Fostering Transformative Points of Connection: An Examination of the Role of Personal Storytelling in Two Undergraduate Social Diversity Courses

People in the United States are becoming increasingly isolated and separated, and this disconnection has been amplified by the use of new technologies in which face-to-face interactions and connection are becoming an anomaly (Putnam, 2000; Turkle, 2011). These changes are paralleled by marked racial and ethnic demographic shifts and increasing racial and economic re-segregation nationwide (Passel & Cohn, 2008). A critical challenge facing higher education is fostering educational opportunities for college students to interact, connect with, and learn from diverse peers about issues of social identity, difference, and inequality, while imagining possibilities for socially-just action (Gurin, 1999; Tatum, 2007). This qualitative study explores the role of personal storytelling about social identity-based experiences in two undergraduate diversity courses informed by social justice education pedagogies with a focus on race/ethnicity and racism. Three bodies of literature inform this study: storytelling, social justice education, and personal storytelling in social justice education practice. Using grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006), the researcher analyzed secondary data sources from 32 participants in two undergraduate diversity courses at two Northeast universities. Study A examined final papers from a racially diverse group of 16 students in a social diversity and oppression course. Study B examined interviews with a racially diverse group of participants in two race/ethnicity intergroup dialogue courses. Findings suggest that listening to personal stories about social identity-related experiences is a powerful accelerator of learning about social justice issues and demonstrates that students across identities value storytelling, describing it as engaging, enjoyable, and integral to their learning. Storytelling fosters connection among students and encourages empathy within social groups and across social group differences. Listening to stories allows students to connect to the course material cognitively and affectively and helps information become “real” to participants. This connection facilitates critical thinking and a host of learning outcomes. Findings build on existing knowledge illustrating the benefits of diversity and intergroup dialogue courses (Bowman, 2011; Gurin, 1999; Gurin, Nagda, & Zúñiga, 2013), underscoring the value and impact of face-to-face, synchronous learning as a valid, transformative, and critical educational method in diversity courses. Additional implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are also discussed

Rescuing the Individual from Neoliberalism: Education, Anarchism, and Subjectivity

Individualism is a term that evokes a wide range of responses, particularly when deployed in the context of American history and society, with its supposed (and purportedly objectionable) tradition of so-called rugged individualism. The images of the cowboy, frontiersman, and lone entrepreneur spring readily to mind, along with a long list of virtues embodied in these figures: self-sufficiency, drive, courage, gumption, and the like. It is the project of this dissertation to rehabilitate the concept of individualism as tool of the Left for resisting the ongoing assault of neoliberalism, particularly with respect to our educational institutions. I argue that the various problematic associations commonly made between individualism and various forms of right-wing political and moral commitments, such as free-market capitalism, materialism, self-interest, and the like are historical mutations of an individualist tradition that is both fundamentally incompatible with those ideals, but which can also serve as a powerful tool for critiquing them. More specifically, I argue for an individualism that fuses the ontological commitments of the historical individualists with the left-individualist tradition in anarchist political theory. Individualism along the lines argued here is neither an enemy of democracy, communal identity, or group resistance, but serves as a complement to and ally of those forms of leftist commitment. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly given the urgency of our current moment, individualism provides a powerful basis for critiquing the forces that genuinely oppose left movements. Ultimately I will argue not only that individualism is a much richer, more varied, and more philosophically tenable position than has been commonly assumed, but also that some form of individualist commitment is, rather than being incompatible with truly democratic commitment, actually a fundamental prerequisite thereof. In this, I hope to lend some support to Emerson\u27s famous and cryptic contention that individualism has never been tried

Printmaking: a phenomenological art

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Atypical hemispheric specialization for faces in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder

Among the many experimental findings that tend to distinguish those with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are face processing deficits, reduced hemispheric specialization, and atypical neurostructural and functional connectivity. To investigate the earliest manifestations of these features, we examined lateralization of event-related gamma-band coherence to faces during the first year of life in infants at high risk for autism (HRA; defined as having an older sibling with ASD) who were compared with low-risk comparison (LRC) infants, defined as having no family history of ASD. Participants included 49 HRA and 46 LRC infants who contributed a total of 127 data sets at 6 and 12 months. Electroencephalography was recorded while infants viewed images of familiar/unfamiliar faces. Event-related gamma-band (30-50 Hz) phase coherence between anterior-posterior electrode pairs for left and right hemispheres was computed. Developmental trajectories for lateralization of intra-hemispheric coherence were significantly different in HRA and LRC infants: by 12 months, HRA infants showed significantly greater leftward lateralization compared with LRC infants who showed rightward lateralization. Preliminary results indicate that infants who later met criteria for ASD were those that showed the greatest leftward lateralization. HRA infants demonstrate an aberrant pattern of leftward lateralization of intra-hemispheric coherence by the end of the first year of life, suggesting that the network specialized for face processing may develop atypically. Further, infants with the greatest leftward asymmetry at 12 months where those that later met criteria for ASD, providing support to the growing body of evidence that atypical hemispheric specialization may be an early neurobiological marker for ASD.R01 DC010290 - NIDCD NIH HHS; R01-DC010290 - NIDCD NIH HH

Neutrinos from failed supernovae at future water and liquid argon detectors

We discuss the diffuse flux of electron neutrinos and antineutrinos from cosmological failed supernovae, stars that collapse directly into a black hole, with no explosion. This flux has a hotter energy spectrum compared to regular, neutron-star forming collapses, and therefore it dominates the total diffuse flux from core collapses above 20-45 MeV of neutrino energy. Reflecting the features of the originally emitted neutrinos, the flux of nu_e and anti-nu_e at Earth is larger for larger survival probability of these species, and for stiffer equations of state of nuclear matter. In the energy window 19-29 MeV, the flux from failed supernovae is susbtantial, ranging from 7% to a dominant fraction of the total flux from all core collapses. It can be as large as phi = 0.38 s^{-1} cm^{-2} for anti-nu_e (phi = 0.28 s^{-1} cm^{-2} for nue), normalized to a local rate of core collapses of R_{cc}(0)=10^{-4} yr^{-1} Mpc^{-3}. In 5 years, a 0.45 Mt water Cherenkov detector should see 5-65 events from failed supernovae, while up to 160 events are expected for the same mass with Gadolinium addition. A 0.1 Mt liquid argon experiment should record 1-11 events. Signatures of neutrinos from failed supernovae are the enhancement of the total rates of events from core collapses (up to a factor of 2) and the appearance of high energy tails in the event spectra.Comment: LaTeX, 30 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables. Some clarifications added, new section of discussion added, references updated. Version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Attentional Disengagement and the Locus Coeruleus – Norepinephrine System in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background: Differences in non-social attentional functions have been identified as among the earliest features that distinguish infants later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and may contribute to the emergence of core ASD symptoms. Specifically, slowed attentional disengagement and difficulty reorienting attention have been found across the lifespan in those at risk for, or diagnosed with, ASD. Additionally, the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system, which plays a critical role in arousal regulation and selective attention, has been shown to function atypically in ASD. While activity of the LC-NE system is associated with attentional disengagement and reorienting in typically developing (TD) individuals, it has not been determined whether atypical LC-NE activity relates to attentional disengagement impairments observed in ASD. Objective: To examine the relationship between resting pupil diameter (an indirect measure of tonic LC-NE activation) and attentional disengagement in children with ASD. Methods: Participants were 21 school-aged children with ASD and 20 age- and IQ-matched TD children. The study consisted of three separate experiments: a resting eye-tracking task and visual and auditory gap-overlap paradigms. For the resting eye-tracking task, pupil diameter was monitored while participants fixated a central crosshair. In the gap-overlap paradigms, participants were instructed to fixate on a central stimulus and then move their eyes to peripherally presented visual or auditory targets. Saccadic reaction times (SRT), percentage of no-shift trials, and disengagement efficiency were measured. Results: Children with ASD had significantly larger resting pupil size compared to their TD peers. The groups did not differ for overall SRT, nor were there differences in SRT for overlap and gap conditions between groups. However, the ASD group did evidence impairments in disengagement (larger step/gap effects, higher percentage of no-shift trials, and reduced disengagement efficiency) compared to their TD peers. Correlational analyses showed that slower, less efficient disengagement was associated with increased pupil diameter. Conclusion: Consistent with prior reports, children with ASD show significantly larger resting pupil diameter, indicative of atypically elevated tonic LC-NE activity. Associations between pupil size and measures of attentional disengagement suggest that atypically increased tonic activation of the LC-NE system may be associated with poorer attentional disengagement in children with ASD