The Trouble with Aileen Wuornos,Feminism's “First Serial Killer”

Lesbian prostitute Aileen Wuornos was popularly termed “America's first female serial killer.” Between 1989 and 1990, she killed six men, later testifying they had raped or attempted to rape her. By analyzing media coverage of Wuornos’ story, I argue that Wuornos’ incommensurability with available stories of women who kill illustrates the need to expand the rhetorical resources that make female violence and victimage intelligible. After demonstrating that Wuornos’ gender transgressions were disciplined into intelligible terms by understandings of criminality as an already spatial and gendered category, I conclude by discussing the “trouble” Wuornos poses to feminist and queer cultural politics.     

Making a Change: The Effects of the Leadership Role on School Climate

School is a very important element of society. Students and teachers learn many lessons, academic and otherwise, that influence their personal well-being and academic success. Often, however, school does not provide the positive learning or working environment that is most beneficial for our students and teachers. As a first year principal, Pepper realized that a more positive school climate was the key to confronting many of the challenges in the school where she worked. Through an autoethnographical approach supported by her personal journals, Pepper's experiences are described as she witnessed the negative effects that an authoritarian leadership style had on school climate and, subsequently, the morale and success of students and teachers within the school setting. As she made the change to a transformational leader, she came to realize that this leadership style had a more positive effect on the learning and working environment. Her change in leadership style and guidance, with input from teachers, staff, students, parents, and community members, resulted in the school becoming a more positive, caring place to learn and work for everyone involved. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Dietary antioxidants and exercise

Muscular exercise promotes the production of radicals and other reactive oxygen species in the working muscle. Growing evidence indicates that reactive oxygen species are responsible for exercise-induced protein oxidation and contribute to muscle fatigue. To protect against exercise-induced oxidative injury, muscle cells contain complex endogenous cellular defence mechanisms (enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants) to eliminate reactive oxygen species. Furthermore, exogenous dietary antioxidants interact with endogenous antioxidants to form a cooperative network of cellular antioxidants. Knowledge that exercise-induced oxidant formation can contribute to muscle fatigue has resulted in numerous investigations examining the effects of antioxidant supplementation on human exercise performance. To date, there is limited evidence that dietary supplementation with antioxidants will improve human performance. Furthermore, it is currently unclear whether regular vigorous exercise increases the need for dietary intake of antioxidants. Clearly, additional research that analyses the antioxidant requirements of individual athletes is needed.     

Six principles of undergraduate learning: The not‐so‐easy road to writing and committing to them

Indiana University—Purdue University Indianapolis has joined campuses across the nation in identifying and assessing student learning outcomes. With its twenty schools, diverse populations, and multiple goals, how this urban institution managed to organize much of its work around six learning principles is a tale of both caution and triumph.     

Politics by other means? STS and research in education

ABSTRACT

Science and Technology Studies (STS) has been surprisingly slow to become widely known and deployed in the field of education. Yet STS has a rich array of concepts and analytical methods to offer to studies of: knowledge practices and epistemic cultures; the interrelationship between states and knowledge; regulatory practices, governance and institutions; and classrooms, pedagogy, teaching and learning. Most importantly, it provides a fresh perspective on how power operates in ordering societies, disciplining actors and promoting ideas and practices. In this paper, we provide an introduction to STS and elaborate what it offers education scholars. Using examples from the emerging body of STS work in the field of education, and in particular from the papers in this special issue, we argue that STS is not only useful, but an exciting and generative form of critique – one that is especially suited to investigating contemporary issues in education policies and practices.     

The influence of motivation and adaptation on students’ subjective well-being,meaning in life and academic performance

High rates of mental illness among students and discontinuation with university studies are regularly reported. The current study sought to explore relationships between motivation, university adaptation and indicators of mental health and well-being and academic performance of 184 first-year university students (73% female, mean age?=?19.3 years). As expected, intrinsic motivation was associated with greater subjective well-being, meaning in life and academic performance. Extrinsic motivations showed few relationships to outcome variables, while amotivation was consistently associated with poor outcomes. Hierarchical regression revealed that after accounting for adjustment, motivational orientations provided a small, though significant, contribution to the prediction of outcomes. These results are discussed in relation to Self-Determination Theory, the eudaimonic/hedonic dichotomy and implications for career counselling and teaching.