Supporting academic literacies: university teachers in collaboration for change

This article deals with an action research project, where a group of university teachers from different disciplines reflected on and gradually extended their knowledge about how to support students’ academic literacy development. The project was conducted within a ‘research circle’ [Bergman, L. 2014. “The Research Circle as a Resource in Challenging Academics’ Perceptions of How to Support Students’ Literacy Development in Higher Education.” Canadian Journal of Action Research 15 (2): 3–20], in which the teachers engaged in a continuous dialogue where experience-based and research-based knowledge could meet. The two-year long process was divided into three phases: exchange of experiences and knowledge, small-scale empirical investigations in the participants own teaching, and presentations of the outcome of the research circle work. The main focus in this article is the second phase. The choice of small-scale-investigations, and how they were discussed and developed in the collaborative work, will be foregrounded as well as the changes that occurred in the participants’ teaching practices and how the participants value the outcome of the research circle work.     

Valuing production values: a ‘do it yourself’ media production club

In this paper, we identify how and why digital media production can contribute to the active participation of children in education and also consider how much of the existing work in this area is framed as a ‘miraculous’ answer to educational challenges without critical interrogation of either the process or product. To begin, we identify some of the prominent research and issues that have emerged from work of this kind and discuss the barriers to accessing equitable education in relation to new media production projects with kids. We discuss the changing state of knowledge production and communication in a new media world and address the place of literacy in this changing educational context. Following this, we present one example of a media production club and the way we look at this work to value students' productions in a way that differs from other research of this kind.     

‘I actually listened,I'm proud of myself.’ The effects of a participatory pedagogy on students' constructions of academic identities

Academic literacy practices can be alienating for new undergraduates, yet academic success depends on writing in ways that the academy deems acceptable and is related to the identity positions available to students. I describe an intervention in which aspects of academic practice were made visible and students participated collaboratively in academic writing in a first-year, first-semester, Education Studies module. Student-managed audio recordings show that, in contrast to much research evidence, students did not reject academic identities but rather used their talk to ‘tell themselves’ as academic. I discuss methodological and pedagogical implications arising from the findings and conclude that collaborative participation in academic practice and the associated talk require students to position themselves as participants in that practice and may be a way to reduce alienation and enable students to construct the self as ‘academic’.     

文化强国视域下的文化旅游发展研究

文化是一个民族进步的灵魂,一个国家的精神纽带和重要的战略资源。中国上下五千年的悠久历史孕育了博大精深的优秀文化,但与经济发展相比,我国的文化软实力任重道远。应充分利用文化资源大国的优势,积极发展文化产业,推进文化强国的建设。文化旅游作为国家文化产业和实现文化强国的重要组成部分,肩负着继承和传播中华文化的艰巨任务。对我国文化旅游的发展现状、开发模式、以及诸多矛盾进行分析,引导文化旅游以社会主义核心价值观为指导,发挥文化强国与文化旅游的相互促进作用,从而提高中华文化的国际战略地位是非常必要的。     

Cultural studies meets academic literacies: exploring students’ resources through symbolic objects

This paper reflects on a first year communication project in a South African engineering foundation programme which attempted to bring a cultural studies perspective to the teaching of academic literacy practices. In the project, students identify everyday objects that have symbolic meanings and examine these in a range of physical, cultural and communicational contexts. These objects are seen as catalysts for enabling student narratives and understandings to emerge. Objects also become a way of exploring notions of culture and cultural practices in the classroom and the tensions between convention and change they often index. This paper focuses on a particular manifestation of this tension, in the form of a moralistic discourse, or a discourse of ‘propriety’. The pedagogical implications of this kind of cultural studies project are explored, including the importance of opening up less regulated spaces to allow different competencies to be validated and, crucially, ways of framing and critiquing students’ resources in order to harness these constructively.     

Literacy,myths, and legacies: Lessons from the past/thoughts for the future

Sketching broadly to suggest the power of the past in shaping how we think about, use, and even abuse the skills of literacy, Literacy: Myths and Lessons draws practical and theoretical instruction from the history of literacy. Its goal is to suggest new perspectives on literacy and literacies today and tomorrow in part by probing the connections tying past to present and both to possible futures.     

列强与1923～1924年的中苏建交谈判

1917年俄国十月革命后,苏俄政府试图与中国建立外交关系以改善其外交环境,但中苏两国的建交过程因中苏两国国内形势变化及列强干涉等原因而充满曲折。1923-1924年间,中苏两国进行建交谈判,问题涉及中东铁路、治外法权及租界等旧俄在中国侵夺的权益。列强为自己的利益再次对中苏谈判进行了干涉,谈判一度陷于停顿。最后,两国于1924年5月31日签订了协定,正式建立外交关系。根据中苏协定,中国收回了部分主权与利权,但对于中东铁路及外蒙古问题仍留有悬案。     

De-coding or de-colonising the technocratic university? Rural students’ digital transitions to South African higher education

ABSTRACT

Despite wide-ranging policies and practices intended to address historical inequalities in South African higher education, and calls for decolonisation to include more local relevance, little attention has been paid to the experiences of rural students, especially their digital participation once at university. Previous research has highlighted limitations in technological access in rural areas and the importance of mobile phones for transitions. Whilst universities offer wide-ranging digital support, there remains a tendency towards universalist mechanisms. Drawing on a longitudinal study across three universities, and employing Holland’s theory of figured worlds, we highlight rural students’ experiences of digital transitions across different cultural worlds, prior to university and once they arrive, including the bewildering technocratic systems and practices and resulting conflicts and positionings encountered. We show how students improvise to decode the digital university and figure out new practices. Decolonisation of universities involves rethinking the ‘technocratic consciousness’ (both colonialist and neoliberal) and its apparatus including digital systems and structures. For rural students to become successful digital practitioners in higher education, universities should acknowledge prior digital experience and forms of knowledge and focus on expanding individual and collective agency in supporting transitions, as mechanisms for shaping a decolonised digital education.     

从"时代的意义"到"刚道的人格型"--"战国策派"文化反思

战国策派 ,抗战语境中的文化流派。借助“历史形态学”提供的历史观和方法论 ,该派认为 ,西方文化的根本精神是以“地缘国家”为归属 ,“个性焕发”、“国命整合”为基本内容的民族主义。改造中国文化 ,就在于吸收浮士德无限进取的精神 ,呼唤英雄主义 ,改造国民性。笔者提炼了该派学说的基本理念 ,认为其学术性格中对“时代的意义”的强烈关注 ,以及广阔视野的“理想主义”值得学界重视。