Increasing access to learning for the adult basic education learner with learning disabilities: evidence-based accommodation research

Accommodating adult basic education (ABE) learners with learning disabilities (LD) is common practice across many instructional, testing, and work settings. However, the results from this literature search indicate that very few empirically based studies are available to support or reject the effectiveness of a great deal of accommodation implementation. In addition, in light of the profound changes to literacy taking place in today's digital, networked, and multimodal world, technology is redefining traditional concepts of accessibility and accommodation.     

Television Entertainment

Robert Metz' The Today Show: An Inside Look at 25 Tumultuous Years...and the Colorful and Controversial People Behind the Scenes (New York: Playboy Press, 1977—$10.00)

Jeff Rovin's The Great Television Series (South Brunswick, N.J.: A.S. Barnes, 1977—$17.50)

Gregg Lewis, Telegarbage: What You Can do about Sex and Violence on TV (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1977—$2.95, paper)

Richard Meyers, Super TV Stars (160 pp.)

Richard Meyers, The Illustrated Soap Opera Companion (159 pp.)     

The Cardinal Virtues and Kinesiology

What is a good kinesiologist? Is it possible that the ancient and medieval tradition of the Cardinal Virtues sheds light on this question? The four Cardinal Virtues of prudence, justice, courage, and temperance are so called from the Latin cardo meaning “hinge.” The Cardinal Virtues are said to be the hinge upon which all the other virtues rest or turn. They are the foundation of good character. If this is right, then the answer to the question posed is simple. The good kinesiologist is prudent, just, courageous, and temperate. Therefore, to move the field forward, even on a practical level, kinesiologists must give due attention to the virtues.     

Rhetoric and knowing: The search for perspective

Attempts to describe the possible relationship of rhetoric to knowing inevitably lead to conceptual distinctions. This essay argues that distinctions which relegate rhetoric to social, or explicit, or contingent knowledge incorrectly restrict our view of the rhetoric‐epistemic relationship. An alternative perspective which avoids such distinctions is suggested.     

Building on the Hopes and Dreams of Latino Families with Young Children: Findings from Family Member Focus Groups

In the past, Latino families were often regarded as being uninvolved in their child’s education, particularly within the parent involvement literature. More recently, authors are encouraging educational professionals to look at a family’s “funds of knowledge” to encourage their involvement. This expression takes into account the knowledge a teacher can gain from a family and child, including awareness of culture, familial background, and other contributions the family can add to the child’s education. This article reviews findings from the analyses of focus groups conducted with Latino family members who have a child(ren) enrolled at a Head Start Center. Findings indicate that Latino families openly communicated strengths, interests, aspirations and learning opportunities for their child and family yet often faced barriers in conveying these to teachers and other staff in their child’s life. Implications for using inquiry-based approaches to bridge this gap in family-school communication are discussed.     

Culture,Kinesiology, and the Free Society

In Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, T.S. Eliot asked whether culture should be understood as “essentially, the incarnation (so to speak) of the religion of a people.” By “incarnation,” Eliot meant that “what we believe is not merely what we formulate and subscribe to, but that behavior is also belief.” It is, Eliot insisted, our actions, and not merely our ideas, which matter. Together, our actions and our ideas embody and then give life to culture. “Religion” is, no doubt, a contested term. For present purposes, all that needs to be conceded to make Eliot’s point worth pursuing is that every culture has some conception of the good, the true, and the beautiful, which it promotes, encourages, and thereby cultivates. What implications does this have for kinesiology? I will examine three points. First, the discipline of kinesiology cannot be abstracted from the culture in which it finds itself, without becoming an anti-culture. This fact means that kinesiology must necessarily attend to the ways in which physical activity is embedded in the historical, anthropological, sociological, and philosophical foundations of society. Second, kinesiology contributes to the cultivation or brutalization of society. This results from the attention paid (or not paid) to the question of truth in the field. Such attention to truth requires recognition of the epistemological limits of science as well as to the importance of free-will, choice, and example. Finally, kinesiologists must be willing to cultivate and defend intellectual freedom as part of a free society. A free society allows for a diversity of opinions, not as end in itself, but as the vehicle by which fallible human beings approach the truth.     

Sports fan experience: Electronic word-of-mouth in ephemeral social media

Fans consuming sporting events commonly use social media to spread electronic-word-of-mouth (eWOM) related to their experiences. Ephemeral social media, an emerging form of social media that auto-deletes content after a prescribed time, allows fans to have greater control over their messages than ever before. The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate factors leading fans to lengthen or shorten the lifespan of their social media content. A nationwide panel (N = 242) created social media content in a controlled setting in which the fan experience and audience size were manipulated. Results suggest fans having a positive experience or who were broadcasting to a large audience were likely to share their content for a longer period of time. In contrast, fans having other than positive experiences, sharing with a small audience, or displaying greater team identification wished to limit the availability of their content. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Definition and documentation: theory, measurement, and the courts

Definition of terms and the selection criteria for operationalizing the standard of disability are critical to accessing accommodations. The purpose of this article was to examine the research surrounding definitiorns and selection criteria for learning disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder at the postsecondary level. Implications from and for the courts follow a critical analysis of the professional literature. The need for researchers to utilize theory-based models to investigate the multivariate relationships between and within constructs underlying current definitions and eligibility criteria is also disscussed.