Time's up. Or is it? Journalists’ Perceptions of Sexual Violence and Newsroom Changes after #MeTooIndia

ABSTRACT

The #MeToo movement, which engulfed much of India's news and entertainment industry in October 2018, was projected by many as a watershed moment for Indian journalism. Driven largely through social media activism, it created significant public discourse and outcry, leading to the “outing” and resignation of many journalists. This paper explores the perception of #MeTooIndia in regional and national newsrooms. Drawing on Manuel Castells's ideas of networked social movement, we consider the origins of #MeTooIndia, including its mediation on private and social networks. We then draw on 257 semi-structured interviews with journalists working in 14 languages across India to explore the “cause” of the campaign—the prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual violence in workspaces—before turning our attention to the impact, or potential for impact, that journalists saw in it. We find most journalists felt the movement was “good”, but did not think it influenced their environment or newswork in any meaningful manner. Regional journalists expressed more pessimism about the #MeTooIndia, men more so than women.     

Speedometry: A vehicle for promoting interest and engagement through integrated STEM instruction

ABSTRACT

The curriculum, Hot Wheels Speedometry (Mattel, El Segundo, CA, USA), was designed to align with the Next Generation Science Standards for science and the Common Core State Standards for mathematics. Our objective was to develop, implement, and evaluate the impact of this integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum on students' knowledge, interest, and engagement. The authors conducted the study in a district where students were predominantly from communities under-represented in STEM fields. The findings indicate that student individual interest developed. Furthermore, students demonstrated affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement along their progression of interest development. The study shows promise for the development of interest and engagement in under-represented groups through the use of an integrated STEM curriculum.     

Making learning meaningful: facilitating interest development and transfer in at-risk college students

The Teaching for Transformative Experience in Science (TTES) model has shown to be a useful tool to generate learning and engagement in science. We investigated the effectiveness of TTES for facilitating transformative experience (TE), learning, the development of topic interest and transfer of course concepts to other courses employing a quasi-experimental design. Our goal was to determine the effectiveness of TTES compared to an alternative teaching method in a course designed for academically at-risk undergraduate students. Specifically, we explored the impact of TTES for teaching about motivation in a college success course. The results showed that TTES generated TE outside of the biological sciences, increased learning, developed student interest and facilitated self-reported transfer to other courses. The findings have important implications for facilitating learning and motivation in academically at-risk college students, which may subsequently impact college student retention and academic success.