Supporting the transition from HND Social Sciences into BPS accredited second year psychology degrees

Executive Summary Under the auspices of the Higher Education Academy Psychology Network, and supported by the Scottish Funding Council, a small Colleges/ HEI working group was set up with the objective of investigating any pedagogical objections which could be a barrier to transition for students with a HND in Social Sciences articulating to second year BPS accredited degrees in Psychology. To investigate possible gaps in curriculum between Psychology content in the newly validated HND Social Sciences and that of first year undergraduate in HEIs, a survey of the course content, delivery and assessment methodology of undergraduate Psychology courses were undertaken. The findings were then compared to those in the Psychology component delivered in the newly validated (May 2006) HND Social Sciences. The survey showed that there was a communality of curriculum between the Psychology content of the HND and the first year undergraduate in Scottish HEIs, and that the delivery and assessment methods needed for the successful completion of the HND were comparable. To order to assess the likely consistency of delivery between Scotland’s Colleges and the HEI sector a comparison of the main Quality Assessment procedures were undertaken with the parallel processes in place for colleges by the SQA and HMIE. Information from the following four areas was examined. • • • Provision of SPSS Licence and tutor training across the Scotland’s Colleges Matching of optional topics by Course Leaders in colleges to those widely used in Universities Wide distribution of this report to all interested parties • • • • Resource review Content review Assignments – setting, undertaking and grading Recording processes The exercise showed clearly that there were rigorous Quality Assurance mechanisms in place in colleges which compared well to those present in HEIs. The report concludes that there are no pedagogical barriers to second year entry to Psychology courses for HND Social Science students qualified under the newly validated format. Several recommendations to improve HND/HEI transition into second year Psychology degrees, including; To assist greater transparency and clarity with regard to UCAS applications and admission to HEIs, a number of short advice/recommendation documents to assist students, college tutors and HEI admission officers are attached

Ireland’s Response to Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence: An Interview with Orla O’Connor

Orla O’Connor is the Director of the “National Women’s Council of Ireland” (NWCI), the leading national women’s membership organisation with over190 member groups. She has held senior management roles in several non-governmental organisations for over 25 years. Time magazine recognised her as one of the 100 Most Influential People in 2019 for her role as Co-director of “Together for Yes”, the successful national civil society campaign that was influential in Ireland voting overwhelmingly in favour of removing the Eighth Amendment from the Constitution, a landmark referendum, which led to the legalisation of abortion in 2018. In addition to campaigning for women’s reproductive rights, Orla has spearheaded several other prominent campaigns related to women’s rights, including pension reform, social welfare reform, and the introduction of quality and affordable childcare. To mark the annual international campaign of the “16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence” – which started on 25 November with the “International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women”, and ended on 10 December, “Human Rights Day” – Orla was interviewed on 8 November 2022 by Deirdre Kelly (TU Dublin). O’Connor discusses recent Irish legislation and policy developments in relation to Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence (DSGBV), in particular, the government’s ambitious “Third National Strategy” on the issue – the “Zero Tolerance Plan” – published in 2022

Bearing Witness: The Representation of Francesc Boix (1920-1951) in Lea Vélez’s El jardín de la memoria

This chapter focuses on the representation of the Catalan photographer, Francesc Boix, who was interned in a Nazi concentration camp, in the generically hybrid grief memoir, El jardín de la memoria, by the contemporary Spanish author, Lea Vélez. This chapter analyses Vélez’s text as a form of affiliative postmemory which revisits the underrepresented legacy of the Spanish concentration camp experience

Frame Work: Helping Youth Counter Their Misrepresentations in Media

Drawing on several ethnographies with youth participants, I identified and critiqued three frames that help to comprise the mainstream media’s larger framework of troubled and troubling youth: inner‐city youth as “gang bangers”; teen mothers as “children having children” and “welfare bums”; and girls as fashion obsessed and impressionable. I considered the relationship between news coverage of youth and educational programs and curriculum and explored the possibilities and limits of various strategies aimed at producing and circulating diverse youth self‐ representations in the mainstream and alternative media, including involving youth as co‐researchers. Key words: youth cultural studies, high school, participatory democracy En puisant dans plusieurs études ethnographiques faisant appel à la participation de jeunes, l’auteure fait l’analyse critique de trois volets qui aident à comprendre le cadre plus vaste utilisé par les médias grand public relativement aux jeunes en difficulté : les jeunes des quartiers défavorisés ou les membres des « gangs de rue », les mères adolescentes décrites comme « des enfants qui ont des enfants » et des bénéficiaires de l’aide sociale ainsi que les jeunes filles vues comme des obsédées de la mode et des personnes impressionnables. L’auteure étudie le lien entre la représentation des jeunes dans les médias et les programmes d’éducation tout en explorant les possibilités et les limites de quelques stratégies visant à favoriser la création et la diffusion de diverses autoreprésentations des jeunes dans les médias grand public et alternatifs, y compris celles associant les jeunes aux processus de définition et d’opérationalisation des recherches. Mots clés: études culturelles sur les jeunes, école secondaire, démocratie participative.

Characterization and the Aesthetic Representation of Violence in the Graphic Novel Esperaré Siempre tu Regreso , by Jordi Peidro

The graphic novel, Esperaré siempre tu regreso (2016, Desfiladero Ediciones) by the author and illustrator, Jordi Peidro (Alcoy, 1965), is a biographical and historical text that centres on the life in exile of Francisco Aura Boronat (or Paco Aura, Alcoy, 1918-2018), a Spanish communist and Republican who survived the horrors of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. Drawing on comics studies and memory studies, the analysis will discuss how Peidro navigates ethical and aesthetic issues when representing traumatic and violent memories related to the Spanish experience of Civil War, exile and deportation to a Nazi concentration camp. Firstly, it will contextualize Esperaré siempre tu regreso within a burgeoning genre of contemporary graphic novels published in Spain that deal with Spaniards in Nazi concentration camps. Secondly, it will consider the “unique spatial grammar” (Hillary Chute 2016, 3) of the comics format, which provides a distinct means of representing histories of war, trauma and genocide. Subsequently, through an examination of kitsch and anti-kitsch strategies, the chapter will focus on characterization and the aesthetic representation of violence in Peidro’s graphic novel. Finally, it will reflect on the ways in which graphic novels such as this contribute to memory debates in contemporary Spain

Aesth/ethics of distance: (Un)Veiling grief in Rosa Montero’s La ridícula idea de no volver a verte

This chapter analyses the generically hybrid auto/biographical grief memoir, La ridícula idea de no volver a verte (2013), by the well-known contemporary Spanish author and journalist, Rosa Montero (b. Madrid, 1951), as a singular text within the Spanish tradition of life writing. The book traces a number of parallels between Montero and her biographical subject, the Polish scientist and two-times Nobel prize winner, Marie Curie—particularly regarding their respective grieving processes in widowhood. This chapter contextualises Montero and her text within the Spanish tradition of life writing and discusses Montero’s ethics and aesthetics of distance and how she negotiates with the autobiographical genre—specifically the grief memoir—in La ridícula idea de no volver a verte

Popular Media, Education, and Resistance

Although the mainstream media and education systems are key institutions that perpetuate various social inequalities, spaces exist—both within and beyond these institutions—where adults and youth resist dominant, damaging representations and improvise new images. In this article, we address why educational researchers and educators should attend closely to popular media and democratizing media production. We analyze and illustrate strategies for engaging with and critiquing corporate news media and creating counter‐narratives. We explore media education as a key process for engaging people in dialogue and action as well as present examples of how popular culture texts can be excavated as rich pedagogical resources. Key words: media literacy, cultural studies, participatory democracy, popular culture, news, youth, schooling, public sphere, media education, educational policy Bien que les médias et systèmes d’éducation traditionnels soient des institutions clés qui perpétuent divers types d’inégalités sociales, il existe des espaces – à l’intérieur comme à l’extérieur de ces institutions – où les adultes et les jeunes opposent une résistance aux représentations dominantes préjudiciables et improvisent de nouvelles images. Dans cet article, les auteures expliquent pourquoi les chercheurs en éducation et les enseignants devraient porter une attention spéciale aux médias populaires et à la démocratisation de la production dans le domaine des médias. Elles analysent et illustrent des stratégies favorisant l’implication dans les médias d’information, la critique de ces médias et la création de discours variés apportant un contrepoids au discours dominant. Les auteures explorent l’initiation aux médias comme un outil‐clé pour inciter les gens au dialogue et à l’action et montrent, à partir d’exemples, comment le dépouillement de textes tirés de la culture populaire peut constituer une méthode pédagogique fructueuse. Mots clés : initiation aux médias, études culturelles, démocratie participative, culture populaire, informations relatives à l’éducation, jeunes, éducation, sphère publique

Shifting Out of “Neutral”: Beginning Teachers’ Struggles with Teaching for Social Justice

In this article we explore the struggles of 12 beginning teachers committed to social justice to define their roles when facilitating classroom discussions of social issues. We discerned five distinct positions about the possibility and desirability of teacher neutrality. To teach for social justice involves shifting out of neutral, both in terms of a teacher’s orientation to social inequalities and of pedagogy. Our preferred teacher role, inclusive and situated engagement, involves spotlighting the perspectives of subordinated groups and providing opportunities for young people to develop their deliberative capacities and to learn to act on their reasoned convictions. L’article porte sur douze enseignants débutants soucieux de justice sociale et cherchant à définir leurs rôles dans les discussions en classe sur des questions sociales. Cinq positions distinctes au sujet de la possibilité et de l’opportunité de la neutralité de l’enseignant sont examinées. Un enseignement axé sur la justice sociale implique que l’enseignant sorte de la neutralité quant à son orientation vis-à-vis des inégalités sociales et de la pédagogie. Les auteures privilégient l’engagement inclusif et situationnel, l’enseignant mettant en lumière les points de vue des groupes marginalisés et fournissant aux jeunes l’occasion de développer leur aptitude à délibérer et d’apprendre à agir à partir de convictions éclairées.

“Social Justice Needs to Be Everywhere”: Imagining the Future of Anti-Oppression Education in Teacher Preparation

This article analyzes a social-justice teacher education project in a larger teacher education program in Western Canada. This program-within-a-program took an anti-oppressive education approach designed to help teacher candidates to understand and challenge various forms of inequity and their interconnections. We review the social justice project first, through a descriptive analysis of our teaching, and second, through hour-long qualitative, semistructured interviews with 20 graduates of our program (all beginning teachers). Our alumni provided examples of teaching against the grain and also spoke to the challenges of implementing critical pedagogies. We conclude by providing four key recommendations and reflecting on the implications for future teacher preparation.Cet article analyse un projet de justice sociale dans le cadre d’un important programme de formation des enseignants dans l’Ouest canadien. Ce « programme à l’intérieur d’un programme » a adopté une approche pédagogique contre l’oppression, conçue pour aider les étudiants en pédagogie à comprendre et à remettre en question diverses formes d’iniquité et les liens entre elles. Nous nous penchons sur le programme de justice sociale, d’abord par une analyse descriptive de notre enseignement, ensuite par des entrevues qualitatives et semi-structurées d’une heure auprès de finissants de notre programme (tous débutant leur carrière d’enseignant). Nos anciens ont fourni des exemples d’enseignement à contre-courant et ont évoqué les défis liés à la mise en oeuvre de pédagogies critiques. Nous concluons en présentant quatre recommandations clés et en réfléchissant aux conséquences pour la formation des enseignants à l’avenir

A cure for unstable numerical evolutions of single black holes: adjusting the standard ADM equations

Numerical codes based on a direct implementation of the standard ADM formulation of Einstein's equations have generally failed to provide long-term stable and convergent evolutions of black hole spacetimes when excision is used to remove the singularities. We show that, for the case of a single black hole in spherical symmetry, it is possible to circumvent these problems by adding to the evolution equations terms involving the constraints, thus adjusting the standard ADM system. We investigate the effect that the choice of the lapse and shift has on the stability properties of numerical simulations and thus on the form of the added constraint term. To facilitate this task, we introduce the concept of quasi well-posedness, a version of well-posedness suitable for ADM-like systems involving second-order spatial derivatives.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure