Care in academia: an exploration of student parents’ experiences

While student parents now represent a significant proportion of the higher education population in England, this group has been given limited consideration in policy circles. Using a social constructivist and feminist theoretical framework, this paper draws on a research project investigating the role of higher education policies in supporting student parents in England. It focuses on findings from 40 interviews conducted with student parents enrolled on university programmes. It shows that, in the context of the default construction of the university student as carefree, student parents often describe their experience of navigating academia as a struggle, in which time-related, financial, health and emotional problems prevail. However, the stories they tell also emphasise the benefits associated with their dual status. By doing so, they resist the discourse of deficit typically applied to ‘non traditional’ students and produce a counter-discourse that disturbs the long-lived binary opposition between care and academia.     

On the complementarity between online and offline music consumption: the case of free streaming

From a representative survey of 2,000 individuals, we study whether consumption of music through streaming services, like Spotify or YouTube, is a substitute or a complement to physical music consumption modes, such as CDs and live music. Controlling for the taste for music, various socio-demographic characteristics and the usual determinants of music consumption either offline (radio, TV, friends/relatives) or online (online recommendations, social networks), our results show that free music streaming (where the consumer does not possess the music but only has access to it) has no significant effect on CD sales and affects positively live music attendance, but only for national or international artists who are more likely to be available on streaming services.     

Understanding the consequences of victory amongst sport spectators: The mediating role of BIRGing

Prior work on the relationships between team identification and spectators’ reactions to one's team victory has largely neglected the potential effects of mediating variables. In this research, we proposed that the process of Basking in Reflected Glory [BIRGing – the tendency to reduce the distance between oneself and one's team; Cialdini, R. B., Bordon, R. J., Thorne, A., Walker, M. R., Freeman, S., &; Sloan, L. R. (1976). Basking in reflected glory: Three (football) field studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 366–375] would lead spectators to almost take ownership of victories and share its benefits, thereby impacting their sense of national belonging in a positive manner. To this end, participants (N?=?73) were asked to watch an edited video clip showing a victory of the French national rugby team playing against South Africa. As expected, results revealed that BIRGing mediated the relationship between team identification and one's sense of national belonging. In closing, a number of implications are discussed along with future research avenues pertaining to the sport spectatorship literature.     

Dynamics of GeoGebra ecosystem in mathematics education

Education and Information Technologies - The purpose of this study was to investigate the trends of GeoGebra related studies. We focused on the articles published between 2009 and 2021 and existed...     

Effects of ‘Environmental Chemistry’ Elective Course Via Technology-Embedded Scientific Inquiry Model on Some Variables

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of ‘environmental chemistry’ elective course via Technology-Embedded Scientific Inquiry (TESI) model on senior science student teachers’ (SSSTs) conceptions of environmental chemistry concepts/issues, attitudes toward chemistry, and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) levels. Within one group pre-test–post-test design, the study was conducted with 117 SSSTs (68 females and 49 males—aged 21–23 years) enrolled in an ‘environmental chemistry’ elective course in the spring semester of 2011–2012 academic-years. Instruments for data collection comprised of Environmental Chemistry Conceptual Understanding Questionnaire, TPACK survey, and Chemistry Attitudes and Experiences Questionnaire. Significant increases in the SSSTs’ conceptions of environmental chemistry concepts/issues, attitudes toward chemistry, and TPACK levels are attributed to the SSSTs learning how to use the innovative technologies in the contexts of the ‘environmental chemistry’ elective course and teaching practicum. The study implies that the TESI model may serve a useful purpose in experimental science courses that use the innovative technologies. However, to generalize feasibility of the TESI model, it should be evaluated with SSSTs in diverse learning contexts.     

How should cultural diversity be measured? An application using the French publishing industry

Despite the lack of a clear definition of the concept, “cultural diversity” has remained a core issue for more than a decade (WTO, UNESCO, etc.). The aim of this paper is to begin to fill this gap. We argue that cultural diversity is a multi-dimensional concept and that accurate metrics must rely on three criteria: variety, balance and disparity. We also stress that supplied and consumed diversity have to be distinguished. We apply this set of multiple measures of diversity to publishing data for France over the period 1990–2003. Our main result is that the situation of the publishing industry in terms of cultural diversity is highly dependent on the dimension considered. Hence, diversity increases when variety is the sole consideration, whereas taking balance or disparity into account leads to the opposite conclusion. This issue raises a series of questions about the use of diversity measures in a policy debate concerned with furthering cultural diversity.

Does the long tail really favor small publishers?

A growing body of literature is devoted to testing the reality of the “long-tail” phenomenon. This literature is mostly, if not exclusively, focused on the impact of Internet on the distribution of sales by product. However, the long tail also raises the issue of a possible change in the usual market structure of cultural industries: an oligopoly with a competitive fringe. To our knowledge, no paper addresses the following question: If the long-tail effect does exist, is it of more benefit to small or dominant publishers? The aim of this paper was to address this issue in the context of the French publishing industry. Our main findings are as follows: (1) the market concentration of the French book industry is lower online than offline and (2) the difference in concentration between the two channels of distribution tended to widen over the period 2004–2010. Strategies adopted by leading publishers on the Web do not allow them to maintain the market share obtained with bricks-and-mortar retailers. Furthermore, we show that the market share lost by dominant firms is captured by small publishers online and by medium-sized publishers in conventional stores.     

Head injury secondary to suspected child maltreatment: results of a prospective Canadian national surveillance program

Objective

We sought to determine the incidence, clinical features, and demographic profile of head injury secondary to suspected child maltreatment (abuse or neglect) in Canada to help inform the development and evaluation of prevention programs for abusive head injuries.

Methods

From March 1, 2005 to February 28, 2008, an average of 2,545 paediatricians and paediatric subspecialists were surveyed monthly through the established network of the Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program. We calculated incidence rates using the number of confirmed cases over the product of the duration of the study (3 years) and population estimates by age group.

Results

There were 220 confirmed cases of head injury from suspected child maltreatment. The annual incidence rate was 14.1 per 100,000 for children less than 1 year of age and 1.4 per 100,000 for those less than 15 years. Seventy three percent (141) of cases involved infants less than 12 months of age and 52% (100) of cases involved infants less than 6 months of age. Seventy-five percent (165) of cases presented to the emergency room. With regard to outcome, 12% (27) of cases resulted in death and 45% (75) of survivors had neurological sequelae at discharge. Thirty percent (67) of all cases, as well as 30% (8) of deaths were previously known to child welfare authorities.

Conclusion

This study provides an estimate of the rate of head injury secondary to suspected child maltreatment in Canada. The young age and poor medical outcomes of those involved highlights the need for prevention efforts that are implemented early in life. Given that a significant percentage of injured infants and children were already known to child welfare authorities, the study also highlights the need to establish and evaluate additional preventive efforts for parents and caregivers already in the child welfare system.     

Development of mentor teacher role inventory

This study aimed to develop and investigate the validity and reliability of the Mentor Teacher Role Inventory (MTRI). A total of 1843 student teachers in the Distance English Teacher Training Program participated in the study. The 58 items of the Mentor Teacher Role Inventory underwent principal factor analysis, which revealed nine factors relating to mentorship and explained 52.971% of the total variance. The KMO value of the MTRI was calculated as .968. The Cronbach's alpha was .951. These results indicated that a reliable and valid MTRI could be used for both the distance English teacher training programme and other distance teacher education programmes.