Girls vs. boys in mathematics: Test scores provide one interpretation girls narratives suggest a different story

This study seeks to provide a data based critique of the claims of gender equity in mathematics. Specifically, this paper is an analysis of the personal well-remembered events (WREs) told and recorded by women who are in the first course of their preservice teaching professional sequence. Importantly, these are women who are on the professional track to teach mathematics. Using a narrative based methodology, the writings provide another angle of the intricate pieces of equity (i.e. test results say both genders are just as capable, stories of females say otherwise). The themes center around the safe zones, struggles, embarrassment, competition, and self-fulfilling prophecies. From these stories, we see subtle illustrations of existing gender inequities in mathematics

What is the history of the Swinging Knights and the Knights on Broadway?

Abbot Pennings answers a question about the history of the Swinging Knights, archived from the SNC website

Towards foundations for the logic of distinctions

This thesis is a contribution to the philosophy of logic and the foundations of metaphysics, and not to logic proper. We suggest how the fundamental concepts of predicate logic and set theory may be reduced entirely, or almost entirely, to relational concepts. We also urge and begin to introduce the use of a new type of interpretation of logic (and we call this type of interpretation a "Chinese-mystical" one). Against this background, we look briefly at a variety of aspects of possible beginnings for the logic of (intensions of) relations (equivalently, for the logic of distinctions). In Chapter 1 we introduce nearly all of the primitive notions and the symbolic vocabulary in terms of which, in Chapter 1 and also later, we attempt to explain all the fundamental concepts of predicate logic and set theory and to explore the logic of contexts and tokenicity. We also remark on some of the differences between our conception of the foundations of logic and the conception presupposed in, or commonly associated with, PM, with special emphasis on the deficiencies of the latter. In Chapter 2 we display various senses in which the properties of the true/false distinction can be said to be generalized to those of certain other distinctions. That is, we suggest that there are certain distinctions any one of which, for the purposes of logic, will effectively achieve all the work the true/false dichotomy can do, and other work besides. And we emphatically suggest that the scope of modern logic should be broadened. In Chapter 3 we attempt to introduce some inchoate aspects of the logic of relations proper (that is, of the intensions of relations). There we also introduce "Chinese-mystical" metaphysics; a "Chinese-mystical" metaphysics can be described as a relational metaphysics which denies any reality to "thing" concepts. In Chapter 4 we explore some of the rudiments of how to attempt to replace the propositional calculus by an analogue which would formalize the logical characteristics of in general unasserted relations instead of those of propositions. In Chapter 5 we briefly explain some of the philosophical inadequacies of contemporary set theory. In Chapter 6 we suggest how set theory can be altered to make it less unacceptable as a formalization of the concept of "manyness" and foundation for mathematics. In Chapter 7 we digress to briefly survey something of the diversity of theories of what are the bearers of truth and falsity. In Chapter 8 we attempt to indulge in a little pioneering work on foundations for the logic of tokenicity. In Chapter 9 we suggest a clearcut way in which the paradoxes of mysticism may be explained logically

What do fashion designers look like? Comparing representations of stock photograph designers and professional designers

This study intended to evaluate how American stock photograph companies portray fashion designers. The U.S. apparel industry is a large and varied field. In 2010, there were 7,855 apparel manufacturing firms, and more than 16,000 fashion designers were employed in at least 30 states (BLS, 2012). Over 200 institutions offer secondary degrees in fashion-related programs (“Top 75,” 2013). Clearly, the occupation of fashion designer is of interest to many Americans, making it important to understand how it is characterized in the media and to compare its depictions to reality. To explore this idea, this study developed two research questions: (1) How do stock photographs represent fashion designers? and (2) How do those representations compare to those presented by professional designers of themselves

Book Review: The Oregon Trail: An American Saga

David Dary\u27s The Oregon Trail is a pleasant excursion on a well-traveled road. His hook is not a trail-blazing work of the stature of such classics as Francis Parkman\u27s The California and Oregon Trail (1849) and Bernard De Voto\u27s The Year of Decision, 1846 (1943), nor is it as erudite as John D. Unruh\u27s The Plains Across (1979) nor as encyclopedic as Merrill J. Matte\u27s Platte River Road Narratives (1988); however, it remains a useful introduction to the subject

Further exploration of the classroom video analysis (CVA) instrument as a measure of usable knowledge for teaching mathematics: taking a knowledge system perspective

In this article we report further explorations of the classroom video analysis instrument (CVA), a measure of usable teacher knowledge based on scoring teachers’ written analyses of classroom video clips. Like other researchers, our work thus far has attempted to identify and measure separable components of teacher knowledge. In this study we take a different approach, viewing teacher knowledge as a system in which different knowledge components are flexibly brought to bear on specific teaching situations. We explore this idea through a series of exploratory factor analyses of teachers clip level scores across three different CVA scales (fractions, ratio and proportions, and variables, expressions, and equations), finding that a single dominant dimension explained from 55 to 63 % of variance in the scores. We interpret these results as consistent with a view that usable teacher knowledge requires both individual knowledge components, and an overarching ability to access and apply those components that are most relevant to a particular teaching episode

Virtual Legacies: Genealogy, the Internet, and Jewish Identity

As Jewish identities become more hybridized in what Manuel Castells calls a "network society," genealogical research intensifies the questioning of how Jews identify and who identifies as Jewish. Jewish identities based on relation, location, and devastation develop out of genealogical research, especially when networks such as the internet increase access to information and communities of other researchers. Mining the internet for genealogical information and searching for heritage only add to the possibilities of Jewish identity, revealing Jewish kin, connections to a particular place, or the tragedy of the Holocaust--evidence of the ways in which the World Wide Web changes Jewish identity formation. The internet is a virtual gathering place for the commemoration and study of Jewish life and culture, even as its use challenges conventional modes of Jewish community and identity formation. Through its treatment of the internet and Jewish identity, this dissertation explores new media and their cultural impact, arguing that new media enable penetrable and osmotic identities instead of reifying delimited parameters. Using Marianne Hirsch's "postmemory," Hayden White's "emplotment," Vivian M. Patraka's "goneness," and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's "hereness" as critical lenses through which to view Jewish genealogical Web sites, I show how the narratives on Jewish genealogical research Web sites, cyber-shtetls, and personal genealogy Web sites and blogs reveal constructions of Jewish identity that have never before been articulated as viable options for forming Jewish communities. Jewish communities of relation, location, and devastation may resemble other Jewish communities, but they are unique in that they are virtual--their homes are online. The narratives found on each genre of Web site are functions of postmemory, in that they are the results of family lore, emplotted in order to tell coherent family histories. The "hereness" of postmemory confronts the "goneness" of much of the lives and times that compose Jewish culture, allowing for the creativity that emplotment requires. When Jewish genealogists search for their heritage online, they encounter communities of other genealogists who are just as eagerly emplotting their own genealogical narratives

Mathematics Anxiety: Identity Work in a Gifted Prospective Elementary Teacher’s Mathematics-related Personal Narratives

Previous studies have focused on negative physiological sensations and psychological emotions of mathematics anxiety experienced in real time. Similarly, prior research has noted that prospective elementary teachers (PSTs) may experience such feelings of distress while learning to teach mathematics in their teacher-preparation programs. Mathematics teacher educators have sought to reduce elementary PSTs’ mathematics anxiety by improving their mathematical content knowledge and discipline-specific pedagogical knowledge. But why might mathematics anxiety persist even after elementary PSTs have successfully completed such teacher-preparation coursework? Our case study of a female elementary PST, identified as gifted, illustrates how mathematics anxiety, when reinforced by personal narratives that create and reiterate patterns in past mathematics learning, can operate as an enduring identity (e.g., a mathematics-avoidant identity), long after the stressful events prompting that anxiety have ended. Thus, such narrative identities can engender new/similar experiences of anxiety in present and future mathematics learning/teaching and can ultimately influence the educational and professional decision-making of adult PSTs, even though such self-understanding is based in oft-told stories of childhood and adolescence. The influence of mathematics-anxiety identities merits further exploration, as most previous studies of mathematics anxiety have tended not to address the significant identity work that PSTs undertake during professional development