Seeing Beyond the Stereotype to See the Whole Human: Teachers’ Perceptions of Media Stereotypes and Black Youth

Media, including, news, network television, and film communicate messages about people, places, events, and culture that influence the perceptions of those engaged in the media (Bandura, 2001; Hall, 1973). Media has historically portrayed Black Americans stereotypically as morally and intellectually inferior (Bogle, 1994; Entman & Rojecki, 2000; Greenberg et al., 2002). Similarly, media also portrays Black students stereotypically as violent, disrespectful, lazy, athletic, aggressive, and underachieving (Brown, 2011; Ferguson, 2001; Yosso & Garcia, 2010), while teachers have reported holding deficit perceptions about Black students (Chang & Demyan, 2007; DeCastro-Ambrosetti & Cho, 2011). This single exploratory qualitative case study used the Black Studies Theory of Alterity (Wynter, 2003; King, 2006) as the theoretical framework to investigate teachers’ perceptions of media stereotypes about Black urban youth and the influence of their participation in a researcher designed workshop on their understandings. This case study employed a research-as-pedagogy (King, Goss, & McArthur, 2014) data collection method in that the researcher also served as the facilitator of the media workshop. Eighteen pre-service and active teachers enrolled in a multicultural education course and their teacher education professor participated in the three-day media workshop and formed the bounded unit of the case study (Yin, 2009). Data were generated from the three-day media workshop activities and included a demographic survey, artifacts, class discussions, reflection journals, and interview. Data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six phases of thematic analysis and generated three themes to describe participants’ perceptions and understandings. Theme One, imposing limits, describes the ways stereotypes limit how people think about unknown Black youth, limit humanity by dehumanizing Black youth, and limit Black students’ education. Theme Two, media as a source of influence, describes the power of media to influence the thoughts of individuals and society. Theme Three, humanization, describes the ways participants pushed back against stereotypes during the workshop and engaged in critical thought and reflection to confront their biases and improve professional practice. The findings can be used to inform educational policies and design course curricula for teacher education programs to develop teachers’ critical competencies in embracing student diversity and combatting deficit-based education

AN EXAMINED LIFE OF A LANGUAGE TEACHER OF CHINESE: AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATION INTO AGENCY

There is a paucity of research about and done by L2 Chinese educators regarding the theoretical construct of agency. It is also noted that the qualitative inquiry is marginalized in L2 Chinese research field, let alone the narrative study of the agency of experienced by L2 Chinese-teachers. In this dissertation research, I aim at filling in the gap by conducting a longitudinal autoethnography which captures over a decade (1997-2017) of my personal and professional development with an agency perspective. The highly personalized autoethnographic accounts open up my personal and professional life as an experienced, college-level, transnational, early 40’s female native Chinese teacher from mainland China. Using socio-cultural sensibilities and ecological approach of agency to scrutinize the paradigm shifts and behavioral changes over extended periods of time, I strive to make visible my active sense-making of affordances and constraints of diverse societal and educational surroundings in Indonesia, the US, China and the US again. I hope to exam the personal world and intellectual, professional trajectory over a long time to extend readers’ sociological understanding (Sparkes, 2000) of the rich and complex life of a language teacher. The critical reflexive analysis, deep reflection, and writing as analysis inquiry of my own transformations are demonstrated in multiple shifting identities over time and across different milieu, from English as a foreign language teacher, to Chinese as a second language teacher within China and to Chinese as a foreign language teacher outside Chinese-speaking context, from a teacher-researcher, teacher mentor, teacher educator, to a lifelong teacher-learner. The manifestations of various forms of agency-as-achievements and the evolvement of agency-as-capacities have also been examined. One of the main impetuses of this autoethnographic project is creating an alternative narrative of a nonconformist so as to challenge the existing stereotypical narratives of Chineseness in work-abroad native-speaking China-born teachers as well as traditional development trajectory of language teachers. My concrete experiences as a transcultural, bilingual, and bicultural (L1 Chinese, L2 English) language educator together with intellectual biography exhibit a unique personal, scholarly and professional growth in a postmodern, globalized, multicultural era through various social identities and evolving agency development. Using the power of autoethnography, I make explicit the multiplicity of self-representation and critically self-reflective learning about agency. This work hopes to inspire reflective and reflexive practices in other L2 educators, especially experienced in-service language teachers, to destabilize their ideologies and beliefs regarding L2 education and reflective practice, to educate their attention to social aspects of language learning and teaching, and to humanized language education. Ultimately, readers are encouraged to move into action to explore the notion of agency and use the power of autoethnography in language education and on language education

The Education of the Whole Man

The Education of the Whole Man is essentially two books in one volume. The first is a general treatise. This book opens with a challenge to Borsodi’s Indian friends. They must choose a national destiny: Gandhi or Western industrialization. The second section addresses the problem of education in 30 chapters. There are many forms of education: Physical education, emotional education, perceptual education, introspection education, axiological education, volitional education, etc. But these are not different things. They are part of a whole. There are stages of development, from infancy through age twelve, sixteen, eighteen, higher education, adult education. Chapter by chapter Borsodi explores each of these topics.https://research.library.kutztown.edu/solbooks/1000/thumbnail.jp

The Education of the Whole Man

The Education of the Whole Man is essentially two books in one volume. The first is a general treatise. This book opens with a challenge to Borsodi’s Indian friends. They must choose a national destiny: Gandhi or Western industrialization. The second section addresses the problem of education in 30 chapters. There are many forms of education: Physical education, emotional education, perceptual education, introspection education, axiological education, volitional education, etc. But these are not different things. They are part of a whole. There are stages of development, from infancy through age twelve, sixteen, eighteen, higher education, adult education. Chapter by chapter Borsodi explores each of these topics

Some reflections on human identity in the Anthropocene

This article observes that both the similar and the dissimilar are of ethical importance in discourse on human identity. There is a need for a common humanity and to guard against domination in the name of difference – precisely by recognising the otherness of the other. This also applies to reflections on what it means to be human in the age of the human, namely the Anthropocene. A survey is offered of how this tension between the similar and the dissimilar plays itself out in the work of five theorists, namely Dipesh Chakrabarty, Clive Hamilton, Dona Harraway, Michel Serres and Kathryn Yusoff. On this basis, six tentative conclusions are offered: (1) Despite the appropriate ethical emphasis on difference and otherness, the quest for the universal in the particular cannot be readily abandoned. (2) Such a sensitivity for the universal in the particular needs to be extended to a recognition of the way in which an integrated earth system functions. (3) The ethical emphasis on difference and otherness should be extended to non-human animals. (4) Human dignity and the ‘integrity of creation’ are not necessarily inversely proportioned. (5) Relations may well have an ontological priority over individuals. (6) Identity need not be constituted by the distant past or the immediate presence as if continuity over time forms a guarantee for a sense of identity

The development of a discourse of ethics in education

Ed D Thesis: The Development of a Discourse of Ethics in Education This thesis, although drawing upon many different sources, chiefly draws its key, illuminating idea from the work of four people, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Popper, Richard Rorty and Don Cupitt, all of whom exemplified, in one way or another, the view that in order to extend one's understanding it is first necessary to extend one’s language. In other words, this thesis subscribes to the view that 'the limits of my language are the limits of my world' (Wittgenstein, 1993:56). Thus the task of this enquiry is to represent, by synthesis and extension, the kinds of language activity potentially capable of characterising a modern moral discourse. in the first instance, then, the thesis offers a commentary on the contemporary debate over the role of morality in education. The research is confined to a UK context and it draws its primary theoretical data from five different subject areas: Education, Psychology, Sociology, Theology and Philosophy. A secondary source of theoretical data is derived from an analysis of recent public documents from a range of organisations including the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA).Second, the thesis thereafter offers a theoretically derived model of four distinctive value positions: Religion, Humanism, Utilitarianism and Kantianism. It is claimed that this provisional template is typical and largely representative of the mainstream data from above. Third, it is further claimed that these four value positions are representative of a common morality which can best be characterised as particular manifestations of language embedded in activity; or, to put it another way, as particular forms of language games: in this case games which perform the function of enabling value judgements to become enacted. Finally, a frame of reference for a common morality flows from the analysis composed of three constituent parts: (a) an objective element designated as A Four Quadrants model and based on the above four value positions; (b) a subjective element designated as A Syntax of Four Voices to reflect the belief that to be moral is also to be subjective (reflection and deliberation are seen here as bedrock metaphysical properties); (o) a synthesis element designated as Six Moral Precepts which emerge from the exploration and yield a codification of moral maxims which cohere as such to be representative of a common morality

Cultivating the human narrative: on Nietzsche, science fiction, and the aesthetics of life.

In this dissertation, I will argue that there is a specific model of morality which can account for the intuition about moral features that we take to be intrinsic to the human type. This model of morality is that of Virtue Ethics, but not a conventional kind of Virtue Ethics. Instead, I will argue that the moral philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche presents a model of cultivating narrative types that we take to be grounded in the kinds of beings we are, without resorting to any problematic metaphysical systems. This will require that I defend a novel interpretation of Nietzsche’s ethics – a debate which is ongoing. In the first chapter of the dissertation, I will argue that Nietzsche’s valuations can be reconciled with his attacks on conventional ethical systems, and that his value claims can best be understood with reference to his aesthetic views. In the second chapter, I will explore the specific details of Nietzsche’s broad attacks on ethical systems, and then defend his subsequent value claims as analogous to a unique kind of virtue theory. In articulating how this kind of virtue theory functions, I will also propose that this is how we arrive at our moral conception of the human narrative. In the final chapter of this dissertation, I will draw from specific examples of science fiction narratives to elaborate two specific views of the genre-specific trope of the “artificial human being.” In exploration of this trope, I find that our intuitions of the moral human are affirmed in our narrative fascination with ontological types, and also that there are under-explored implications of how these narratives are developed

Economics and management sciences: reflections on humanizing education

This book compiles twenty (20) written expressions of the participants from 2021 KENMS ‘Ibadah Camp with the theme “attributes of true believers in the Quran and Sunnah” in the framework of humanizing education with maqasid al-shari’ah. The attributes of true believers should be rooted in spirituality. Azniza argued that tazkiyyah al-Nafs should be the root for humanized education. The spirituality root should be related to the responsibility of academics. Ahmad Zamri reflected on the roles of academics in humanizing education. In fact, Rodrigue Fontaine argued that everyone needs to go back to basics. Suhaimi reflected on sabr (patient) quality in the humanizing education agenda. The quality of academics can be related to the lifestyle. Siti Salwani emphasised on the need to strive for work life balance. Azura Omar was unable to comprehend the operations of humanizing education with maqasid al-shari’ah when the reality was not humanizing. Jarita gave an example of humanizing education in the post-graduate supervision for both supervisors and supervisees. Nur Kamariah argued on the need for having a clear framework on the psychological needs of students. Dzuljastri and Suhaimi reflected humanizing education into edu-action approach of m-kitchen project. Echoing edu-action of mkitchen, Ahasanul and Suhaimi argued on food waste reduction effort on campus. Dolhadi, Suhaimi and Rohaziah also showed the edu-action of humanizing education into consumerism advocacy and vegetable gardens. Izyani reflected on her personal journey of humanizing education. Muhammad Tahir Jan contended that humanizing education and sustainable development can be blended into edu-action. Nur Kamariah argued that the need to sustain Islamic personality in facing multi sided challenges. Indeed, Marhanum emphasised on the need for self-evaluation (muhasabah). While not compromising the delivery of quality work, Nevertheless, Irwan argued about the importance of incentives to sustain volunteerism. Zaini argued that humanizing education is about producing better Muslims. Indeed, Yusof contended that the need to link between the resolutions and talks in the ‘Ibadah camp with Islamic roots. In fact, Yusof argued that the virtual-based ‘Ibadah camp has been communicated through e-mails from a few committee members with different emphasis