Activity frames and complexity thinking: Honoring both public and personal agendas in an emergent curriculum

This article which is largely conceptual in nature, explores the possibilities provided by embracing complexity thinking that are attentive to, but not confined by, externally imposed curriculum mandates while simultaneously honoring the interests and needs of individual students and the classroom collective. From this perspective, the ideas of negotiating authority, adopting a holistic view, engaging in participatory democratic practices, and using a project-based approach to learning are examined. In doing so, the concept of ‘activity frames’ is introduced and developed as a useful way of responding to curriculum mandates while being responsive to and respectful of individual and collective student learning agendas.     

On the efficiency of career guidance

Specialist in educational and vocational guidance, designing courses to assist in guidance and decision-making, and the organization and development of guidance services. Inspector responsible for information and guidance in the Grenoble administrative area (Ministry of National Education) and, since 1988, Chief Inspector of Technical Education and Head of the Information and Guidance Service of the National Information Bureau on training courses an professions in Corsica. Member of several French and international bodies specializing in educational and vocational guidance.     

Peers'' Perceptions of the Consequences That Victimized Children Provide Aggressors

Fourth- through seventh-grade children (mean age 11.5 years) estimated the likelihood that various consequences would occur following hypothetical acts of aggression toward victimized and nonvictimized classmates. Children also indicated how much they would care if the consequences were to occur. When contemplating aggression toward victimized classmates, children were more likely to expect tangible rewards, more likely to expect signs of victim suffering, and less likely to expect retaliation than when considering aggression against nonvictimized classmates. Also, when considering aggression toward victimized classmates, children cared more about securing tangible rewards but were less disturbed by the thought of hurting their victims or by the thought of their victims retaliating than when imagining aggression toward nonvictimized classmates. The foregoing pattern was stronger for boys than for girls. Implications for theories of aggression and for intervention with aggressive and victimized children are discussed.     

Storying Joanne, 1 an undergraduate mathematician

In this article two different accounts are juxtaposed. In one, we use a variety of texts to narrate the story of Joanne, a woman undergraduate student of mathematics. Like many of our mature students Joanne came to the university with a ‘non‐traditional’ academic background. We describe how Joanne developed as a learner of mathematics and connect this to our ways of working in the undergraduate mathematics classroom. We believe that our pedagogy is unusual outside (some) school classrooms and suggest it allows our students to develop positive ‘disciplinary relationships’. In the other, we grapple with the issues raised by telling other people’s stories especially when we are also characters within it. Our intention has been that, in interweaving these two threads, each helps us understand more about the other.     

Listening harder: Queer archive and biography

This article emerges from a wider study on bicultural film archiving practice. It focuses on Jonathan Dennis as a subject of (my) archiving, and as a distinctive archivist himself in relation to a specific archive at a particular moment. Dennis practice differed significantly from North American and European conventions contemporaneous with his life work. The charismatic founding director of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision (formerly The New Zealand Film Archive) Jonathan Dennis (1953–2002) became a conduit for tensions and debates during the 1981–2002 period in relation to indigenous and non indigenous presentation of (film) archival materials. This resulted in a film archive and curatorship practice which differed significantly from that of the North American and European archives he originally sought to emulate. As a Pākehā (non Māori/indigenous New Zealander) with a strong sense of social justice he argued for an awareness of geographical location and cultural context in his work. He supported a philosophical shift in archival practice, by engaging indigenous peoples in developing creative and innovative exhibitions and programmes from the 1980s period until his death.

Note: From 1988 the official name for the New Zealand Film Archive was Ngā Kaitiaki o ngā Taonga Whitiāhua (Guardians of the Treasured Images of Light). Since August 2014 the institution is called Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua Me Ngā Taonga Kōrero to acknowledge the acquisition of the state-owned Television NZ Archive and Sound Archives from Radio NZ. For brevity’s sake the Archive is referred to throughout as NTSV (Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision).

Key: NTSV PP JD refers to the NTSV Personal Papers of Jonathan Dennis (uncatalogued at time of writing).     

The health and wellbeing of international students at an Australian university

A representative sample of undergraduate and postgraduate international students at a large Australian university (n=979, 64% females) completed a mail-back survey of their health and wellbeing. Most students evaluated their current and previous physical and mental health positively. Health-related risk practices such as unprotected sexual activity, drug use, smoking and gambling, were reported by few students. There was little change in health or risk behaviours since coming to Australia and few changes that were health compromising. Few demographic or situational variables, including age and gender, had a significant impact on students' wellbeing. This study has revealed that few international students find the experience of studying in an overseas country detrimental to their wellbeing. Nevertheless, for those students who encounter difficulties or are at increased risk of health-compromising outcomes, we must ensure better delivery of health promotion education, and access to, and use of, available counselling and health services.