A Case Study of Single-Sex Biology Classes in a High School in South Georgia

The research on single-sex classrooms, especially in high schools, is at best, sparse. Settings and findings vary so dramatically from one area to another that correlating studies is difficult. However, with the advent of No Child Left Behind (2001), schools have been given the opportunity to explore new and creative ways to increase student achievement. Single-sex classrooms are one of the ways schools across the country are attempting to meet the criteria of NCLB. Some single-sex studies have shown that female students improve test scores in areas that are generally thought of as male-dominated areas, such as math and science; that females feel safer in participating in classes with males absent and opportunities to participate are increased; differences in learning styles can be used to an advantage in single-sex classes; and distractions in the classroom caused by the opposite sex are diminished. This research was conducted in a high school in South Georgia where the biology End-of-Course Tests (EOCTs) for single-sex and coeducational classes were examined. Student questionnaires were also given to the students in these classes. The questionnaires had questions divided into five scales: emotional security, self-efficacy, peer help, participation, and interest in biology. The two teachers who taught the biology classes and the administrator in charge of the classes were interviewed at the conclusion 2 of the semester studied. Each set of data was analyzed for any significant differences between sex, setting, and sex by setting interaction for each scale as well as the EOCTs. This researcher found that in this study there were no differences between the EOCT scores for sex, setting, or sex by setting interaction. However, there were differences found within certain scales in the questionnaire, some favoring coeducational classes and some favoring single-sex classes. The teacher and administrator interviews showed a tendency to favor single-sex classes inasmuch that the teachers believe they affect student achievement by building stronger relationships in single-sex classes, as well as relieving distractions help those who need it the most. The analysis of these tendencies may provide other administrators strategies they could use in implementing single-sex education in their own schools

Two Small Rural Schools Under Siege: An Oral History 1969-2012

This study is an oral history of the small rural community of Portal, Georgia, its two local schools, and its residents’ successful fight to keep these community schools. Guided by the theoretical framework of critical theory and the works of critical researchers, namely Paulo Freire (1998), Michael Apple (2006), Jean Anyon (2005), and Henry Giroux (2001), one purpose of this study was to discover what we can learn from the experiences of citizens in one small rural community who have been affected by consolidation. Since the account of the relationship between the Portal community and its hometown schools remains untold, another purpose was to produce a written record of some of the events from 1969, the year desegregation was enforced in Bulloch County, Georgia, to 2012, two years after the new Portal Middle High School was completed. The residents of Portal, Georgia, have struggled for nearly four decades to retain their neighborhood public schools citing these institutions as vital members in a partnership with this community. The recommended elimination of these schools was partly due to the small enrollment, limited funds, and perceived isolation from other schools in the Bulloch County district. It is how and why these schools, over time, came to be the disfavored, under-enrolled, and under-subsidized institutions they are today that was explored. The concepts of small size, closeness, and the experience of knowing members of their community were repeatedly stressed by the participants as crucial positive characteristics of the schools and community. The analysis of contention between the Portal community and the members in the more influential areas of Bulloch County revealed an ownership attitude and a manner of condescension toward this community with a chief bias being economic discrimination that essentially linked the Portal children’s education to their parents’ income-tax brackets. The majority of the data was gathered through interviews with five women and three men, all key members of the community whose ages range from their early 30s through their early 70s: Sarah Greene, Ellen Hodges, Tracy Kirkland, Kate Mitchell, Jamie Young, Richard Emerson, William Etheridge, and Gerald Johnson (all names are pseudonyms). The stories were analyzed through a critical lens that examines power relationships and the influence of classism in society

Icons, eclipses and stepping off the train: Vladimir Korolenko and the Ocherk

Russian literature has a reputation for gloomy texts, especially during the late nineteenth century. This volume argues that a \u27fin-de-siècle\u27 mood informed Russian literature long before the chronological end of the nineteenth century, in ways that had significant impact on the development of Russian realism. Some chapters consider ideas more readily associated with fin-de-siècle Europe such as degeneration theory, biodeterminism, Freudian psychoanalysis or apocalypticism, alongside earlier Russian realist texts by writers such as Turgenev, Dostoevsky or Tolstoy. Other chapters explore the changes that realism underwent as modernism emerged, examining later nineteenth-century or early twentieth-century texts in the context of the earlier realist tradition or their own cultural moment. Overall, a team of emerging and established scholars of Russian literature and culture present a wide range of creative and insightful readings that shed new light on later realism in all its manifestations

Icons, Landscape and the Boundaries of Good and Evil: Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent (1977)

Over the last several decades, the boundaries of languages and national and ethnic identities have been shifting, altering the notion of borders around the world. Borderland areas, such as East and West Europe, the US/Mexican frontera, and the Middle East, serve as places of cultural transfer and exchange, as well as arenas of violent conflict and segregation. As communities around the world merge across national borders, new multi-ethnic and multicultural countries have become ever more common. Border Visions: Identity and Diaspora in Film offers an overview of global cinema that addresses borders as spaces of hybridity and change. In this collection of essays, contributors examine how cinema portrays conceptions of borderlands informed by knowledge, politics, art, memory, and lived experience, and how these constructions contribute to a changing global community. These essays analyze a variety of international feature films and documentaries that focus on the lives, cultures, and politics of borderlands. The essays discuss the ways in which conflicts and their resolutions occur in borderlands and how they are portrayed on film. The volume pays special attention to contemporary Europe, where the topic of shifting border identities is one of the main driving forces in the processes of European unification. Among the filmmakers whose work is discussed in this volume are Fatih Akin, Montxo Armendàriz, Cary Fukunaga, Christoph Hochhäusler, Holger Jancke, Emir Kusturica, Laila Pakalnina, Alex Rivera, Larissa Shepitko, Andrea Staka, Elia Suleiman, and István Szabó. A significant contribution to the dialogue on global cinema, Border Visions will be of interest to students and scholars of film, but also to scholars in border studies, gender studies, sociology, and political science

Community Engagement through an Environmental Studies Lens

Situated within a state strongly identified with pristine nature, our central Maine campus provides a fabulous laboratory for both environmental science and civic engagement. To take full advantage of this fortunate situation, Bates College\u27s Environmental Studies (ES) program includes community civic engagement in many, if not all, of our classes and major requirements. Questions about community, diversity, and civic life help our students grapple with the complexity of environmental challenges, pushing them to consider the many kinds of knowledge essential to addressing problems at both local and more global scales. We strongly believe that a liberal arts environmental education can richly inform our students\u27 future lives, regardless of where our students wind up and whether they continue in a field that is directly related to the environment. Civic engagement is also integral to ES courses in the natural sciences. Central to how the Bates ES program does civic engagement is the question of the sciences\u27 role in evaluating and improving the environmental health of human, plant, and animal communities, and how the discourses of science interact with other ways of considering the meanings and histories of place

Russian Spring: Holy-Water Ecumenism

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author\u27s experience of traveling on a geology excursion to central Russia with an Orthodox and a Roman Catholic priests as guides