Community service-learning and cultural-historical activity theory

This paper explores the potential of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), to provide new insights into community service-learning (CSL) in higher education. While CSL literature acknowledges the influences of John Dewey and Paolo Freire, discussion of the potential contribution of cultural-historical activity theory, rooted in the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, is noticeably absent. This paper addresses this gap by examining four assumptions associated with activity theory: the rejection of a theory/practice divide, the development of knowledge as a social collaborative activity, the focus on contradictions in and across activity systems, and the interventionist approach aimed at transformation.  Cet article explore le potentiel de la théorie de l’activité culturelle et historique (CHAT) afin de donner un nouvel aperçu de l’apprentissage par le service communautaire (ASC) dans un contexte universitaire. Bien que des études sur le sujet de l’ASC reconnaissent les influences de John Dewey et de Paolo Freire, l’absence d’une discussion portant sur la contribution potentielle de la CHAT, enracinée dans l’œuvre du psychologue russe Lev Vygotsky, est flagrante. Le présent article comble cette lacune en examinant quatre hypothèses liées à la CHAT : le rejet d’une ligne de partage entre la théorie et la pratique; le développement des connaissances comme activité sociale et collaborative; la convergence des contradictions à l’intérieur des systèmes d’activités et entre eux; ainsi qu’une approche interventionniste visant la transformation

What do Corrupt Firms Have in Common? Red Flags of Corruption in Organizational Culture

What kind of an organizational culture do corrupt companies tend to have? To answer this question, I conducted a study based on a review of academic literature as well as in-depth interviews with 23 prominent lawyers, investigators, scholars, and policymakers with firsthand knowledge of the inner workings of dozens of corrupt firms. They highlighted a number of common traits often missed by standard compliance processes that might be “red flags” for organizational corruption. These traits don’t guarantee corruption within an organization, but they do point to the conditions in which it thrives

Institutional Agents in the Lives of Chagrin Falls Park Youth

This qualitative case study researched how adults from a community center and school acted as institutional agents in assisting youth navigating between community and school settings. The research was conducted in the context of Chagrin Falls Park, a historically marginalized community in the Cleveland metropolitan region. The research included semi-structured interviews with eleven participants across three participant categories, including institutional agents from Kenston Local Schools and Chagrin Falls Park Community Center and young adult Kenston graduates. The research explored: (1) the perceptions and roles of institutional agents in how Black youth construct identities, relationships, and navigate between institutional and community spaces within the sociological and historical context of Chagrin Falls Park; (2) how the racial-identity of adults influences their relationship with youth; and (3) whether institutional agents act as empowerment agents, viewing their role as providing access to social capital for Chagrin Falls Park youth and/or working against the tendency of schools to reproduce inequality (Stanton-Salazar, 2010). The research found that adults from both Kenston Local Schools and Chagrin Falls Park Community Center acted as institutional agents in supporting Chagrin Falls Park students, but rarely questioned institutional policies that reproduced inequality. Findings support the importance of adults acting on behalf of historically marginalized youth, and underscore the potential when agents from multiple institutions work together to support youth

Individual cognitive-behavioural anger treatment for people with mild-borderline intellectual disabilities and histories of aggression: a controlled trial

Objectives - Anger is a significant predictor and activator of violent behaviour in patients living in institutional settings. There is some evidence for the value of cognitive-behavioural treatments for anger problems with people with intellectual disabilities. In this study, a newly designed treatment targeted at anger disposition, reactivity, and control was provided to intellectually disabled offenders with aggression histories living in secure settings. Design - About forty detained patients with mild-borderline intellectual disabilities and histories of serious aggression were allocated to specially modified cognitive-behavioural anger treatment (AT group) or to routine care waiting-list control (RC group) conditions. Methods - AT group participants received 18 sessions of individual treatment. The AT and RC groups were assessed simultaneously at 4 time points: screen, pre- and post-treatment, and at 4-month follow-up using a range of self- and staff-rated anger measures. The effectiveness of the treatment was evaluated using ANCOVA linear trend analyses of group differences on the main outcome measures. Results - The AT group's self-reported anger scores on a number of measures were significantly lower following treatment, compared with the RC wait-list condition, and these improvements were maintained at follow-up. Limited evidence for the effectiveness of treatment was provided by staffs' ratings of patient behaviour post-treatment. Conclusions - Detained men with mild-moderate intellectual disabilities and histories of severe aggression can successfully engage in, and benefit from, an intensive individual cognitive-behavioural anger treatment that also appears to have beneficial systemic effects

Gendered attitudes and outcomes of community service-learning

This study analysed survey data from 525 students who took a community service-learning (CSL) course between 2005 and 2012 at the University of Alberta. Since just over three-quarters of these students was female, this study explores gender differences in student experiences of service learning. For example, there are significant differences regarding the type of male and female involvement in community. The study also found significant gender differences in motivations for participating. In addition, while similar proportions of male and female students would recommend this form of learning to other students, they do so for different reasons. Finally, the analysis of open-ended questions shows other gender differences in experiences and suggests actions that might mitigate the gender gaps in CSL..peer-reviewe

Growing immigration has meant Canadian unions have had to learn how to better represent migrant workers

In the past decade, the massive increase in the number of migrant workers coming to Canada has forced the country’s trade unions to rethink their traditional approaches towards representation. Jason Foster and Alison Taylor write that trade unions had little precedent of how to respond to the large upswing in migrant numbers, and that their responses have ranged from those who help employers take advantage of migrant workers to those who defend their rights and help them to gain language and other skills

Funding Mechanisms, Cost Drivers, and the Distribution of Education Funds in Alberta: A Case Study

This article examines the impact that the 1994 funding changes introduced by the Alberta government have had on the Calgary Board of Education (CBE)—the largest urban board in Alberta and one of the largest boards in Canada. Starting from a critical financial analysis perspective we ather, examine, and recalculate key historical financial data pertaining to the CBE, contextualizing these data through the use of supplementary nonfinancial archival materials. Our analysis highlights the impact that funding changes have had on the CBE, but also indirectly tells us something about the impact on other school boards in the province, because the total amount of per-student education funding has remained relatively constant. More generally, the analysis illustrates how funding mechanisms can be and are used to govern from a distance and how seemingly neutral accounting/funding techniques function to distribute resources among different school boards. By drawing attention to these distributional effects, the current study makes visible the power of largely invisible funding mechanisms in the sphere of public education.Cet article traite de l'impact qu'ont eu les modifications de financement, introduites par le gouvernement de l’Alberta en 1994, sur le Calgary Board of Education (CBE), une des commissions scolaires urbaines les plus importantes de la province et une des commissions scolaires les plus importantes au Canada. S'appuyant sur une perspective d'analyse financière critique, les auteurs recueillent, étudient et recalculent les principales données financières qui ont touché le CBE en les contextualisant par l'apport d'informations d'archives de nature non-financière. L'analyse fait ressortir l'impact des modifications de financement sur le CBE et, puisque les subventions globales par élève ont demeuré relativement constantes, elle fournit indirectement des renseignements quant à l'impact sur les autres conseils scolaires de la province. De façon plus générale, l'analyse démontre la façon dont on se sert de mécanismes de financement pour gouverner à distance et explique le fonctionnement des stratégies de financement, en apparence neutres, dans la distribution de ressources parmi différents conseils scolaires. En mettant ces effets de distribution en relief, cette recherche rend évident le pouvoir des mécanismes de financement en grande partie invisibles dans le domaine de l'éducation publique