Implementing community-based comprehensive sexuality education with high-risk youth in a conservative environment: lessons learned

Although comprehensive sexuality education programmes have the potential to improve the sexual health and well-being of young people, many socially conservative rural states in the USA have laws and policies restricting school-based comprehensive sexuality education and supporting abstinence-only education. This paper describes the process of building a community-university partnership to implement a community-based comprehensive sexuality education peer education programme for high-risk young people and presents preliminary findings from a longitudinal evaluation. Through purposive recruitment, the sample included 386 young people (mean age) who were more diverse than the local community. Important university-community partnership components included (1) establishing local connections and legitimacy, (2) adapting and tailoring programmes to meet community context, (3) sustainability planning, and (4) flexibility, persistence, and patience. Building community trust and capitalising on the mutual benefits of community-university partnerships are effective methods of building community sexuality education programming in a conservative environment. Tailoring evidence-based approaches to comprehensive sexuality education in a politically restrictive environment shows promise in improving the sexual and reproductive health of young people.     

Epistemology,ontology and ethics: ‘galaxies away from the engineering world’?

Philosophy of technology/philosophy of science has recently become part of the curriculum of engineering degree programmes in Denmark. However, to what extent do teachers of engineering see it as meaningful for students to work with relatively abstract philosophical concepts such as epistemology, ontology and ethics as part of engineering degree programmes? And what, if any, are the complexities and difficulties in implementing philosophical questioning into engineering curricula? Do teachers tend to see philosophy of science as a kind of ‘Trojan horse’ – an unwelcome idea that will defocus engineering degree courses and steal time from more important subjects? Or do they see it as a necessary and welcome addition to engineering curricula that will result in more qualified and free-thinking engineering graduates? Subsequently these issues are discussed in the light of findings in an empirical case study carried out by the authors at their Institute.     

Lab-on-a-chip workshop activities for secondary school students

The ability to engage and inspire younger generations in novel areas of science is important for bringing new researchers into a burgeoning field, such as lab-on-a-chip. We recently held a lab-on-a-chip workshop for secondary school students, for which we developed a number of hands-on activities that explained various aspects of microfluidic technology, including fabrication (milling and moulding of microfluidic devices, and wax printing of microfluidic paper-based analytical devices, so-called μPADs), flow regimes (gradient formation via diffusive mixing), and applications (tissue analysis and μPADs). Questionnaires completed by the students indicated that they found the workshop both interesting and informative, with all activities proving successful, while providing feedback that could be incorporated into later iterations of the event.     

Entering the field: beginning teachers’ positioning experiences of the staffroom

Little is known about beginning teachers’ political positioning experiences of the staffroom. This paper employs Bourdieu's conceptual tools of field, habitus and capital to explore beginning health and physical education teachers’ positioning experiences and learning in staffrooms, the place in which teachers spend the majority of their non-teaching school time. From an Australian context, we present beginning (or emerging) teachers’ stories from one rural general staffroom and one urban departmental staffroom. Using the narratives we reflect upon how their positioning in the politics of the staffroom as beginning teachers presented significant challenges including negotiating the professional micropolitics, negotiating capital and negotiating opportunities and risks for reflection and change in contrasting social spaces.     

A Pornography Literacy Class for Youth: Results of a Feasibility and Efficacy Pilot Study

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the preliminary efficacy of a media literacy curriculum focused on pornography among a sample of U.S-based, urban-residing youth. Participants were 24 youth between the ages of 15–24 years old, although 65% were 17–18 years old. The sample was 43% female, 43% male, 9% transgender, 52% Black, 22% Hispanic, 13% other race, 64% heterosexual, 14% gay, lesbian or bisexual, and 18% other sexual orientation. Participants completed a pre-test prior to the first class session and a post-test after the fifth and final session. Pornography-related knowledge increased from pre- to post-test. A change in the anticipated direction was observed for some pornography-related attitudes, and some pornography-related behavioral intentions. Pornography-related behavior (e.g., seeking out pornography for the first time) did not change from pre- to post-test. The novelty of these findings are two-fold. First, the study demonstrated that it is feasible to implement a pornography literacy curriculum in a nonschool setting, and second, that this particular curriculum may have had some positive impact.     

Arctic sea ice and the communication of climate change

Media play a major role in framing key political issues such as climate change, and the melting of the Arctic snow and ice has become a bellwether of global climate change through the mediations of the region and its wildlife. While Arctic change has scientific significance for understanding global warming, it also plays a key role in the popular communication of global climate change and its impacts. This article addresses questions such as how the Arctic and its sea ice have become become powerful images of climate change, and what roles scientific activities, technologies, and networks play in relation to media and mediation. Drawing upon earlier research on the role of the media and framing in relation to climate change in general and upon Arctic climate change in particular, we explore how media framings are linked with various dynamics such as scientific practice and the institutional structure of the media system.     

How Do Instructional‐Design Practitioners Make Instructional‐Strategy Decisions?

Many theories have been proposed to help instructional designers make instructional‐strategy decisions, yet it is not clear if these theories are actually used by ID practitioners. This study used a web‐survey to examine the design strategies of 113 ID practitioners. The survey asked respondents to rate how frequently they used learning or ID theories as well as 10 other design strategies, to help make instructional‐strategy decisions. Respondents were also asked how often they used different information sources to learn about new theories, trends, and strategies, and to respond to a set of contrasting statements depicting objectivist vs. construc‐tivist assumptions. The results indicate that ID practitioners most often rely on interaction with others both as a means of making instructional‐strategy decisions and of learning about new theories, trends, and strategies. Only fifty percent of the respondents said they regularly use theories when making instructional‐strategy decisions, using other design strategies more frequently instead; and most practitioners are eclectic in their underlying philosophical assumptions. Based on these results, we discuss implications for training and ongoing support of instructional designers.