LITERACY FOR LEARNING IN FURTHER EDUCATION IN THE UK: A SYMPOSIUM

The Literacies for Learning in Further Education (LfLFE) project, a collaboration between two universities – Stirling and Lancaster – and four further education colleges – Anniesland, Perth, Lancaster and Morecambe, and Preston, funded for three years from January 2004 as part of Phase 3 of the TLRP. The project draws on work already done on literacy practices engaged in by people in schools, higher education and the community and seeks to extend the insights gained from these studies into further education. It aims to explore the literacy practices of students and those practices developed in different parts of the curriculum and develop pedagogic interventions to support students’ learning more effectively. This project involves examining literacy across the many domains of people’s experiences, the ways in which these practices are mobilised and realised within different domains and their capacity to be mobilised and recontextualised elsewhere to support learning. A project such as this raises many theoretical, methodological and practical challenges, not least in ensuring validity across four curriculum areas in four sites drawing upon the collaboration of sixteen practitioner researchers. This symposium of four papers examines some of the challenges and findings from the first eighteen months of the project. The first paper explores some of the findings regarding students’ literacy practices in their everyday lives and those required of them in their college studies. The second focuses on one approach adopted by the project as a method through which to elicit student literacy practices. The other two papers focus on different aspects of partnership within the project, in particular the attempts to enable students and lecturers to be active researchers rather than simply respondent

The Meaning of Marriage to the Voluntarily Childless Couple

Problem. The literature is replete with findings to show that childlessness is a contemporary and growing trend. However, no known study has been done to explore what marriage means to the couple who chooses childlessness. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the meaning of marriage to the voluntarily childless couple. Method. This study was done with a purposive sample of 42 couples. These couples were selected from referrals made through contact with a local radio station. Some were selected from referrals made by church pastors who were aware of couples in their congregations who are voluntarily childless, and others from referrals through a snowballing effect, i.e., from some of the subjects themselves and personal contact made by the researcher. The couples were purposively selected to represent a wide cross-section of the American population (two were from Canada and one from Portugal) with specific reference to demographics, economic level, religious values, and occupational orientations. This study used the qualitative approach and the major research method was in-depth interviews. Findings. The findings of this study revealed that: 1. There are three main motivations for the choice of childlessness, (a) painful experiences in childhood, (b) fear of the future, and (c) tension between personal goals and parenting. 2. Childless life-style promoted autonomy. 3. Childless marriages lacked disturbances often brought on by teenagers. 4. Childlessness promoted a one-to-one marital relationship. 5. Childlessness fostered companionship between spouses. 6. Childless couples are usually professionals and usually lived in the city. 7. Childless couples are well-adjusted and are socially approved individuals who seem concerned about saving children from the abuse and pain they often face. 8. Childless couples often have pets but do not see pets as a substitute for children. 9. The choice to be childless appeared to be developmental. 10. The life cycle of the childless couple was found to be divided into four stages. 11. Voluntarily childless couples had a higher percentage of discretionary income. 12. Childless couples enjoyed their life-style-they saw their involvement in their careers as their social investments. Conclusions. One may conclude that the choice to be childless was reactive. It was an attempt to reduce anxiety created by a perceived dysfunction in one’s family of origin or perceived fear from the lack of control one has over the things that impact parenting and its outcome

The reading experience of young successful boy readers

In this study, the reading experience of six young successful boy readers is examined with a view to identifying ways in which the reading achievements of all boys might be raised. Initially, the experiences and behaviours associated with young successful readers are identified, including aspects from the home and the school, and those characteristics from within children themselves. Next, literature on boys' reading is examined, and this shows that there are many negative influences on the reading lives of boys generally. The reading experience of the six young successful boy readers is then investigated through empirical work. The central approach adopted is multiple case study using ethnographic tools. The six boys were reading fluently and for pleasure by the end of their Reception year (aged 5 years) and were studied for a two year period. Observation and research conversation were the main data collection methods adopted; the boys' experience as young successful readers was examined by observing them in their homes and schools, and by talking to them, their parents and their teachers. The results illustrate that the six young boys who are successful readers have a masculine identity in which reading has a secure and positive place. They have overcome the negative influences which frequently impact on the reading experience of boys and have successfully integrated ways of being a boy and being a reader. The boys' reading is highly developed at home by living in a 'reading family'. The boys use their advanced achievement in reading to gain a high status position in the classroom; their reading behaviour makes them popular and powerful with their peers. Hence these boys make reading work for them and, subsequently, it is a desirable feature of their developing masculine identity. These results are reflected upon to identify ways in which the reading achievements of all boys might be raised. I have suggested that schools might be encouraged to develop their reading curriculum in a number of ways, including spending more time reading extended texts for pleasure and using high status texts from boys' vernacular reading in the formal reading curriculum. In addition, I argue that all boys might benefit from examining the gender assumptions on which texts and their own reading preferences are based

A Survey of Communication Department Curriculum in Four-Year Colleges and Universities

This article presents a survey of communication department curriculum in four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. Excellent communication skills are tantamount to success in education. A review of current education journals reveals the variety of communication skills needed by professional educators, including interpersonal communication, small group meetings, interviewing, basic communication theory, research methodology, teaching methods in speech communication, public speaking, performance of literature, media, and a teaching internship. Social science literature reveals several communication needs for social science practitioners, including anthropologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, lawyers, journalists, advertising practitioners, political scientists, human relations practitioners, and mass media personnel. Those communication needs include interpersonal communication, small group meeting skills, interviewing, basic communication theory, familiarity with research methods, organizational communication patterns, persuasion, public speaking, broadcast media, public relations, along with an appropriate internship

Review: Voices That Count: A Comics Anthology by Women

A review of the 2022 book by Diana Lopez Varela, Maria Hesse, Leticia Dolera, Lola Garcia and Sandra Sabates, “Voices That Count: A Comics Anthology by Women,” for inclusion in ARLIS/NA's 2022 Notable Graphic Novels Review

Literacy practices in the learning careers of childcare students

This paper draws from the Literacies for Learning in Further Education research project, funded through the Teaching and Learning Research Programme. Drawing on the empirical study of literacy practices in eight Childcare courses in Scotland and England, we seek to demonstrate that, integral to the learning careers of students are literacy careers through which their learning is mediated. In the process, by drawing upon the lens of literacy, we also challenge some of the common sense understandings of learning in childcare. In particular we suggest that the literacy practices of lower level courses can be more diverse than those of higher level courses, producing confusing literacy careers for the students involved. We also point to the complexity of the literacy careers in childcare, given that students are required to mediate different aspects of their experience through literacy. In particular there are the mediations made possible by the use of information technology and those entailed in relating work placements to classroom practice. We argue that students on vocational courses have complex literacy careers and that a literacies approach to learning helps to reveal this complexity

Disaster preparedness and response: a challenge for hospitals in earthquake-prone countries

An effective and immediate response from hospital personnel is critical to meet the needs of affected populations at the time of an earthquake disaster. Hospitals need to develop, practise and continuously update an effective disaster/emergency medical response plan. Communities and impacted regions cannot depend on immediate medical and humanitarian aid from other outside sources to meet medical care needs during the first three to five days following an earthquake. How hospitals in earthquake-prone countries such as India, Pakistan and Haiti can improve their medical response is discussed. This discussion of methods to improve effective disaster response of the medical and public health community includes a description of important efforts to enhance hospital accreditation, increase personnel training, and use a response capacity checklist

Market Liquidity Programs: GFC and Before

The virulence of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–09 (GFC) was explained in large part by the increased reliance of the global financial system on market-based funding and the lack of preexisting tools to address a disruption in that type of system. This paper surveys market liquidity programs (MLPs), which we define as government interventions in which the key motivation is to stabilize liquidity in a specific wholesale funding market that is under stress. Most of the MLPs surveyed in this paper were launched during and after the GFC, but two pre-GFC MLPs are included. A subsequent survey on MLPs in response to the COVID-19 crisis is forthcoming. MLPs focus on markets that a central bank believes are critical to financial stability. Stress in these markets could be interfering with monetary policy transmission or disrupting the smooth flow of credit to the real economy. MLPs depart from traditional central bank responses to a systemwide liquidity crisis. MLPs have used a variety of techniques that central bankers would typically consider nonstandard for the purpose of promoting liquidity in wholesale funding markets. These include (1) targeted lender-of-last resort activities, (2) lending securities for securities, (3) lending cash for securities, (4) large-scale asset purchases, (5) targeted asset purchases, and (6) indirect asset purchases

Ariel - Volume 7 Number 2

Editors Mark Dembert Frank Chervanek John Lammie Jim Burke Curt Cumming