The Male Identity in Professions in the Field of Education: A Qualitative Investigation

AbstractThis paper intends to analyze some aspects related to the perception and representation of education-related professions for what concerns the male audience.According to statistics, work in the field of schools and education appears to be a domain composed of mostly female workforce, confirming a society structure as has been traditionally and historically configured and based on gender duality and on a subsequently rigid role separation. In such separation some differences going back to an old biological as well as anthropic-cultural paradigm keep having a large weight and seem to justify the different levels of aptitude towards child care, and especially towards infants, that are seemingly recorded in men and women.According to such a stereotyped view, child care should be a prerogative of women only, thus legitimating the scarce male responsibility in this field. But what do men think about it? In the following work some professional working in the field of education have been interviewed. It is therefore possible to read the orientation of three educators and detect how their masculinity and subjectivity have had an impact in the determination of their gender and professional identity while enforcing their respective educational roles

An argument for using participatory approaches for the design of online health interventions targeted at young women

The Internet is becoming an increasingly important portal to health information and means for promoting health in user populations. As the most frequent users of online health information, young women are an important target population for e-health promotion interventions. Health-related websites have traditionally been generic in design, resulting in poor user engagement and affecting limited impacts on health behaviour change. Mounting evidence suggests that the most effective health promotion communication strategies are collaborative in nature, fully engaging target users throughout the development process. Participatory design approaches to interface development enable researchers to better identify the needs and expectations of users, thus increasing user engagement in, and promoting behaviour change via, online health interventions. This article introduces participatory design methods applicable to online health intervention design and presents an argument for the use of such methods in the development of e-Health applications targeted at young women

THE MALE MENTOR FIGURE IN WOMEN\u27S FICTION, 1778-1801

This dissertation follows the development of the mentor figure from Frances Burney’s Evelina published in 1778 to Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda in 1801. The mentor becomes a key figure for exploring women’s revolutionary ideas on female education and women’s roles in society. My dissertation contributes to discussions on mentoring, development of the Gothic mode, and debates over sensibility and sentimental fiction. It considers how the female mentee paradoxically both desires and criticizes her male mentor and his authority. Each author under discussion employed the mentor figure in a way that addressed their contemporary society’s issues and prejudices toward the treatment of women and the power of sensibility. Much of this treatment was traced to a conversation of reforming female education from an accomplishment-based pedagogy to a moral, intellectual-based instruction that was more masculine in nature (emphasizing a balance between sensibility and reason). Frequently, the mentor provides general comments and recommendations about love to his female pupil, who is entering into the marriage market, but his advice often turns out to be wrong or misplaced since it does not fit the actual situation. He is a good spiritual guide but a poor romantic advisor. I assert that the mentor figure’s usual lack of romantic sentiment and his pupil’s ability to surpass him in matters of the heart reveal a tendency to subvert male authority. Throughout this discussion, questions related to gender arise. Women’s desire for their own agency and control over both their minds and bodies underpin much of women’s eighteenth-century fiction. My dissertation explores these complex relationships between male mentors and their female pupils

Revolution of STEAM Education: The Importance of Interdisciplinary Art Education (STEAM) In Elementary Education

This thesis discusses how interdisciplinary art education benefits young children from different aspects, including gender bias in disciplines, developing creativity and imagination, motivating children to engage the class and improving their efficiency of studying. Through an interview with a STEAM educator and my own curriculum development, I show some examples of what STEAM can look like in the elementary class. I demonstrate that there is evidence showing that STEAM education can create an engaging learning environment for young children. When STEAM projects are introduced, children are more focused and interested in classroom activities when compared to STEM projects alone

Intonations of their Own Language : An Analysis of Leadership and Resonance in Two Progressive Young-Adult-Filled Congregations in the Pacific Northwest.

Christendom in Canada and the United States is in decline, and young adults are leaving the church in considerable numbers. This exodus is especially noticeable in mainstream religious denominations, although evangelical groups are beginning to experience a similar waning. The fastest-growing “religious” group consists of those who identify with no religion. Simultaneously, young adults are experiencing a far longer entry process into adulthood after adolescence than those who went before them. They also experience the world as unstable and impermanent. Their needs and the church’s needs could converge but instead seem to be antithetical to each other in ways that further contribute to the numerical decline. This qualitative study focused on two progressive mainstream congregations in the Pacific Northwest. Both congregations were outliers in that they attracted substantial numbers of participants aged 18 to 35. The study focused on how congregations and their leaders created webs of significance and intonations of language (Weber, as cited in Hopewell, 1987, p. 6) that resonated with those seeking a spiritual home. The research strategy, by design, was emergent. Data were gathered in this focused ethnography by conducting individual and focus group interviews with leaders and members that encouraged storytelling; by observing worship services and other church-related interactions; and by analyzing websites, bulletins/PowerPoints, and documents. Although both congregations were located in progressive young-adult-filled neighborhoods, they had almost opposite leadership, liturgical, and music styles. Consequently, two case-studies were initially constructed to portray the dynamics within each location. A subsequent cross-case analysis however, revealed that analogous sources of resonance between young adults and congregations emerged when visionary leaders freed and empowered young adults to encounter the divine through tradition, innovation, and questioning. The sources of resonance were categorized under the sociocultural milieu, leadership preferences, and developmental needs of young adults. Despite the limitations of case-study research, this study provides insight into what aspects of these religious congregations resonated with the young adults who found a home there. It offers new thought categories and working hypotheses for denominations, seminaries, clergy, congregations, young adults, and others interested in religious experience and affiliation among younger people

Growing Up Online: Identity, Development and Agency in Networked Girlhoods

Young women\u27s digital media practices unfold within a postfeminist media landscape dominated by rapidly circulating visual representations that often promote superficial readings of human value. Meanwhile the dominant framing within educational policy and practice of digital media literacy insufficiently captures young people\u27s motivations for engaging in multimedia production, online gaming and blogging. In addition to using digital media for social purposes, and to navigate dimensions of social difference like race, class and gender, working class young women of color also use digital media to develop internal awareness of their selves. The processes of documenting the self, reflecting on the documented self, and laying claim to the intrinsic value of the self are expressions of identity, development and agency. These practices can thus be understood as projects of self-making operating on multiple levels: 1) as articulations of agency against contexts that suppress this agency; 2) as documentations of and reflections on change and growth over time; 3) as explorations of relationality and related themes of care and obligation; 4) and as a means of critiquing structures of power

Sisterhood Articulates A New Definition Of Moral Female Identity: Jane Austen\u27s Adaptation Of The Eighteenth-century Tradition

Writing at a moment of ideological crisis between individualism and hierarchical society, Jane Austen asserts a definition of moral behavior and female identity that mediates the two value systems. I argue that Austen most effectively articulates her belief in women\u27s moral autonomy and social responsibility in her novels through her portrayal of sisterhood. Austen reshapes the stereotype of sisters and female friendships as dangerous found in her domestic novel predecessors. While recognizing women\u27s social vulnerability, which endangers female friendship and turns it into a site of competition, Austen urges the morality of selflessly embracing sisterhood anyway. An Austen heroine must overcome sisterly rivalry if she is to achieve the moral strength Austen demands of her. As Mansfield Park (1814) and Pride and Prejudice (1813) demonstrate, such rivalry reveals the flawed morality of both individualism and patrilineal society. I further argue that in these novels sisterhood articulates the internally motivated selflessness Austen makes her moral standard. Sisterhood not only indicates female morality for Austen, it also enables this character. Rejecting Rousseau\u27s proposal of men shaping malleable female minds, Austen pronounces sisters to be the best moral guides. In Northanger Abbey (1818), Austen shows the failure of the man to educate our heroine and the success of his sister. In Sense and Sensibility (1811), Austen pinpoints the source of sisterly education\u27s success in its feminine context of nurture, affection, intimacy, and subtlety. With this portrait of sisterhood, Austen adheres to the moral authority inherent in Burkean philosophy while advocating individual responsibility, not external regulation, to choose selfless behavior. Austen further promotes gender equality by expressing women\u27s moral autonomy, while supporting gender distinctions that privilege femininity. By offering such powerful, complex sister relationships, Austen transforms eighteenth-century literary thought about women, sisters, and morality

The role of interoception in cognition, and its application to autism spectrum disorders

Traditionally a distinction was drawn between cognitive and sensorimotor processes, with little consideration of communication between the two. However, many findings are incompatible with this separation (e.g. Lebedev & Wise, 2002; Patel, Fleming & Kilner, 2012). One particular domain where this is evidenced is interoception. Interoception has been defined as the sensing of the physiological condition of the body (Craig, 2002). While it has long been clear that interoception is of fundamental importance for homeostasis, it is increasingly being recognised as integral for multiple domains of cognition, including emotion. For example, those with greater access to their interoceptive states experience emotions more intensely (e.g. Wiens, Mezzacappa, & Katkin, 2000). These findings bare on our understanding of autism. For some time, exteroceptive sensory abnormalities has been recognised in autism, with such symptoms now included in the diagnostic criteria. Far less research has considered how interoception is implicated in autism. The reports of autistic people and their caregivers, in addition to a few empirical investigations, suggest that interoceptive processing is altered in autism. It is therefore possible that these interoceptive alterations are implicated in the cognitive symptoms of autism. In this PhD I conducted a series of experiments to test the hypothesis that afferent signals from the body, including interoceptive sensations, are involved in cognition, and that the processing of these signals is altered in autism. More specifically, I tested the role of bodily afferents in metacognition, movement, anxiety, and emotion. I also sought to determine if there are interoceptive differences in the three domains of interoception delineated by Garfinkel and colleagues (Garfinkel & Critchley, 2013; Garfinkel, Seth, Barrett, Suzuki, & Critchley, 2015) in autistic children and adolescents, having previously only been evaluated previously in autistic adults. Finally, I investigated whether differences in emotion processing in autism were related to interoception

An Exploratory Study on How Math Stories Engage Young Learners in Mathematical Sense-Making

This is an exploratory study of how pedagogy in the form of math stories, shapes young learners’ perceptions, motivations, and sense-making of math concepts. The research is presented in an exploratory documentary, with audio-video data collected through the iPhone. The pilot test of story-driven math learning solutions was conducted by two teachers with eight first grade children from diverse backgrounds in an afterschool program. This study also includes interviews of the teachers, educational leaders and specialists in primary school curricula, children’s literature, and math education. The results of the pilot validated the efficacy of story-driven math learning solutions for mathematical sensemaking and reasoning. By helping the characters students were empowered as young mathematicians. They were motivated and engaged in mathematical modeling, for example, building equations deepened understanding from concrete problems to abstract concepts. The teachers observed the accelerated rate of students’ learning through stories, games, and multimodal activities shaped by a creative, socially interactive, and culturally responsive pedagogy not typically used in their math classes