Running into trouble: constructions of danger and risk in girls' access to outdoor space and physical activity

This paper considers girls' participation in running and other outdoor physical activities in their local areas in London, UK. The paper is concerned with the operation of risk discourses in and around this participation and looks at the way that such discourses impacted on girls' opportunities to take part in physical activities that required outdoor space. Drawing on data from longitudinal research into girls' participation in sport and physical activity, the findings suggested that girls, in particular, were subject to risk discourses around their participation in physical activities which constructed the girls as ‘weak’, and ‘vulnerable’. I look at the ways in which girls understood these messages and how they came to define certain spaces and activities as either ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’. I look in particular at how girls were able to resist certain constructions of their embodied physical capacities and also at the ways in which this was constrained by specific incidences of sexual harassment.     

Culturally responsive computing: a theory revisited

Despite multiple efforts and considerable funding, historically marginalized groups (e.g., racial minorities and women) continue not to enter or persist in the most lucrative of fields – technology. Understanding the potency of culturally responsive teaching (CRT), some technology-enrichment programs modified CRP principles to establish a culturally responsive computing (CRC) experience for disenfranchised groups. We draw from our respective praxes developing two such initiatives and reconceptualize CRC as a heuristic. In this theoretical article, we offer a more nuanced vision of CRC considering intersectionality, innovations, and technosocial activism. Implications for the newly defined tenets consider programmatic, theoretical, and methodological concerns.     

#MeToo,sexual harassment: an article,a forum,and a dream for the future

#MeToo has breathed new life into the women’s movement and especially into understanding and rectifying sexual harassment, abuse and assault. It has galvanized activists around the globe. And it has placed thousands of stories of the harassed in full view of the public. Sexual harassment, abuse and assault may occur within the organizational context or beyond; but sexual harassment, in particular has been legally labeled an organizational phenomenon. With this in mind, Robin Clair frames the early part of this article around the most recent organizational communication theories (see the appendix for an overview of these theories). Following the essay is a forum, in which invited scholars address questions related to the #MeToo movement.     

Theoretical Frameworks of Performance‐Based Models

The purpose of this article is to highlight theories that support the functions of performance‐based design models and to discuss the implications of integrating divergent models into the system‐oriented human performance technology (HPT) and performance improvement (PI) disciplines. HPT, PI, and instructional systems design (ISD) share a systems framework, along with the influence of common theories such as performance theory, learning theory, adult learning, cognitive psychology, and behavioral psychology (Foshay, Villachica, & Stepich, 2014). This article focuses on the role of theory as a tool in the practitioner's toolbox and as a connection point when working with teams and organizations that have different theoretical orientations. Performance‐based ISD models are discussed, including Robinson and Robinson's (1989) Training for Impact, Brethower and Smalley's (1998) Performance‐Based Instruction, and Bradford and Boler's (2015) Horizon Model. Allen and Sites's (2012) successive approximation model (SAM) retains elements of ADDIE as a process, but the model is iterative rather than systematic in design.     

Neoliberalism,global poverty policy and early childhood education and care: a critique of local uptake in England

The global rise of a neoliberal ‘new politics of parenting’ discursively constructs parents in poverty as the reason for, and remedy to, child poverty. This allows for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) to become a key policy lever by using human technologies to intervene in and regulate the lives of parents and children in poverty. The article explores the uptake of this policy locally through interviews with 30 ECEC practitioners in three locations across England. The interviews suggested that the neoliberal discursive formation of child poverty as a problem of the poor themselves had symbolic power and was a view shared by most of the interviewees. This appeared to restrict their thinking and action, shaping a limited engagement with parents in poverty. Delivering curricular requirements was seen to further delimit practitioners’ practices with children in poverty by reducing their poverty sensitivity. Although this is a small study, its findings may be of value in questioning neoliberal logics, and their implications are considered critically.