A Du Boisian Approach: How Does Double Consciousness Manifest in the Experiences of Black Males in an Urban Teacher Preparation Program

The Black experience is complex; often portrayed as a double consciousness or a tension between two warring ideas that penetrate the soul. Such duplicity can leave Black people perplexed regarding how to navigate in a White world with one dark body. This study explored the experiences of Black males in an urban teacher preparation program as they negotiated their double consciousness in order to understand how race and gender impact teaching and learning in urban schools. Four case studies were conducted representing self-identified Black male graduates who were part of a cohort of pre-service teachers. Data generated from coursework were used as a heuristic for introspective analysis by each participant and complemented by semi-structured interviews. The study illustrates the complex factors for Black males developing as culturally relevant responsive teachers and provides voice to the challenges Black males face while navigating in a capitalistic system that has historically denied equitable access. The research found that prior experiences with double consciousness perpetuate Black males’ oppression and forces them to see their perceived selves through their White counterparts’ and supervisors’ eyes. Double consciousness has a twoness that causes distrustfulness of those that are perceived to be oppressive while also inspires individuals to ‘be the best’. Cohort communities are a great way to facilitate a community of learners but if not managed carefully can lead to racial and ethnic separation. After graduating from the teacher preparation program, the Black males did not remain consistent with their cultural responsiveness but were charged to use the teaching profession as a means to create positive change for others. Findings from this study hold promise for helping teacher education programs develop experiences for Black males that capture and cultivate the unique embodiment of two clashing identities—American and Black

Playing to win or trying your best: Media representations of national anxieties over the role of sport participation during the 2002 commonwealth games.

In the last few years, growing concern has emerged in New Zealand sport about the shift towards a more commercial or professionalised model of sport and away from a mass participation-based model. In the midst of a relatively intense period of debate and concern over this change in direction, the 2002 Commonwealth Games took place in Manchester, England. In this article, we analyse how media coverage of the Games articulated with the broader public debate over the direction of New Zealand sport. Grounded in the assumption that the media both reflects and impacts on public understandings of cultural issues, we believe this analysis of coverage of the Games reveals a profound ambivalence over a more profess ionalised model of sport and points to an unwillingness to give up traditional values of sports participation in order to win. We explore how this debate articulates with current tensions in the realm of Physical Education and suggest that health and physical educators have an important role to play in challenging current pressures towards a win-at-all-costs approach to sport

On the transferability of three water models developed by adaptive force matching

Water is perhaps the most simulated liquid. Recently three water models have been developed following the adaptive force matching (AFM) method that provides excellent predictions of water properties with only electronic structure information as a reference. Compared to many other electronic structure based force fields that rely on fairly sophisticated energy expressions, the AFM water models use point-charge based energy expressions that are supported by most popular molecular dynamics packages. An outstanding question regarding simple force fields is whether such force fields provide reasonable transferability outside of their conditions of parameterization. A survey of three AFM water models, B3LYPD-4F, BLYPSP-4F, and WAIL are provided for simulations under conditions ranging from the melting point up to the critical point. By including ice-Ih configurations in the training set, the WAIL potential predicts the melting temperate, TM, of ice-Ih correctly. Without training for ice, BLYPSP-4F underestimates TM by about 15 K. Interestingly, the B3LYPD-4F model gives a TM 14 K too high. The overestimation of TM by B3LYPD-4F mostly likely reflects a deficiency of the B3LYP reference. The BLYPSP-4F model gives the best estimate of the boiling temperature TB and is arguably the best potential for simulating water in the temperature range from TM to TB. None of the three AFM potentials provides a good description of the critical point. Although the B3LYPD-4F model gives the correct critical temperature TC and critical density, there are good reasons to believe the agreement is reached fortuitously. Links to Gromacs input files for the three water models are provided at the end of the paper.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figure

Reappraising personal values in cancer: Meaning-in-life adaptation, meaningfulness, and quality of life

Objective This study explores the reappraisal of personal values among people with cancer post-diagnosis and its connections to meaningfulness, encompassing personal meaning and sense of meaning, and various dimensions of quality of life. Methods A total of 144 patients with diverse cancer types and a control group comprising 158 healthy adults with similar demographic characteristics completed the Valued Living Questionnaire-Perceived Change, the Personal Meaning Profile-Brief, the Portrait Values Questionnaire, and the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-Being. Results Cancer patients displayed a substantial values reappraisal compared to healthy adults. They reported an increased significance of social areas and self-transcendental values, including close relationships (family, partner, and friends), spirituality, citizenship, and universalism, as well as an increased importance of self-care and self in general. Conversely, cancer patients assigned less importance to work and self-enhancement values such as stimulation, power, and achievement. Cluster analysis revealed that patients who reappraised their values exhibited higher meaningfulness and better indicators of quality of life, including spiritual and physical well-being, compared to patients who did not modify their value system. Conclusions These findings underscore the importance of assessing and promoting meaning-in-life adaptability among people with cancer, with potential applications in meaning-centered therapies and interventions aimed at enhancing psychological flexibility.Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte FPU014/023

Narrative, Ethics, and the Development of Identity

The terms “narrative” and “development” would appear to be difficult to relate to one another. While “narrative” frequently connotes movement backward in time and would thus seem to be a retrospective concept, “development” connotes movement forward in time and would thus seem to be a prospective concept. In this article, I seek to rethink both of these terms in such a way as to render them more compatible. In doing so, I focus on the idea of narrative identity, which, I suggest, is not only about the self but about the other-than-self, especially those goods that draw the process forward

Digital-gaming trajectories and second language development

Recent research in digital game-based language learning has been encouraging, yet it would benefit from research methods that focus on the gaming processes and second-language development (Larsen-Freeman, 2015) rather than learner/player reflection or individuals’ beliefs about the validity of gameplay. This has proven challenging as research methods which provide insight into the gameplay experiences and its many factors are needed. Having the gameplay experience occur extramurally is desirable, but makes the direct observation of the learners’ activities by a researcher difficult. For this reason, we suggest approaching digital game-based language learning through complex adaptive systems research (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008a) and employing Dörnyei’s (2014) retrodictive qualitative modeling to capture the complex synchronic and diachronic variability of the learners and their individual nonlinear gaming trajectories with requisite data density and over a considerable period of time. This article draws on a study examining language learners playing the online role-playing game World of Warcraft over four months. We will focus on the data collection in this observational study and the methods of analysis of a complex adaptive system, which helped to better understand the role of extramural digital gaming for the purpose of second-language development