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Displaying intimate friendships: Chinese children’s practices of friendships at school
No full textThrough an intensive ethnographic fieldwork, this project explores rural Chinese children’s understandings and experiences of peer friendships at school. When talking about ‘friend’ and ‘friendship’, children tended to brag that they were friends with many peers, but at the same time to particularly highlight a very small number of peers as the most intimate friends, in other words, their ‘best friends’. Inspired by Finch’s concept of ‘display’, this article explores how these Chinese children used different approaches to highlight their intimate friends’ particularity in intimate friendship displays at school. This article, first, unpacks three commonly used approaches in these children’s displays of intimate friendships: 1) building up an exclusionary ‘intimate friends only’ policy; 2) imparting to certain objects, actions and language sentimental and specific meanings as ‘tokens’ of their friendship; and 3) giving ‘priority’ to intimate friends. Second, it discusses the importance of audiences and cooperation between actors in intimate friendship displays
The dance and the tune: a storied exploration of the teaching of stories
Get PDFThis paper tells a story of one student teacher’s experiences as she considers the choice of fiction texts studied by young secondary learners of English, and how those texts are taught.
Based on a series of interviews carried out in the South-West of England and Wales, the narrative provides a perspective on the limitations of current curricula offered by schools that feel bound by a restrictive assessment and inspection regime. It concludes that such curricula can stifle effective teaching and learning, and so teacher educators have a duty to provide new entrants to the profession with a range of perspectives, opportunities and experiences. Through so doing, we promote the fictionalisation of data as a valid, robust approach to educational research
Global social work working conditions and wellbeing
Get PDFThis research explores the working conditions of social workers around the globe, using a mixed-methods approach. A survey of working conditions and wellbeing was distributed to social workers via email and social media. Results subsequently informed the interview schedule for individual semi-structured interviews with social work leaders from across the world. Results confirm that social workers have among the most difficult working conditions of all equivalent professions, with detrimental effects on services for individuals and communities due to burnout and retention. Suggested solutions include legal recognition of the social work profession, improved management support and better pay and conditions
From 'The One' to 'John Wick': Keanu Reeves and the action genre
Get PDFAlthough there are a number of hybrid tropes and cross-over conventions that relate to contemporary action cinema, broken down to its most rudimentary components, the genre places its cinematic hero in scenes of ritualised violence or conflict, with the intent of showcasing both athletic mastery and aesthetically pleasing physiques for interested and invested audiences. In as much as it is difficult to define the contemporary genre, the role of the action hero is clear in all permutations. Indeed, there is little question or query about who or what makes for a popular and long-standing action star. After all, names such as Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Statham have become inextricably linked to the genre in question. While there is much to consider here in relation to the muscles and power of these hard-bodied heroes in sweaty vests or form fitting t-shirts, there is another iteration of masculinity, a different and more agile physique, a more refined sartorial code, that has quietly overtaken these macho figures as the site of contemporary action, and that figure is Keanu Reeves. With this in mind, this chapter will examine the ways in which popular media reviewers foreground star image, acting, movement, the body and performance in order to position Reeves as an action star removed from the physical excesses of bulkier, slower and less agile men who continue to perform in the genre around him
'In on the outside': the narratives of creative writing practitioners working in prisons
Get PDFThe presence of the creative arts has a long history in prisons in England
and Wales. During the second half of the 20th century the penal voluntary
sector took an increasing role in the provision of authorised arts programmes
in prisons, often delivered by professional creative practitioners. However, as
the presence of these practitioners has increased, their voices have become
less heard. The advent of evaluation research, aimed at evidencing the links
between prisoner participation in the arts and positive personal change has
often failed to capture the authentic voices of these practitioners, despite
their indispensable contribution to the programmes delivered. There is a
clear methodological split whereby practitioners are asked about their jobs,
prisoners about their lives. This lack of focus on the practitioners’ biography
seems particularly negligent at a time when desistance theories, particularly
an interest in redemption narratives (Maruna, 2001), are being accepted into
criminal justice policy. This is nowhere more pertinent than in a consideration
of the narratives of creative writing practitioners, whose deliberately
composed life stories may tell us a great deal about these practitioners’
possible significance in the custodial environment, and the value of the
narratives they facilitate in their work with prisoners.
This thesis explores the narrative construction of 19 creative writing
practitioners’ intentions, motivations and journeys into work in prison, using
an arts-based methodology combined with rigorous narratological analysis.
The study found three types of narrative: the suffering artist, the (inadvertent)
healer and the (human) revolutionary. None of which identified work in prison
as an overarching goal. In most cases, prison was initially approached as a
means to end. Some unexpected overlaps were found between the stories of
practitioners and the literature on prisoner experience and there was a clear
sense of ‘outsider’ (Becker, 1963) status expressed by the majority of
practitioners. This suggests a different type of penal voluntary sector activity,
grounded in an ethos of mutual aid rather than class-based benevolence, at
work within the criminal justice system
Facilitating narrative agency in experiential theatre
Get PDFThis essay discusses the difference between agency of engagement, which is found in most experiential performance as the opportunity for the audience to choose their own journey, and narrative agency, as the ability to impact on (part of) the performance process, content, or outcome. It will explore the different ways in which narrative agency can be conducted for participants (from direct choices to creative agency), with a discussion of different facilitation approaches. Agency becomes meaningful for participants when they experience it – which is something artists and performers have limited control over. The essay will discuss this challenge and provide strategies to increase the possibility that participants will experience agency. It concludes with a practical exercise and questions for critical reflection for makers or performers – such as testing out any participatory strategy with audiences during development and carefully considering the reasons for using participation to ensure a meaningful audience experience
“No pain, no gain”: the impact of autonomous sensory meridian response on pain perception
Get PDFAutonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a phenomenon characterised by a static-like tingling sensation spreading from the scalp and neck to the periphery in response to a variety of audio, visual, and tactile triggers resulting in a highly relaxed state and boosted positive affect. The limited literature on this phenomenon points to a potential of ASMR to alleviate pain. Emerging evidence also suggests that ASMR may be linked to increased sensory sensitivity more broadly. This study aimed to objectively address these claims by administering an algometer (measure of pain tolerance), and a visual analog scale (VAS) (measure of subjective pain sensitivity) to ASMR experiencers and controls at baseline, following an ASMR video, and a control video. Findings indicate that ASMR experiencers have a higher pain sensitivity than controls; however, there was no difference between the two groups in terms of pain tolerance. In addition, any potential analgesic properties associated with experiencing ASMR may reflect protective properties of ASMR buffering against the increased pain sensitivity among ASMR experiencers relative to controls
Using techniques of neutralisation to maintain contact; the experiences of loved ones supporting remand prisoners
Get PDFThis article proposes that loved ones supporting prisoners with experience of remand in England and Wales may use Sykes & Matza's (1957) ‘techniques of neutralization’ by proxy. Adopting neutralisations may enable those in prison to be viewed not as those who have harmed, or bad people, but as those who themselves have been harmed. Potential benefits of these techniques are twofold: they help to reject stigma; and explain and enable continued contact. This framework may be a useful basis for work exploring familial contact and support for those affected by imprisonment
Listening strategies and strategy assistance: teacher beliefs and practices in a Syrian ELT context
No full textThis study is an exploration of the beliefs and practices regarding listening strategy assistance of five EFL teachers in a Syrian language school. The study aims to bridge a gap in the literature about teacher beliefs and language learning strategies, which to date contains very few studies about teacher beliefs about listening instruction and particularly listening strategy assistance, and none of which is in the Syrian context to the best of my knowledge.
For a contextual exploration of teachers' beliefs and practices, a case study approach was used. Five EFL teachers from one language school were recruited after being purposely chosen based on their varying levels of experience and expertise. Initial interviews, classroom audio-recordings and stimulated-recall interviews were the methods of data collection, and data were collected online via Skype, Google Mail, and Google Drive. The findings of the study show that despite being expected to provide strategy assistance in their classes, the teachers exhibited an overall lack of content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge about language learning strategies (LLSs), listening strategies (LSs), and listening strategy assistance (LSA) as they were provided no training to perform LSA, which had an impact on both their belief statements and their classroom practice. However, the study also revealed that despite their lack of conscious explicit knowledge about their own practices, the teachers did embed some implicit LS practice in their classes, albeit without conscious knowledge about the rationale behind the activities that promoted the use of these strategies. The study also investigated teachers' beliefs about various aspects of LSA and revealed that on the whole the teachers exhibited positive beliefs towards the teachability of LSs, considered LSA useful and beneficial in many respects, and preferred implicit to explicit LSA in the GE class. The study also uncovered other complex, intertwined, and at times contradictory set of beliefs about different aspects of LSA that the teachers had. In addition, it revealed how these beliefs they held, along with their practice, were influenced and shaped by their level of knowledge of LSA, primary beliefs they held about teaching, learners, and the skill of listening, and contextual factors
Down a rabbit hole: burrowing behaviour and larger home ranges are related to larger brains in leporids
Get PDFStudies on the evolution of brain size variation usually focus on large clades encompassing broad phylogenetic groups. This risks introducing ‘noise’ in the results, often obscuring effects that might be detected in less inclusive clades. Here, we focus on a sample of endocranial volumes (endocasts) of 18 species of rabbits and hares (Lagomorpha: Leporidae), which are a discrete radiation of mammals with a suitably large range of body sizes. Using 60 individuals, we test five popular hypotheses on brain size and olfactory bulb evolution in mammals. We also address the pervasive issue of missing data, using multiple phylogenetic imputations as to conserve the full sample size for all analyses. Our analyses show that home range and burrowing behaviour are the only predictors of leporid brain size variation. Litter size, which is one of the most widely reported constraints on brain size, was unexpectedly not associated with brain size. However, a constraining effect may be masked by a strong association of litter size with temperature seasonality, warranting further study. Lastly, we show that unreasonable estimations of phylogenetic signal (Pagel’s lamba) warrant additional caution when using small sample sizes, such as ours, in comparative studies