Mom

I study the Civil War because of my mother. It\u27s a simple truth. My Mom, more than anyone else in my life, taught me to be the historian that I am. She is present in so much of what I do when I process the past. I lovingly refer to her as my idiot-filter. She was a theology major in her undergraduate training, studying comparative religions. I\u27ve never read her thesis, I know it\u27s in a cupboard at my parents\u27 house, but I vaguely remember that it was centered around comparing Christ with the other messianic figures of his era. She looked at the world as a game of measures, sizing up one thing and another, looking for the moving parts, seeking the humanity in what we call the divine. [excerpt

The Complexities, Persistence, and Relationships among Middle School Students’ Climate Change Stances and Knowledge

Perhaps the most pressing set of challenges facing the field of science education today is the facilitation of fruitful understanding of climate change and helping individuals to make informed decisions associated with mitigating the impacts of climate change. There is a dearth of studies that focus on characterizing students’ climate change stances, messy middle concepts or knowledge development. Using mixed methods research approaches, this dissertation addresses research questions associated with characterizing students’ knowledge and stances and the persistence and relationships amongst students’ climate change knowledge and stances. Participants include middle school students from different geographic regions and types of schools who participated in a climate change and its impacts on ecosystems curriculum that aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Data collection instruments include a pre/post stance survey, pre/post knowledge assessments, and a post semi-structured interview protocol completed five months after students completed the curricular module. The study reveals that students’ climate change knowledge and stances are positively correlated. Interacting with the evidence-based curriculum is correlated with a positive stance shift regarding the existence of anthropogenic climate change. However, the majority of students remain not worried about the impacts of climate change, except in the case where a student felt (s)he has experienced the impacts of climate change, in which case (s)he was more likely to be worried. Interview data demonstrate that students with negative stances tended to have weak knowledge while students with positive stances exhibited a spectrum of knowledge (e.g., high, messy middle, and weak). These findings are valuable in guiding specific secondary school curriculum design. For example, climate change curricular units should strive to make the curriculum more relevant to students’ lives and prior experiences, specifically challenge messy middle knowledge with repeated exposures of correct scientific ideas, and targeting specific climate change vocabulary, such as using the term excess greenhouse gases instead of air pollution. Moreover, teacher training should address common climate change misconceptions and common stances, and policy makers should be lobbied to build on the current NGSS by placing climate change topics at the forefront of secondary education and assessments.PhDEducational StudiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111361/1/reicher_1.pd

Infants : feeding is more than nutrition

"File: Human Relations, 9/80/5M""Right now, probably the most important thing on your mind is getting your baby off to a good start. You're convinced your baby is the most wonderful one ever born and you may be right. Your baby is a unique individual. There has never been anyone just your baby before and there will never be another after. How can you foster that uniqueness and help your baby develop the highest potential? How do you give a baby a really good start in life?"--First paragraph.Marilyn Coleman (Department Chairperson, Child and Family Development), Ann Hertzler (Food and Nutrition Specialist

Encounters with the military : toward an ethics of feminist critique?

This conversation developed from a panel titled “Interrogating the Militarized Masculine: Reflections on Research, Ethics and Access” held at the May 2013 International Feminist Journal of Politics conference at the University of Sussex, UK

Taking Free Will Skepticism Seriously

An apparently increasing number of philosophers take free will skepticism to pose a serious challenge to some of our practices. This must seem odd to many—why should anyone think that free will skepticism is relevant for our practices, when nobody seems to think that other canonical forms of philosophical skepticism are relevant for our practices? Part of the explanation may be epistemic, but here I focus on a metaethical explanation. Free will skepticism is special because it is compatible with ‘basic moral reasons’—moral reasons acknowledged by all mainstream ethicists—and other minds and induction skepticism are not. One example is our reason not to intentionally harm others. Practical seriousness about other minds and induction skepticism undermines this reason, but practical seriousness about free will skepticism only undermines a potential overrider of this reason, that is, the reason of retribution

Mapping the information-coping trajectory of young people coping with long term illness: An evidence based approach

Purpose - Purpose: We explore the relationship between information and coping information from the experiences of young people coping with long term illness. Design/methodology/approach - Methodology: Situational Analysis was used as a methodological approach. It has roots in the Chicago Symbolic Interactionism School. Cartographic approaches enabled the analysis, mapping the complexities emerging from the data. Findings - Findings: As the young people became more informed about their health conditions, and gained knowledge and understanding both about their illnesses, their own bodies and boundaries, their confidence and capacity to cope increased. Gaining confidence, the young people often wanted to share their knowledge becoming information providers themselves. From the data we identified five positions on an information-coping trajectory (1) Information deficiency (2) Feeling ill-informed (3) Needing an injection of information (4) Having information health and (5) Becoming an information donor. Research limitations/implications - Research limitations/implications: The research was limited to an analysis of thirty narratives. The research contributes to information theory by mapping clearly the relationship between information and coping. Originality/value - Originality/value: The information theories in this study have originality and multi-disciplinary value in the management of health and illness, and information studies