Social identity theories and educational engagement

There is a large body of research in studies of schooling, particularly ethnographic case studies, which posits that collective action among students undermines engagement in school and contributes to educational inequality. In this paper I review studies of engagement from a social identity theory perspective. To what extent can collective action explain why some student groups are less engaged than others? I discuss four approaches to identifying social identity‐related problems of engagement frequently used in prior research. While researchers often find problems of engagement among low‐academic‐status students, research on educational engagement has had difficulty locating the underlying causes of inequality in student engagement. Social identity theories of educational engagement are inherently theories of collective action. I conclude that a fifth approach, large‐scale observational studies of monitoring and sanctioning, provides the best framework for identifying both the prevalence of, and solutions to, this particular source of disengagement.     

Negotiations of the ageing process: older adults' stories of sports participation

The purpose of this paper is to examine the talk of older athletes, with particular focus on how the context of sport helps them negotiate the ageing process. It draws on personal stories provided by 44 World Masters Games competitors (23 women; 21 men; aged 56–90 years; M = 72). Four themes emerged: ‘There's no such thing as old’ (a story of avoiding old age); ‘Keep moving’ (a story of fighting the ageing process); ‘Fun, fitness, friendship … [and] competing’ (a story of redefining self and ‘old age’) and; ‘Making the most of your life … with the capabilities that you still have’ (a story of adaptation and acceptance). Together, the four themes show how through sports participation older individuals can simultaneously resist, redefine and accept the ageing process. These stories of a ‘sporting later life’ allow for alternative meanings to the dominant ‘declining body’ narrative of ageing. Therefore, these narratives present the possibility for personal, pedagogical and social transformation.     

A model of ice friction for a speed skate blade

The FAST 2.0i numerical model of ice friction was developed for an inclined speed skate blade. It describes ice friction at sliding velocities sufficiently high to produce a lubricating layer of meltwater, which completely separates the ice and slider surfaces (known as the hydrodynamic friction regime). Friction arises from ploughing a groove in the ice and from the shear stress in the lubricating Couette flow. The model takes into account frictional melting, heat conduction into the ice and the lateral squeeze flow of the lubricating liquid. We use the numerical model to calculate the ice–blade contacts, the parameters of the lubricating liquid layer, and the relative importance of the various contributions to the overall friction coefficient. We also use it to perform sensitivity studies and to predict the variation of ice friction during a typical skating stroke. The model results compare favorably with measurements of the ice friction coefficient during speed skating, made by others.     

Bangqiu: MLB's Role in Baseball's Comeback in the People's Republic of China

This article explores the growth of Chinese baseball since the early 1970s. The sport was very popular in the 1940s and 1950s as the semi-official pastime of the People's Liberation Army, but it disappeared from the country in the 1960s due to economic woes stemming from the Great Leap Forward and the anti-western fervour of the Cultural Revolution. Richard Nixon's historic meeting with Chairman Mao in 1972 ushered in a thaw in Sino–American relations that enabled veterans of 1950s competitions to take up baseball once again and teach the game to a new generation. Over the 1970s, baseball began to slowly grow in China with some modest Japanese encouragement and China began competing internationally the following decade. Over the past decade, Major League Baseball has made such a large investment in China that baseball has become the fastest growing sport in the country. At present, the country's only professional league is currently in the early stages of its development, but American talent evaluators believe that the skill of Chinese players is steadily improving and that it is not impossible to foresee a day when China produces baseball's Yao Ming from a massive pool of millions of internationally competitive athletes.     

Readability and Basic Course Hybrid Textbooks in Human Communication: A Disparity of Reading Difficulty

Parents play a pivotal role in the gender development and sex-typing of children. It is important to discover whether gender role communication differences exist based on the sex of the child or parent. The present study aimed to discover differences in gender role messages communicated between mother-daughter, mother-son, father-daughter, and father-son dyads. Participants (n = 630) completed a modified version of Bem's Sex Role Inventory. Two key results were discovered: mothers communicate significantly more feminine messages to children, regardless of child sex; and the modified BSRI identifies respondents as weak vs. strong gender identity rather than masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated.     

Common Challenges and Experiences of School Districts That Are Implementing One-to-One Computing Initiatives

This article explores the implementation of various K–12 one-to-one computing initiatives to determine if patterns exist. These initiatives are funded in times of limited resources and constitute a serious investment in technology for the schools and districts adopting them. The goals of this study were to understand how and why one-to-one computing initiatives are being implemented, how these initiatives are funded and supported, and expectations or assumptions of stakeholders that are driving adoption of this type of technology. The results suggest that these school districts, and those like them, will face many challenges—some financial, some technical, and some procedural—as they work to integrate technology into instruction and assessment. Common themes or challenges identified from this work, and linked with previous research, include leadership and vision, funding, teacher professional development, and project evaluation.     

Service Learning as a Mechanism for Change in Attitudes and Perceptions of Human Services Students Toward Substance-Dependent Mothers

The purpose of the study was to explore the potential effectiveness of service learning as a pedagogical technique for providing substance abuse education to human services/social work students. Using a quasi-experimental design, the authors assigned 38 human services undergraduate students to experimental and comparison groups on the basis of their availability to attend a service-learning project in substance abuse. The service learning consisted of a 30-min educational presentation followed by a visit to a residential substance abuse treatment facility for women. Results indicated that service learning in substance abuse had a positive effect on the general knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes of human services students toward substance-dependent mothers and their children. The findings from this exploratory study support future research in this area.     

在线学习中活动感知对社会性技能、社群归属感和学习满意度的影响

本研究目的在于探讨增强性的活动感知与网上学习的社会性互动本质之间的关系及其相互影响。作为一个基于设计的研究项目,我们已建立了对网路学习之社会性因素的深入了解,且开发了一个背景感知活动通知系统以支持活动感知,用于提升学习者网上学习的社会性技能。本研究通过问卷调查的方法收集资料,主要针对六门使用活动感知支持系统的网上学习课程,学生对其自身网上学习经验的认知。研究结果显示,学生获取活动讯息的途径、他们对活动讯息有效性的认知,对他们网上学习的社会性技能、社群归属感、以及学习满意度有正向的影响。此外,学生的网上社会性技能的组成要素也以不同的方式影响着他们的网上社群归属感和学习满意度,例如,学生对同伴与教师存在的感知以及分享个人资料的舒适度,影响着他们对社群归属感的认知;学生对教师存在的认识和社群归属感,也影响他们的学习满意度。