Review of The Domestic Revolution: Enlightenment Feminisms and the Novel

Eve Tavor Bannet, The Domestic Revolution: Enlightenment Feminisms and the Novel. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 304 pp. ISBN 0801864178 (paper)

Taking Race into Account: Charting Student Attitudes towards Affirmative Action

This paper examines student attitudes towards affirmative action over 4 years of college. Asian American and Latino/a students were more likely than White students to disagree strongly or somewhat with abolishing affirmative action after 4 years of college. A studentà ¢ s attitude towards the policy as a first-year student, peer group influence, and political orientation were significant predictors of student attitudes of affirmative action during the fourth year of college. The findings suggest that while college plays some role in shaping affirmative action attitudes, its influence is somewhat limited in comparison to the background traits and attitudes that students bring to college

Review of The Domestic Revolution: Enlightenment Feminisms and the Novel

Eve Tavor Bannet, The Domestic Revolution: Enlightenment Feminisms and the Novel. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 304 pp. ISBN 0801864178 (paper)

Rural realities: digital communication challenges for rural Australian local governments

Purpose – This article explores challenges for rural Australian local governments during the transition to high-speed broadband infrastructure. Despite the National Broadband Network’s promised ubiquitous connectivity, significant access discrepancies remain between rural and urban areas.Methodology – Empirical findings are drawn from a full-day workshop on digital connectivity, which included participants from seven rural local governments in New South Wales, Australia. Thematic analysis of the workshop transcript was undertaken in order to extrapolate recurring nuances of rural digital exclusion. Findings – Rural communities face inequitable prospects for digital inclusion, and authorities confront dual issues of accommodating connected and unconnected citizens. Many areas have no or poor broadband access, and different digital engagement expectations are held by citizens and local governments. Citizens seek interactive opportunities, but rural authorities often lack the necessary resources to offer advanced participatory practices. Research limitations/implications – While this research draws from a small sample of government officials, their insights are nonetheless heuristically valuable in identifying connectivity issues faced in rural Australia. These issues can guide further research into other regions as well as civic experiences of digital inclusion. Practical/social implications – There is a need to reconceive Australia’s current policy approach to broadband. Greater rural digital inclusion may be achieved by focusing on connectivity as a public interest goal, targeting infrastructure developments to suit local contexts, and implementing participatory digital government practices. Originality/value – The actions suggested would help ensure equity of digital inclusion across Australian municipal areas. Without such changes, there is a risk of rural citizens facing further marginalisation through digital exclusion

TouchCast Studio Presentation

Workshop Presented by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learnin

Asian American Women’s Perspectives on Historically White Sorority Life: A Critical Race Theory and Cultural Capital Analysis

This study examined 18 Asian American women’s attitudes towards sororities at a predominantly White institution in the south. I use cultural capital and critical race theory frameworks to explain how immigrant identity and social class intersect with race to perpetuate racial divisions in historically White sorority life (HWSL). Participants identified two primary reasons for the lack of racial diversity in HWSL, the role of immigrant families and social class, both of which can be viewed as race-neutral explanations for why HWSL “coincidentally” remains divided by race. However, I demonstrate how race intersects with both immigration and social class to perpetuate social divisions in HWSL, resulting in complex insights for why such groups remain predominantly White in composition

Attitudes and Advocacy: Understanding Faculty Views on Racial/Ethnic Diversity

Diversity has been a hot-button issue in higher education for the past several decades (Chang, Witt, Jones & Hakuta, 2003). A significant portion of research has been dedicated to how students experience the campus racial climate (Hurtado, Milem, Clayton- Pederson, & Allen, 1998; Rankin & Reason, 2005), their views on policies such as affirmative action (Sax & Arredondo, 1999), and how they participate in diversity-related activism (Rhoads, 1998). However, less is known about how faculty feel about diversity policies on their campuses, how important they think diversity is to undergraduates, and their own commitments to fostering a diverse environment (Flores & Rodriguez, 2006; American Council on Education, 2000). Faculty play a critical role in the life of the university. They design and teach the curriculum, conduct research that advances the existing knowledge base, and set guidelines that determine many of the standards for their campuses. They make up the body from which department heads, deans, and college presidents come from. Trustees may serveterms, students cycle in and out, but once tenured, faculty are there to stay. Because faculty play such a sustaining role in the life of the university, it is essential to better understand their attitudes towards diversity, especially in a time period where policies geared towards increasing access to higher education for students of color continue to be challenged (Chang, et al., 2003). In order to better understand faculty attitudes towards diversity, specifically racial/ethnic diversity, we created a composite variable that taps into a variety of faculty attitudes towards diversity including their commitments to promoting racial understanding and their views on the role of diversity in undergraduate education. We refer to this variable throughout the study as à à à ¢ Diversity Advocacy.à à à ¢ The purpose of the study is to examine how Diversity Advocacy varies within subsets of faculty, as well as to identify predictors of faculty attitudes regarding diversity

The importance of broadband for socio-economic development: a perspective from rural Australia

Advanced connectivity offers rural communities prospects for socio-economic development. Despite Australia’s national broadband infrastructure plans, inferior availability and quality of rural Internet connections remain persistent issues. This article examines the impact of limited connectivity on rural socio-economic opportunities, drawing from the views of twelve citizens from the Boorowa local government area in New South Wales. The available fixed wireless and satellite connections in Boorowa are slow and unreliable, and remote regions in the municipality are still without any Internet access. Participants identified four key areas in their everyday lives that are impacted by insufficient connectivity: business development, education, emergency communication, and health. Rural citizens often already face challenges in these areas, and infrastructure advancements in urban spaces can exacerbate rural-urban disparities. Participants’ comments demonstrated apprehension that failure to improve connectivity would result in adverse long-term consequences for the municipality. This article suggests that current broadband policy frameworks require strategic adaptations to account for the socio-economic and geographic contexts of rural communities. In order to narrow Australia’s rural-urban digital divide, infrastructure developments should be prioritised in the most underserved regions