Democratically engaged assessment: Reimagining the purposes and practices of assessment in community engagement

This document is a project of reclamation and transformation, one that is both ongoing and rooted in years of dialogue within Imagining America and the work of its Assessing Practices of Public Scholarship research group (APPS). It emerges from our own experiences with assessment related to community engagement and from those of many other colleagues on campuses and in diverse communities. It is intended to bring together those who wish to reimagine assessment in light of its civic potential — to develop what we refer to as Democratically Engaged Assessment (DEA).Imagining Americ

Theatre and drama education and populism : the ensemble ‘family’ as a space for dialogic empathy and civic care

This article, understanding populism as an essentially undemocratic ideology, argues that the pro‐social theatre education approach of ensemble pedagogy can offer a model of educational practice which counters these anti‐democratic rhetorics by creating a shared space for the enactment of empathetic discourse. Via an ethnography of the UK Shakespeare Schools Foundation festival project, the notion of the theatre education ensemble ‘family’ as a model of civic caring is offered as an alternative, feminist ‘care perspective’ on civic and political rhetorics, in contrast to the patriarchal ‘justice perspectives’ which facilitate the reductive anti‐democratic rhetorics of populism. Thus, this article concludes that ensemble approaches to theatre education, viewed through this feminist pedagogy lens, hold rich potential for developing learners’ capacity to resist populism and act in socially hopeful ways

Characterisation of three ACC synthase gene family members during post-harvest-induced senescence in broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var. italica)

We investigated the gene expression profiles of different members of the 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxilic acid (ACC) synthase (EC 4.4.1.14) gene family in broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var. italica) during the post-harvest-induced senescence process. Using RT-PCR, three different cDNAs coding for ACC synthase (BROCACS1, BROCACS2 and BROCACS3) were amplified from floret tissue at the start of the senescence process. The three genes share relatively little homology, but have highly homologous sequences in Arabidopsis thaliana, and could be functionally related to these counterparts. Southern analyses suggest that BROCACS1 and BROCACS3 are present as single copy genes, while there are probably two copies of BROCACS2. All three genes showed different expression patterns: BROCACS1 is likely to be either wound - or mechanical stress-induced showing high transcript levels after harvesting, but no detectable expression afterwards. BROCACS2 shows steady expression throughout senescence, increasing at the latest stages, and BROCACS3 is almost undetectable until the final stages. Our results suggest that BROCACS1 could be required to initiate the senescence process, while BROCACS2 would be the main ACC synthase gene involved throughout the post-harvest-induced senescence. BROCACS3's expression pattern indicates that it is not directly involved in the initial stages of senescence, but in the final remobilization of cellular resources