Belongingness in early secondary school: Key factors that primary and secondary schools need to consider

© 2015 Vaz et al. It is unknown if, and how, students redefine their sense of school belongingness after negotiating the transition to secondary school. The current study used longitudinal data from 266 students with, and without, disabilities who negotiated the transition from 52 primary schools to 152 secondary schools. The study presents the 13 most significant personal student and contextual factors associated with belongingness in the first year of secondary school. Student perception of school belongingness was found to be stable across the transition. No variability in school belongingness due to gender, disability or household-socio-economic status (SES) was noted. Primary school belongingness accounted for 22% of the variability in secondary school belongingness. Several personal student factors (competence, coping skills) and school factors (low-level classroom task-goal orientation), which influenced belongingness in primary school, continued to influence belongingness in secondary school. In secondary school, effort-goal orientation of the student and perception of their school's tolerance to disability were each associated with perception of school belongingness. Family factors did not influence belongingness in secondary school. Findings of the current study highlight the need for primary schools to foster belongingness among their students at an early age, and transfer students' belongingness profiles as part of the handover documentation. Most of the factors that influenced school belongingness before and after the transition to secondary are amenable to change

Food Sovereignty in the City: Challenging Historical Barriers to Food Justice

Local food initiatives are steadily becoming a part of contemporary cities around the world and can take on many forms. While some of these initiatives are concerned with providing consumers with farm-fresh produce, a growing portion are concerned with increasing the food sovereignty of marginalized urban communities. This chapter provides an analysis of urban contexts with the aim of identifying conceptual barriers that may act as roadblocks to achieving food sovereignty in cities. Specifically, this paper argues that taken for granted commitments created during the birth of the modern city could act as conceptual barriers for the implementation of food sovereignty programs and that urban food activists and programs that challenge these barriers are helping to achieve the goal of restoring food sovereignty to local communities, no matter their reasons for doing so. At the very least, understanding the complexities of these barriers and how they operate helps to strengthen ties between urban food projects, provides these initiatives with ways to undermine common arguments used to support restrictive ordinances and policies, and illustrates the transformative potential of food sovereignty movements

Episode 64: Pigs with Brett Mizelle

In this episode of Knowing Animals I am joined by Professor Brett Mizelle. We discuss his book chapter ‘Unthinkable Visibility: Pigs, Pork, and the Spectacle of Killing and Meat’ which appeared in the book ‘Rendering Nature: Animals, Bodies, Places, Politics’ which was edited by Marguerite S. Shaffer and Phoebe S.K. Young and published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 2015

Lifestyle practices of hypertensive patients

The demographic variables included in this study were age, gender, family history of hypertension, educational attainment, and monthly family income. This study utilized the descriptive research design involving 150 respondents using purposive sampling technique. After the approval of the respective barangay, consent forms and questionnaires were given to the respondents. Frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, ANOVA and t-test for independent means were the statistical measures used in the study. Results showed that, 1) most of respondents belongs to aged 35 to 64 years old, female, with family history of hypertension, attained secondary level of education, and had a monthly family income of Php10,000 and below; 2) the lifestyle practice of the respondents in general was good, where most of the respondents do not smoke and drink alcohol; 3) the lifestyle practices of the respondents were the same regardless of age, gender, family history of hypertension, educational attainment, and monthly income