Across the Atlantic: Service-Learning in Spain and Morocco

Purdue provides many activities in service-learning each year, and though they are varied experiences, many of the same lessons can be learned. I had the opportunity to participate in two service-learning study abroad trips while at Purdue- the first to Spain and Morocco, and the second to Haiti. While on these trips, I was involved in projects that seemed very different. In Morocco, my group taught high school students about the history of mathematics during the Islamic Golden Age and how mathematics is utilized in Purdue research. In Haiti, I worked with my teammates to teach water sanitation and storage safety to university students, and also partnered with an Indiana-based nonprofit to connect Haitian students with a water sanitation resource. While these projects took place on opposite sides of the world, both demonstrated many similarities. There were surface-level similarities, from saying “thank you” in French constantly because it was the only word I knew, to experiencing school classrooms in two countries. The teaching aspect was common to both, but could not have been more different. I learned about how education is conducted differently, and the variations in the future goals of students. On both trips, however, I learned much more from the students than I taught. Both of these experiences have been integral to my decision to pursue a career in international public health. I am glad to have had two opportunities to engage in international service learning during my time at Purdue. Both of these experiences taught me to appreciate the uniqueness of cultures, and the ability of students to bridge differences to work together

Military Masculinities, Tactical Femininities, and the ‘Third Gender’ in Ashley’s War”

The panelist provides a rhetorical analysis of the 2015 book, Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, focusing on the “audience” aspect of the rhetorical triangle (author, audience, message). The book is first presented as a celebration of women’s meaningful participation in combat through the Cultural Support Team (CST) program appealing to a public audience. It is viewed as a celebration of women’s abilities to succeed in hypermasculine environments while simultaneously maintaining feminine characteristics. Subsequently, the speaker offers a critique of the book’s instrumentalization of gendered labor, given feminist critiques of stereotypically feminine labors performed by the CSTs. Finally, another perspective on the book’s glamorization of the performance of military masculinities alongside stereotypical femininities without solving any of the underlying tensions about masculinity or femininity in the context of warfare is shared. As a possible solution, the panelist situates “tactical femininities” within the context of strategic feminism to reclaim ownership of the strategic aims that drove both the CSTs and Ashley’s War. The session calls for the careful examination of the language we use to tell the stories of women in combat to varied audiences.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/wps/1022/thumbnail.jp

'Alternative' methods of coping: tattooing and humour as non-traditional methods of emotional expression

Much research has explored ‘traditional’ coping mechanisms individuals use to manage their own mental wellbeing. For example, websites which offer advice to young people (YP) on how to manage their own depression have discussed the benefits of physical exercise and healthy eating (e.g. Helpguide, 2014; KidsHealth, 2014; WebMD, 2014). Similarly, much research has explored the benefits of social support for positive mental health outcomes in YP (Rothon, Goodwin and Stansfield, 2012). However, there has been less of a focus on non-traditional, and often implicit strategies that YP employ in order to make sense of, discuss and manage emotions. This paper will review these non-traditional methods of expression that are particularly relevant to YP, with a specific focus on humour and tattooing. Although unrelated, they both differently provide YP with an ‘appropriate’ avenue to construct, make sense of and deal with difficult emotional experiences that occur in some YPs lives. Previous work on tattooing conceptualises it as being associated with negative mental health (Carroll et al, 2002; Brooks et al, 2003). However, with the popularity of tattooing in YP rising, tattoos are being used as a strategy to materially demonstrate what they have overcome, and as a symbol for strength (Way, 2013; Anderson, 2014). In comparison, humour is more of a discursive strategy enabling YP to reframe their distress and communicate it to others in a way that they feel comfortable (Plancherel and Monique, 1995). Similarly, professionals working with YP use humour as a method to communicate and regulate their own negative emotions (Gilgun and Sharma, 2013). This paper is a holistic review of both the literature and the media, exploring how YP negotiate understandings of emotion with particular relevance to humour and tattooing

Synchrony as a measure of conversation difficulty: Movement coherence increases with background noise level and complexity in dyads and triads

When people interact, they fall into synchrony. This synchrony has been demonstrated in a range of contexts, from walking or playing music together to holding a conversation, and has been linked to prosocial outcomes such as development of rapport and efficiency of cooperation. While the basis of synchrony remains unclear, several studies have found synchrony to increase when an interaction is made challenging, potentially providing a means of facilitating interaction. Here we focus on head movement during free conversation. As verbal information is obscured when conversing over background noise, we investigate whether synchrony is greater in high vs low levels of noise, as well as addressing the effect of background noise complexity. Participants held a series of conversations with unfamiliar interlocutors while seated in a lab, and the background noise level changed every 15-30s between 54, 60, 66, 72, and 78 dB. We report measures of head movement synchrony recorded via high-resolution motion tracking at the extreme noise levels (i.e., 54 vs 78 dB) in dyads (n=15) and triads (n=11). In both the dyads and the triads, we report increased movement coherence in high compared to low level speech-shaped noise. Furthermore, in triads we compare behaviour in speech-shaped noise vs multi-talker babble, and find greater movement coherence in the more complex babble condition. Key synchrony differences fall in the 0.2-0.5 Hz frequency bands, and are discussed in terms of their correspondence to talkers’ average utterance durations. Additional synchrony differences occur at higher frequencies in the triads only (i.e., >5 Hz), which may relate to synchrony of backchannel cues (as multiple individuals were listening and responding to the same talker). Not only do these studies replicate prior work indicating interlocutors’ increased reliance on behavioural synchrony as task difficulty increases, but they demonstrate these effects using multiple difficulty manipulations and across different sized interaction groups

Laugh it up or laugh it off: the use of humour within the fire service as a way of constructing, managing and coping with emotionality

Historically, much research has focused on the use of humour, especially following traumatic events. Within organisational research, emotions are positioned as either instrumental to doing the job, or damaging to task effectiveness; either way this involves some sort of performance. Thus, individuals with emotionally challenging job roles must find ways to manage difficult or traumatic events, whilst still being deemed ‘professional’. Much research positions humour as a discursive tool to enable individuals to talk about feeling. Some researchers argued joking is a way of expressing these damaging or ‘toxic’ emotions, in a culturally masculine way. The current research using interviews with fifteen fire fighters, explored how fire fighters manage emotionality within their job roles. One clear theme that emerged was the use of humour as a strategy to construct, make sense of, and manage emotionally stressful events. This research therefore expanded further on the previous work, exploring how humour enabled them to make sense of emotionality

Accounts of gender diverse university students who abstain from alcohol use

Gender diverse and transgender people report elevated alcohol use compared with the general population yet no studies have examined motives to abstain or limit alcohol consumption within this vulnerable population. A thematic analysis of interviews with seven gender diverse people identified two overarching themes: Awareness of the safety implications of alcohol and Access to non-drinking spaces. Participants acknowledged that drinking alcohol was a social norm yet were hesitant to drink, especially in public places, due to safety concerns and highlighted a need for non-drinking, LGBTI-friendly spaces. These findings have implications for promoting non-drinking strategies of benefit to gender diverse communities