Rocking the Boat: Critical Reflexivity in Social Studies Teachers

This qualitative study examines how critical reflexivity is manifested in and enacted by seven Social Studies teachers, in the Singaporean context of ethnic diversity, increased affluence and socio-political constraints. The cases show that critically reflexive teachers are strongly influenced by their lived experiences to develop good self-understanding and a deep sensitivity to systemic inequalities around them. Critical reflexivity presents as a continuum, with most teachers working towards improving their students’ critical thinking and awareness to inequity through their teaching, while some undertake personally transformative journeys that also effect change in their immediate communities. Findings provide insights on the motivations behind critically reflexive attitudes, and also point to factors that hinder a greater development of critical reflexivity. We suggest that critical reflexivity attitudes can be developed in teachers via programs such as currere, for enhanced teaching practice. Findings also highlight the nuances in the nature of citizenship values in the Asian context, suggesting that critical reflexivity involves small and subtle actions of change and agency in teacher-practitioners.This study was funded by the Education Research Funding Programme, National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, project no. OER 10/14 JS

Where are they going, and what can we do to keep them? Intent to leave among nurses in British Columbia, Canada

Purpose. To identify: (1) alternate professions being considered by nurses, and (2) potential policy levers to retain them. Methods. This study describes responses to a subset of questions on a survey of nearly 15,000 nurses in British Columbia. Participants expressing intent to leave were asked what other professional options they were considering, and what changes they would need to keep them in nursing. We used thematic analysis to identify themes and sub-themes of participant responses. Results. Fewer than one in five nurses expressed intent to stay in the profession for more than two years. Participants cited a wide variety of other professional options available to them; the most commonly cited category was ‘anything but nursing’. When asked what they needed to stay in nursing, participants described improvements in compensation, safe staffing, work/life balance, workplace culture, physical and psychological safety, and opportunities for advancement

CONNECTED BUT NOT GAMING - A STUDY ON PARENTAL CONTROL, CHILD SELF-CONTROL AND SMARTPHONE USE

Master'sMASTER OF SOC.SCI. (RSH-FASS

Relationship between workplace support schemes, organizational culture and organizational commitment with job satisfaction as the mediator.

This study assesses the impact of workplace support schemes on organizational culture and organizational commitment, using job satisfaction as a mediator. As hypothesized, the regression between workplace support and organizational culture revealed that workplace support did have a significant positive influence on organizational culture. However, results also showed that workplace support did not have a significant influence on organizational commitment. It was found that job satisfaction did not mediate the influence of workplace support on both organizational culture and organizational commitment. The implications and limitations are discussed

An open repository of real-time COVID-19 indicators.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented enormous data challenges in the United States. Policy makers, epidemiological modelers, and health researchers all require up-to-date data on the pandemic and relevant public behavior, ideally at fine spatial and temporal resolution. The COVIDcast API is our attempt to fill this need: Operational since April 2020, it provides open access to both traditional public health surveillance signals (cases, deaths, and hospitalizations) and many auxiliary indicators of COVID-19 activity, such as signals extracted from deidentified medical claims data, massive online surveys, cell phone mobility data, and internet search trends. These are available at a fine geographic resolution (mostly at the county level) and are updated daily. The COVIDcast API also tracks all revisions to historical data, allowing modelers to account for the frequent revisions and backfill that are common for many public health data sources. All of the data are available in a common format through the API and accompanying R and Python software packages. This paper describes the data sources and signals, and provides examples demonstrating that the auxiliary signals in the COVIDcast API present information relevant to tracking COVID activity, augmenting traditional public health reporting and empowering research and decision-making