Continuities and discontinuities in the life histories of teacher educators in changing times

Although teacher education has undergone radical reforms in many jurisdictions, who teacher educators are, their lives, and their work, continue to be a somewhat underexplored area internationally, while remaining a ‘secret garden’ in the Irish context. In order to address this lacuna in Irish research, this paper adopts a life history, phenomenological approach to the exploration of teacher educator identities. It considers the articulation of identity relative to prior teacher identity and current roles and institutional context. From nine in-depth interviews with teacher educators in a college of education in Ireland, we examine continuities and discontinuities between past and present roles and responsibilities, and identities. We tentatively explore the diverse pathways, values and experiences that construct them as teacher educators in the present, and gain insight in to the strength of former teacher identities: the old overshadowing the ‘new’. We conclude that privileged primary school teacher identities continue to shape teacher educator practices and values despite global and diverse influences at play. The implications of these findings for initial teacher education are considered.     

Cultures of (Un)happiness: teaching,schooling, and light and dark humor

The author explores humor during a time of increasingly hostile accountability measures directed toward educators. Drawing on incongruity and other theories of humor, he explores both light and dark humor and some aspects of the educational potential and power of humor. Noting how humor is related to creativity and problem management, the argument is that humor has an important place not only in producing educator well-being but for student learning and school renewal.     

Encouraging Future Helping Behaviors: The Role of Student-Faculty Relationships in Higher Education Marketing

ABSTRACT

Extant literature on relationship marketing tends to focus on for-profit firms and their relationships with important stakeholders. However, higher education institutions face many of the same intense competitive forces that have made relationship marketing a practical choice for many for-profit firms. Therefore, it is not surprising that many are adopting relationship marketing strategies. In the context of higher education marketing, we examine the nature of the student-faculty relationship development process and its affect on helpfulness, which we define as a “state of mind” conducive to future helping behavior. Drawing on relationship marketing theory and identity theory, we posit that trust, relationship commitment, and identity salience are key mediating variables between three antecedent variables (shared values, communication, and opportunistic behavior) and helpfulness. Our results provide support for the roles hypothesized for trust, relationship commitment, and identity salience.     

The Post-Modern Student

Abstract

The differences between present-day post-modern students and educators from older generations require changes in educational approach, but also challenge post-modern trends. Students' postmodern experiences may lead them to seek individuality among diverse sources of identity, seeing knowledge as a throwaway consumption good, and education promotes flexibility and “edutainment.” However, professional education trains people for structured managerialist organisations and the accumulation of shared professional knowledge. Social work education needs to be reframed as a process of emergence in which educators and students work jointly to create knowledge and identity in their professional area. To operate in an increasingly complex and changing society, students need to create a strong professional identity and learn how to transfer knowledge and values from one situation to another. In this way, social work education connects with the Danish managerial concept of “chaos pilots” in which students are prepared to deal with cultural and social change.     

Jack in two boxes: A postmodern perspective on the transformation of persons into portraits

The paper explores issues surrounding portrayal in educational research and interrogates the notion of a life as a textual product, via an analysis of two short biographical narratives which happen to portray the same person — a British primary school head teacher nearing the end of his career. The discrepancies between these two texts point to the problematic nature of the relationship between person and portrait, and make visible some of the textual devices that writers/researchers use in order to achieve coherence and authenticity in biographical narratives.     

Leveraging social grouping for trust building in foreign electronic commerce firms: An exploratory study

Internet development has fueled e-commerce firms’ globalization efforts, but many have met with only limited success. This often stems from the foreign firms’ limited understanding of a focal country's local culture and idiosyncrasies. Foreign firms are usually viewed as out-group entities, which lowers consumers’ trust in them. The extent of such a phenomenon varies. In locations where people are more skeptical of out-groups, a critical question is whether it is possible to transform such foreign out-group firms into in-groups, specifically with the support of popular social networking media. Based on Social Identity Theory and Trust Transference Process, five strategies leveraging social grouping and social ties to build trust for foreign electronic commerce firms were proposed. A survey was conducted to examine their effectiveness. The results suggest that social-grouping strategies are useful for in-grouping foreign out-group entities to build trust, and the effectiveness of strategies is determined by the social similarity and psychological distance between the consumer and the endorser. This has important implications for scholars and practitioners, both local and abroad, to leverage social grouping to boost Internet sales.     

图像识别在考生身份认证系统中的应用

针对传统考生身份认证方法的缺陷,提出一种基于人脸识别的考生身份认证系统。首先利用图像采集系统采集考生人脸图像,然后对人脸图像进行特征提取和特征选择,并将人脸特征输入到人脸特征库进行匹配,最后采用支持向量机算法对人脸进行分类识别。实验结果表明,该系统提高了考生身份识别的正确率,减少了识别时间,能够很好满足实际考试的要求。     

劳动经历与新生代农民工认同感形成

将横向实地调查资料和纵向流动史案例结合考量,开拓认同感研究的新途径。将新生代农民工的认同感分为自我认同、职业认同和社会认同三种类型,发现职业认同是沟通自我认同和社会认同的桥梁。若新生代农民工能尽早建立职业发展规划,顺利生成职业认同,则有助于其个体成长,完成社会成人。而目前新生代农民工普遍缺乏职业认同,使其自我认同与社会认同不能同步发展,阻碍了他们适应并融入城市的进程。     

基于看跌期权组合价值最大化的银行资产优化模型

银行危机的实质在于资产配置失误,资产优化配置事关银行的生存和发展。本文以银行债权组合价值最大化为目标函数,以组合风险价值VaR为约束条件控制资产组合风险的大小,建立了看跌期权组合价值最大化的银行资产分配模型。本模型主要特色与创新是通过卖出看跌期权的组合价值来客观地反映企业价值影响贷款清偿能力的本质属性。     

三语语境下白族高中生的文化认同

本研究从认知角度调查了白族高中生在三语语境下的民族文化认同、主流文化认同和西方文化认同情况。通过对大理市某高中的高三白族学生进行调查,发现白族学生对主流文化和民族文化有较高的认同,同时,对西方文化认同度较低,说明西方文化对白族高中生的主流文化和民族文化并未产生威胁。然而,白族学生对本族文化的认同并没有对主流文化认同高,说明在教育过程中,应该注意加强本族文化的传输和教育,以保证中华民族文化的多样性。