Changing perceptions about feminists and (still not) claiming a feminist identity

We examine student perceptions about feminists and feminism, and the willingness to claim a feminist identity and engage in collective activism, as stated at the beginning and end of a Women’s Studies course. Course participation simultaneously fostered more positive views towards feminists and feminism and entrenched the unwillingness to claim a feminist identity and engage in activism. These contradictory outcomes stemmed from the critical capacity to recognise that structural inequality is reproduced through disciplinary relationships. Thus, unwillingness was entangled with feelings of fear and vulnerability in relation to the national context whereby neoliberalism guides the governance of the self, and where gender equality has presumed to be achieved. The article highlights that developing the willingness to identify and act is intimately shaped and constrained by the socio-political context and personal relationships. We consider the implications of this insight in relation to pedagogical assumptions about developing feminist knowledge in the classroom.     

Idle chatter or compelling conversation? The potential of the social media-based #NGSSchat network for supporting science education reform efforts

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) chat (#NGSSchat) is a social media-based professional network used to discuss topics related to the NGSS in the United States. While successful reforms involve and coordinate the work of multiple stakeholders, recent research points out a striking lack of coordination between the individuals working in different educational roles—to the detriment of intended changes in the system. In this study, we analyzed more than 7,000 posts from individuals participating in #NGSSchat on Twitter (n = 247) during 2 years of 1-hr synchronous discussions. We studied the depth and types of conversations that took place, the extent to which the involvement of teachers, administrators, researchers, and organizations was balanced, and what explains participation in the network over time. Using a mixed-methods approach involving social network analysis, we found that conversations were primarily transactional, or social, and substantive, or providing opportunities for sense-making about the standards or for participants to transform their practice and that individuals from diverse roles participated, with teachers comprising the plurality of those involved. Additionally, researchers, administrators, and teachers were the most active in the network, with no differences in both initiating, or sending, and being the recipients of, or receiving, replies as a part of conversations. Finally, we found that being a teacher or administrator, as well as receiving replies from individuals who were important in the network, were positively related to sustained involvement in the network in the following year. We discuss how #NGSSchat—as a social media-based professional network—demonstrates similar features in other effective networks, and how social media-based networks invite new visions for how to implement ambitious, large-scale changes in science education.     

The contested design of children’s sexual education: queer growth and epistemic uncertainty

In this article, I contend that underneath the 2015 sex-ed debates in Ontario are deep-seated, psycho-socially entrenched problems related to thinking about childhood sexuality. I consider how the topic of sex-ed for children, over and above its actual curricular lessons, is marshaled to accomplish the work of the adult’s psycho-social needs. Methodologically, queer theory and psychoanalytic theories of childhood development are employed for their capacity to place sexuality at the origin of subjectivity. I develop a queer theory of childhood that can provide insight into the transferential attachments adults have to the paradigm of childhood innocence. I also argue that attention to how the figure of the child becomes known and contested through local and transnational exchange can help reveal the impact that sex-ed debates have on racialized and provincial imaginaries of belonging.     

Books of the Month

William L. Rivers and William T. Slater (eds.) Aspen Handbook on the Media: 1975-76 Edition (Aspen Institute Program on Communications and Society, 360 Bryant Street, Palo Alto, Calif. 94301—$6.95/3.95)

Richard Dyer MacCann and Edward S. Perry's The New Film Index: A Bibliography of Magazine Articles in English, 1930-1970 (New York: Dutton, 1975—$35.00)     

Educational/Instructional Media

ERIC Clearinghouse on Information Resources, review of six recent items

Audiovisual Market Place 1980 (New York: Bowker, 1980---$29.95, paper)

Don Kaplan's Video in the Classroom: A Guide to Creative Television (White Plains, N.Y.: Knowledge Industry Publications, 1980---price not given, paper)

Anne Howe, ed. International Yearbook of Educational and Instructional Technology 1980/81 (London: Kogan Page/New York: Nichols Publishing Co., 1980---$32.50)

Esther R. Dyer, comp. “Cultural Pluralism and Children's Media” (Chicago: American Library Association, 1978 ---price not given, paper)     

Nomads and Education For All: Education for development or domestication?

Migrants, and particularly nomads, are among the most marginalised social groups, and are widely excluded from educational provision, despite pledges of Education For All. The phenomenon of movement itself presents many challenges for both providers, and would-be users, of educational services. Around the world, the provision of education for nomads has reflected and been instrumental to particular stances on pastoral development. The links between education and development are explored specifically in the case of a transhumant pastoral group in Western India. The article reveals Education For All as an ideological notion, reflecting values that contradict those of nomadic groups, and argues that the value positions underlying this notion need to be articulated and further contextualised if it is not simply to reflect existing, and exclusive, hegemonies.     

Physical Chemistry in Practice: Evaluation of DVD Modules

The Physical Chemistry in Practice (PCIP) DVD contains video programs (modules) and experimental data that present the research of scientists working in applications of physical chemistry. The DVD allows students to learn about cutting edge research in physical chemistry while making connections to the theoretical concepts learned in lecture. PCIP-DVD allows students to build verbal and pictorial models of the experiments, instrumentation, and data that can be integrated with the material covered in lecture. For each of the modules implemented students were tested in a pre/post test fashion over content related objectives. For every module the students demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in their understanding.