Performing the discourse of sexuality online

This chapter focusses on Foucault, Butler, and video-sharing on sexual social networking sites. It argues that the use and prevalence of video-sharing technologies on sexual social networking websites, has a direct impact on our notions of sexual identity. Though sometimes pitted against one another and at times contradictory, the ideas of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler on the nature and expression of our sexuality and our gender identities in fact gel rather well, and both can help us to gain a deeper and more rounded picture of the impact and importance of the burgeoning phenomenon of internet dating websites in general, and sexual social networking in particular

If at First You Don’t Succeed, Become a Lifelong Learner: Gaining Capital through Online Higher Education Environments

In this chapter, the authors propose examining online learning in higher education as a mechanism for promoting lifelong learning skills, and thus, as a way to provide capital to students. With that in mind, they provide a theoretical foundation to demonstrate the need for workforce development as well as interdisciplinary perspectives on the skills and requisites necessary for successful lifelong learning, and how both are important to the central mission of higher education. This chapter explores the literature and major issues surrounding the importance and use of capital and lifelong learning skills, and how both can be gained through online learning. The authors argue that lifelong learning skills can be generated through transformative leaning experiences and that facilitating these experiences should be a goal of online learning in higher education in order to ensure that students have the skills necessary to gain social, cultural, and economic capital in order to remain relevant through their lives in a 21st century, learning society. In this chapter, the authors discuss several relevant examples of “Tools for Lifelong Learning” including specific examples to demonstrate how online classes can serve as a mechanism to generate capital for students in higher education settings. They provide a model and build upon theory across higher education, sociology, adult learning, and educational psychology to provide a new perspective of the importance of lifelong learning as well as best practices for achieving these goals