Non-performativity of university and subjectification of students: the question of equality and diversity in UK universities

Universities in the United Kingdom have experienced a transformation in the context of the government’s initiatives to widen participation and rapid socio-economic changes locally and globally. With more diverse students entering higher education, universities need to consider how they can create an inclusive environment. Indeed, in order to stress their openness and (international) excellence, many universities proclaim their ‘commitment’ to diversity and difference. However, as Sara Ahmed suggests, institutional speech acts, such as a claim to promote equality and diversity, do not go beyond pluralist understandings of diversity and are non-performative. Through the examination of policies and practices concerning issues of equality and diversity in English universities, this article, firstly, considers whether universities are successful in promoting equality amongst different (ethnic) groups. Then, through a case study of a university, it examines how students become raced, classed, gendered, or nationed subjects, while they struggle to form their own agency.     

Let’s be critically honest: towards a messier counterstory in critical race theory

This paper utilizes tools of critical race theory to interrogate the racial politics of the everyday. The authors contend that this type of critical policy analysis can yield understandings of/about the world that are too often silenced or ignored altogether. This paper argues that critical race theory does not aim to tell a “truer” account of reality, but a more honest one. Therefore, critical race scholars need not ask permission – nor seek forgiveness – for their counterstories, but hold themselves accountable to communicate stories and narratives that are not only honestly critical, but critically honest.     

声乐艺术之“树”的“红花”与“绿叶”——民歌《龙舟竞渡》及其钢琴伴奏音乐元素分析

民歌《龙舟竞渡》是施光南作曲、任志萍作词的一首音乐作品.通过对该歌曲及其钢琴伴奏音乐元素的分析,可以全面了解作品的时代背景、作者情况、主题思想、题材、内容、歌词大意、体裁形式、曲式结构、旋律、主题材料的布局、伴奏和声、伴奏织体音型手法的特点与运用、演唱效果速写、声乐教学演唱提示、钢琴伴奏弹奏提示、演唱与伴奏合作的提示等方面的内容,加深了解民歌的艺术特点,深刻理解该民歌所达到的塑造音乐形象和表现音乐内涵的完美契合.     

You said, ‘Black girl’: doing difference in early childhood

Abstract

This article draws on a larger study that examined the constructions of childhood by young children in early childhood centres. Ten boys and girls, between the ages two and four, from two early childhood centres in urban KwaZulu-Natal, participated in the study. The article explores the multiple ways in which young children use discourse and context to interpret differences around race, gender and other social identities. We draw on data produced through observations, storytelling and persona dolls to argue that, although young children reproduce multiple social realities they encounter in their daily lives, they are active subjects in constructing differences. Story telling with persona dolls provides opportunities for young children to talk about their experiences with regards to difference.     

The Case for Audience Isolation: Language and Culture as Predictors of Advertiser Investment

Abstract

In what has become an increasingly multilingual United States, growing numbers of television advertisers have begun targeting foreign language speakers. Because of the increased cost and effort in crafting unique ad campaigns, however, the factors behind this investment decision are explored. Using an online survey, advertisers (N?=?1,150) were asked how they valued various demographic audience traits as they considered potential target markets. T tests revealed significant differences between foreign language and non-foreign language advertisers' audience preferences. Logistic regression showed that, contrary to previous audience valuation findings, household income was not a primary factor in foreign language audience investment decisions. Rather, advertisers who valued household income more were less likely to invest in foreign language audiences in the United States, with language dependency and cultural traits predicting a greater likelihood of investment. The Audience Investment by Isolation Model is offered, which can help explain the investment decision-making process by advertisers as they weigh demographic audience traits, audience isolation strategies, and costs.     

Addressing sexual harassment in a sexually charged national culture: a Journal of Applied Communication Research forum

Sexual harassment remains a persistent workplace problem. The 2017 #Metoo movement and what-have-come-to-be routine news stories about sexual hostility, sexual assault, and sexual harassment in American organizations have opened wounds and reinvigorated public commentary. Although the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sets forth guidelines for organizations to follow, questions remain about what counts as sexual harassment, and what is an organization’s responsibility in maintaining a harassment-free workplace for its employees. At the invitation of the editor, seven organizational communication scholars responded to a series of questions addressing seven issues related to sexual harassment. These are: sexual harassment policy and training; the responsibilities of bystanders of sexual harassment; organizational culture that provides more support to the harasser than the harassed; the intersection of race with sexual harassment; same-sex harassment and female-to-male harassment; and what can be learned from public movements (e.g. #Metoo). The co-authors’ responses describe sexually harassing situation with which they are familiar.     

"This won't take long…": Interviewing,ethics and diversity

In this paper, the focus is on one particular research project, conducted in the UK, which studied the role of parent groups and organizations in relation to the mainstream education system. The authors seek to analyze and evaluate access to the different "structures of feeling" inhabited by the various respondents involved in the project. Using the project as a lens, a critical case, the relationships between respondents and researchers are problematized, highlighting a number of issues with broad applicability. These include negotiating access, securing informed consent, the debates around symmetry and asymmetry between researcher and respondent, the processes of interviewing, data analysis and dissemination. The authors also comment on the formation and development of relationships with respondents, trying to tease out the differences and similarities of age, race, social class, language, and gender, and to suggest how these disjunctions and connections affected the process of datacollection and analysis. Finally, the article concludes with a brief consideration of the implications for future research design and conduct of the arguments put forward.     

White women speak,black women write: the politics of locution and location in the other researching the not other

This paper scrutinizes a rare methodological moment when I found myself, an unseasoned black woman scholar, researching the lives of three white women. In this reflective process, I make a single point: that the locution of race is limiting if it persists in being a point of struggle for marginalized scholars. In so doing, I distinguish between race as the site of intellectual engagement and race as a point from which to engage in scholarship. I begin with a brief explanation of how I came to take the decision to research three white women and of (dis)locating myself as other to the respondents. I then examine my actions in the context of concerns raised by other black scholars in their engagement with the academic establishment. Finally, I draw on the works of feminist scholars and argue that politicized and strategic understandings of otherness can potentially create challenging means for intellectual activism.     

‘They might as well be Black’: the racialization of Sa’moan high school students

This article explores the processes of racialization imposed on Sa’moan youth through policy and practice in one urban, US school district and at one high school in particular. Specifically, I use the methodological practices of defamiliarization and counter‐storytelling to examine the contradictory practices of racialization and the simultaneously oppressive and transformative potentials these practices catalyze. The analysis of this process is framed by the Critical Race Theory concepts of colorblindness and Whiteness as property, which powerfully illustrate how this racialization both disrupts and reifies reigning local and national racial norms and hierarchies.