980 research outputs found
Sort by
Sexual crime and prevention
No full textThis book offers original contributions to current books available on the prevention of sexual crime and initiatives for non offending paedophile populations through engaging with current literature (delivered through a systematic review of the literature to date, together with efforts to access unpublished literature and data by key authors in the field) and also suggests potential new directions for researchers and practitioners
Creativity in an early years foundation stage setting
No full textThis chapter considers philosophical views concerning creativity and how these impact on an early years foundation stage (EYFS) setting. It will explain how creativity forms a foundation for practice throughout learning and teaching and how adults and children work to promote this perspective
Professionalizing the “resilience” sector in the Pacific Islands Region: Formal education for capacity building
No full textIncreasingly practitioners and policy makers working across the globe are recognising the importance of bringing together disaster risk management (DRM) and climate change adaptation (CCA). This broader Pacific understanding of climate change as a slow-acting disaster has been adopted by the European Union Pacific Technical Vocational Education and Training on Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Adaptation Project (EU PacTVET) project in introducing innovative initiatives to address wide ranging needs.
A key barrier to improving national resilience to disaster risk and climate change impacts has been identified as a lack of capacity and expertise at all levels resulting from the absence of sustainable accredited and quality assured formal training programmes in the DRM and CCA sectors.
A key issue is providing an accreditation and quality assurance mechanism for formal training shared across the region through the national delivery of regionally quality assured qualifications in Resilience (CCA and DRM).
TVET training modules and tools developed under the EU PacTVET project will be reviewed by industry and the scientific community through the Pacific Regional Federation of Resilience Practitioners. This professional association alongside the development of regional qualifications is ground breaking and providing global leadership and will ensure the sustainability of the project’s outcomes
Jerome K. Jerome, Masculinity and the Parody of Urban Escape: ‘Sunday-School Slops’
No full textThis article looks at Jerome K. Jerome’s firs three novels: Three Men in a Boat, Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891) and Novel Notes (1893). It argues that together they work as a critique of concerns of domestic Victorian masculine development, acting a parodies of colonial and domestic imperial narratives. Using the Three Men’s river journey as a starting point, and referencing the works of Henry Morton Stanley, all three novels are shown to mimic and parody late-Victorian adventure narratives. However, the mock-imperial journeys that Jerome’s protagonists take part in also act as a comment on the growing number of social programmes which aimed to get British youths out of the city for the good of their health, and for the health of the nation. It concludes that these comic novels are concerned with late-Victorian conceptions of heroism and domestic manliness, and reveals such social programmes as the Boys’ Brigade to themselves be vulnerable parodies of adventure narratives, the ideals of which Jerome critiques and undermine. These three novels are shown to function as a parodic lens, subjecting contemporary ideas of masculinity and nation to comic critical enquiry and interrogation, and arguing for their own version of unheroic middle-class masculinity
Perspectives on learning: a changing environment
No full textThe chapter considers perspectives on learning and how these can influence what is taught and how it is delivered. The views of key theorists, namely Rousseau, Piaget, Vygotsky, Skinner and Bruner, will be discussed, along with how they impact upon approaches used. Different learning environments will be explored along with a possible rationale concerning why they should be different. The effect of the international view of early years learning will be considered in terms of sharing ideas and converging practice through placing specific elements in different and changing contexts
Science disproves the biblical account of creation : exploring the predictors of perceived conflict between science and religion among 13 to 15 year-old students in the UK
No full textThis study drew on data provided by 11,809 13 to 15 year-old students drawn from the four nations of the United Kingdom to explore the level of agreement with the view that science disproves the biblical account of creation, and to explore the power of five sets of variables to predict individual differences in responses to that opinion. The five sets of variables were personal factors, psychological factors, religious factors, attitudinal factors (including scientific fundamentalism, understood as an exaggerated, uncritical, and unqualified belief in the inerrancy of science), and theological factors (distinguishing between differing implied theologies of religion). Blockwise multiple regression demonstrated that personal, psychological, religious, and theological factors all held significant power, but that the greatest variance was explained by the attitudinal variables. When the five sets of variables were assessed within the model, 25% of the variance was accounted for. Greater incompatibility between science and religion was associated with scientific fundamentalism (ß = .37, p < .001), with anti-religious attitude (ß = .16, p < .001), and with atheism (ß = .07, p < .001). These findings suggest that young people who believe in science in an unqualified way are more distrustful of religion
Authoring the 'author of my being' in Memoirs of Doctor Burney
No full textThe formative influence on Frances Burney’s work of the artistic-professional context of her upbringing has only recently begun to be recognised. As I argue elsewhere, early experiences in her father’s musical household informed Burney’s construction of a literary identity that balanced her professionally specialised labour with an aesthetic of domestic privacy. In Memoirs of Doctor Burney, Burney apparently collapses this separation by using her professionally specialised abilities in combination with her own intimate, domestic experience to construct a public version of her father, Charles Burney, as a polite, sociable man-of-letters rather than a musical professional. In Memoirs, Burney uses biography as a vehicle for the establishment of her own literary authority. In rewriting her father from artisanal musician to man-of-letters, she establishes an artistic-professional genealogy in which to site her own literary genius. Most significantly, Burney enacts final creative authority over her father, re-casting inheritance as evolution. Burney simultaneously invokes and obscures her family history in a biography of her father that is indistinguishable from the narrative of her own creative development
Meditation-Induced Near-Death Experiences: A Three-Year Longitudinal Study
No full textNear-death experiences (NDEs) are life transformational events that are increasingly being subjected to empirical research. However, to date, no study has investigated the phenomenon of a meditation-induced near-death experience (MI-NDE) that is referred to in ancient Buddhist texts. Given that some advanced Buddhist meditators can induce NDEs at a pre-planned point in time, the MI-NDE may make NDEs more empirically accessible and thus advance understanding into the psychology of death-related processes. The present study recruited twelve advanced Buddhist meditators and compared the MI-NDE against two other meditation practices (i.e., that acted as control conditions) in the same participant group. Changes in the content and profundity of the MI-NDE were assessed longitudinally over a three-year period. Findings demonstrated that compared to the control conditions, the MI-NDE prompted significantly greater pre-post increases in NDE profundity, mystical experiences, and non-attachment. Furthermore, participants demonstrated significant increases in NDE profundity across the three-year study period. Findings from an embedded qualitative analysis (using grounded theory) demonstrated that participants (i) were consciously aware of experiencing NDEs, (ii) retained volitional control over the content and duration of NDEs, and (iii) elicited a rich array of non-worldly encounters and spiritual experiences. In addition to providing corroborating evidence in terms of the content of a “regular” (i.e., non-meditation-induced) NDE, novel NDE features identified in the present study indicate that there exist unexplored and/or poorly understood dimensions to NDEs. Furthermore, the study indicates that it would be feasible – including ethically feasible – for future research to recruit advanced meditators in order to assess real-time changes in neurological activity during NDEs
'Insiderness' in my Pilot Study Research
No full textI am in the second year of my EdD and have just completed my pilot study. My research aims to illuminate and interrogate the stories mothers who are also Primary and Foundation Stage teachers tell about their experiences of this special situation of ‘teacher-motherhood’. My pilot study involved one participant, Sian (pseudonym) in one unstructured, life story interview (Goodson, 2013). The methodological approach for this pilot and the main study is a postmodern feminist narrative approach. The pilot study findings suggest that Sian’s story of teacher motherhood describes her as being ultimately responsibility for all of the children she cares for, including her own child, at all times. A major feature of my thinking (and worrying) about the pilot study has been the idea of insider research; what this means and what implications there are for the validity of data if insider research is carried out (Drake, 2010). In this article, I will be considering the insiderness of the research relationship between Sian and I. It has been a recurring theme in my research journal and has touched every aspect of the pilot study project. The issues I faced as an insider researcher are also explored and the definition and need to demarcate research relationships are questioned. It is not my intention to cover the pilot study in detail, but some context will be given for clarity