Sports-based Text Sets: Fostering Critical Literacy at the Intersections of Sport and Society

Sports culture is central to the lives of many students, whether they participate in athletic competitions or sports fandom. Unfortunately, sports culture also reflects many sociopolitical issues and inequities that impinge upon our greater society in the present day (e.g., domestic violence, racism). For those reasons, sports-based text sets—diverse collections of texts about figures, events, and happenings in sports culture—stand to support teachers in honoring students' knowledge of and interests in sports culture while also facilitating critical literacy practices through the investigation of inequities that ail both sport and society. This article introduces the notion of a sports-based text set, addresses the types of texts that might be featured in such a set, and presents ideas for exploring specific texts with students, using the issue of inequitable compensation for male and female athletes as an example.     

独立学院非英语专业大学生的批判性思维能力培养

培养和提高大学生的思辨能力是当前我国外语教学改革关注的热点问题。本文从批判性思维的内涵入手,调查了我院非英语专业学生批判性思维能力的现状,论述了批判性思维能力的重要性并探讨了如何培养学生的批判性思维能力。     

Partnership,conflict and gaming

Government policy stresses partnership as a critical organizational form of the future to support the development of schooling. This article uses intergroup conflict and gaming theory to analyse data from one partnership. The views of young people and staff are explored to establish the nature and extent of conflict and its impact on the partnership. Gaming theory is used to investigate the engagement and expectations of organizations in the partnership. The article challenges Government rhetoric that suggests that as experience and trust grow, partnership will overcome the barriers which exist as a legacy from previous more competitive and isolationist cultures, to the benefit of service users. It further suggests that the availability of adequate resources alone, if ever achieved, would not in itself create the conditions for successful partnership. Far more attention is required to be given to the complex range of conditions which might support partnership and increase the possibility that the interests of learners would not be subordinated to those of organizations.     

Wikipedia,Critical Social Theory,and the Possibility of Rational Discourse 1

Information systems researchers that apply critical social perspectives frequently emphasize the potential for information technology to serve as a mechanism for increased rationalization, domination, and control. Such theorists often overlook or discount the liberating aspects of information systems. In this study, we apply the ideal of rational discourse developed by Jürgen Habermas to the phenomenon of Wikipedia in an effort to explore empirically the emancipatory potential of information systems. We contend that Wikipedia embodies an approximation of the necessary conditions for rational discourse. While several challenges persist, the example of Wikipedia illustrates the positive potential of information systems in supporting the emergence of more emancipatory forms of communication. The corresponding implications for researchers and design professionals alike are discussed.     

Flight turbulence: the stormy professional trajectory of trainee early years’ teachers in England

This paper documents trainees’ ‘flight turbulence’ as they negotiate the complexities that lie between ‘the self’ and the securing of Early Years Teaching Status in England. Early Years Teachers, besides teaching, are expected to lead improvements to the quality of provision. However, drawing on interview data, an impasse is discerned where ideas meet instrumental policy in practice. Trainees are often unable to reshape the meeting of theory, policy and practice, and struggle in finding teaching approaches which they are comfortable with ethically. Drawing on Holland et al.’s concept of ‘figured worlds’, it is suggested that the development of theory-informed practice should not be seen as a solitary task for the student but as a dialogic though difficult conversation involving the student, university staff and placement practitioners. Dialogism is seen as requiring persistence but as offering opportunities for beginning early years’ teachers, with support from teacher educators and experienced practitioners, to negotiate the challenging spaces between policy, theory and beliefs as they seek to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct ethical professional identities for themselves.     

On being critical: uniting theory and practice through emancipatory action research

This paper engages with some of the specific issues that challenge critical practice. My argument is related to the Carr and Kemmis debate on ‘staying critical’ and to ideas expressed in my current book, Community Development: A Critical Approach. I refer to critical practice as any practice that has a transformative social justice intention, and which happens in a range of contexts from grassroots community activism to more institutionalised settings, such as hospitals or schools. My own professional base is community development, and this paper is founded on emancipatory action research developed over many years in grassroots practice. It is my view that emancipatory action research, committed to the practice of social justice, with the intention of bringing about social change, is a necessary component of critical practice. In fact, I would go so far as to say that emancipatory action research is the glue that binds critical praxis in a unity of theory and action. However, all too often collective action for change is not followed through to its greatest potential, and practice remains contextualised in the immediate, local and specific without making critical connections with the structural roots of oppression from which inequalities emanate. The result is that we constantly fixate on symptoms, and leave the root causes free to perpetuate oppressions. At the same time, we find ourselves in a globalised world marked by intensifying social divisions. So, it is my intention to raise a few issues which present challenges to get beyond sticking points in critical practice as we face times in which there is an accelerating urgency to ‘become critical’.     

Focus on the Digital Divide

Developments aimed at transforming initial teacher education in France since the early 1990s are examined and a contribution is made to the debate about the key factors involved. The discussion is contextualised in earlier discussions in JET and in relation to the new reforms for teacher education proposed by the Minister of Education.     

带Hardy-Sobolev临界指数和权函数的半线性椭圆问题的非平凡解

借助环绕定理和非线性分析技巧,研究如下一类带Hardy-Sobolev临界指数和权函数的半线性椭圆方程 - Δ u-μ u |x|² =λu+K(x) |u|^2*(s)-2u |x|^s , x∈Ω; u=0, x∈Ω, 解的存在性,其中Ω是 R ^<em>N具有光滑边界的有界开区域,0∈Ω,N≥5,0≤s≤2, 0≤μ≤ N-2 2 ², λ>０,K(x)是 上有界正函数.     

网络传播媒介对当代美术批评方法论的拓展

从建构传统美术批评体系中的批评家与批评话语权之间的关系入手,就当下社会生活中的网络传播媒介对传统美术批评体系的解构现象进行了初步探讨,并从网络美术批评语言的重构、批评话语权的平民化方式、批评的学理完整性和依据以及批评的思维方式等方面对当代美术批评方法论的拓展进行了思考性阐述。     

一个统一混沌系统及其研究

发现了一个新的混沌系统,它是介于著名的Lorenz系统和Chen系统之间的临界系统.同时,提出了一个单参数的统一混沌系统--Lorenz系统族,它包含Lorenz系统和Chen系统作为参数区间的两个极端系统,临界系统作为一个过渡系统.基于线性耦合多振子互同步问题的研究,提出了研究这一类问题的新方法--模式分解法,并首次从理论上给出了上述3个典型系统混沌同步的几个严格的充分条件.还提出了一类新的简单的切换分段线性反控制器,它能够使一个简单的线性系统在三维空间中同时产生n个,或一个具有多吸引域融合的复杂混沌吸引子.