Deconstructing Plagiarism: International Students and Textual Borrowing Practices

This article reviews studies from various disciplines on plagiarism as a cross-cultural issue and examines cultural, educational, and linguistic factors that may influence the textual borrowing practices of international students. The reasons international students may employ inappropriate source use are complex and attempts to address and combat plagiarism in higher education must take into account multiple factors. Recommendations are made for ways in which academic libraries can assist international students with understanding plagiarism through orientations, instruction, reference service, and web-based guides and tutorials.     

An effective mathematics and science curriculum option for secondary gifted education

Project Ga‐GEMS (Georgia's Project for Gifted Education in Math and Science) viewed the effect that placement in an integrated, hands‐on mathematics and science curriculum had on the achievement of academically talented high school students. For a two‐year period of time, students gifted in the areas of mathematics and science participated in a curriculum which incorporated higher‐level thinking skills and more real life laboratory experiences into mutually reinforcing mathematics and science lessons. After the conclusion of the two‐year program, Ga‐GEMS participants and a control group were given the mathematics and science sections of the ACT as they exited the tenth grade. The Ga‐GEMS students scored significantly higher on the Science Math Total, Pre‐Algebra/Elementary Algebra, Intermediate Algebra/Coordinate Geometry and Plane Geometry/Trigonometry sections of the ACT. To determine if the Ga‐GEMS students retained their higher scores throughout high school the SAT scores of both groups were compared as the students exited high school. Significant differences in the areas of total score and mathematics were noted. This study lends support for the use of a differentiated curriculum for educating gifted students in science and mathematics.     

Older Characters in Teen Movies from 1980–2006

Although children as young as age three have already begun to manifest negative stereotypes toward older adults, attitudes toward older adults likely crystallize during late childhood and adolescence and become entrenched by the time an individual reaches young adulthood. Studies have shown that young people view older people in general as ineffective, dependent, lonely, poor, angry, overly wrinkled, ugly, dirty, disabled, and less physically active and healthy than younger adults. Because today's children and adolescents have less contact with older people than in past decades, it is likely that some young people get most of their information about older people and aging from the media. This is all the more likely during the teen years, when vulnerable adolescents purposely seek out certain media to form their identity. This content analysis examined the 60 most popular teen movies from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s to determine how older people are portrayed. Older people were greatly underrepresented, according to their numbers in the actual U.S. population, making up only 7% of the total number of characters in teen movies. Older people were marginalized in terms of plot and were likely to be featured only as background characters. Of older characters, 60% were portrayed stereotypically, and only 45% of the older characters were portrayed in a positive manner. Also, 32% of older characters were portrayed in a negative manner, and one-fifth of older characters were portrayed only with negative characteristics. The stereotypes that adolescents today hold toward older people, including the belief that they are bad drivers, are angry most of the time, and are senile, were reflected in older character portrayals in these popular teen films. Given the negative representations of older people that adolescents are exposed to in their childhood and during the teen years, it is no wonder that they express negative attitudes toward older people. After years of exposure to media that negatively depict older adults, adolescents have been cultivated to stereotype older people. This has the potential to influence the quality of their interactions with older people, and also influence the way they come to view the prospect of getting old.     

The involvement of external agencies in extra-curricular physical education: reinforcing or challenging gender and ability inequities?

Within the UK and internationally, schools are increasingly being encouraged to call on external agencies and draw on the services of individuals, including sport coaches, to ‘help teach or lead sports within the school setting and out of school time’. This trend arises from and has contributed to a changing policy landscape and relations that characterise ‘physical education and school sport’ (PESS) and the growing use of the terminology of ‘PESS’. Previous research has highlighted that neither PESS considered broadly as a policy space, nor specific initiatives centring on ‘partnership-based’ development of physical education (PE) and/or sport in schools, can be assumed to facilitate greater equity in provision for young people. This study reports on research that has sought to build on past studies revealing gender and ability inequities amidst PESS developments. The research was designed as a small-scale case study investigation to critically explore the equity-related messages being conveyed in and through the hidden curriculum in a context of coaches’ involvement in extra-curricular provision. Utilising observations and interviews with coaches and PE teachers, data collection focused on ways in which ideas of ability, masculinity and femininity were being constructed and reproduced in and through coach's pedagogy, and sought insight into the prospective impact of the particular constructions on girls’ and boys’ involvement in extra-curricular PE. Analysis revealed that the hidden curriculum expressed in and through the organisation of extra-curricular PE and coaches’ pedagogical practices in this context can be seen as reaffirming limited conceptions of ability in PE and gender inequity in relation to girls’ and boys’ respective participation opportunities. Discussion critically addresses the relationship between policy and pedagogy in PESS in pursuing apparently ongoing tendencies for long-standing inequities to be reproduced in and through extra-curricular provision.     

High-performance sport,learning and culture: new horizons for sport pedagogues?

Background: Research in sport coaching and sport pedagogy including studies published in this special issue bring to the fore the relationship between learning and culture in contexts of high-performance sport. This paper acknowledged that how learning, culture and their relationship are conceptualised is a crucial issue for researchers and professionals in high-performance sport.

Purpose and approach: This paper arises from a theoretical analysis of the research studies presented in this special issue. The analysis undertaken focused on the understanding and representation of the concepts of learning and culture and critically examined the methodological application of particular conceptualisations. The intention was to extend insight into both theoretical and methodological issues associated with understanding and researching athlete and coach learning, and high-performance sport settings.

Findings and discussion: This paper identifies tendencies for separatist and reductionist thinking about learning and culture in high-performance sport settings. A relational perspective is identified as critical to extending research and professional practice that is directed towards learning and/or culture. Researchers are urged to avoid identifying either athlete or coach learning (only) with specific events or experiences, and similarly avoid positioning culture as something that sits apart from athletes’ and coaches’ participation and learning in elite sport settings. The dual notions of ‘learning practices as cultural practice’ and ‘cultural practice as pedagogical practice’ are proposed as a basis for holistic thinking about learning and culture in high-performance sport settings. The extent to which such thinking is reflected in the various contributions to the special issue is considered. Attention is then directed to the methodological challenges that researchers face if they are to reflect a conceptualisation of learning as both embedded and embodied in cultural practices. Challenging and extending the underlying vision of learning that researchers, coaches and athletes have is revealed as a critical consideration in regard to research design, data collection and ways in which participants are variously positioned, represented and ‘involved’ in research. Embodied perspectives are identified as particularly worthy of greater attention in contemporary research that seeks to extend understanding of athlete and/or coaches’ learning and lived experiences within and amidst elite sporting cultures. Recent scholarship focusing on the body and lived experience is identified as providing theoretical and methodological insights that can extend future research and practice.

Conclusions: Foregrounding a relational perspective is fundamental to extending the understanding of learning and culture in high-performance sport. Future research also needs to clearly embrace the methodological challenges presented by new conceptualisations.