academic developers. This paper documents the experiences of two cohorts by exploring routes into and expectations of the course, value attached to its knowledge base and impact on identity formation (coming to be) through an encounter with knowledge (coming to know). This study explores participant experiences through identifying key insights following their introduction to new conceptual and theoretical notions by considering four knowledge domains in the course. General assertions are drawn from participant responses to inform ongoing development of the course. The course is examined as a potential mechanism for academic developers to construct an academic developer identity via an encounter with knowledge. It is anticipated that this encounter enables knowledge-based responses to complex questions.     

Universities and a Human Development Ethics: a capabilities approach to curriculum

This article takes up the challenge of curriculum change in relation to the contested purposes of universities. It argues for an expansive, public good understanding, rather than the thin market exchange norms which currently drive higher education policies. The paper suggests that a human capital approach to curriculum is then insufficient to capture the full range and potential of a university curriculum. Instead, an approach to curriculum based on human development and capabilities formation is advanced as offering a richer perspective on what it means to be human and hence on the kinds of graduates universities should educate. Some implications for teaching, learning and assessment are outlined and a framework to design and operationalise a human development approach to curriculum is proposed.     

Literature‐informed,one‐turn action research: three cases and a commentary

Although action research is a common feature of courses of initial teacher training, the evidence as to its efficacy, in encouraging reflection among trainees, is mixed. This article discusses cases of action research assignments carried out by three trainees into their own practice in relation to (a) behaviour management, (b) monitoring and assessing, and (c) pupil‐centred education. The assignments are analysed using Bloom et al's. (1964) typology of thinking skills, Handal & Lauvas's (1987) model of reflective practice, and typologies of action research by Noffke (1997) and Rearick and Feldman (1999). They are positioned as cases of ‘literature‐informed, one‐turn’ action research; a concept which is discussed in relation to other concepts of action research.