Effects of Relational Authenticity on Adjustment to College

The authors examined the association between relational health and student adjustment to college. Data were collected from 138 undergraduate students completing their 1st semester at a large university in the mid‐southern United States. Regression analysis indicated that higher levels of relational authenticity were a predictor of success during the 1st semester; no significant findings were detected for relationships between relational empowerment and engagement constructs and adjustment. Suggestions for promoting relational development are provided.     

Story as a Bridge to Transformation: The Way Beyond Death in Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass

In The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman extends the psychological depth of literature for young readers by presenting in palpable terms a confrontation with death met by the human capacity for dealing creatively, through story, with personal mortality. Pullman's portrayal of the power of storytelling is placed within the context of the Platonic tradition and neo-Platonic, 19th-century Romanticism. The co-protagonists' descent into the Land of the Dead, Lyra's freeing of the ghosts by the power of story, and their shared emergence into the sunlit land of the living draws on key elements of 19th-century Romanticism, specifically, the ideas of two poets: Percy Bysshe Shelley's concept of the creative imagination as the instrument of moral good, and John Keats' notion of negative capability and his metaphor of the world as a vale of soul-making. All told, Pullman's fantasy portrays young protagonists transcending the dualism of good and evil and learning to live creatively in the face of life's contradictions, complexities, and, most potently, their own mortality.     

Active Learning in a Math for Liberal Arts Classroom

Abstract

Inquiry-based learning is a topic of growing interest in the mathematical community. Much of the focus has been on using these methods in calculus and higher-level classes. This article describes the design and implementation of a set of inquiry-based learning activities in a Math for Liberal Arts course at a small, private, Catholic college. Activity design, student responses, class management, and student and instructor attitudes are discussed.     

Becoming Schoolgirls: The ambivalent project of subjectification

In this article, the authors examine the concept and practices of subjectification; that is, the processes through which we are subjected, and actively take up as our own the terms of our subjection. They use Judith Butler's theorising of subjection both as a starting point for working with their own memories of being subjected in school settings, and as the theoretical basis of their analysis of subjectification. Their method of working, which they refer to as collective biography, is derived from Haug et al. 's methods developed in Female Sexualization . Their memories focus on aspects of the achievement of the individual, appropriate(d) schoolgirl subject who simultaneously constitutes herself and is constituted through discourse. They analyse the illusion of autonomy through which modern subjects are made possible, and the inevitable ambivalence that is experienced as schoolgirls take themselves up appropriately within the possibilities made available to them. Through re-membering their own pasts, and the embodied and emotional detail through which we became (and go on becoming) subjects, they open up for inspection the contradictory ground of the humanist subject, and in particular the feminine humanist subject, as it is achieved in educational settings.     

Why flipping the classroom is not enough: Digital curriculum making after the pandemic

PROSPECTS - To slow down the proliferation of Covid-19, governments virtually shut down public life, temporarily closed schools, and forced teaching to be done exclusively on a remote basis. These...     

Substance use: A life skills perspective

The paper proposes a life skills perspective for understanding substance use, in which generative and context based competences and control strategies are central. Within that framework, reasons for substance use, general goal related competence, and specific strategies used to control substance use were examined for 360 young people (144 males, 216 females) aged 18–20 years. Relationships were established between frequency of use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs and participants’ self reported knowledge of methods and effects of use, as well as of how much use was made of knowledge of effects in social situations. Participants also answered short tests on actual knowledge of effects and results on these were related to the extent of use reported. Finally perceptions of the best ways to learn about the effects of using these substances were related to patterns of reported use. The results supported the application of the life skills perspective to the domain of substance use in six areas; goal orientation; perceived competence; control over one’s actions; contextual competence; personality traits; and utilisation of knowledge. Educational strategies to develop this perspective were suggested.