Reclaiming Canada Through Its ‘Ancient’ Sport: Lacrosse and the Native Sons of Canada in Late 1920s Alberta

Lacrosse has long been considered Canada's national sport and, beginning in the latter half of the nineteenth century, became tied to the nationalist ambitions that sought to promote a national identity through the ‘creation’ of a uniquely Canadian game. Popular in the decades prior to the turn of the twentieth century, lacrosse in Alberta began to decline after the First World War, becoming a marginal sport played only in the province's larger cities. A brief and unexpected revival of lacrosse occurred in two communities, Edmonton and Lethbridge, in the 1920s championed by a nativist organization, the Native Sons of Canada (NSC). For this group lacrosse represented a natural means to promote their ‘Canada First’ ideology to young male Albertans. In Edmonton, the Native Sons sponsored a senior men's lacrosse team that garnered some local and regional attention, while attempts by the Lethbridge assembly to promote youth lacrosse in 1927 were largely unsuccessful. Despite the continuing affinity between Canadian nationalism and lacrosse, the NSC were ineffective in their efforts to revive interest in the sport. The ‘national’ game did not provide nativists in Alberta the platform they sought to promote their nationalist agenda.     

“I’m a Library Hugger!”: Public Libraries as Valued Community Assets

Public library value is often ascertained by outlining the economic, social, and cultural benefits public libraries generate for the greater community. While researchers have focused on the concepts of social capital, civic engagement, and the role of libraries in promoting democracy, fewer studies have explored the public’s perceptions of libraries in an effort to determine library value. Furthermore, library nonusers are rarely included in these studies. In Alberta, Canada, 1,201 Albertans from across the province, including both urban and rural areas, were asked a series of questions about their perceptions of public libraries and library use. Findings reveal characteristics of library users and nonusers, what services and resources are used most often at public libraries, what value the public places on public libraries, and the role that libraries play in supporting communities.     

加拿大TIE高校师资培训的启发与思考

本文介绍了在国防科技大学接受阿尔伯塔大学师资培训TIE的情况、培训背景、培训内容和培训期间的教学活动,从教学理念、教学水平、教学实践角度总结了体会。对当前教学中采用的课程设计、教学活动进行了反思,并提出了改进措施。     

北阿尔伯塔理工学院ESL听力课堂教学活动特色与借鉴

听力既是一种语言技能,也是感受和吸收语言最重要的手段.在听力教学中,教师不仅应该为学生提供“可理解性输入”,还应该引导学生掌握“可理解性输出”的方法.加拿大北阿尔伯塔理工学院ESL听力课堂教学灵活地运用多种教学理论,构建学生的听力认知模式,快速提高学生的听力水平,听力课堂教学活动独具特色.这些教学特色对于我国桂西北地区大学英语听力教学具有启示和借鉴意义.     

Usages and impacts of the integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in elementary classrooms: case study of Swedish municipality schools

During recent years, many schools have started to implement information and communication technologies (ICTs)-based learning devices (such as laptops, tablets, mobile phones, and active boards) in the classroom settings in order to increase learning outcomes. The aim of this study is to find which activities and outcomes are evident in the usages of computing devices and how those devices aid elementary-level students in their learning activities. The study includes five overt participant observations at some schools in a Swedish municipality including unstructured interviews and explains the findings through activity theory and the Alberta Education Framework for Student Learning . The major activities found were dealing with the (1) educational application assignments, (2) storytelling, (3) report writing and (4) practical interaction assignments. We concluded that ICTs aid students in becoming more concentrated, focus driven, engaged and amused, thus learning becomes more interesting.     

现象学教育学的源与流:从乌特勒支到阿尔伯塔

19世纪,愈演愈烈的欧洲科学危机和人性危机使人们在追求科学知识的狂热中越来越远离生活世界,远离生命体验,文化教育学第一代领军人物狄尔泰以生命哲学反抗这一自然科学化思潮。现象学教育学作为一个学派则诞生于荷兰乌特勒支大学,代表人物兰格威尔德也属于德国文化教育学的第三代。乌特勒支学派利用现象学哲学的思想资源,主要是胡塞尔、海德格尔和梅洛.庞帝,利用现象学的方法,探索教育生活现象。加拿大阿尔伯塔大学的范梅南则对现象学教育学的发展和超越做出了新的贡献,在实践知识论的建构和人文科学方法论的研究方面远超出乌特勒支学派。     

尊重个别差异：加拿大阿尔伯塔省教育管窥

加拿大阿尔伯塔省教育的显著特点之一是对学生个别差异的尊重。在教学组织方面，小学阶段照顾个别差异的手段主要有小班化，增加辅助人员，复式／分组教学，个别辅导，弹性化作业等；中学阶段的举措主要有灵活分级，开设丰富的选修课，为特殊人群设立特殊课程和特殊检测等。在作业方面具体体现为多样、自主、合作，创意空间，个人化加工，个性化小结以及对既有经验的关注等。这些举措受到大量研究成果的支持，其“日常低调”尤其值得我国教育者思考。     

From Alternative Education to The Mainstream: approaches in Canada and Germany to Preparing Learners to Live in a Changing World

There has been a shift in the core idea of schooling in both Germany and Canada: While schools have traditionally focused on cognitive development, they now increasingly focus on ‘engaged learners’ and use integrated settings to support their cognitive, metacognitive and social-emotional development. In line with the theme ‘Learning to Be’, we argue that beliefs about the purpose of schooling are shifting from a narrow, knowledge-based approach to understanding that students need knowledge, skills and attitudes to succeed in their private, public and professional lives as adults. To this end, pedagogical concepts developed in alternative education are increasingly being implemented by mainstream schools. This article examines this significant development in Germany and Canada. We analyse current examples from mainstream schools, highlighting how they use alternative pedagogical concepts to transform the ways in which students come to know themselves as learners. In both countries, this process has been simultaneously bottom-up, driven by early-adopter schools, and top-down, driven by public awards or broad public initiatives.     

Lasting impacts of an Aboriginal youth leadership retreat: a case study of Alberta’s Future Leaders Program

In this paper, we use a postcolonial lens to analyze the impacts of Aboriginal youth’s participation in Alberta’s Future Leaders Program’s youth leadership retreat. While the retreat appeared to have positive lasting impacts on many of the participants, it seemed to have the greatest impact on those who already displayed Eurocentric leadership skills; it had little effect on those who did not display these skills prior to retreat participation and it focused on North American, Eurocentric approaches to leadership. By becoming more culturally relevant, we argue that the retreat could have broader impacts on a greater number of Aboriginal youth.     

“You don’t sound black” African immigrant youth experiences of discrimination in the labor market in Calgary

This paper aims to understand the factors promoting racial microaggression from the perspective of first-generation Black African immigrant youth in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Most of the literature on Blacks and other visible minorities [1] in Canada is centered on integration challenges, which have been identified in terms of socioeconomic and political marginalization. Within the context of immigrant challenges of navigating the job market, one realizes that many institutionalized factors influence access to opportunities. However, there is little research on immigrant youth, notably Black youth, and their experiences of racial microaggressions in Canadian society. This study fills this gap by offering an understanding of the experiences of microaggressions among Black African youth in Calgary. This city is arguably becoming increasingly diverse with the influx of immigrants from different countries and other Canadian provinces. Drawing on qualitative research methods (40 semistructured interviews with Ghanaian and Sudanese youth immigrants, 20 females and 20 males between the ages of 18 and 30 years), we incorporate meaningful insights from African immigrant youth on racial drivers of microaggressions. The analysis is grounded in critical race theory (CRT). Findings indicate that the youth face marginalization in the labor market during the hiring process (linguistic discrimination), discrimination at the workplace, and exclusion because their names are exploited as identity markers. Overall, policies advocating for an inclusive society need to be strengthened to address these inequalities that are ingrained in Canadian cities. [1] In this study, a visible minority is defined by the Government of Canada as ‘persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour’ (Statistics Canada, 2015).