The Affective Medium and Ideal Person in Pedagogies of 'Soft Skills' in Contemporary China

In this dissertation I explore the role of affect in practices of self-improvement in contemporary urban China. I conducted participant observation in workshops for young adults in the city of Jinan, focusing on interpersonal ‘soft’ skills, such as ‘communication,’ ‘emotional expression,’ and public speaking. These highly interactive workshops urged participants to express themselves as emotional, assertive, inspirational, and above all – autonomous – individuals. This ideal of personhood is inspired by state-promoted reforms in the education system and the rise of psychotherapy across China, highlighting new moral imperatives of self-reliance and emotional well-being in the expanding Chinese market economy. My analysis focuses on the discrepancy between participants’ ideals of self-improvement, as practiced in workshops, and their wider social engagements. While participants conceived of soft skills as capacities that could potentially be employed anywhere, they nevertheless experienced and emphasised impediments to extending their practices outside workshops. They saw their everyday social circles as prioritising hierarchical relations, social roles, and financial stability, all suppressing the ideals of individual autonomy prominent in workshops. Drawing on theories of affect, hope, and the concept of ‘heterotopia,’ I describe how workshops dislocated participants from their existing social realities to produce momentary experiences of self-overcoming. Through affectively intensive exercises, participants identified with their ideal person, imagined themselves mastering social relations, and envisioned a future society governed by the virtues of soft skills. I consider affect, in these practices, not as a means for subjects’ comprehensive self-transformations, but rather as an experience that charges individuals with ephemeral optimism amidst socioeconomic uncertainties. In contemporary market-driven China, I argue, such deployment of affect is increasingly evident in educational activities, entertainment media, and state campaigns. These practices respond to and reinforce an existing schism between the expansion of new ideals of personhood and individuals’ limited capacities to realise them

Benjamin Franklin\u27s Female and Male Pseudonyms: Sex, Gender, Culture, and Name Suppression from Boston to Philadelphia and Beyond

Ever since Benjamin Franklin wrote his autobiography, biographers throughout the centuries have molded him into the model American. Recently, too, historians increasingly have chosen Benjamin Franklin as a biographical subject. In 2000, H. W. Brands wrote a seven-hundred-plus page biography of Franklin entitled The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, and, in 2002, Edmund S. Morgan published his more concise book, Benjamin Franklin. The current rising interest in Benjamin Franklin is not surprising in light of the surging surplus of biographical sketches of many of the Founding Fathers such as Joseph Ellis\u27s work on Thomas Jefferson and David McCullough\u27s biography of John Adams. In any case, as one can see by the title of Brands\u27s book, these modem Franklin biographers, like their predecessors, use Franklin to create an ideal citizen. Therefore, they tend to emphasize Franklin\u27s political and diplomatic roles, seeing his contributions to the public sphere and to the American Revolution as the most important aspects of his life

Corporal Punishment and Child Development

Growing academic, political, and media pressure has persuaded twenty countries to ban physical discipline—that is, to take children from their families because of spanking...However, if youth violence and dysfunction is increasing at the same time that corporal punishment is decreasing, we should be open enough to consider whether the two trends are related. Maybe there is no connection. But maybe lawmakers and child welfare workers should pay more attention to the research suggesting that physical discipline can be helpful in certain contexts...To function in society, people must learn to control themselves enough to not break the law or harm other people. While not every child learns this the same way, a number of them seem to learn it through at least some corporal discipline—a tangible tool that can complement their primitive learning stages

Pedagogy, curriculum, teaching practices and teacher education in developing countries

This rigorous literature review focused on pedagogy, curriculum, teaching practices and teacher education in developing countries. It aimed to: 1. review existing evidence on the review topic to inform programme design and policy making undertaken by the DFID, other agencies and researchers 2. identify critical evidence gaps to guide the development of future research programme

동료 매개에 바탕을 둔 협력 영어 쓰기: 두 명의 아동 EFL 학습자가 쓰기 경험을 변화시키는 과정

학위논문 (석사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 외국어교육과 영어전공, 2016. 8. 김진완.Previous research has demonstrated how peer interaction has positive effects in second language learning. Collaboration as instinctive human nature has been a center of scholastic inquiries through strands of L2 studies. There is yet a strong need to explore the influence of interactional discourse on learners writing outcomes. Children, who are known to possess strong sensitivity to input (Long, 2003), can become suitable target learners who are expected to vitalize it by creating written output. The present study observes two young learners during EFL writing class engaging in collaborative writing tasks and how each of their linguistic and behavioral development affects reciprocal progress. Fifteen weeks of investigation aims at answering three research questions: 1) How do EFL learners express themselves in collaborative L2 writing? 2) How do EFL learners focus on form in collaborative L2 writing? 3) How do EFL learners react to collaborative L2 writing? To deeply look into multilayered personality, detailed learner profiles were gathered, which helped build up on-going writing curriculum corresponding with individual needs. Transcribed data, along with written outcomes and questionnaires were collected and analyzed in qualitative manners. The first round of coding identified discourse into four types of evidence which can reveal the main features of collaboration: LREs (Language-Related Episodes)CREs (Content-Related Episodes)teacher elicitationsand learner initiations. The second coding stage organized the meaningful discourse samples with written pieces into three themes equivalent with each research question. The major findings respond to the overarching concerns of the current study. After examining the expression of personality by writing partners, first of all, they turned out to possess distinctive learning styles and strategies which required negotiation. Next, considering form-focusing aspects in writing context, both learners constantly mediated each others interlanguage rules and construction of form-meaning relationships. What comes to count as recreating collaborative L2 writing experience is that the dyad sought to become responsible, coordinating, and autonomous over time. The interpretation suggests that collaborative communication between learner dyads can generate synergy in learning how to write in L2. The application to classroom settings to enhance efficiency is palpable with duration of practice and consideration of dyad specificity.CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Context of the Study 1 1.2 Purpose of the Study and Research Questions 4 1.3 Organization of the Thesis 7 CHAPTER 2 Literature Review 9 2.1 Peer Interaction for Eliciting Learners Potentials 9 2.2 Collaborative Learning Built upon Sociocultural Theory 12 2.3 Learning to Write in L2 in the Context of Peer Mediation 16 CHAPTER 3 Methodology 21 3.1 Participants 21 3.1.1 Joon 22 3.1.2 Sooji 24 3.2 Materials 26 3.3 Procedure 30 3.4 Data Collection 35 3.5 Data Analysis 40 CHAPTER 4 Distinctions of Learner Self in Learning Styles and Strategies 44 4.1 Casual Go-Getter and Organized Planner 47 4.2 Laidback Tree-Beholder and Practical Forest-Observer 51 CHAPTER 5 Focus-on-Form Negotiation in L2 Writing Context 58 5.1 Hypothesizing Interlanguage Rules 59 5.2 Building Form-Meaning Relationships 67 CHAPTER 6 Reconstruction of Collaborative Writing Experience 77 6.1 Sense of Responsibility in Each Role 78 6.2 Conflict and Reconciliation 85 6.3 Desire to Become Autonomous 89 CHAPTER 7 Discussion 97 CHAPTER 8 Conclusion 107 8.1 Theoretical and Pedagogical Implications 107 8.2 Suggestions for Further Study 112 REFERENCES 118 APPENDIX 142 ABSTRACT IN KOREAN 155Maste

Hags, frogs, diamonds, and fairies: A history of female representation in fairy tales

This project examines how representations of the main female characters from a select group of fairy tales from the seventeenth century change over time. The tales studied are significant stories classified as tales of Magical Reward and Punishment for Good and Bad Girls. Instead of a single snapshot of a fairy tale re-imagined, my project captures an evolution of female representation by historically analyzing the fairy tales and reproducing the changes witnessed across the tales in the form of three original paintings. The artwork produced in my study creates new forms of knowledge that explore the validity and complexity of the fairy tale genre, reveal the underestimated power of gender representation, and challenge the audience to think critically about fairy tales not just as stories for children, but as important historical sources.fairy talesfemalefairiesfemininewome

Poetry and Prayer: Stotras in the Religious and Literary History of Kashmir

This dissertation investigates the close connection between poetry and prayer in South Asia by studying the history of Sanskrit hymns of praise (stotras) in Kashmir. It offers a broad introduction to the history and general features of the stotra genre, and it charts the course of these literary hymns in Kashmir from the ninth century to the present. Historically, Kashmir was one of the most dynamic and influential centers of Sanskrit learning and literary production in South Asia. This dissertation focuses on a number of innovative texts from this region, such as Ksemaraja's eleventh-century commentaries and Sahib Kaul's seventeenth-century hymns, which have received little scholarly attention. In particular, it offers the first study in any European language of the Stutikusumanjali, a major work of religious literature dedicated to the god Siva and one of the only extant witnesses to the trajectory of Sanskrit literary culture in fourteenth-century Kashmir. This dissertation also contributes to the study of Saivism by examining the ways that Saiva poets have integrated the traditions of Sanskrit literature (kavya) and poetics (alankarasastra), theology (especially non-dualism), and Saiva worship and devotion. It argues for the diverse configurations of Saiva bhakti expressed and explored in these literary hymns and the challenges they present for standard interpretations of Hindu bhakti. More broadly, this study of stotras from Kashmir offers new perspectives on the history and vitality of prayer in South Asia and its complex relationships to poetry and poetics

A paradox of American tragedy : Long day\u27s journey into night and the problem of negative emotion in theatrical performance.

In this dissertation I examine a philosophical problem referred to as the “paradox of tragedy” as it presents itself in the context of the positive reception of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night. This play depicts a harrowing day in the life of the Tyrone family, where each of the family members cope with failure, addiction, and disease. The emotional tone is bleak and pessimistic, yet people often describe their responses to this tragedy in terms of pleasure, and one can easily imagine someone claiming to “enjoy” the play. How is this possible? Moreover, what motivates one to pursue Long Day’s Journey into Night when they would endeavor to avoid negative emotional stimuli in real life? In chapter 1 of the project, I survey a family of theories as proposed resolution of this problem. I examine a theory derived from Stoic philosophy, David Hume’s “conversion” theory, and John Morreall’s “control” theory. Utilizing evidence drawn from analytic philosophy as well as cognitive psychology, I rule each of these theories out. This allows me to establish acceptable criteria for any resolution to the problem. In chapters two and three, I turn my attention to the claim that Journey on the whole elicits more good than bad emotional states. Using a method of emotional analysis proposed by Nöel Carroll, in chapter three, I construct a close reading of the emotional address of the play, concluding that the claim that the play elicits more positive emotion than negative is likely false. In chapters four and five, I construct a thematic reading of the play by first establishing the connection between the writing of Eugene O’Neill’s writing and the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. I perform a second close reading of the play to validate a Nietzschian reading, and then utilize this data as a feature of my own resolution to the problem. In chapter six, I conclude by presenting two theories that account for all the conditions I have established as a candidate solution and defend a “meta-response” style solution to the paradox of Journey

The influence of teachers\u27 beliefs on literacy instruction for at-risk first graders: A multiple case study

Through a multiple case study design the influence of teachers\u27 beliefs on literacy instruction for at-risk first graders was examined and described. A volunteer sample included five female teachers who taught in different high risk schools within the same school district. Five research questions guided the study: (1) What are teachers\u27 beliefs about instructing young at-risk children to read and write? (2) What do teachers say they do as they instruct young at-risk children to read and write? (3) What do teachers actually do as they instruct young at-risk children to read and write? (4) What influences teachers\u27 instructional decisions as they teach young at-risk children to read and write? (5) Are there congruencies between teachers\u27 stated beliefs and their practice?;Data were collected from interviews, observations, questionnaires and a reflective activity over an academic year. Through the constant comparative method twelve general findings emerged: (1) Teachers must possess an understanding of the individual needs of at-risk children and address those needs; (2) Teachers must recognize and build on children\u27s individual strengths; (3) Teachers should nurture children\u27s enthusiasm for learning to read and write; (4) The learning process should begin at the appropriate developmental level; (5) At-risk children should be continuously stimulated in order to build confidence necessary for learning. A structured environment is important to accomplishing this goal; (6) At-risk children break the bonds of at-riskness by becoming literate; (7) Literacy instructional theory does not influence teachers\u27 practice as much as their beliefs; (8) There is no single method of literacy instruction for at-risk children, a combination of pedagogical approaches best serves their literacy needs; (9) Teacher modeling is a positive motivational factor for at-risk children learning to read and write; (10) All at-risk children can learn; Other findings indicated: (1) Teachers\u27 literacy instructional decisions are influenced by multiple factors; (2) There are congruencies between teachers\u27 stated beliefs and practice; The five case studies validate the work of previous researchers who suggested that teachers\u27 beliefs are an integral part of classroom practice. The teachers provided documented instances of the congruency between beliefs and classroom practice