Technical boys and creative girls: the career aspirations of digitally-skilled youths

Digital technology is increasingly central to our lives, particularly among young people. However, there remains a concern from government and businesses of a digital skills gap because many youths, especially girls, tend to be consumers rather than creators of technology. Drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews with digitally-skilled teenagers (aged 13-19), we investigate their digital career aspirations and examine how identities and discourses of gender can interact with the type of digital careers that are of interest to these youths. While we found digitally-skilled young people still articulate traditional gendered discourses of digital competence, especially around technical abilities, we highlight the growing importance of creativity as a career pathway into digital technology. Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to the new computing curriculum in England, which prioritises technical computing skills, and the discontinuation of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), which facilitates a broader usage of software and digital productivity

‘I’m good, but not that good’: digitally-skilled young people’s identity in computing

Computers and information technology are fast becoming a part of young people’s everyday life. However, there remains a difference between the majority who can use computers and the minority who are computer scientists or professionals. Drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews with digitally-skilled young people (aged 13-19), we explore their views and aspirations in computing, with a focus on the identities and discourses that these youngsters articulate in relation to this field. Our findings suggest that, even among digitally-skilled young people, traditional identities of computing as people who are clever but antisocial still prevail, which can be unattractive for youths, especially girls. Digitally-skilled youths identify with computing in different ways and for different reasons. Most enjoy doing computing but few aspired to being a computer person. Implications of our findings for computing education are discussed, especially the continued need to broaden identities in computing, even for the digitally-skilled

School processes in providing reading support in GCSE examinations

Against a background of increasing student eligibility for ‘access arrangements’ in examinations for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), this article examines the processes within schools that structure a student's access to the provision of reading support, including staff and student viewpoints. Dominic Griffiths, who is a Senior Advisory Teacher with Tameside Local Authority Education Psychology and Learning Support Team, and Kevin Woods, who is a Senior Lecturer in Educational and Child Psychology at the University of Manchester, report upon a series of four case studies, each based within an urban secondary school offering some form of reading support to students in GCSE examinations. Each case study incorporates student interviews, observations of reading support in action, and interviews with staff who manage and provide reading support in examinations. Quantitative findings show an association between students' preferred mode of reading support and the location in which it is provided. Qualitative analyses revealed key themes relating to the dynamics of provision and use of reading support, including ‘student worthiness’, ‘relationships’ and ‘unfair advantage’. Recommendations are made for a more central role for student consultation within processes for providing reader support to GCSE examination candidates

Learners’ and teachers’ beliefs about learning tones and pinyin

This paper reports a study of the perceptions of English-speaking learners and teachers about the challenges and difficulties of Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) learning in England. The study involved a Likert-scale questionnaire and follow-up interviews with 37 university student learners, 443 school students and the 42 teachers of both groups. The questionnaires and interviews explored beliefs about language learning, about Chinese language learning and about language learning strategies. This paper focuses on the findings concerning the perceived challenges of speaking Chinese and of tones in learning Chinese. The findings of this study present a picture of teachers who are keen for their students to learn to speak and communicate in Chinese, and of students who are keen to take risks in speaking. However, in contrast to earlier findings about learners’ views about learning Chinese, the learners in this study claimed to be very tone aware and reported that they found listening and understanding Chinese more difficult than production. This is explored in relation to the pupils’ views about learning tones and pinyin and raises questions about the ways they address tones and pinyin learning in the context of their expressed aim of communicating and taking risks in speaking. The discussion raises issues about the possible effects of communicative teaching of languages in English schools. We ask whether an emphasis on communicative approaches may affect how learners address difficulties of the Chinese pronunciation system and the use of pinyin

Light paintings

Opinnäytetyössäni käsittelen omaa taiteellista tuotantoani. Aluksi kerron kuinka olen päätynyt tekemään sitä mitä teen ja esittelen kuvasarjani. Tämän jälkeen käyn läpi käsitteitä, jotka liittyvät työhöni. Oma työskentelyni on kehittynyt kohti valon kuvaamista. Kuvaan valoa tietyn ajan kuluessa tai aikaa tietyssä valossa. Miten päin asiaa haluaakaan ajatella. Tutkin valon luonteita vuorokauden- ja vuodenaikojen muutoksina. Kuinka erilainen valo on eri aikoina? Miten se muuttaa kohdettaan? Ja kuinka se suhteutuu ympäristön väreihin? Tekstissäni perehdyn valoon Claude Monetin kautta. Kävelyllä on ollut tärkeä merkitys teosteni synnylle. Se toimii inspiraation lähteenä ja oli merkittävässä roolissa ensimmäisissä sarjoissani. Käsittelen kävelyn teemaa Richard Longin työskentelyn avulla. Aika, vuodenajat, toisto ja sattuma, sekä valokuvauksen ja maalauksen suhde ovat aiheina seuraavissa luvuissa. Käyn näitä asioita läpi taiteilijoiden avulla, joiden teoksiin ja työskentelyyn olen tutustunut kirjoittaessani tätä lopputyötä. Yhteistä kaikille valitsemilleni taiteilijoille tai teoksille on pitkien ajanjaksojen käyttäminen. Muita yhdistäviä tekijöitä ovat työskentelymetodit, tekniikka tai visuaalinen lopputulos