Back to the future: The potential relationship between leisure and education

There is a long, documented history of the relationships among leisure, recreation, and education dating back to Greek philosophy.Originally there was little differentiation among the terms as they were presented as a unified process for youth and human development. Over time, each of these fields has developed, and their definitions have been shaped and reshaped. Using some of the original conceptions from Aristotle and Plato, coupled with foundational premises suggested by Dewey, this article frames current youth development efforts in a historical context. The authors suggest that perhaps what the separate professions might define as high-quality leisure, recreation, and educational experiences still maintain links among each. They further suggest that planned experiences with increasing levels of coordination can strengthen these links and develop an "education-for-leisure" perspective among participating youth and the choices they make. Self-determination theory (SDT) refers to the autonomy in choosing a particular behavior or action. Youth development opportunities that make connections between the content of a regular school day and choice of activity during out-of-school time can inculcate self-determined leisure choices that are productive. Planned and intentional educational experiences expand the possibilities for productive recreational choices. This article therefore proposes a framework for increasing levels of coordination among educational and recreational entities so that participating youth can develop and adopt an education-for-leisure disposition.     

Unlocking the racialized and gendered educational experiences of South Asian females in Hong Kong: the case study of Pakistani girls

Educating South Asians with different language and cultural backgrounds and integrating them into mainstream society have been a challenge for the educational system of Hong Kong. This study documents the educational experiences of a group of Pakistani girls in the contexts of home, community, and school in Hong Kong. Using ethnographic methods, data collection is based on interviews evoking their life stories. These stories recount how Pakistani girls attempt to negotiate with traditional customs, religion and mainstream stereotypes and to construct racialized and gendered schooling experiences. This study highlights the importance of mainstream engagement in regard to critical learning about cultural and linguistic diversity. It is claimed that minorities have an active role as agents in social transformation and change in achieving racial and gender equality, in this case for the most disadvantaged minority females, within the asymmetrical power relationships between local Chinese and South Asian minorities in Hong Kong.     

Youth using research: learning through social practice, community building, and social change

Traditional teaching runs directly counter to the natural learning process, which is a dynamic, socially conscious process whereby students learn by doing. This educational philosophy and practice is also predicated on serving the community. In the course of helping to build one's community, essential academic and personal skills are developed. This chapter provides examples of a high school program in Boston that uses community action project-based learning as a tool to create a better community. Through this process, students learn about finding and using their power to make change happen for them and their communities.     

Transnational learning experiences and teacher transcultural capacity: the impact on professional practice – a comparative study of three Australian schools

In school education, one of the few visible responses to increasing globalisation of educational practice has been the implementation of short-term experiential overseas student learning programmes. This paper analyses the results of a comparative research project on three Australian schools that offer such learning experiences. It argues that teachers who possess or who are capable of developing a transcultural – as opposed to an intercultural – capacity are more likely to be effective educators on these special programmes, as well as being more receptive to the personal and professional development that derives from participation in them.     

Multisensory Emplaced Learning: Resituating Situated Learning in a Moving World

This article outlines the implications of a theory of “sensory-emplaced learning” for understanding the interrelationships between the embodied and environmental in learning processes. Understanding learning as multisensory and contingent within everyday place-events, this framework analytically describes how people establish themselves as “situated learners.” This approach is demonstrated through three examples of how culturally constructed sensory categories offer routes to knowing about the multisensoriality of learning experiences. This approach, we suggest, offers new routes within practice-oriented educational theories for understanding how human bodies become situated and embedded in cultural, social, and material practices within constantly shifting place-events.     

A Teaching Framework for Transformative Multicultural Social Work Education

Abstract

A major challenge in multicultural social work education is fostering meaningful learning experiences for students by matching educational methods and content to students' individual learning needs and characteristics. Building upon transformative learning theory developed by Jack Mezirow, this paper proposes a teaching framework for transformative multicultural social work education that addresses students' individual learning needs and characteristics. This framework uses the dimensions of cultural knowledge and cultural sensitivity to represent four potential stances of cross-cultural learning in students. The paper provides a detail discussion regarding the learning needs and learning foci of students at each stance, and useful teaching strategies and activities that enhance students' transformative learning process so that they develop integrative knowledge about self and others in a dynamic multicultural society from multiple perspectives.     

How experiential education relates to college goals and objectives

Goals and undergraduate education objectives related to experiential learning were identified in college brochures and through interviews with selected college personnel. All college faculty were mailed questionnaires asking the extent of their agreement with the goals and objectives and their opinion as to the learning environment most conducive to achieving these objectives.Lack of faculty agreement with experiential learning goals and faculty unwillingness to endorse off-campus learning experiences conflicted with the published philosophy of the college. A Guttman Scale constructed from faculty responses to goals showed that as the degree of abstraction of each goal increased, so did the degree of faculty agreement.Based on college goals, valid and reliable instruments were developed to determine students' attitudes about field experiences, and to assess performance in field placements. As amounts of fieldwork increased, students' attitudes about self became more positive, performances at field sites showed higher achievement, and understanding of college goal-related concepts increased. Any amount of fieldwork appeared to help focus students' professional goals.     

‘Good faith and effort?’ Perspectives on educational inclusion

This paper considers what might ‘count’ as educational inclusion from the perspectives of six women who are both mothers of and teachers of children with special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities. The mother‐teachers draw on their own personal and professional experiences to consider meanings of inclusion in relation to ‘their’ children. Their voices suggest that it is the detail of daily interaction and the commitment to ‘good faith and effort’ on the part of both parents and educational professionals that matters. For the purposes of this paper I shall consider the discourses of SEN, learning difficulties and disability together, although I am aware of the danger of reductionism in doing so.     

Die politische Dimension der sozialen Form

In an increasingly heterogeneous society, learning at school about religions and religious differences is becoming more and more important. However, individual approaches differ distinctly. Besides common educational approaches we mainly find ones specially designed for religiously homogenous groups. The chosen form, however, is not without consequences and therefore already politically relevant. The allocation into religiously homogeneous groups draws a boundary between inclusion and exclusion, thus indicating commonalities as well as differences. Focusing on John Dewey’s democratic considerations and with reference to a current research project the paper discusses the consequences of limiting social interaction, common experiences and learning processes to separate forms of religious instruction in Austrian public schools. In doing so, it analyses and discusses the challenges of such an approach and its consequences for education in democracy in a pluralistic society.     

Rethinking Learning Disabilities in the College Classroom: A Multicultural Perspective

This exploratory, qualitative study examined the opinions of social work faculty/instructors on teaching multicultural content with the inclusion of individuals with learning disabilities. It seeks to create a framework for understanding learning disabilities within the definition of a multicultural population and diversity in order to create a more inclusive educational atmosphere that relinquishes the focus on individual deficits that has long been the standard of education policy. This phenomenological research supports the groundbreaking work of Gilson and DePoy, who define individuals with disabilities as being inclusive in the definition of multicultural diverse groups, often termed unique cultures; these individuals, possessing shared life experiences peculiar to that group, possess unique social status, rules, and languages. Three hundred and twenty-six surveys were returned as completed from a state stratified selection method used to ensure accurate representation of social work educators nationally. The phenomenological format, which focuses on the individual's experiences, gives voice to individuals who might not otherwise have a voice. Adult Learning Theory is utilized as the framework to understand educational contexts that illuminate learning culture in higher education and support LD as a genuine population for inclusion in the diversity schema. Historical oversight of including individuals with LD in the definition of multicultural diverse groups is discussed and reasons for the oversight are explained. National social work faculty/instructors were surveyed and an exploratory survey was constructed to compare teaching of multicultural content. Ten multicultural diverse groups were defined, with the inclusion of individuals with LD, and qualitative questions were created and responses were coded into themes. Findings, implications, and limitations of the study are discussed along with supporting suggestions for more social work research concerning individuals with learning disabilities.     

Responding to ambiguity, responding to change the value of a responsive approach to evaluation

Loosely organised teams and flexible arranged programs offer a new answer to improve the practice of palliative health care. Given the ambiguity of this care concept and the innovative organisational arrangement it is possible for confusion to emerge over the goals, core activities and target groups. In such a context it is not sufficient to determine the degree to which goals have been attained because the search for goals is part of the developmental process. An evaluation of a palliative team in a Dutch health region shows that it is more appropriate to acknowledge ambiguity and to go on to facilitate the handling of ambiguity as a vital element in dynamic learning processes. The utility of a responsive approach to evaluation, methodological considerations and learning experiences are described. The article is educational for workers in the field of health care but also to scholars and practitioners in an evaluation community.     

Expanding horizons through global learning in out-of-school time

The demands and opportunities of globalization involve not only America's economic competitiveness, but also national security, the need for tolerance in increasingly diverse communities, and a need to solve pressing social issues. To be successful, students need a comprehensive and integrated set of global learning experiences that help them expand their horizons from their neighborhood to the rest of the world. Schools as well as community partners and after-school and summer programs all have an important role to play in restructuring educational opportunities to help all students become globally competent.     

Student Unrest in the Nineteenth Century: A Sociological Case Study

This paper examines student unrest at a single university in the late nineteenth century as a case study of the general student rebellion common in land-grant schools during that period. A conceptual framework exploring the relationship between an emerging student culture, traditional educational philosophy, and contemporary trends of economic and demographic change is used to interpret these historical data. Students actively sought university experiences that would facilitate movement into occupational roles expanding as a result of these trends. The unwillingness of the university to facilitate this movement resulted in two student rebellions, which in turn forced the university into accepting a previously rejected student culture. These case study data suggest that rural populations during the late nineteenth century used land-grant colleges and universities as avenues for upward mobility, often against the wishes of campus administrators. Comparisons are made between student unrest during this period and the 1960s.     

Personnel Development in the Field of Disability with a Focus on Employment Outcomes

The author discusses the key considerations for personnel development in the disability field with a focus on employment outcomes. The author emphasizes the role of support and facilitation by rehabilitation personnel as structures for inclusion. He discusses the fact that disabilities, like learning and change, are lifetime experiences for all of us. Accordingly, comprehensive personnel development must be attentive to the constituencies and the environment. It must be value based. Finally, comprehensive personnel development must address the present and future needs of all constituencies in the field of disability to achieve successful employment outcomes. The author presents the context for an educational framework for rehabilitation personnel. This framework is based on four pillars-formal education, professional certification, continuing education and self-directed learning. The synergistic relationship among these pillars, and the constituency groups provides the framework for effective disability policy and positive employment outcomes for persons with disabilities.     

Calling forth disability in the classroom

Disability theory discusses the interplay between impairment and disability as though they can be identified separately. More recently, scholars in the field have sought to move beyond the dichotomy to an interactional model. This article uses evidence from a longitudinal ethnographic case study to demonstrate how notions of interaction and relation need to be understood within context. Socio-cultural theory makes explicit a situated understanding of participation and experience and demonstrates how classroom environments ‘call forth’ disability. Findings reveal how classrooms as educational contexts mediate the experience of a student with a learning impairment. The evidence shows how a classroom draws on the wider regimes of competence at the institutional level to create particular experiences for students. The challenge for teachers and other support staff in schools is to reflect on and influence the dynamic of impairment/disability within their classroom and school context in order to support appropriate participation and learning.     

An Exploratory Study of Opinions on Clickers and Class Participation From Students of Human Behavior in the Social Environment

Personal response systems, or clickers, were used in an undergraduate social work course as a way to facilitate class participation and discussion. At the end of the semester, students were asked to evaluate their experiences of using clickers. The data were organized into five themes: the clicker as a technological device, participation as a function of the clickers, quantifying participation, clickers fostered learning from others, and clickers allowed for knowledge checks. Discussion around these themes centered on how clickers can be used to facilitate Chickering and Gamson's principles for good educational practices.     

Children’s Musical and Emotional Meaning Making: Dialogicality in Instructional Interaction

This study concerns children’s aesthetic meaning making in terms of how it is constituted musically, emotionally, and dialogically. We investigate how two 10-year-old children collaboratively engage in the task of teaching and learning to sing a song. The research questions concern what musical and emotional expressions the participants responsively construct and how these expressions are addressed, both explicitly and implicitly. Adopting a perspective grounded in Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogue philosophy and more recent educational research in this tradition, the study explores how children’s affective reasoning is co-constructed in the process of song sharing that is also a sense-making enterprise. Interactive talk episodes, including facial displays, are transcribed, analyzed, and discussed. We demonstrate, from moment to moment, how emotive expressivity comes into play and how it refers to double dialogicality, both at the interpersonal and activity-specific level. Finally, on the basis of our findings, we discuss conflicting artistic and educational values.     

Educational Support for Orphaned Children: What Can We Learn from the African Extended Family Structure?

This paper challenges the view that, in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the African extended family is no longer able to care for and support orphaned children. The paper is based on a qualitative case study conducted in a South African urban area on the lived experiences of orphaned children aged 9–14. Data were collected from the children, their teachers as well as their main caregivers. The study found that, despite the poverty facing the extended family, emotional support, family cohesion and support for learning can serve to meet the educational needs of orphaned children.