An Exploration of Teacher Perceptions of Mental Health Indicators within the Construct of School Connectedness

Mental health is an area schools have been increasingly asked to address. Protective factors to mitigate concerning mental health outcomes include those of building relationships, helping students feel safe and secure in their schools, and setting high expectations. These are encompassed within the construct of school connectedness, which is a burgeoning area of research and is linked to an increase of positive mental health outcomes in students. This study utilized a survey to determine the strength in relationship between teacher perceptions of ability to construct school connectedness and the importance of doing so. The study also examined variations in current practices of connecting students to school across Preschool through High School teachers. Findings suggest that there is a strong relationship (rs=.427; p = .083) between teachers perceived abilities in constructing connectedness and the importance in doing so. Findings also suggest that teachers are currently implementing activities throughout their daily routines that positively foster student connectedness. Implications for the field and educational leaders are discussed

Modeling the factors that influence exposure to SARS-CoV-2 on a subway train carriage

We propose the Transmission of Virus in Carriages (TVC) model, a computational model which simulates the potential exposure to SARS-CoV-2 for passengers traveling in a subway rail system train. This model considers exposure through three different routes: fomites via contact with contaminated surfaces; close-range exposure, which accounts for aerosol and droplet transmission within 2 m of the infectious source; and airborne exposure via small aerosols which does not rely on being within 2 m distance from the infectious source. Simulations are based on typical subway parameters and the aim of the study is to consider the relative effect of environmental and behavioral factors including prevalence of the virus in the population, number of people traveling, ventilation rate, and mask wearing as well as the effect of model assumptions such as emission rates. Results simulate generally low exposures in most of the scenarios considered, especially under low virus prevalence. Social distancing through reduced loading and high mask-wearing adherence is predicted to have a noticeable effect on reducing exposure through all routes. The highest predicted doses happen through close-range exposure, while the fomite route cannot be neglected; exposure through both routes relies on infrequent events involving relatively few individuals. Simulated exposure through the airborne route is more homogeneous across passengers, but is generally lower due to the typically short duration of the trips, mask wearing, and the high ventilation rate within the carriage. The infection risk resulting from exposure is challenging to estimate as it will be influenced by factors such as virus variant and vaccination rates

Process to practice: The evolving role of the academic middle manager in English further education colleges

The English further education sector has undergone significant change since the Further and Higher Education Act (1992) encouraged a culture of entrepreneurship, competition and the use of what was seen as best practice from the commercial sector. This led to a cultural shift and the introduction of many new initiatives – a situation that still exists now. The implementation of these initiatives was often delegated to middle managers – a group of people who occupied the gap between the senior leaders and the lecturers in the classroom. Current austerity measures, restructuring and the shift towards the creation of larger organizations have resulted in reorganizations that could present opportunities for middle managers to participate in the strategic processes and leadership of the organization, further developing their role (Greatbatch and Tate, 2018). The purpose of this article is to investigate the leadership and management aspects of the middle-manager’s role within the context of further education in England. Although many managers in the sector are reluctant to identify as leaders (Briggs, 2006), our research shows that their role has evolved so that they are undertaking a range of activities that could be classified as leadership. We suggest that using ‘practice’ rather than ‘process’ as a descriptor of the role would reframe, identify and bring forward the leadership aspects of what they do. Encouraging a focus on a holistic, practice-based approach, rather than a succession of process-driven tasks, could help managers to perform their role more effectively. Findings taken from interviews with 32 participants and a questionnaire with 302 responses are used to illustrate our argument. © 2019 British Educational Leadership, Management & Administration Society (BELMAS)

The feminist romantic : the revisionary rhetoric of Double negative, Naked poems, and Gyno-text

"The Feminist Romantic" argues for the revision of romantic rhetoric and structures in three Canadian feminist texts: Daphne Marlatt and Betsy Warland's Double Negative (1988), Phyllis Webb's Naked Poems (1965), and Lola Lemire Tostevin's Gyno-Text (1983). In its analysis of the textual challenges posed by contemporary feminist writing, it recurrently reads the various rhetorical tropes of these three texts against the poetry of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley--poetry likewise engaged on both thematic and structural levels with subjectivity and its ensuing problematics. This dissertation attends to the paradoxical position of the female writer attempting to write her self, her body, and her subjectivity within traditional textual conditions that have recurrently repressed woman and her feminine economy of representation. "The Feminist Romantic" recurrently points to the ways in which Double Negative, Naked Poems, and Gyno-Text appropriate canonical strategies to create textual space for female being and to pose epistemological challenges to the authority of the governing symbolic. The first chapter of this dissertation reads Double Negative's representations of desire, fragmentation, and female agency against the poetry of Coleridge, Blake, and Keats and further draws upon Wordsworth's Prelude to comparatively analyze the ways in which Marlatt and Warland's sequence ultimately calls into question its own affirmations and authority. The second chapter argues for Naked Poems' figurations of female desire and feminine subjectivity as a radical rewriting of The Prelude--a revision that interrogates the strategies and epistemological foundations of the precursor text. The third and concluding chapter turns to Gyno-Text's promotion of a 'new' discourse on the textual energy and authority of the maternal body and considers the ways in which this text draws upon the poetry of Wordsworth, Blake, Keats, and Shelley in a renewal of conventional representational strategies that takes into account the generative force of maternality. The critical and theoretical framework of this dissertation is provided by contemporary Canadian criticism, poststructuralist criticism, particularly that of Geoffrey H. Hartman and J. Douglas Kneale, and the theoretical writings of Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, and Hélène Cixous

Library provision for the adult learner in England and Wales: an examination of performance and potential for development founded upon historical and contemporary analysis

The burden of this study is that the nature of perceived adult learning is changing, and that provision for it is changing too, and growing both quantitatively and in importance: libraries and librarians, public and academic, have been engaged in this field for years, and the changes in it now offer both problems and opportunities. How can the profession react to this challenge

A heritage portrayed: nationalist theatre in Newfoundland, 1972-1982

This thesis concerns the ethnic and nationalist dimensions of alternate theatre in Newfoundland. More specifically, it deals with the strategies by which elements of nationalism and ethnicity (or ethnic identity) are incorporated and transmitted via the medium of theatre. -- The analysis focuses on three St. John's-based theatre companies, namely; The Mummers Troupe, Codco, and Rising Tide Theatre, and covers the time period from 1972 to the present. These groups have been among the most visible and active "conveyors" of ethnic and nationalist sentiments in Newfoundland, to an audience that frequently includes a mainland in addition to a significant local contingent. -- The development of nationalist theatre is examined within the context of the wider "cultural renaissance" commencing in the 1960's, and which resulted in a renewal of emphasis on indigenous and traditional forms of cultural expression such as music, crafts and literature. The socio-economic and cultural roots of both phenomena are investigated in historic and contemporary terms. It is concluded that nationalist theatre evolved in response and in reaction to the perceived loss of cultural pride and identity, and the erosion of traditional values and forms following Newfoundland's union with Canada in 1949. -- As it is the nature of theatre to not only provide entertainment, but to also reflect a society's face to itself in a very immediate and compelling way, it represents a type of artistic expression particularly suited to the above form of inquiry. This is all the more so when the dramatic works themselves convey perspectives and themes indigenous and often unique to their own society and time. In Newfoundland theatre, this is demonstrated in both the dominant and recurring themes found within the plays of the Mummers Troupe, Codco, and Rising Tide Theatre, and in the stated motivations and philosophies of the actors themselves. -- The identity expressed in nationalist theatre is described as an ethnic one and nationalism is interpreted as a response to threatened identity as well as a means by which to re-assert the "sense of peoplehood" or "uniqueness" that distinguishes Newfoundlanders from other Canadians