Conceptualising the use of Facebook in ethnographic research: as tool,as data and as context

This paper explores what it means to engage as an ethical researcher in the conduct of critical ethnography. During the years in which this critical ethnography of new language learners in a midwestern high school, the ethnographer actively participated in the life of the site. This paper poses the question of what such active involvement means for research ethics. Much of the literature on research ethics deals with Internal Review Boards standards, but this paper takes a reflective, ethnographic look at the researcher's own ethical practices in order to articulate and examine the underlying principles entailed in the decisions to intervene or not in the ongoing life of the site.     

Advancing home–school relations through parent support?

The present study explores a local initiative to develop parent support services through the school system. In focus are the discourse on home–school relations and parent support and the interplay between discourse and practical occurrences. Official documents, interviews and notes from municipal meetings and informal conversations were obtained from a local authority during 2009–2013. The results show that the education system is discursively positioned as an important player for the administration and organisation of parent support. All the same, opposing arguments are given precedence in decisions concerning what home–school relations should entail. The study explicates that parent support, when connected to compulsory education, is preferably conceptualised as part of and contingent on the forms and characteristics of home–school relations. Furthermore, it makes evident that the term school is recurrently used as a synonym of teachers. This has implications for both home–school relations and parent support.     

Student and teacher co-navigation of a course: following the natural lines of academic enquiry

Using the mountaineering metaphor of ‘natural lines’ this article describes the co-navigation of an honours course by students and teachers. It suggests the benefits and possibilities of going beyond the confines of conventional teaching and learning wisdom (as canonised in the notion of constructive alignment) and offering just and joyful ways for students to explore disciplinary knowledge. We openly explore issues of power between students and teachers in the construction of so-called partnerships, recognising the inherent challenges in moving beyond the prevailing mainstream. We suggest that a natural lines approach enables students to act as genuine co-navigators and to experience disciplinary knowledge in authentic ways and provides rich opportunities for personal reflection and development.     

Voice,identity, and the organizing of student experience: managing pedagogical dilemmas in critical classroom discussions

The current paper explores the discursive complexities of teaching and learning in inclusive, critically oriented classrooms. It argues that to accomplish the ontological goals of higher learning, we need to focus on the construction of student voice, or the ability to be considered in and have influence on teaching and learning. The paper further explores the relationship between having voice and the interactional negotiation of identities and relationships among students and teachers. It is suggested that teaching and learning through inclusive, critically oriented classroom discussions is bound in the organizing of complex social experiences, and requires teachers to navigate at least three inherent pedagogical dilemmas lesson management, emotion labor, and structure.     

How can PhD supervisors play a role in bridging academic cultures?

ABSTRACT

PhD supervision is generally deemed a rewarding experience as supervisors and students embark on an academic journey together. Pursuing a PhD in a ‘foreign’ context inevitably brings forth distinct opportunities and challenges for students and their supervisors. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, this qualitative study of supervisors and PhD students examines the cross-cultural facets of doctoral supervision in the light of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological theory of human development and its underpinning explanation for supervisory processes and learning orientations. Undertaken in the Danish context, our paper highlights exemplars of contrasting supervisors’ and PhD students’ experience in relation to academic and psychosocial adaptations. This research strongly endorses that supervisors’ appreciation of the intertwined link between academia and society combined with a positive view of their role in bridging academic cultures can powerfully complement students’ adjustments and subsequently make a qualitative difference towards a more fulfilling and meaningful academic journey together.     

Moving beyond the minimum: socially just pedagogies and Asperger’s syndrome in UK higher education

A year‐long longitudinal study was conducted to gain insight into the lives of eight students who had a label of Asperger’s syndrome during their transitions into higher education in the UK. Reflecting on life history data, the findings suggest that universities might actually be maintaining and (re)producing barriers that perpetuate the exclusion and ghettoisation of disabled people. The analysis goes beyond an acknowledgement of institutional disabling practices to pinpoint the subtle impacts of issues of pedagogy, learning, teaching, and assessment. It is argued, therefore, that inclusive education needs to engage more directly with the specific issues faced by learners with the label of Asperger’s syndrome. However, rather than viewing this as an issue of special education for distinctly impaired learners, Asperger’s syndrome must be understood with reference to wider questions of how higher educators respond to diversity and difference.     

Head teachers’ spirituality and inclusive education: a perspective from critical realism

ABSTRACT

Spiritual leadership gains attention amongst researchers for closing the gap between achieving personal and organisational goals. Despite documentations that spirituality undergirds head teacher’s actions leading inclusive schools, research still remains thin in understanding how spirituality underpins leadership for inclusive education. This paper draws on the philosophy of critical realism to offer a conceptual tool that identifies head teachers’ spiritual actions in their efforts to include ethnic minority students. This is done through multiple qualitative methods collection from an in-depth case study at a multicultural primary school in Cyprus. The critical realist framework helps uncover head teacher’s spiritual actions in a more systematic, structured and holistic way. It reveals that head teachers’ spirituality supports the goals of inclusion and occurs in at least four interrelated and emergent ontological levels (psychological, social, cultural and policy levels) which are set in four scaler levels from microscopic to macroscopic (sub-individual, micro, meso and macro levels). This framework problematises mono-dimensional and reductionist understandings of spirituality in leadership. The paper concludes by suggesting solutions to enrich leadership programmes for inclusive education with fostering leaders’ spirituality at different ontological levels.     

Academic Life-support: The Self Study of a Transnational Collaborative Mentoring Group

In this paper, we examined the collaborative mentoring processes of a transnational network. A narrative approach was employed to explore the mentoring practices and experiences of 19 women involved in the CURVE-Y-FRiENDs (C-Y-F) network. Their mentoring practices go beyond transnational, ethnic, discipline, and university borders. The processes employed in the network can be conceptualized as pathways to professional relationships. The narratives of C-Y-F members illustrated collaborative mentoring as an expression of the personal and professional dimensions of support, which must be part of academic life. Collaborative mentoring relationships and discourse provided a response to the current inconsistencies in faculty mentoring practices and have implications for the ways in which administrations and faculty in general initiate more empathetic structures and procedures that better meet the mentoring needs of women and minority faculty in academia.     

樱桃谷肉鸭饲养全程HACCP管理体系的建立与应用

应用HACCP方法,通过对樱桃谷肉鸭饲养全程各环节的危害分析,确立关键控制点,对关键控制点中存在的潜在危害进行有效监控和开展纠偏措施,从而建立樱桃谷肉鸭饲养全程HACCP管理体系,并应用于樱桃谷肉鸭饲养管理。结果表明,建立的樱桃谷肉鸭HACCP管理体系可有效控制饲养过程中的潜在危害。     

一类Dirichlet边值问题多解的存在性

利用上下解方法结合变分法得到了一类Diriehlet边值问题四解存在的充分条件。