Book reviews

Distributed Learning: social and cultural approaches to practiceEdited by Mary R. Lea and Kathy Nicoll, 2002 RoutledgeFalmer 214 pp., £19.99 ISBN 0 415 26809 5Distributed Learning: social and cultural approaches to practice, edited by Mary R. Lea and Kathy Nicoll, is published as part of the Open University UK course Understanding Distributed and Flexible Learning within the Postgraduate Programme in Open and Distance Education. The book comprises of 12 chapters written by authors from different academic backgrounds. They draw on their extensive practical experiences to present and reflect on a number of conceptual models and describe best practices in distributed learning. The volume is aimed at practitioners who intend to use technology in a higher education setting and also helps those who may have been using it for a few years to rethink their approaches to online learning and teaching. The reader is introduced to several theoretical concepts based on different disciplines and perspectives, e.g. anthropology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, economics and pedagogy. The specific focus is on the social and cultural aspects of learning. What does the term distributed learning mean? It describes practices on the continuum between traditional distance education and campus-based face-to-face education (cf. flexible learning, blended learning). With the proliferation of information and communications technology (ICT) in campus-based educational settings the boundaries between distance education and face-to-face education are fading. More and more traditional campus-based universities are providing access to higher education in a distance learning format. In fact, ICTs facilitate contact over a distance. Some authors even speak of a convergence between the two forms of education (Mills &;Tait, 1999). Campus-based institutions cannot deny their tradition: they insist that contact sessions are essential for successful internet-based independent learning, although distance education with its high quality pre-prepared study materials and tutorial (online) support has proven otherwise. This is what models for blended learning try to illuminate: the appropriate mix of face-to-face and distance teaching approaches. A strength of the book is that the authors come from both distance teaching as well as campus-based institutions and thus different views on the continuum are presented.     

Client Pretreatment Characteristics as Predictors of Outcome in Brief Therapy for Bulimia

An overview for college counselors of the literature on bulimia treatment outcomes is presented for purposes of screening, treatment, and referral. Pretreatment characteristics that seem amenable to success in brief therapy are outlined, as are those that do not lead to a positive outcome.     

Teaching Through Testimonio: Accessing Community Cultural Wealth in School

Using the concept of community cultural wealth, this article examines the ways that a group of 3rd-grade students engaged in writing testimonios, or personal narratives, to reflect on their cultural and linguistic lives in and outside of the classroom. Countering deficit notions of Latina/o students, families, and communities, this study illuminates the powerful ways that students utilize various forms of community cultural wealth. The findings indicate that testimonio can be an effective pedagogical tool to help students identify their individual and collective community cultural wealth and draw on these forms of knowledge in the elementary classroom.     

States of Insecurity: Cold War memory, “global citizenship” and its discontents

This article situates the dominant discourses of “global citizenship” employed in North American universities to internationalize the curricula, drawing in part on evidence from one Pacific northwestern Canadian university in the post-September-11 context of recent restrictive immigration policies, anti-terrorist measures and evocative Cold War memories. Far from weakening the Canadian nation-state or jettisoning neoliberalism, it argues that authoritarian post-Fordism constitutes a supra-juridical state that offers fewer social services but governs with more entrepreneurship through its globalization, immigration and “national security” policies. The article shows how the post-September-11 changes to Canada's immigration and refugee legislation from 1978 to 2001, write evocative fears about “terrorists” and “invading immigrants” on the national body politic. These changes provide literal and metaphorical transnational, economic and socio-legal mobility with substantive and specific human rights to those prospective immigrants deemed “highly skilled global citizens”. Yet, such policy efforts and legislation also reproduce the exclusions and differential hierarchies of gendered, classed, ableist and racialized notions of skill, flexible work and vulnerable or unobtuinuble citizenship for those it deems “non-immigrants”, migrants or non-citizens. The conclusion asks: Is “global citizenship” an oxymoronic slogan; a well-meaning but naïve equation of transnational mobility or “belonging” with formal legal substantive citizenship and human rights; or an opportunity to claim democratic praxis through a decolonized curricular, pedagogical and educational policy?     

The influence of hand positions on biomechanical injury risk factors at the wrist joint during the round-off skills in female gymnastics

The aim of this study was to examine the biomechanical injury risk factors at the wrist, including joint kinetics, kinematics and stiffness in the first and second contact limb for parallel and T-shape round-off (RO) techniques. Seven international-level female gymnasts performed 10 trials of the RO to back handspring with parallel and T-shape hand positions. Synchronised kinematic (3D motion analysis system; 247 Hz) and kinetic (two force plates; 1235 Hz) data were collected for each trial. A two-way repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) assessed differences in the kinematic and kinetic parameters between the techniques for each contact limb. The main findings highlighted that in both the RO techniques, the second contact limb wrist joint is exposed to higher mechanical loads than the first contact limb demonstrated by increased axial compression force and loading rate. In the parallel technique, the second contact limb wrist joint is exposed to higher axial compression load. Differences between wrist joint kinetics highlight that the T-shape technique may potentially lead to reducing these bio-physical loads and consequently protect the second contact limb wrist joint from overload and biological failure. Highlighting the biomechanical risk factors facilitates the process of technique selection making more objective and safe.     

An advanced church heating system favourable to artworks: A contribution to European standardisation

The European project Friendly-Heating (FH): comfortable to people and compatible with conservation of artworks preserved in churches addressed the problems caused by the continuous or intermittent heating of historic churches, which disturbs the microclimatic conditions to which the building and the artworks preserved inside have acclimatised. As thermal comfort and the preservation of artworks often conflict with each other, a balance between the two needs is necessary. The proposed heating strategy is to provide a small amount of heat directly to people in the pew area while leaving the conditions in the church, as a whole, undisturbed. This novel heating system is based on some low-temperature radiant emitters mounted in a pew to provide a desirable distribution of heat to the feet, legs and hands of people occupying it. Due to little heat dispersion, this novel system not only significantly reduces the risk of mechanical stress in wooden artworks and panel or canvas paintings, fresco soiling and cyclic dissolution-recrystallization of soluble salts in the masonry, but is energy-efficient. The detailed environmental monitoring was conducted in the church of Santa Maria Maddalena in Rocca Pietore, Italy over a 3-year period to verify the performance of the novel heating system in comparison to the warm-air system that was active earlier in the church. The methodology and results of this comprehensive and multidisciplinary study were included in three draft standards of the European Committee for Standardisation intended for use in the study and control of environments of cultural heritage objects.     

User acceptance of a digital library system in developing countries: An application of the Technology Acceptance Model

This study examines the factors that influence people's adoption and use of a digital library system and tests the applicability of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in the context of developing countries. Using data from a survey of 16 institutions in Africa, Asia, and Central/Latin America (N = 1082), a path analysis revealed that perceived ease of use of the library system had a significant impact on perceived usefulness, which ultimately led to behavioral intention to use. In addition, the study examined the similarities and differences in the significant predictors of the digital library acceptance across countries and continents. Further, the current study suggests that external variables that affect perceived ease of use and usefulness need to be considered as important factors in the process of designing, implementing, and operating digital library systems. Such consideration will help decrease the mismatch between system design and local users’ realities, and further facilitate the successful adoption of digital library systems in developing countries.