3,284 research outputs found
Towards a framework for critical citizenship education
Increasingly countries around the world are promoting forms of "critical" citizenship in the planned curricula of schools. However, the intended meaning behind this term varies markedly and can range from a set of creative and technical skills under the label "critical thinking" to a desire to encourage engagement, action and political emancipation, often labelled "critical pedagogy". This paper distinguishes these manifestations of the "critical" and, based on an analysis of the prevailing models of critical pedagogy and citizenship education, develops a conceptual framework for analysing and comparing the nature of critical citizenship
Sex and the Cinema: What American Pie Teaches the Young
This paper focuses upon the wildly successful blockbuster American Pie teenpics, especially American Pie 3 â the Wedding. I argue that these films, which are sited so securely within the visual and pedagogical machinery of Hollywood culture, are specifically designed to appeal to teenage male audiences, and to provide lessons in sex and romance. Movies like this are especially important as they are experienced by far more teenagers than, for example, instructional films or other classroom materials; indeed, as Henry Giroux has observed, "teens and youth learn how to define themselves outside of the traditional sites of instruction, such as the home and the school⊠Learning in the postmodern age is located elsewhere â in popular spheres that shape their identities, through forms of knowledge and desires that appear absent from what is taught in schools" (Giroux, 1997, p.49). In this paper I discuss whether the American Pie series is actually a "new age" effort which, via insubordinate performances of gender, contests the hegemonic field of signification which regulates the production of sex, gender and desire, or whether it is more accurately described as a retrogressive hetero-conservative opus with a veneer of sexual radicalism. In short, I intend to probe whether this filmic vector for sex education is all about the shaping of responsible, caring, vulnerable men, or is it guiding them to become just like their heterosexual, middle-class fathers? And whether, despite its riotous and raunchy advertising, American Pie really dishes up something spicy or something terribly wholesome instead
Reinventing College Physics for Biologists: Explicating an epistemological curriculum
The University of Maryland Physics Education Research Group (UMd-PERG)
carried out a five-year research project to rethink, observe, and reform
introductory algebra-based (college) physics. This class is one of the Maryland
Physics Department's large service courses, serving primarily life-science
majors. After consultation with biologists, we re-focused the class on helping
the students learn to think scientifically -- to build coherence, think in
terms of mechanism, and to follow the implications of assumptions. We designed
the course to tap into students' productive conceptual and epistemological
resources, based on a theoretical framework from research on learning. The
reformed class retains its traditional structure in terms of time and
instructional personnel, but we modified existing best-practices curricular
materials, including Peer Instruction, Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, and
Tutorials. We provided class-controlled spaces for student collaboration, which
allowed us to observe and record students learning directly. We also scanned
all written homework and examinations, and we administered pre-post conceptual
and epistemological surveys. The reformed class enhanced the strong gains on
pre-post conceptual tests produced by the best-practices materials while
obtaining unprecedented pre-post gains on epistemological surveys instead of
the traditional losses.Comment: 35 pages including a 15 page appendix of supplementary material
Highly Ionized High-Velocity Clouds: Hot Intergalactic Medium or Galactic Halo?
We use spectroscopic data from HST and FUSE to study the wide range of
ionization states of the "highly ionized high-velocity clouds". Studied
extensively in OVI absorption, these clouds are usually assumed to be infalling
gas in the Galactic halo at distances less than 50 kpc. An alternative model
attributes the OVI (and OVII X-ray absorption) to cosmological structures of
low-density, shock-heated intergalactic gas, distributed over 1-3 Mpc
surrounding the Milky Way. The latter interpretation is unlikely, owing to the
enormous required mass of gas (4x10^12 M_solar). Our detection, in 9 of 12
sight lines, of low ionization stages (CII/III/IV; SiII/III/IV) at similar high
velocities as OVI requires gas densities far above that (n_H=5x10^-6 cm^-3)
associated with the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM). These HVCs are
probably cooling, multiphase gas in the Galactic halo, bow-shocks and
interfaces between clouds falling through a hot, rotating gaseous halo. The
velocity segregation of these HVCs in Galactic coordinates is consistent with a
pattern in which infalling clouds reflect the sense of Galactic rotation, with
peculiar velocities superposed.Comment: 26 pages, 1 color figure. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Replaced
original version with emulateapj styl
The Obliteration of Truth by Management: Badiou, St. Paul and the Question of Economic Managerialism in Education
This paper considers the questions that Badiouâs theory of the subject poses to cultures of economic managerialism within education. His argument that radical change is possible, for people and the situations they inhabit, provides a stark challenge to the stifling nature of much current educational climate. In 'Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism', Badiou describes the current universalism of capitalism, monetary homogeneity and the rule of the count. Badiou argues that the politics of identity are all too easily subsumed by the prerogatives of the marketplace and unable to present, therefore, a critique of the status quo. These processes are, he argues, without the potential for truth. What are the implications of Badiouâs claim that education is the arranging of âthe forms of knowledge in such a way that truth may come to pierce a hole in themâ (Badiou, 2005, p. 9)? In this paper, I argue that Badiouâs theory opens up space for a kind of thinking about education that resists its colonisation by cultures of management and marketisation and leads educationalists to consider the emancipatory potential of education in a new light
Pedagogia crĂtica e direitos humanos: fundamentos para uma proposta pedagĂłgico-crĂtica em direitos humanos
Este artigo reflete sobre a necessidade de encontrar uma teoria pedagĂłgica que ofereça sustentação Ă ação educativa em Direitos Humanos, apresentando uma proposta pedagĂłgico-crĂtica alicerçada nos pressupostos da teoria e da pedagogia crĂticas, privilegiando a pedagogia freireana, numa perspectiva atualizada para os Direitos Humanos. Nesse sentido, o trabalho tem o propĂłsito de discutir um fundamento teĂłrico-crĂtico para a Educação em Direitos Humanos, buscando novas formas de investigação e de anĂĄlise para sua compreensĂŁo, apropriando-se de conceitos crĂticos como conscientização, autonomia, diĂĄlogo e emancipação. Finalmente, considera que uma prĂĄtica pedagĂłgica crĂtica em Direitos Humanos contribui para a leitura do mundo do excluĂdo, para sua inclusĂŁo na sociedade e para a compreensĂŁo de que Ă© possĂvel desconstruir relaçÔes e prĂĄticas sociais injustas.(undefined
Complementary network-based approaches for exploring genetic structure and functional connectivity in two vulnerable, endemic ground squirrels
The persistence of small populations is influenced by genetic structure and functional connectivity. We used two network-based approaches to understand the persistence of the northern Idaho ground squirrel (Urocitellus brunneus) and the southern Idaho ground squirrel (U. endemicus), two congeners of conservation concern. These graph theoretic approaches are conventionally applied to social or transportation networks, but here are used to study population persistence and connectivity. Population graph analyses revealed that local extinction rapidly reduced connectivity for the southern species, while connectivity for the northern species could be maintained following local extinction. Results from gravity models complemented those of population graph analyses, and indicated that potential vegetation productivity and topography drove connectivity in the northern species. For the southern species, development (roads) and small-scale topography reduced connectivity, while greater potential vegetation productivity increased connectivity. Taken together, the results of the two network-based methods (population graph analyses and gravity models) suggest the need for increased conservation action for the southern species, and that management efforts have been effective at maintaining habitat quality throughout the current range of the northern species. To prevent further declines, we encourage the continuation of management efforts for the northern species, whereas conservation of the southern species requires active management and additional measures to curtail habitat fragmentation. Our combination of population graph analyses and gravity models can inform conservation strategies of other species exhibiting patchy distributions
Contact orderability up to conjugation
We study in this paper the remnants of the contact partial order on the
orbits of the adjoint action of contactomorphism groups on their Lie algebras.
Our main interest is a class of non-compact contact manifolds, called convex at
infinity.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figur
A Study of the Reionization History of Intergalactic Helium with FUSE and VLT
We obtained high-resolution VLT and FUSE spectra of the quasar HE2347-4342 to
study the properties of the intergalactic medium between redshifts z=2.0-2.9.
The high-quality optical spectrum allows us to identify approximately 850 HeII
absorption components with column densities between N~5X10^11 and $ 10^18
cm^-2. The reprocessed FUSE spectrum extends the wavelength coverage of the
HeII absorption down to an observed wavelength of 920 A. Approximately 1400
HeII absorption components are identified, including 917 HeII Ly-alpha systems
and some of their HeII Ly-beta, Ly-gamma, and Ly-delta counterparts. The
ionization structure of HeII is complex, with approximately 90 components that
are not detected in the hydrogen spectrum. These components may represent the
effect of soft ionizing sources. The ratio Eta=N(HeII)/N(HI) varies
approximately from unity to more than a thousand, with a median value of 62 and
a distribution consistent with the intrinsic spectral indices of quasars. This
suggests that the dominant ionizing field is from the accumulated quasar
radiation, with contributions from other soft sources such as star-forming
regions and obscured AGN, which do not ionize helium. We find an evolution in
Eta toward smaller values at lower redshift, with the gradual disappearance of
soft components. At redshifts z>2.7, the large but finite increase in the HeII
opacity, Tau=5+/-1, suggests that we are viewing the end stages of a
reionization process that began at an earlier epoch. Fits of the absorption
profiles of unblended lines indicate comparable velocities between hydrogen and
He^+ ions. At hydrogen column densities N<3X10^12 cm^-2 the number of forest
lines shows a significant deficit relative to a power law, and becomes
negligible below N=10^11 cm^-2.Comment: 40 pages, 10 Postscript figures, uses Aastex.sty The Astrophysical
Journal, in pres
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