“I Might Get Your Heart Racing in My Skin-Tight Jeans”: Sexualization on Music Entertainment Television

This study explores the culture of sexualizing the (female) body in music entertainment television. A quantitative content analysis was conducted, analyzing 9,369 scenes from 1,393 music videos and 180 programs, broadcast on Belgian music entertainment channels. Results indicated that 39.3% of the coded scenes contained sexualizing messages. These sexualizing messages were predominantly messages equating (female) Western body ideals to being sexually attractive. Music videos were shown to be a more sexualizing genre than nonfictional programs and fictional programs. Findings are discussed in light of objectification theory.     

The role of educational information systems for survival in information society and the case of Pakistan

The study reviews the important role of information systems and their impact on educational planning and development. It also attempts to identify gaps in the provision of information needed by educational administrators who are key planners of education enterprise in Pakistan. It intended to determine their views about the development, objectives and needed services of a user centered information system for educational administrators. To achieve these objectives, a literature review, questionnaire survey and interviews were conducted. Thus, the educational administrators (i.e., registrars/deans/chairpersons in universities and principals of schools and colleges) were identified as the target population for the survey and were selected through cluster sampling. The respondents were from the Punjab province and Islamabad Capital Territory. In total, 297 (99%) responses were received and analyzed quantitatively. Interviews of purposively selected educational administrators were also conducted for a more in-depth understanding of respondents’ points of view. This triangulation of qualitative and quantitative methods helped in understanding the phenomena under study. Recommendations and conclusions are also drawn in the light of findings of the study. The study is the first one of its type that tried to probe the gaps in the process of accurate/valid information supply to educational administrators and planners. This gap is causing serious challenges for education in Pakistan.     

Making Sense of “Views” Culture in Television News Media in India

ABSTRACT

The initiation of economic reforms in the 1990s led to major recastings in the media-state-market relationship in India. Looking specifically at the television news media space, the age-old monopoly of the state broadcaster Doordarshan was challenged by the mushrooming of a host of private television news media. Private participation in the television news sector was in sync with the logic of market capitalism. Market-based news model radically altered the nature of production, representation and consumption of news. This paper makes an inquiry into one such predominant aspect of news production, the ascendancy of views/opinion based prime time programming in television news media, in contemporary India. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with journalists, the paper attempts to make sense of the reasons, the nature and significance and the likely impact of such programming on the nature of public discourse in India.     

审美视阈下的中国电视娱乐节目走向

电视作为现代社会中最具有影响力的媒体,在传达公共政策、引导社会舆论等方面发挥着举足轻重的作用。电视传媒是现代科技传播的重要标志,是最广泛的大众文化传播媒体之一。本文通过梳理中国电视娱乐节目的发展历程,论述了中国电视娱乐节目的发展的四个时期,最后,阐释了娱乐化电视节目的发展走向。     

Becoming American

Abstract

This study explored how a cohort of Asian Indians who migrated to the U.S. nearly 40 years ago have become acculturated to the U.S. by watching American television when they first arrived. The study used two concepts of the integrative communication theory: enculturation and acculturation. The study described how these Asian Indians did not grow up watching television in India. Hence, they became enculturated into American television. This cohort also watched television to learn how to act “American,” and thus became acculturated to the U.S. Furthermore, the study created linkage between the uses and gratifications theoretical perspective and the need for acculturation.     

China’s making and governing of educational subjects as ‘talent’: A dialogue with Michel Foucault

Abstract

As an imprint of Confucian culture, China’s education intersects state governance in making and governing educational subjects as ‘talent’, an official translation of the Chinese term ‘rencai’ (literally, human-talent). Whereas the English word ‘talent’ itself denotes ‘[people with] natural aptitude or skill’, ‘talent’ is currently mobilized in China not only as a globalized discourse that speaks to the most aspired educational subjects for the 21st century but also as a re-invoked cultural notion that relates to Confucian wisdom. Drawing upon Foucault’s biopower hypothesis and Confucian thought, this paper leverages upon China’s unique manipulation of ‘talent’ as certain skills and human subjects, both cultivable through education, to problematize China’s talent making and governing in two dimensions. First, it unpacks the various technologies of power entangled in China’s talent making and governing within its ‘state governance’ paradigm. Second, it unpacks Confucian thought as an archaeological prototype for China’s present talent appeal, meanwhile explicating their divergences in defining ‘human’, ‘talent’, and the human-talent interpellation. In so doing, this paper makes two arguments. First, the linguistic notion of ‘talent’ functions as a Foucauldian apparatus of biopower, making (up) new kinds of people and normalizing a certain population as the objective/object of China’s state governance. Second, CPC’s re-invocation of Confucian talent discourses is more of a rhetorical strategy than an authentic cultural renaissance gesture.     

Memories of the Khyriv school kept alive by its students: sources and methodological contexts

ABSTRACT

The Scientific and Educational Department of the Jesuit Fathers in Khyriv (Zak?ad Naukowo-Wychowawczy OO. Jezuitów w Chyrowie) existed for 53 years (1886–1939). Over 6,000 students studied in this elite male school. The alumni of the secondary school belonged to the elite of Polish society. There were among them people from different walks of life. The Chyrów school must have been a special place for its students, because they preserved its memory for dozens of years. Some of them immortalised their reminiscences in their memoirs. Basing on the preserved source materials, I will try to reconstruct the memory of the school, its past – ambience and climate, as well as relations between students and between students and teachers. The preserved documents may allow us to unveil other less formal sides of the school life about which there is no evidence in the official sources.     

University teacher educators’ research engagement: Perspectives from Saudi Arabia

This paper examines university teacher educators’ engagement with and in educational research. Survey results collected from eighty-two teacher educators at a leading university in Saudi Arabia pointed to modest levels of research activity and also suggested that these individuals held largely technical views of what research is. Their assessments of their institutional research culture also signalled a perceived gap between the research productivity expected of them and the support they received from their university. The implications of these findings for promoting research activity among university teacher educators, where this is considered desirable, are discussed.     

Collaborative inquiry in teacher professional development

This article presents an in-depth case study of a complex community of inquiry. In this community, teachers worked collaboratively to build from situated assessments of students' learning through reading to refine and monitor practices designed to enhance student learning in their subject-area classrooms. In this report, we present evidence to address three questions: (1) What did inquiry look like within this community?; (2) How was collaboration implicated in teachers' inquiry?; and (3) How was engagement in inquiry related to meaningful shifts in teachers' practice and learning? This research contributes by uncovering important links between teacher inquiry, collaboration, and educational change.     

Parental aspirations for their children's educational attainment and the realisation of universal primary education (UPE) in Kenya: Evidence from slum and non-slum residences

There is a sound research base attesting to the importance of parental involvement and to the many potential benefits it can offer for children's education. This study sought to examine differences in parental aspirations (as a mechanism of parental involvement in their children's education) for their children's educational attainment between slum and non-slum residing parents in Kenya. The study used cross-sectional household data for a sample of 4065 parents, collected in 2007 by the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) in Nairobi. A multinomial logistic model was used for the analysis to explore the factors determining parental aspirations. The results indicate the following: (i) that parents who live in the slums have lower aspirations for their children's educational attainment when compared to those who live in non-slum areas; (ii) that parents in the slums have aspirations for higher levels of educational attainment for their children than their own levels of education. We conclude that parents in urban Kenya have a strong belief in the education of their children irrespective of their slum or non-slum residence but aspirations are higher in non-slums than in slums.