WHOSE NIQAB IS THIS? Challenging, Creating and Communicating Female Muslim Identity via Social Media

The 2010 annual report of the US State Department on Human Rights reported a rising bias towards Muslims in Europe (US State Department, 2010) while France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland enact laws restricting religious dress and/or mosques. Despite this bias, Gallup reports that 77% of UK Muslims identify with their country versus only 50% of the general public (BBC News, 2009). North American Muslims face similar challenges. US news reports of mosque building or expansion draw vocal opposition like that expressed about an Islamic Cultural Center opened near Ground Zero in New York City. US reality series All American Muslim lasted one season due to vocal opposition and a loss of sponsors. In Canada, the sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie has gained an online following because it dramatizes the challenges and biases faced by Muslims in a small Canadian Prairie town. Faced with increasing bias and imperfect representations in the mainstream media Muslims are increasingly using social networks to build community and to regain control of representing their faith and their lives

Articulating Identity: Refining Postcolonial and Whiteness Perspectives on Race within Communication Studies

This paper juxtaposes postcolonial and whiteness scholarship to identify gaps and clarify influences on critical race scholarship within communication studies. This paper considers the multiplicity of each perspective and identifies the focus on race and the body as communicative texts as a linkage that unites the three perspectives. How each perspective informs a communicative understanding of race is explored through the constructs of Cartesian dualism, performance, and the gaze. The paper concludes with suggestions for future directions for interrogating race within the communication discipline, including a consideration of how white privilege is extended to and assumed by individuals who are not white

Training Junior High School LD Students to Use a Test-Taking Strategy

This research was published by the KU Center for Research on Learning, formerly known as the University of Kansas Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities.This study investigated whether or not regular classroom test scores of LD junior-high school students could be improved by training those students to use a a test-taking strategy. Results showed significantly higher posttest scores for the experimental than the control subjects. Test-taking skills were found to generalize across settings and subject matter

Performance and Competence of Learning Disabled and High-Achieving High School Students on Essential Cognitive Skills

This research was published by the KU Center for Research on Learning, formerly known as the University of Kansas Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities.This study was designed to measure performance differences of learning disabled and high-achieving high school students judged crucial to academic learning and to determine teacher performance standards on those same crucial learning skills, Results showed that high achievers performed significantly batter than LD students across the complex, and within every domain, of learning skills assessed. In addition, significantly greater proportions of LD students fall below teacher-derived standards of minimal competence in all skill areas assessed than do high-achieving students