Fateful aspects of aspiration among graduates in New York and Los Angeles

ABSTRACT

This article presents ethnographic research on the aspirations of graduates from a private university in New York City, some of whom move to Los Angeles. Findings depict financial and family pressures exerting a governing force upon the graduates’ futures, often beyond their control. Focusing on the narratives of four individuals, we introduce the language of fate as a means of conceptualising the potential repercussions of aspiration and Higher Education. The premise of both is an increased determinacy over one’s future, yet in the high-stakes U.S. context here examined, this financial investment and articulation of family hope may generate fated (seemingly inescapable) and/or fateful (ominous) outcomes. The dynamic of ‘cruel optimism’ illustrates some of the paradoxical consequences of Higher Education, whereby people may be punished by their aspirations. We discuss what factors affect differing outlooks on the future and imply alternative dimensions to adversity beyond the remit of ‘inequality’.     

主题传承与形式跨越——中国都市言情剧经典文本分析

近十年来,都市言情剧的创作呈现出样式繁多、异彩纷呈的特点,无论主题内容的更替还是艺术风格的演进,都表现出较为清晰的阶段性和传承性特征。本文分别以琼瑶言情剧、电视剧《渴望》和《过把瘾》作为都市言情剧发展的三个阶段的典型文本,逐一分析它们对都市言情剧发展的阶段性意义和整体性影响,同时简要总结近期都市言情剧创作的风格趋向。     

电影市场对左翼电影类型转换和品质提升的作用——以《壮志凌云》为例

<壮志凌云>最大程度地剥离了左翼电影元素与左翼思想根源之间的产权关系.成功地借用国防电影的外壳转型上市,进而为不同党派、阶层和受众群体,提供了一个低于左翼电影版本的接入端口.新华影业公司顺应时代潮流,在市场演进中取代了联华影业公司的领袖地位.     

Attitudinal and motivational variables related to mathematics achievement in Jordan: findings from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of student-related variables on achievement in mathematics. The sample consisted of 3736 13-year-old Jordanian 8th-graders who participated in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The participants completed a student questionnaire and participated in the mathematics test. Of the matrix of affective variables reported to lead to the variation in mathematics achievement were educational aspiration, attitude, success attribution, confidence in ability and perception of importance of mathematics. A structural equation model was used to estimate and test the hypothesized relationships of the factors with achievement in mathematics. Results from this study indicate that four attitudinal and motivational variables had strong positive total and direct effects; and two variables had negative total and direct effects on mathematics achievement. Recommendations for future research were suggested.     

The trouble with doctoral aspiration now

This article attends to the affective-political dimensions of doctoral aspiration. It considers why doctoral students continue to hope for an ‘academic good life’ in spite of the depressed and precarious features of the academic present. The article emerges from 2013 research with ten doctoral students in the Arts and Social Sciences, at a research-intensive university in Aotearoa New Zealand, and accomplishes two primary objectives. Firstly, it contributes to scholarship that considers how visual methodologies might inform accounts of contemporary doctoral education. And secondly, it extends queer theorizing of affect in higher education studies, with the goal of understanding how doctoral aspiration might be reimagined through an engagement with Lauren Berlant’s ‘Cruel Optimism’ (2011). I propose that Berlant’s analytic framework helps to explain why students retain attachments to even problematic objects, like PhDs. I conclude the article by tarrying with the question of what to do about doctoral aspiration now.     

Technical boys and creative girls: the career aspirations of digitally skilled youths

Digital technology is increasingly central to our lives, particularly among young people. However, there remains a concern from government and businesses of a digital skills gap because many youths, especially girls, tend to be consumers rather than creators of technology. Drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews with digitally skilled teenagers (aged 13–19), this article investigates their digital career aspirations and examines how identities and discourses of gender can interact with the type of digital careers that are of interest to these youths. While it was found that digitally skilled young people still articulate traditional gendered discourses of digital competence, especially around technical abilities, the growing importance of creativity as a career pathway into digital technology is highlighted. Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to the new computing curriculum in England, which prioritises technical computing skills, and the discontinuation of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), which facilitates a broader usage of software and digital productivity.     

“不忘初心、牢记使命”融入党员继续教育的四维理路

"不忘初心、牢记使命"是推动全党更加自觉地为实现新时代党的历史使命不懈奋斗的重要内容。中国共产党人的初心和使命就是为中国人民谋幸福,为中华民族谋复兴。"不忘初心、牢记使命"融入党员继续教育具有四维理路,它具体表现为中国共产党人坚持"不忘初心、牢记使命"蕴含思想之需,中国共产党人坚持"不忘初心、牢记使命"具有前车之鉴,中国共产党人坚持"不忘初心、牢记使命"具备力量之源,中国共产党人坚持"不忘初心、牢记使命"提升自身素质需要制定有效之策。     

Aspiration paradoxes: working-class student conceptions of power in ‘engines of social mobility’

This paper examines the relationship between ‘aspiration’ and identity as rendered within discourses of power. Focusing on the deeply ingrained values of a group of 23 white working-class boys from South London (aged 14–16), the research critically considers the conception of power within a neoliberal era which produces both new subjectivities and new counter-narratives. The research examines a group of boys who fully acknowledge that post-compulsory education would enhance their power in society but who simultaneously articulated how accruing power made them feel uncomfortable. There exists a tension between the working-class values inculcated in the community and the neoliberal prerogatives of the school; as a result, their shared habitus engages in a continual process of reconciling competing and contrasting conceptions of what it is to be powerful.     

谈谈《就业指导》课中立志教育的教与学

要把立志教育放在《就业指导》课第一课，安排在新生入学教育中进行。要从能够打动大学生心理和情感的问题切入，充满激情地讲清楚为什么要立志、如何立大志以及能力、自信、道德与成功的关系问题。这样就能够达到预期的教学要求，帮助学生树立起远大理想和人生崇高目标。     

浅谈小学英语教学中的语感培养

笔者从英语教学的实际出发,分析、探讨了语感与小学英语教学的关系,及双方相辅相成的作用,提出了在小学英语教学中培养英语语感的几种方法。