Children’s participation in school grounds developments: creating a place for education that promotes children’s social inclusion

Abstract This paper advances the idea that ‘education for the social inclusion of children’ is similar but different to ‘inclusive education’ as it has come to be understood and used by some authors and UK government documents. ‘Inclusive education’ tends to carry an inward emphasis on the participation of children in the education system (with discussions on school culture, transitions, truancy, exclusion rates, underachievement, and school leaving age). In contrast, education for the promotion of children’s social inclusion requires an outward emphasis on children's participation in 'mainstream' society while they are still children. The latter emphasis is seen to be lacking in educational policy discourse in Scotland though a recent shift in policy towards education for active citizenship is noted. Examples are provided to show how many policy statements enact a limitation on the scope for education to promote children’s social inclusion by emphasising children’s deficits as social actors and focussing on the ‘condition’ of social exclusion. The paper draws on an empirical study of children’s participation in changing school grounds in Scotland. The analysis shows how the enclosure of learning in books, classrooms and normative curricula was challenged. Learning from school grounds developments was constructed relationally and spatially but the scope of what was to be learned was often delineated by adults. The paper closes with a discussion of how education that promotes the social inclusion of children will benefit from seeing both children and adults as current though partial citizens and utilising socio-spatial opportunities for the generation of uncertain curricula through their shared and/or differentiated participation

Race, colonial history and national identity: Resident Evil 5 as a Japanese game

Resident Evil 5 is a zombie game made by Capcom featuring a White American protagonist and set in Africa. This paper argues that approaching this as a Japanese game reveals aspects of a Japanese racial and colonial social imaginary that are missed if this context of production is ignored. In terms of race, the game presents hybrid racial subjectivities that can be related to Japanese perspectives of Blackness and Whiteness where these terms are two poles of difference and identity through which an essentialised Japanese identity is constructed in what Iwabuchi calls “strategic hybridism” (Iwabuchi, 2002). In terms of colonialism, the game echoes structures of Japanese colonialism through which Japanese colonialism is obliquely memorialised and a “normal” Japanese global subjectivity can be performed

Human Clinical Isolates of Corynebacterium diphtheriae and Corynebacterium ulcerans Collected in Canada from 1999 to 2003 but Not Fitting Reporting Criteria for Cases of Diphtheria

A 5-year collection of Corynebacterium diphtheriae and Corynebacterium ulcerans human clinical isolates yielded nine isolates from blood cultures of patients with invasive infections, stressing the importance of C. diphtheriae as a serious blood-borne pathogen. Seven percent of C. diphtheriae and 100% of C. ulcerans isolates produced diphtheria toxin, demonstrating that toxigenic corynebacteria continue to circulate

NMR spectroscopic and thermodynamic studies of the etherate and the a, a', and γ phases of AlH3

Aluminum hydride (alane; AlH3) has been identified as a leading hydrogen storage material by the US Department of Energy. With a high gravimetric hydrogen capacity of 10.1 wt.%, and a hydrogen density of 1.48 g/cm3, AlH3 decomposes cleanly to its elements above 60 °C with no side reactions. This study explores in detail the thermodynamic and spectroscopic properties of AlH3; in particular the α, α′ and γ polymorphs, of which α′-AlH3 is reported for the first time, free from traces of other polymorphs or side products. Thermal analysis of α-, α′-, and γ-AlH3 has been conducted, using DSC and TGA methods, and the results obtained compared with each other and with literature data. All three polymorphs were investigated by 1H MAS-NMR spectroscopy for the first time, and their 27Al MAS-NMR spectra were also measured and compared with literature values. AlH3·nEt2O has also been studied by 1H and 27Al MAS-NMR spectroscopy and DSC and TGA methods, and an accurate decomposition pathway has been established for this adduct