The Validity of Comparative Educational Studies

What are the conditions that will allow for appropriate comparisons among groups" Should the concept of comparative validity be added to the lexicon of the psychometrician"     

Queering communication studies: a Journal of Applied Communication Research forum

ABSTRACT

Genders and sexualities continue to remain underexplored in the field of communication studies and the academy in general. This essay examines possibilities for incorporating queer perspectives into communication studies. At the invitation of the Journal of Applied Communication Research editor, 9 communication scholars who use queer theory or queer perspectives in their own work responded to a series of questions addressing how queer theory and perspectives can be used in the discipline, both by those who are new to queer theorizing and those who are looking to expand their knowledge and practices. The answers to these questions provide an understanding of what queer theory is and its relationship with LGBT studies; allow practical considerations for incorporating queer perspectives into communication scholarship in multiple methodological areas; offer considerations for welcoming queer voices in the classroom, the communication discipline, and the larger academy; and indicate several scholarly resources for those who want to learn more about queer theory and LGBT studies.     

Mind the Gap: Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior?

Numerous theoretical frameworks have been developed to explain the gap between the possession of environmental knowledge and environmental awareness, and displaying pro-environmental behavior. Although many hundreds of studies have been undertaken, no definitive explanation has yet been found. Our article describes a few of the most influential and commonly used analytical frameworks: early US linear progression models; altruism, empathy and prosocial behavior models; and finally, sociological models. All of the models we discuss (and many of the ones we do not such as economic models, psychological models that look at behavior in general, social marketing models and that have become known as deliberative and inclusionary processes or procedures (DIPS)) have some validity in certain circumstances. This indicates that the question of what shapes pro-environmental behavior is such a complex one that it cannot be visualized through one single framework or diagram. We then analyze the factors that have been found to have some influence, positive or negative, on pro-environmental behavior such as demographic factors, external factors (e.g. institutional, economic, social and cultural) and internal factors (e.g. motivation, pro-environmental knowledge, awareness, values, attitudes, emotion, locus of control, responsibilities and priorities). Although we point out that developing a model that tries to incorporate all factors might neither be feasible nor useful, we feel that it can help illuminate this complex field. Accordingly, we propose our own model based on the work of Fliegenschnee and Schelakovsky (1998) who were influenced by Fietkau and Kessel (1981).     

#RhetoricSoWhite and US centered: Reflections on challenges and opportunities

In this essay, I interrogate the normalized characteristics of whiteness embedded in the disciplinary norms and forms of knowledge production in the field of Rhetorical Studies. I attend to the normative ways the exclusion of the knowledge(s) and experiences of non-White, non-Western, non-US people reproduces systemic erasure and Euro-American dominant ways of thinking about rhetoric stepped in coloniality and whiteness. I present what has been thoroughly theorized by Feminist, Queer, Trans*, Chicana, Latina/x, Third World, Indigenous, and Black rhetorical scholars that mere “inclusion” and “tolerance” of difference with regards to race, class, gender, ability, sexuality and nationality cannot fully address the violence of white capitalist heteropatriarchy in academia. I propose that rhetorical scholars should pay careful attention to voice and relationality in our scholarly works in order to address the concealments of coloniality and difference in our theorizing and production of knowledge.     

Media and criticism in China: The case of the “cultural revolution”

This paper analyzes the role of the media in China during the cultural revolution 1966–1976. In particular, the authors examine the two elements that contributed to the ease with which the “Gang of Four” subverted the media to their own political ends. They contend that the media's history and culture were the two principal elements which allowed the “Gang of Four” to usurp both media and state power. Criticism represented a special cultural genre that established the legitimacy of one group to remove another from power. The authors demonstrate the inherent possibility of usurpation of the media when truth is dominated by personality.     

Glocalized whiteness: Sustaining and reproducing whiteness through “skin toning” in post-colonial Ghana

This research explores the changing discourse surrounding skin lightening currently referred to as “skin toning” in sub-Saharan Africa. This study problematizes the “skin toning” discourse which deceitfully implies that dark-skinned individuals can “slightly lighten” their skin with fewer social and physical consequences. Through critical discourse analysis of an interview with a former Ghanaian beauty queen (Nasara) on YouTube, it became evident that she utilized specific neoliberal ideologies to discursively frame “skin bleaching.” The concurrent interpretations of skin toning speak to the spaces where gender, race, class, and social status intersect to create particular subjectivities and produce particular discourses at specific times.     

General Mass Communications

Edward Jay Whetmore's Mediamerica: Form, Content, and Consequence of Mass Communication (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, l979—price not given, paper)

Mary B. Cassata and Molefi K. Asante's Mass Communication: Principles and Practices (New York: Macmillan, 1979—price not given, paper)

James M. Curtis' Culture as Polyphony: An Essay on the Nature of Paradigms (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1978—$15.00)

Colin Cherry's On Human Communication (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1978—$17.50)

James E. Fletcher and Stuart H. Surlin's Mass Communication Instruction in the Secondary School (ERIC Speech Module, SCA, Suite 1001, 5205 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, Va. 22041 —$5.50, paper)

Information Market Place 1978-79—An International Directory of Information Products and Services (New York: R.R. Bowker, 1978—$21.50, paper)     

Teaching Urban Nature at Key Stage 2 in England: looking at what is there,not at what ecologists say should be there

In this paper it is argued that teachers in England at Key Stage 2 (KS2), i.e. teachers of pupils of 7‐11‐years‐old, have been influenced by Urban Wildlife Groups (UWGs), amongst others, in relation to what they teach in urban nature. The research presented shows that teachers have selected ideas from a set of traditional ecological values, theories and practices, originally developed for rural, not urban environments. The distinction between ‘native’ and ‘alien’ plant species and the utility of each to wildlife is a key yet contested concept, which can have pejorative and racist overtones. Some teachers may not be aware of this. From this research platform, an alternative contextual and theoretical approach is presented using the entity of the Multicultural City Ecosystem and the process of multicultural ecology. It provides a framework for thought and practical reflection amongst education officers in UWGs, curriculum planners and teachers. It accepts both historical and contemporary human induced plant movements as inevitable in a trading nation, especially to our ports and cities. In so doing, it provides curriculum planners and teachers with an approach to urban nature at KS2 which is based upon an analysis of real events, historical (and prehistoric), contemporary and future. In essence, its focus is on what is there and why it is there, not on mythological and arcadian notions ie what urban ecologists say should be there.