Critical Questions at a Critical Time: Reflections on the Contributions of LSIE to Museum Practices

Abstract Writing from a science museum perspective, the authors argue that the Learning Science in Informal Environments report arrives at a critical time, when growing policy interest in informal learning environments provides new opportunities for the museum field but also introduces potential threats to autonomy, diversity, and creativity. The authors explore critical questions raised in the report, including: 1) whether and how we represent our subject matter as cultural fields of practice, as opposed to fixed collections of facts and artifacts; 2) how we ensure, at a time of increasing interest and scrutiny from policymakers, that we continue to design for a variety of learning opportunities both across and within our institutions, thus sustaining rich, robust learning for more diverse and inclusive audiences; 3) how we develop better assessment questions, methodologies, and instrumentation that can more effectively address the contributions museums make to local learning ecologies. The authors conclude that, at this juncture, it is just as important for the education research community to learn from the practices of the museum field, as it is for the museum field to learn from the research.     

Global-local Education Policy Dynamics: A Case Study of New Zealand and Norway

ABSTRACT

While a number of studies have established the growing role impact PISA has had on national education policy, much less is known about the global-local recontextualization of policy transfer, and the role of national policy officials. Through interviews with key policy officials in Norway and New Zealand, the study revealed a growing cosmopolitanism in outlook in both countries with strong indications of changes made to respond to PISA data. However, officials also reasserted the strengths of their national education system and worked to enrich OECD understandings of educational quality. Theorizing through Bourdieu, the authors propose that the concept of cosmopolitan capital provides a useful analytical tool to explain increasingly outward and globally-oriented practices and dispositions held by policy officials within a global education policy field.     

Research on Resilience: Response to Commentaries

Clarifications are provided with respect to two sets of issues raised in preceding commentaries. First, interaction effects are undoubtedly salient in resilience research; yet main effect findings can be equally critical from an intervention perspective. Second, although resilience research and prevention science reflect similar broad objectives, the former (but not usually the latter) involves explicit attention to positive adjustment outcomes in addition to the avoidance of psychopathology.     

Researching the everyday: young people’s experiences and expressions of citizenship

This paper reports on a research study which drew attention to the constitutive nature of the everyday world in young people’s subjectivities and practices of citizenship. Central to the aim of this research was a need for alignment between the focus of the research (‘everyday’ citizenship), with methods which could illuminate the day-to-day experiences of being a citizen. In this paper, I re-examine some of the ‘everyday’ data generated by two research methods which were initially discounted as rambling or divergent. This data characteristically had frequent interjections, incomplete sentences, questions and queries, or a sense of ambiguity and uncertainty. Through a re-analysis of this data, I consider the potential it offers to contribute conceptual and theoretical insights into young people’s citizenship dispositions and practices. The research revealed the diverse, complex and contested understandings of citizenship that young people were forming in the context of day-to-day social and spatial interactions.     

The Discursive Production of the Male/Female Dualism in School Settings

In this paper, the discursive practices through which males and females are created as opposites and through which people become identifiably one or the other are analysed. It is shown how gender is created by individuals and within individuals as they learn the discursive practices through which to locate themselves as individuals and as members of the social world. Particular focus is given to the narratives through which children learn what it means to be male or female, and through which they become locked into (and thus limited by) masculine and feminine subject positions. The special place of the images and metaphors embedded in those narratives in constituting individual psyches, and in setting up patterns of belief and desire organised around a dualistic pattern of maleness and femaleness will be a central focus of the paper.     

The experience and expression of romantic jealousy in same‐sex and opposite‐sex romantic relationships

This study examines and compares how males and females in same‐sex and opposite‐sex romantic relationships experience and express romantic jealousy. Undergraduates at a large, southern university and visitors at a metropolitan Pride Celebration (N = 149) completed measures assessing cognitive and emotional jealousy experience, jealousy expression, and demographic information. The reported usage of two of Guerrero, Andersen, Jorgensen, Spitzberg, and Eloy's (1995) communicative responses to jealousy typology significantly varied by sexual orientation and sex. Specifically, gay males were significantly more likely to use violent communication/ threats than were heterosexual males. Further, lesbians reported using manipulation attempts to a significantly lesser degree than did heterosexual participants and gay males. In contrast, levels of cognitive and emotional jealousy experience did not significantly differ by sexual orientation or sex. Implications for these findings are presented in light of the broader study of close opposite‐sex and same‐sex romantic relationships.     

Exploring “Other Body(s)” of Knowledge: Getting to the Heart of the Story About Aging and Physical Activity

Aging is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon subject to a continual redefining of the physical, social, psychological, and cultural self. The collective of these subtleties poses a number of challenges for policy makers, program and community leaders, health professionals, and researchers when trying to enhance quality of life for older adults through physical activity. In this article we reflect on how we have come to know about aging and physical activity and argue why expanding the research agenda will better get to the “heart” of active living in the later years.     

Evaluation of a Practice-Development Initiative to Improve Breastfeeding Rates

The benefits of breastfeeding for infant, mother, family, and community are well recognized, and increasing breastfeeding rates is considered an important health-promotion strategy. Improving breastfeeding knowledge and practice among individuals caring for breastfeeding women is considered an important aspect of this strategy. The practice-development initiative described in this article aimed to improve hospital-based breastfeeding rates through the implementation of The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. The initiative included the development and implementation of an education program aimed at changing and improving breastfeeding practices. The program was evaluated in three ways: changes in breastfeeding rates at hospital discharge; client preparation for breastfeeding and satisfaction during the postnatal period; and staff knowledge and skills.