At home,song, and fika – portraits of Swedish choral initiatives amidst the refugee crisis

ABSTRACT

With the unprecedented worldwide refugee crisis, to what extent can music play a role in welcoming? In particular, how does choral music have a role in mobilising communities, generating intercultural understanding, and lifting some of the barriers that confront refugees and asylum seekers? How can such activity be seen as a benefit to the welcomers rather than only the outsider others? The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to study how selected Swedish choral directors seek to include refugees into their choirs or musical groups. Additionally, the study seeks to understand how such efforts at inclusion are received, understood, and enacted. In other words, ‘What does it mean to refugees to sing choral music in a Swedish context, how is this perceived by the Swedish musical leaders, and how is this contextualized against Swedish government policy?’ We interview five Swedish choral directors and use the data to dig deeper into the multilayered and complex matter of welcoming refugees through community music. We contend that the work of these choral directors, as genuine acts of goodwill, is a powerful way to welcome new arrivals. However, the medium of the Western European choir may be culturally remote for refugees, and these initiatives may need new models of community music engagement.     

Ageing and learning: What do they mean to elders themselves?

This paper is about a quantitative study which has examined and elucidated the conceptualizations of ageing and learning by a group of elders in Hong Kong. In more specific terms, the study has investigated how this group of older people understood the meaning of successful ageing and elder learning in the context of their later lives. Based on the ‘Learning and Ageing Survey 2013’ with a sample of 519 older adults in Hong Kong, the study aimed, first, to describe and conceptualize the meaning of ageing and learning as elders experienced it in later life; second, to investigate why and how elders engaged or did not engage, in organized learning, by comparing the differences between the ‘learning’ and ‘non-learning’ groups in terms of their personal characteristics, conceptualizations of learning, and the barriers to participation; third, to identify important learning issues for older learners, including their interests, needs, motivations, and learning preferences; and finally, to investigate the relationship between learning and successful ageing, and between learning and the overall well-being and satisfaction of elders in their later lives. The research findings and outcomes of the study provide insights into the experience and views of elders concerning ageing and learning, which contribute to the global understanding and knowledge base for elder learning and successful ageing; and which serve to inform the development of policy and practice geared to the planning and provision of programmes for learning in older age.     

Effects of rule changes on physical demands and shot characteristics of elite-standard men’s squash and implications for training

The physical demands and rally characteristics of elite-standard men’s squash have not been well documented since recent rule changes (scoring and tin height). This information is needed to design optimal training drills for physical conditioning provided here based on an analysis of movement and shot information. Matches at the 2010 (n = 14) and 2011 (n = 27) Rowe British Grand Prix were analysed. Rallies were split into four ball-in-play duration categories using the 25th (short), 75th (medium), 95th percentiles (long) and maximum values. Cohen’s d and chi-squared tests of independence evaluated effects of rally and rule changes on patterns of play. The proportion of long, middle and short shots was related to the duration of the rally with more shots played in the middle and front of the court in short rallies (phi = 0.12). The frequencies of shots played from different areas of the court have not changed after the adoption of new rules but there is less time available to return shots that reflect the attacking nature of match play for elite-standard men players. Aspiring and current elite-standard players need to condition themselves to improve their ability to cope with these demands using the ghosting patterns presented that mimic demands of modern match play.     

Similarities and differences in views of ageing and learning in Hong Kong and Australia

This article is an overview and summary of the findings from a General Research Fund project funded (2012–2014) by the Research Grants Council of the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong to investigate cross cultural understanding of ageing and learning by seniors in Hong Kong and Australia. Results have been published separately in Boulton-Lewis, & Buys (2015), Boulton-Lewis, Aird, & Buys (2016), Boulton-Lewis, Tam, Buys, & Chui (2016), Tam (2016), Tam & Chui (2016) and Tam, Aird, Boulton-Lewis & Buys (2016). These articles have dealt separately and variously with either a qualitative or quantitative analysis of learning choices in Australia, structural barriers to learning in Australia, a comparison of views of and ageing and learning in both cultures, Chinese views of later life learning, the meaning of ageing and learning to Chinese elders and an analysis and comparison of results in both places. The focus of this article is a summative discussion based mainly on the quantitative and qualitative analyses of the main themes of ageing and learning. It intends to provide an overview of the findings in some of the publications above. Other details can be found in the publications listed.     

Peer Conflicts of Preschool Children: Issues, Resolution, Incidence, and Age-Related Patterns

This study examined 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds' peer conflicts in the naturalistic classroom setting during free-play time. 400 preschoolers from 25 classrooms were videotaped. Only the first conflict event generated by each target-child observation was included in the analysis. Of the 400 target-child observations, 322 generated a conflict event. In general, there was a shift in the issues of conflict from tangible material concerns to those that were more mental and social. 2-year-olds had a higher proportion of distribution of resources conflicts than did 3- and 4-year-olds. Conflicts about play and ideas significantly increased with age while those stemming from physical harm were low overall. Further, child-generated resolutions increased while insistence decreased significantly with age. What changes with development appears to be the issues of conflict and the way they are handled; not the incidence of conflict per se. These findings support the proposal that conflicts are natural contexts in which children develop socially, morally and cognitively. Implications for teaching are discussed.     

Enhancing peer acceptance of children with learning difficulties: classroom goal orientation and effects of a storytelling programme with drama techniques

Peer acceptance is an important facilitator for the success of inclusive education. The aim of the current study is twofold: (1) to examine how classroom goal orientation is associated with children’s acceptance of peers with learning difficulties; and (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of a storytelling programme with drama techniques on children’s acceptance of peers with learning difficulties. The participants were 86 Grade 3 students from a Hong Kong primary school, randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 45) and a control group (n = 41). The findings indicated that the more the students perceived that their classroom was performance-approach oriented, the less they would accept their peers with learning difficulties in doing things together. After the intervention, the students in the experimental condition, compared to their counterparts in the control group, were more likely to render financial assistance and have affective acceptance to their peers with learning difficulties.     

Ethnicity and education in China and Vietnam: discursive formations of inequality

This article aims to understand how ethnicity is discursively framed in national policies in China and Vietnam and argues that policy discourses affect how the ‘problem’ of ethnicity and educational inequalities is framed and how these inequalities can be addressed. The analysis shows how both Marxist and market-economy governing rationalities frame ethnic minority groups as lower status than the majority group and in need of either socially evolving to the communist ideal or assimilating into the global economic market, respectively. Using Fraser’s multi-dimensional approach to analyse discursive formations of inequality, we show how these policy discourses produce a non-ethnic economic citizen with socialist tendencies that negates cultural or social recognition and political representation. We conclude that researchers and policymakers need to consider how ethnicity is discursively framed to understand and address inequalities.     

开放和远程高等教育的理念和实践

追溯了中国传统化中开放教育的理念和实践及其西方开放和远程教育的发展,描述了香港公开大学成功办学的经验,探讨了当今开放和远程教育对传统教育的冲击,面临高等教育大众化,国际化,虚拟化,网络化等国际大趋势,提出了大中华发展新的开放和远程教育理念的十六字方针;古为今用,洋为中用,因地制宜,推陈出新。     

Unravelling the complexities of distance education student attrition

This paper reports on an investigation into the complexities of student attrition in a distance education course. Deep‐seated factors involved in the attrition process are disclosed as the particular qualitative research process that was employed mapped student responses through the course of interviews. These tabulations reveal interesting patterns of change as students volunteer explanations for their decisions.