Imagining transformative spaces: the personal–political sites of community archives

Although much has been written about formal archival spaces, little scholarship has addressed the physical spaces of community archives. This paper asks: How do community members imagine the physical spaces that steward identity-based community archives? Based on focus groups with more than 54 community archives users at five different community archives sites across Southern California, this paper examines how members of marginalized communities conceive of the physical space inhabited by community archives representing their communities. The sites explored range from a prominent location on a university campus, to storefronts, strip malls, and small cinderblock buildings. Yet across sites, users spoke about community archives spaces as symbolic and affectively moving locations. Many users described their community archives site as a “home-away-from-home,” marked by intergenerational dialog and a profound sense of belonging. For other users, community archives sites were described as “politically generative spaces” which foster dialog and debate about identity, representation, and activism and enable the community to envision its future. And yet, while the very existence of community archives is political, many participants felt that the full political potential of these sites is not yet realized. By listening to the voices of the communities represented and served by community archives, our research both indicates that a shift is warranted in archival metaphors of space and reveals how community archives are personally and politically transformative spaces for the communities they represent and serve.     

Abandoning Either/Ors in Analyzing Shifts in Humanitarian Reporting

ABSTRACT

The shifting constitution of journalists as humanitarian actors has profound implications for changing forms of journalism practice, as well as for the normative models through which journalists understand and reflect on that practice. In an effort to develop a more empirically-grounded engagement with change, this article explores the interview testimonies of Australian journalists who cover international and humanitarian issues. It argues that frameworks reliant on stark oppositions (between past and present, optimism and pessimism, or moral agency and material structure) are both empirically and practically problematic, and seeks to move beyond these. Engagement with data from semi-structured interviews offers insight into how journalists’ perceptions of and responses to change are shaped by the historical and shifting institutional relations in which they are implicated.     

Profiling teachers’ sense of professional identity

This study shows that professional identity should not be viewed as a composed variable with a uniform structure. Based on the literature and previous research, we view teachers’ job satisfaction, self‐efficacy, occupational commitment and change in the level of motivation as indicators of teachers’ professional identity. Using two‐step cluster analysis, three distinct professional identity profiles have empirically been identified, based on data of 1214 teachers working in secondary education in the Netherlands. These profiles differed significantly regarding the indicators of teachers’ professional identity. Teachers belonging to the found profiles did not significantly differ in their amount of experience.     

Letter names, letter sounds and phonological awareness: an examination of kindergarten children across letters and of letters across children

In this study 149 kindergarten children were assessed for knowledge of letter names and letter sounds, phonological awareness, and cognitive abilities. Through this it examined child and letter characteristics influencing the acquisition of alphabetic knowledge in a naturalistic context, the relationship between letter-sound knowledge and letter-name knowledge, and the prediction of Grade 1 phonological awareness and word identification from these variables. Knowledge of letter sounds was better for vowels and for letters with consonant–vowel names than for those with vowel–consonant names or names bearing little relationship to their sounds. However, there were anomalies within each category reflecting characteristics of the individual letters. Structural equation modelling showed that cognitive ability, comprising receptive vocabulary, non-verbal reasoning, rapid automatized naming of colours, and phonological memory significantly contributed to alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness. In turn, letter-name knowledge but not phonological awareness predicted letter-sound knowledge and subsequent reading skill.This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the first author. Thank you is extended to the participating schools and children and to Ian Newby-Clark for his orientation to AMOS. Michelle Bell, Shelly Moretti and Jodi Page have since graduated from the University of Guelph     

Proclaiming Library Worth in a Program Prioritization Process at a Mid-Sized Public University

Abstract

In an economic climate when colleges can no longer presume that legislators see institutions of higher learning as tacit public goods, institutions around the country are facing budget cuts. This article presents a case study of the experience of a mid-sized public state university and its Library in a budget crisis undergoing a university-wide program prioritization process. The authors review the process of writing three reports on the Library’s value, along with the approach to engaging staff in the process including a retreat. This article raises questions about what every library should consider assessing and provide tools for libraries navigating similar terrain.     

Implementation planning and progress on physical activity goals: the mediating role of life-management strategies

This 4-week prospective study examined whether the use of life-management strategies mediates the relationship between implementation planning and short-term progress on physical activity goals. In particular the strategies of elective selection, compensation, and loss-based selection were disentangled to assess their specific mediating effects. Results from a sample of 131undergraduate students showed that, as a composite, life-management strategies fully mediated the relationship between planning and goal progress. More specifically, decomposing the effects demonstrated that only elective selection and compensation mediated the association between planning and greater progress on a personal physical activity goal. Results are discussed in light of their practical implications and contributions to the personal goal literature.     

Modulation of an activity response with associative and nonassociative fear in the rat: A lighting differential influences the form of defensive behavior evoked after fear conditioning

Rats confronted with the onset of a light gradient display a transient increase in locomotion called theactivity response (AR) and a dark preference (Godsil & Fanselow, 2004). These experiments demonstrate that the magnitude of the AR can be blunted with Pavlovian fear-conditioning procedures via associative and nonassociative fear. Although manifested in decreased locomotion, the blunted AR effect was not due to increased freezing or immobility behaviors. Instead, rats displayed reduced rearing and an increase in a class of behaviors calledstationary activity. These results suggest that the lighting differential supplied by the cue influences the topography of defensive behavior and reduces the expression of freezing. This procedure provides a means by which to examine learned and unlearned defensive responses to the same stimulus.     

Co-teacher noticing: implications for professional development

ABSTRACT

Federal laws require schools to incorporate co-teaching environments, often comprised of an inclusion specialist and content specialist. Research shows individual teachers can make improvements to their practice by engaging in critical reflection through noticing. The authors present a research-based professional development model designed for teachers to improve and enhance their co-teaching practices. Findings included: teachers’ beliefs on teaching became more aligned; teachers’ beliefs on collaboration were inconsistent; teachers tended to focus on their teaching, not on student learning; and, teachers were non-cognizant of their beliefs toward teaching and co-teaching. We articulate ideas resulting from these findings for enhancing professional development experiences for co-teachers.