A Critical Literacy Approach to Student Affairs Education

This article argues for the use of critical literacy as a critical pedagogy in student affairs practice. The authors describe how some currents of the student affairs literature have shifted toward a focus on student learning and critical approaches to student development and learning. Subsequently, they discuss the social turn in our understanding of literacy and a related move toward critical approaches to understanding literacy as a social practice. Finally, they present a synthesis of the literature, which results in considerations for approaching higher education student affairs contexts through a critical literacy framework, exposing gaps and areas for future theorizing and research

Researching Writing Events: Using Mediated Discourse Analysis to Explore How Students Write Together

This article addresses how mediated discourse theory and related analytical tools can be used to explore how students write together. Considered within a sociocultural framework that conceptualises writing as involving distributed, mediated and dialogic processes of invention, this article presents an investigation of how three high school students wrote together for a collaborative project. This article presents a writing event selected from a larger study that is used to explore the ways authorship is distributed among the students, the resources that mediate their writing, the shifting social contexts they establish when writing and the relational and reflexive social positioning they enact. Mediated discourse theory and its related analytical tools are introduced for heuristic and methodological purposes for analysing how the coordination of these complexities shapes students\u27 writing. The purpose for doing so is to gain a better understanding of how and why students write in the ways they do

Geospatial technologies in support of community enhancement and creating inclusive historical narratives: Investigating the affordances of collaborative mapping software, location-based applications and 3D reconstructions to facilitate place-based digital literacies for the Ecomuseo della Via Appia in Latiano, Italy.

This paper aims to provide insights on the added value of digital technology for representing a sense of place and belonging within local communities. In particular, we look at how collaborative mapping software, location-based applications, and 3D reconstructions can be successfully employed as workshop instruments to facilitate digital literacies that negotiate place-based narratives and identities in the Ecomuseum della Via Appia (EVA) in Latiano, Italy. We argue that these geospatial technologies are powerful facilitators for creating digital literacies that reflect the community’s awareness of history and identity and involving local communities in decision-making activities on local heritage management. Our findings are based on activities and stakeholder meetings that were organized by EVA in close collaboration with the Spatial Information Laboratory (SPINlab) of VU University Amsterdam in southern Italy in 2016 and 2017

Causal relationships between risk of venous thromboembolism and 18 cancers:a bidirectional Mendelian randomization analysis

BACKGROUND: People with cancer experience high rates of venous thromboembolism (VTE). Risk of subsequent cancer is also increased in people experiencing their first VTE. The causal mechanisms underlying this association are not completely understood, and it is unknown whether VTE is itself a risk factor for cancer.METHODS: We used data from large genome-wide association study meta-analyses to perform bidirectional Mendelian randomization analyses to estimate causal associations between genetic liability to VTE and risk of 18 different cancers.RESULTS: We found no conclusive evidence that genetic liability to VTE was causally associated with an increased incidence of cancer, or vice versa. We observed an association between liability to VTE and pancreatic cancer risk [odds ratio for pancreatic cancer: 1.23 (95% confidence interval: 1.08-1.40) per log-odds increase in VTE risk, P = 0.002]. However, sensitivity analyses revealed this association was predominantly driven by a variant proxying non-O blood group, with inadequate evidence to suggest a causal relationship.CONCLUSIONS: These findings do not support the hypothesis that genetic liability to VTE is a cause of cancer. Existing observational epidemiological associations between VTE and cancer are therefore more likely to be driven by pathophysiological changes which occur in the setting of active cancer and anti-cancer treatments. Further work is required to explore and synthesize evidence for these mechanisms.</p

Patient Sex, Reproductive Status, and Synthetic Hormone Use Associate With Histologic Severity of Nonalcoholic&nbsp;Steatohepatitis.

Background &amp; aimsSex and sex hormones can affect responses of patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) to metabolic stress and development of hepatocyte injury and inflammation.MethodsWe collected data from 3 large U.S. studies of patients with NAFLD (between October 2004 and June 2013) to assess the association between histologic severity and sex, menopause status, synthetic hormone use, and menstrual abnormalities in 1112 patients with a histologic diagnosis of NAFLD. We performed logistic or ordinal logistic regression models, adjusting for covariates relevant to an increase of hepatic metabolic stress.ResultsPremenopausal women were at an increased risk of lobular inflammation, hepatocyte ballooning, and Mallory-Denk bodies than men and also at an increased risk of lobular inflammation and Mallory-Denk bodies than postmenopausal women (P &lt; .01). Use of oral contraceptives was associated with an increased risk of lobular inflammation and Mallory-Denk bodies in premenopausal women, whereas hormone replacement therapy was associated with an increased risk of lobular inflammation in postmenopausal women (P &lt; .05).ConclusionsBeing a premenopausal woman or a female user of synthetic hormones is associated with increased histologic severity of hepatocyte injury and inflammation among patients with NAFLD at given levels of hepatic metabolic stress