Count me in! Gender and ethnic minority attainment in school science

There is no single 'solution' to the 'problem' of under-achievement in school science by certain groups. Such under-achievement is strongly connected to the ways that society views the members of these groups. It is not enough for schools to be isolated islands of good practice; they need to help students critically reflect on the world inside and outside of school, and then equip students with the necessary tools to deal with this world. A number of strategies are suggested for use in schools to help pupils and students from groups which often underachieve to get more from their science lessons

Spirituality and Commemorative Events: The Centenary Of World War One In Australia

A number of dark commemorative events have been staged in recent years, marking the anniversaries of incidents that are distressing or involve death or suffering (Frost and Laing, 2013). They are a medium for thinking about and remembering the past and potentially promote healing and provide a sense of closure for those affected, yet there is a paucity of research about them from a socio-cultural perspective. This paper examines the role of the Centenary of World War One in Australia in promoting positive social outcomes that are linked to spiritual development and meaningful experiences. This commemoration of the Great War, to be staged between 2014 and 2018, encompasses a varied program of events including exhibitions, parades, ceremonies and memorial services. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders involved in the planning and management of this commemorative event. Findings suggest that organisers are actively seeking to achieve outcomes such as reconciliation, peace, empathy and compassion and encourage reflection on ideals of sacrifice and service. The Centenary of World War One might therefore be understood as an example of a positive event, a term given to events that seek to facilitate ‘human well-being and conditions (or various circumstances) for flourishing’ (Filep, Laing and Csikszentmihalyi, 2017: 10). The paper addresses the call by Filep, Volic and Lee (2015) for researchers to use positive psychology lenses to explore the social, and in this case, spiritual dimension of events

Long-Distance Walking In \u27The Way\u27: Promises of Healing and Redemption

Films can be a source of inspiration to travel and influence imaginings about travel (Frost, 2010; Frost and Laing, 2015). This paper analyses the depiction of long-distance walking as an activity that promotes healing in The Way (2010); a film about pilgrims on the Camino Way in Spain. The motif of redemption is used to understand this cinematic narrative. It is the third pillar of ‘the Christian eschatological narratives of sin, sacrifice and redemption’ (Taylor, 2001: 10), but also a common element in many sacred stories (McAdams et al., 2001), where the sinner atones for what they have done and is released from or cleansed of their sin. The redemption narrative sequence depicts something positive resulting from adversity and is thus a story of hope (McAdams et al., 2001). Even though the protagonist in The Way begins the journey with the intention of walking solo, grieving for the deatn of his son, it is his encounters with various people along the way that shapes his experience and ultimately provides him with a renewed sense of purpose and meaning in his life. We conclude with a consideration of the practical and theoretical implications of these findings

Genomic imprinting in human stem cells and human peripheral blood leukocytes

Genomic imprinting in mammals is the monoallelic expression of genes in a parent-of origin dependent manner. Imprinting can be transient and tissue specific, indicative of its role in specific developmental regimes. Placental specific imprinting has been found to be non-conserved between humans and mice. A new model of human trophoblast, trophoblast stem cells (hTS), differentiated from human embryonic stem (hES) cells, allows analysis of placental specific imprinting during the earliest stages of placentation. The use of cell lines to characterise imprinting in vivo is limited by epigenetic alterations during cell line derivation and culture. hES cells may harbour exceptional dichotomy in epigenotype compared to their in vivo counterpart, the preimplantation embryo, due to their derivation from superovulated embryos during genome-wide epigenetic remodelling. There are very limited options for analysis of imprinting in vivo in human tissue, and the most practical and available resource is human peripheral blood. Imprinted gene expression and in normal healthy blood is currently uncharacterised. Analysis of the Kcnq1/KCNQ1 cluster, which contains six ubiquitous and eight murine placental specific imprinted transcripts, in hTS cells showed that imprinting was not conserved for the placental specific transcripts. In addition, one of the ubiquitously imprinted transcripts was not imprinted in hTS cells or undifferentiated hES cells. Subsequent genome-wide imprinting analysis in undifferentiated hES cells and human fetal mesenchymal stem cells (fMSC), not derived from superovulated conceptions or during genome remodelling, found abnormal biallelic expression of several imprinted genes, to an extent consistent between both types of stem cell. In fMSC, differentially methylated imprinting control regions (ICRs) were unexpectedly normal. In hES cells, however, both hypo- and hypermethylation was detected at several ICRs. Imprinted gene expression following differentiation and expression of pluripotentiality conferring transcription factors were measured to further assess the potential of fMSC. Imprinting did not change following differentiation, however, pluripotency transcription factor expression was almost negligible compared to that in hES cells. Imprinting in peripheral blood was characterised by virtually undetectable expression of most transcripts, biallelic expression of those which could be detected and only a minority of genes remaining imprinted. These findings provide an overview of imprinted gene expression in human stem cells, complimenting previous work on hES cells. Whilst imprinted gene expression is universally disrupted by cell culture, the results suggest that methylation at ICRs may be sensitive to derivation associated specifically with hES cells, as it was normal in the fMSC lines. This lack of correlation between methylation at ICRs and imprinted expression was also mirrored in the hES cells as aberrant methylation patterns were stochastic, and did not correlate with the abnormal imprinted expression. This indicates that the loss of imprinting in cultured cells is caused by an epigenetic mechanism other than aberrant methylation. In peripheral blood, the often biallelic nature of imprinted gene expression limits the use of this tissue as a control, and also of this feature as an indicator of disease. Six of the 36 transcripts analysed remained monoallelic in blood giving them potential as biomarkers, so their imprinting status in disease should be characterised further

Personality characteristics associated with susceptibility to false memories

Accepted ManuscriptThis study examined whether certain personality characteristics are associated with susceptibility to false memories. Participants first answered questions from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in order to measure various personality characteristics. They then watched a video excerpt, the simulated eyewitness event. They were next encouraged to lie about the videotaped event during an interview. A week later, some participants recognized confabulated events as being from the video. Two personality characteristics in particular—the introversion-extroversion and thinking—feeling dimensions—were associated with susceptibility to false memories.Frost, P., Sparrow, S. & Barry, J. (2006). Personality Characteristics Associated with Susceptibility to False Memories. The American Journal of Psychology, 119(2), 193-204. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2044533

Travel as Hell: Exploring the Katabatic Structure of Travel Fiction

positive and negative sense. Many novels depict travel in terms of ‘hell,’ depicting journeys that are exhausting, dangerous, and nightmarish. This narrative can be explored using the concept of the katabasis. Drawn from Ancient Greek mythology, it literally means ‘the descent,’ and more generally a journey to hell and back. The underworld is a ‘realm of death,’ where sacrifices are often demanded and the ‘other’ is encountered. Where the traveller returns, they are usually irrevocably changed by the experience. Erling Holtsmark observes that the central motif of these sojourns is identity: “The journey is in some central, irreducible way a journey of self-discovery, a quest for a lost self.” Through suffering, the traveller learns what they are capable of and understands themselves more deeply. The reader also absorbs the lesson that while travel is not necessarily straight-forward or enjoyable, the difficult passages and twists are intrinsically rewarding and enlightening. The mythic concept of the katabasis has been applied more broadly to cover fictional journeys drawn from many cultures and across different forms of media, including books and film. It also appears to apply across genres, including the Western, science-fiction, and crime fiction. It has been argued that the katabatic structure provides these fictional or cinematic journeys with resonance and power, and makes them compelling for an audience

Ecological history affects zooplankton community responses to acidification

The effects of ecological history are frequently ignored in attempts to predict community responses to environmental change. In this study, we explored the possibility that ecological history can cause differences in community responses to perturbation using parallel acidification experiments in three sites with different pH histories in the Northern Highland Lake District of Wisconsin, USA. In Trout Lake, high acid neutralizing capacity had historically buffered changes in pH. In contrast, the two basins of Little Rock Lake (Little Rock-Reference and Little Rock-Treatment) had experienced seasonal fluctuations in pH. Furthermore, the two lake basins were separated with a curtain and Little Rock-Treatment was experimentally acidified in the late 1980s. In each site, we conducted mesocosm experiments to compare zooplankton community dynamics in control (ambient pH) and acidified (pH 4.7) treatments. Zooplankton community responses were strongest in Trout Lake and weakest in Little Rock-Treatment suggesting that ecological history affected responses to acidification. In part, variation in community sensitivity to acidification was driven by differences in species composition. However, the results of a reciprocal transplant experiment indicated that changes in the acid tolerance of populations during past acidification events may make zooplankton communities less sensitive to subsequent pH stress. Our study highlights the role that ecological history may play in community-level responses to environmental change