Critical moments and second-chance education constructing socially excluded women’s stories of career success

This study narrates the role of education/training in the career success stories of twelve women on an Irish active labour market programme, Community Employment (CE). All from lower socio-economic groups, having early school-leaving backgrounds, and, prior to CE, were long-term unemployed. CE enhances the employability of the long-term unemployed by offering job opportunities and providing education/training. Using narrative inquiry, it understands how the women (re)construct their interpretations of their career success following critical moments of change in their lives. The study narrates the stories on a case-by-case basis according to the category of critical moment that each participant experienced and then views the chronicles via the lens of social class as mediated through the educational structure. It, therefore, specifically recognises the micro-individual and macro-social aspects of a person’s interpretation of his/her career and education/training experiences. To understand the change process inherent in the stories, a theoretical construct, Giddens’ (1991) fateful moment, is operationalised by examining how the critical moments evolve in to fateful moments facilitated by the structural influence of the education/training provided by the expert system of CE. The study concludes by proposing three categories of career success for this sample to take account of their altered career structures.     

论徐訏小说的审美距离

徐小说的美感来自作家对审美距离的把握。他通过叙述时态、人称的选择、小说社会环境的隐蔽和情节的虚化、突转与巧合 ,并用象征的手法或象征化的整体叙述等来调适审美主客体之间的距离 ,从而使作品的通俗性故事具有了现代性思索与情感意蕴。     

The role of digital stories and civic actions on student-teachers’ understanding about social sustainability in urban settings

Abstract

The present study aims to explore student-teachers’ (STs’) progress in understanding social urban sustainability and how it is affected through the development of digital stories and engagement in civic actions. Participants were 44 STs enrolled in a Department of Primary Education located in Northern Greece. Although participants were aware of the principles of sustainable development and education for sustainability, none of them had familiarity with social or urban sustainability. Three individual digital concept maps constructed before, intermediate and after the end of the course served as data sources. Both quantitative (significance testing, effect sizes, and confidence intervals) and qualitative (categories development) methods of analysis were implemented. Results indicate a sound improvement of STs’ understanding even in the intermediate concept maps with the most significant proposition gains associated with the society pillar. Moreover, despite the significant improvement in understanding of all main pillars of sustainability, this improvement was unbalanced because a minority of subcategories constituted the majority of STs’ propositions in all settings, indicating a strong and constructive combination between theory and praxis for the advancement of STs’ learning.     

论鲁迅和余华小说的精神同构性

鲁迅作为中国现代文学的鼻祖仍旧深刻地影响着中国文坛。在直面人生、社会的价值问题和精神溯源的过程中,一代代的文人与鲁迅不期而遇了,新时期的余华就是其中的一位。他们的小说创作在认识论与价值观方面,在思想理念及深层的精神领域,在思维方式以及文学的表现方式等诸多方面都体现出惊人的同构性。     

An account of practice: employing drawings and stories to enable reflective learning

Facilitating reflection for personal growth in a business context requires careful thought and planning. As a learning process, Business-Driven Action Learning (BDAL) has two points of focus. It aims to firstly identify and make recommendations regarding a business challenge, whist secondly facilitating potentially significant individual personal learning and growth. The research reported in this account of practice focused on personal learning by exploring the potential for individuals to experience transformative learning during a BDAL process. During the research I used a number of methods including hand-drawn images and in-depth interviews to enable the writing of interpretive stories. Findings revealed that participants found reflection during and after the BDAL beneficial. They gained insights into what they learnt, what changed since the BDAL experience and also what they still need to focus on. The findings have practical implications for the action learning facilitator of BDAL during management development programmes. One of the ways action learning facilitators can initiate the reflection process of new participants is to share the experience of previous participants. ‘Sandy’s interpretive story’, contained in this article, is such an example and includes hand-drawn images of her learning journey. I argue that the use of interpretative stories helps new participants understand programme challenges and stimulates their individual learning journey.     

略议话本小说叙事模式嬗变的受众因素

话本小说叙事模式从宋元到明清发生了不同程度的嬗变,其叙事视角、叙事体制、叙事结构、叙事精神和叙事态度等均有变化,这些变化是创作者迎合受众接受期待、重视＂看官＂内心体验和满足其欣赏趣味的结果。     

社会故事法在儿童自闭症干预中的应用研究述评

社会故事法是1991年由Gray C提出的自闭症干预方法.它以心理理论为主要理论依据,强调通过提高患者对社会情境和社会行为规则的理解来促进患者社会能力的发展.十几年来的一系列实验研究已经初步证明,社会故事法独立使用或与其他干预方法配合使用都能有效减少患者的不适当社会行为,增加适当社会行为,而且疗效能够保持,应用情境也比较广泛.但相对而言,社会故事法在具有良好阅读能力的轻度自闭症患者身上取得的干预效果会更好些.     

解读印度儿童文学家库马

库马先生以创作现代儿童故事见长,是印度为数不多的现代文豪之一。他以写实的手法和独特的审美观在其作品中揭示了人类所面临的许多现实问题;研究发现其教育思想与我国的儒家思想相吻合;其作品寓意深刻,富有儿童教育意义。     

无名氏爱情小说传播与接受的文化语境

无名氏爱情小说的广泛传播是现当代中国文坛引人注目的文化景观,而这种景观的出现与中国特定的文化语境密切相关:首先是中国数千年以来就绵延着的传奇鬼怪的文化传统;其次是中国精致、含蓄、哀伤的情感文化传统;复次无名氏的爱情小说也是现代华人的心理需求,即永远抹不掉的农耕文化心理结构和故事型审美心理表现.     

Supervision learning as conceptual threshold crossing: when supervision gets ‘medieval’

This article presumes that supervision is a category of teaching, and that we all learn how to teach better. So it enquires into what novice supervisors need to learn. An anonymised digital questionnaire sought data from supervisors [n226] on their experiences of supervision to find out what was difficult, and supervisor interviews across campus [n7] sought to discover whether there were discipline differences among challenges. Findings suggest that supervision is often troublesome, and that lessons learned during supervision are irreversible, taking the learner to a deeper level of understanding, all aspects of threshold concept crossing. However, there was more that led me from threshold concept to conceptual threshold crossing theory: the darker themes of the data suggest that truly troublesome learning is more like that which occurs in early English literature, where threshold crossing is a common motif. Many early English stories show heroes in liminal, threshold spaces, often the forest, where their skills and methods are inadequate for ordeals. The result is their acquisition of what educational jargon might call leadership attributes and emotional intelligence. The title draws on Tarantino's [1994. Pulp fiction [Motion picture]. United States: Miramax Films] ‘getting medieval’ to mean threatening, unpleasant, off the edge of the known. Medieval English stories specialise in challenge: they focus on the doing, being and feeling of hard learning. When ongoing challenge from the unexpected troubles supervisors, it also enables, or forces, the acquisition of new attitudes, skills and attributes. I expand conceptual threshold crossing theory by adding the heuristic model of the medieval threshold crossing motif to interpret troublesome learning. Findings raise further research questions: how might novices avoid danger in the dark forest as they traverse their supervisory path and how can institutions support those who find themselves there.