Book Review: Fashioning Coco Chanel

Book review of: Rhonda K. Garelick, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History (New York: Random House, 2014)

International Education Consultants: An Examination of their Role in Admission and Enrollment of International Students at Private Secondary Institutions in the United States

Over the past ten years, the United States has seen a significant increase in the number of international students seeking a high school diploma from private secondary schools (Farrugia, 2014). Coinciding with this increase in international students is an increase in the use of educational consultants who help international students gain access to these schools. Little research has been done on what the relationship entails and the impact these consultants are having on U. S. private secondary schools international enrollment. Using a thematic analysis approach, this study looks at how consultants are involved in the international student admission and enrollment process at private secondary schools in the Eastern United States. The study and its findings are framed by human capital and social reproduction theory, which help us to better understand the relationship between educational consultants and their clients. The findings show that consultants play a significant and active role in admissions and enrollment, but that role depends on their relationship with the school. It was also found that consultants provide services to not only students but to schools. Those services include, but are not limited to, material verification, increasing access to less represented student groups and an overall increase in the number of international students. Moreover, this study addresses the ethical considerations of the relationship between schools and consultants

Eating your words: constructing food and eating practices in mealtime conversation

This thesis examines the construction and action of food evaluations in mealtime conversation. It takes a social constructionist approach to eating, arguing that `talking food' is inseparable from, and thus constructive of, the practices around food and drink consumption. This challenges current psychological thinking on eating, which is typically based on a cognitive-experimental model of attitudes and intentions to eat. I argue that this does not adequately take into account the social nature of food and the way in which food and eating is embedded in everyday interaction. The thesis examines instances of family mealtimes, as a way of looking at food in interaction. Data is taken from the tape-recorded conversations during these interactions. Conversation analytic and discursive psychological approaches were used to analyse the data corpus, with a focus on participants' usage of food and drink evaluations. These evaluations were examined as part of the situated activities of the meal such as offering or requesting food, and justifying eating habits. The analysis looks at different types of food evaluations: those that are associatedw ith the food and those associated with the person evaluating the food. These types are seen to be specific to either items or categories of food, and are rhetorically designed to counter challenges. Finally, the analysis considers how embodied eating sensations such as `gustatory pleasure' are constructed through evaluative expressions. It is argued that food and drink evaluations cannot be treated as separate mental or physical states (such as food attitudes or preferences) as they are bound up with the structure of interaction at the micro-level of speaker turn organisation. Instead, food evaluations can be regarded as part of, and as constructing, the practice of eating as well as contributing to our notions of food sensations and individual taste. The analysis and approach taken in this thesis therefore suggest that we need to reconceptualise eating and consumption in terms of discursive activities in interaction

Cultural Heritage Preservation Meets Modern Port Development: Securing the Integrity and Authenticity of the Lamu Town World Heritage Site in the Face of Current and Future Challenges

This study identifies the current major threats to the Lamu Town World Heritage Site, which lies on the coast of Kenya. Lamu gained status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its well preserved Swahili living culture as well as the physical representations of that culture in architecture etc. Lamu is a tourist hotspot within the region and hosts over 50,000 for the Maulidi Festival alone. However, the town is in desperate need of infrastructure development if it is to be maintained for the future. The greatest barrier to development and cultural heritage preservation is the lack of a Management Plan for the World Heritage Site, which although it is a requirement for enlistment has not been produced within the last eight years. With the incoming development of a new transport corridor to serve the East African Community, Lamu district will host a mega-port only miles away from the World Heritage Site. This new development if left unmonitored, will exaggerate the current problems which exist, particularly fresh water supplies which serve Lamu Island and the surrounding communities

Stepping back from crisis points : the provision and acknowledgement of support in an online suicide discussion forum

Suicide is a global health concern, though little is known about the social practices that might support those who are contemplating suicide. Online forums provide a unique insight into the anonymous discussion of suicide, including sociocultural norms about suicide and the delicate management of online interaction. This article examines the provision and acknowledgement of support in an online discussion forum about suicide, using discursive psychology to analyse the textual interaction. The analysis illustrates how forum threads function as case studies, and enable members to gain support on numerous occasions. In this way, members can gain help at crisis points as and when these occur, while still maintaining authenticity as a valid forum member. The analysis also provides additional evidence for models of suicide which highlight the fluid nature of suicidality and contributes to the preventative work on suicide by demonstrating how support can be provided at crisis points. 2 Suicidal behaviours represent a global public health concern and substantial research effort has gone into identifying specific risk and protective factors (e.g., O'Connor & Nock, 2014) . The rise of technology provides a unique opportunity to examine suicidal issues in online spaces (Mishara & Kerkhof, 2013) , yet research to date has focused mainly on the motivations and individual characteristics of those using the internet for this purpose, rather than on the social practices in the online spaces themselves. Following Horne and Wiggins (2009) and Paulus and Varga (2015), this article focuses on the provision and acknowledgement of support in an o nline suicide di scussion forum. Specifically, the aim of this article is to explicate the interactional features of support in the suicide forums, and of the potential for members to be supported by others by being metaphorically talked back from the ‘edge’; i.e., representing a shift from being at a crisis point to a stance that might still be troubled but is not immediately suicidal. As such, the article provides additional empirical support for discursive accounts of managing health identities online as well as demonstrating the potential of qualitative analyses to contribute to preventative work on suicid

The future of citizen science: emerging technologies and shifting paradigms

Citizen science creates a nexus between science and education that, when coupled with emerging technologies, expands the frontiers of ecological research and public engagement. Using representative technologies and other examples, we examine the future of citizen science in terms of its research processes, program and participant cultures, and scientific communities. Future citizen‐science projects will likely be influenced by sociocultural issues related to new technologies and will continue to face practical programmatic challenges. We foresee networked, open science and the use of online computer/video gaming as important tools to engage non‐traditional audiences, and offer recommendations to help prepare project managers for impending challenges. A more formalized citizen‐science enterprise, complete with networked organizations, associations, journals, and cyberinfrastructure, will advance scientific research, including ecology, and further public education