Appraisals and de/legitimation of classroom well-being: A study based on Chilean students' voices

This study analysed, from a social justice perspective, how students from two Chilean public schools evaluate, legitimise and delegitimise processes and social actors associated with classroom well-being. Using a participatory qualitative design, fifty-nine (59) seventh grade students were asked to take and then select photographs about their school experience, and later participated in semi-structured interviews and a group workshop. Findings regarding the classroom context showed that children legitimised active learning methodologies, teachers to whom they feel close, and the use of technology for learning. They delegitimised punishment and teachers who ignored minority students or those with learning difficulties.     

The bad and the ugly: ethical concerns in participatory photographic methods with children living and working on the streets of Lima,Peru

Visual methods are particularly well suited for getting at the ways in which children living and working on the street understand their socio-spatial environment, and can bridge gaps between researcher and researched. In this study, adolescents who live and work on the streets of Lima are asked to take photographs, documenting their lives and their socio-spatial environments. While participatory methods such as photovoice can bring children and adolescents into the research process and can provide significant benefits to research and its participants, the introduction of photographic methods with marginalised populations carries with it important ethical concerns. This article explores the various critiques of documentary photography, and ethical concerns that arise when using visual methods, including issues of exploitation and intrusion in research with adolescents living on the streets. It also examines the ways in which researchers must continuously reassess their methodological practices in order to protect the best interests of the participants involved.     

Free Enterprise

Exploring controversial and difficult events and issues with young children can be challenging. The Civil Rights Movement is an abstract, perhaps remote, issue for young children today. However, it is an important part of our country's history and a theme worthy of study. This article suggests ways to use photographs to explore this mature subject matter that allow children to observe, discuss, and relate to pictures as a means of developing language along with concepts. Furthermore, discussions inspired by viewing the photographic documentation of the historic events surrounding the struggle for civil liberties allow students to share their insights about basic human rights and relate them to their lived experiences. The essential question guiding this lesson plan is: How can photographs provide insight into historical events? Scaffolded questions, based on the photographs, guide the students from observing and understanding to reflecting and analyzing. In addition to the lesson plan, the article contains historical background on the marches and related picture books and teaching resources based on the marches.     

A river revitalization: Seen through the lens of local community members

This article provides insight into a revitalization project of a river near Basle in Switzerland. The authors conducted an evaluation study to investigate the river revitalization from a social point of view. How do people, who spend their spare time there or who live near by, perceive and evaluate the changes? What does the revitalization mean to them? Do they support the nature‐preserving intentions? Might the ecological ambitions oppose behavioral habits and social life at the riverside? The research project included a visual part: visitors were first asked to take Polaroid photographs of what they liked and what they disliked about the locality. In a second step, they explained their pictures and their reasons for taking them. The article presents and analyses the visual and the verbal data. A nature‐oriented and ecological perspective emerges as but one of many ways visitors experience the area. Social and aesthetic arguments are prominent in the photographs and in the verbal evaluation of the revitalization project.     

David Goldblatt’s making visible: photographic strategies of rumination,orchestration and circulation

This article seeks to understand David Goldblatt’s innovations within the ‘documentary’ photography genre. Arguing that his photographic projects seek public intellectual engagement, it proposes that an understanding of the circulation of Goldblatt’s photographs is critical to grasping the public intellectual engagement of his photographic practice. The article tracks the material forms of photographic circulation, including the texts that accompany the photographs and the texts that flow from them, and argues that photographic public discursive interventions are at once visual, but in exceeding the boundaries of the visual also material and textual. This draws together the forms of circulation and the kinds of publics they address and call into being, not only at the time of the initial production and circulation of the photographs, but also in their archive and its impact on subsequent public discursivity about these photographs.     

Breasted experiences in pregnancy: an examination through photographs

Drawing on qualitative data from a sample of pregnant women in Hobart, Australia this article uses ‘feminist’ ‘memory work’ and the ‘photovoice’ method as frames for discussing the ways in which interviews and participant-produced photographs may be used to trace and understand pregnant embodiment. I argue that digital photographs taken by women during pregnancy can reveal important information about how they negotiate their own experiences of breastedness and wearing maternity underwear over time. Here, the concept of ‘breastedness’ itself is expanded as women’s individual embodied experiences of pregnancy are reflected in the production and viewing of their own photographic images.     

Task-based learning approaches for supporting the development of social science researchers’ critical data skills

Conducting social science research is a complex process, and social science students face a number of learning challenges in order to develop their skills. Moreover, new sources and types of data including so-called big data are providing new opportunities for research, but also pose methodological challenges. In this article, we explore a task-based learning approach for teaching social science research methods. We draw on evidence from two case study learning tasks: (i) the collection and analysis of Twitter data; and (ii) designing and conducting a face-to-face and online survey. The students were guided to co-lead the tasks, apply their knowledge and then to critically reflect. The pedagogical framework of task-based learning provides opportunities to embed learning in new ways by integrating knowledge, practice and critical reflection. Task-based learning can create a dynamic learning environment and can empower students to develop their identities as researchers.     

‘Crossing lines of difference’: how college students analyse diversity

Contemporary American college students confront increased diversity during their college years—in race, class, nationality, religion, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, age, and disability. Yet, how do students conceptualize this diversity, evaluate the options it provides, and assess its limitations? Furthermore, how do those researching diversity develop approaches that are flexible and open enough to reflect emerging student ways of thinking about diversity? Based on work at a diverse US public university—especially a pilot project on free‐form student essays—this paper examines how students conceptually navigate an environment that both encourages and inhibits interaction across difference. These students indicate scepticism about the marketing of diversity and frustration at the limited interaction across difference on campus, yet also an appreciation of the opportunities that diversity provides.     

贫困大学生就业心理障碍分析

在大学生就业形势仍然严峻的今天,贫困大学生就业尤其令人关注。贫困大学生在就业过程中经常表现出焦虑、自卑、被动、从众等因自我认知失调导致的心理障碍,分析发现他们产生心理障碍的原因包括对自己认识不充分、自我认识矛盾、社会实践经验缺乏等主观因素和社会、家庭、学校等客观原因。因此,贫困大学生需要从多途径了解自己、客观地评价自己、坚定地相信自己、充分认识求职单位等方面来认识自己．有的放矢：同时通过学好专业知识、培养兴趣特长、不断完善人格来完善自己,扬长补短;并运用转化法、宣泄法、慰藉法、放松法等多种手段及时调适、缓和冲突。     

Self-Determination and Confidentiality

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to further clarify the ambiguous nature of two of social work's most important values: self-determination and confidentiality. Previous research indicates that many ethical decisions in social work practice are difficult to make; and, many times decisions are made based on the worker's values and experiences rather than on written ethics, laws, and agency policy. To explore this concept further, an open-ended survey instrument was distributed to 82 social work students after completing the required practice classes. The participants were asked whether they would break confidentiality based on a specific vignette and describe what decision was made and why. Results indicated that degree level (MSW versus BSW) proved to be a significant factor related to whether and/or why the respondent would break confidentiality. In addition, students with more paid work experience were more likely to question the issue of confidentiality and were more likely to break it. Two issues reflected in the decision-making process involved ensuring client safety and self-determination. In conclusion, this article explores possible reasons for breaching confidentiality and pitfalls that can occur for all professionals in making these types of decisions. Furthermore, it explores the ambiguous nature of problem solving in this area, and suggests ways that social workers can improve their decision-making skills.     

“He Wanted Me to Achieve that for Our Family and I Did,Too”: Exploring First-Generation Students’ Experiences of Turning Points During the Transition to College

This study explored the ways in which family communication facilitated support and persistence for first-generation students during the transition from high school through the first year of college with a specific focus on the first-year experience, a pivotal time when first-generation students often decide whether they will leave or stay in college. Through semistructured interviews, we identified the communication events that first-generation students perceived to be turning points in their interpersonal interactions with their family members. Seventeen participants identified a total of 121 turning points that they experienced from family members spanning from the time they had their first conversation about going to college through the first year of college. Interviews revealed three suprathemes of turning points: (a) coauthoring the dream, (b) experiencing obstacles to the dream, and (c) actualizing the dream.     

Some Correlates of Emotional Well-Being Among New England College Students

Abstract

In a questionnaire survey of New England college students, a large number of undergraduate men and women reported problems related to their personal, social, or academic adjustment. Given a list of 22 items described as “common concerns or feelings experienced by college students,” respondents were asked to rate the extent to which each item had been a problem for them in the past year. Most students (86%) reported having very much or somewhat of a problem with one or more items on the list. Pressure to do well in school, problems with weight control, anxiety, poor concentration and depression were among the most commonly reported concerns. The prevalence of these self-reported concerns and problems was found to be significantly associated with the respondents' sex, their perceptions of their health status, and academic standing.     

‘I shared the joy’: sport-related social support and communality on Instagram

The popularity of sharing photographs on digital platforms has increased significantly due to the communicative affordances of mobile media and the emergence of photo-sharing applications, such as Instagram. In this paper, we examine how social support and communality can be built and reinforced through digital visual communication. We focus especially on photo sharing in the context of recreational climbing and trail running. In a qualitative study with Finnish climbers and runners, we asked what meanings sports practitioners ascribe to the practice of sharing and observed how they communicate these meanings through photographs. The results indicate that different types of visual content build and reinforce communality in distinct ways. Whereas inspirational photographs drive practitioners to explore, motivational photographs pull practitioners to keep going through goal setting and peer support. We conclude that visual communication on Instagram mediates a stream of momentary encounters between practitioners that merge into communally meaningful experiences. Thus, we assert that in the context of recreational sport subcultures, photo sharing not only facilitates social relationships but can be perceived as a meaningful social practice that is integral to reinforcing physical activity.     

New ways of seeing: enhancing student learning through community-based collaborative photography

The opportunity to participate in a community-based documentary photography project facilitated university students’ ability to develop an empathetic and multifaceted understanding of a complex urban space, gain critical insight into key theoretical debates about the nature of photographic representation, and contribute to a local place-making initiative.

This article reflects on the approaches and innovations that have been the key in realising the objectives of this project. Exploration of the relationship between photographic representations and reality provided students a crucial understanding of the active role they as photographers play in the creation of visual narratives. Collaborative critiques of the photographs they were producing helped students make thoughtful decisions about how to depict various aspects of urban life. Innovative ways to facilitate access to people living and working in the city made it possible for students to move beyond surface appearances. An emphasis on producing ethnographic captions and written reflections on the evolving processes of seeing further contributed to student understandings of this urban space and the possibilities for integrating visual and written accounts. Finally, the opportunity to help curate exhibits of their work involved students in a real place-making dialogue and the attendant ethical and political challenges of representing the city in a public venue.     

Scientist and non-scientists share a diversity of dimensions in their relations to urban nature

In the current biodiversity crisis, conservation scientists are urgently asked to involve themselves in education and communication initiatives toward non-scientists, who are considered as lacking knowledge to correctly value biodiversity. This is particularly argued in urban areas.In this paper, we showed however with an anthropological survey that urban citizens do express a variety of relations toward surrounding urban nature. Then, in an independent survey, we showed that these ways of being connected with nature were shared by students in conservation sciences. Conservation scientists and non-scientific city dwellers have therefore much more in common than is taken for granted in their relations and perceptions of urban nature, notably concerning emotional, sensorial and memorial relationships. Acknowledging these common features in the scientific community could improve the communication between science and the general public about urban nature, help bridge the gap between science and the society and eventually participate to build a new social contract on nature.     

The power to fix the gaze: Gender and class in Victorian photographs of pit‐brow women

This article considers how Victorian discourses on gender and class operate both within and upon Victorian photographs of women miners (pit‐brow women) in their working clothes. The photographs come from the personal collection of Arthur J. Munby, a bourgeois man of the period. In contrast to other studies undertaken on his collection, this article considers these photographs in the context of their commercial sale. Thus this article aims to investigate why Victorian men, such as Munby, purchased such photographs. The article does this by rebuilding the discursive field that gave these photographs meaning. This reveals that the way in which these photographs were actively constructing categories of difference (class and gender) allowed them to signify in a number or erotic and sexualized ways. Furthermore, the article exposes how these particular photographs carried specific meanings of the erotic because these women, unlike other working‐class women, wore trousers. Finally it reveals the power such discourses held in structuring the experience of being a woman miner in the 1860's.     

Photographic portraits of migrants in South Africa: framed between identity photographs and (self-)presentation

This essay explores how migration within the African continent is framed visually by passport photos as well as artistic documentary projects based in Johannesburg, South Africa. It offers examples of what type of photographic (self-)portraits are constructed, which photographs circulate and how African migrants’ self-images as well as South African society’s perception of them are affected by certain photographic images. The method employed is a close reading of some paradigmatic photographs. In addition, I will discuss different – and often gendered – ways in which African migrant subjects may become visible. In short, this essay asks, what photographic portraits construct the hegemonic view of the African migrant subject in the public sphere? Accordingly, the tension between visibility and invisibility of African migrants’ lives emerges in the interstices of the inquiry. The paper first looks at the taking of identity photographs, since the passport photo exemplifies how the individual is made visible by the nation state. It can simultaneously serve as a poignant reminder of the ambivalent qualities of photography: on the one hand, documenting and codifying, and on the other hand, creatively representing. In this context, the essay explores the possibility of remaining invisible or “opaque,” but also the conceivably more empowering representational aspect of photography such as we see in participatory (art) projects, which may be connected to the visual politics of self-expression and reflection.     

A Theory of Minority Students' Survival in College

This paper sets forth a theory to explain the survival of minority students in college. Minority students are faced with barriers such as cultural and racial isolation, unfamiliarity with college life, and hostility. As colleges place greater emphasis on diversity, campuses are more likely to turn into hostile milieus for minority students. In reaction, minority students will close ranks and seek other minority students on campus to form ethnic social networks rooted in their ethnic subculture. The ethnic social networks serve: (1) to reinforce excellence in academics; (2) to provide social support and information for students in navigating the college maze; and (3) to increase solidarity and pride in members. These minority social networks on campus help integrate minority students into the college social and academic systems and thereby maximize the students' survival in college.     

Operationalizing Social Justice in Social Studies Education

Although social justice is an overarching goal of most every department of teacher education, college of education, and US College or University, it is rarely an identified goal for K–12 schools. We contend that the field of social studies education also substantively focuses on social justice, and as such, this article clarifies the ways in which classrooms can provide a social justice education. In particular, we explore the role of dispositions, reflective thinking, and controversial issues, and the ways in which they position students to understand, confront, and undermine social injustices. Finally, we provide specific curricular ideas and points of departure for middle school and high school social studies teachers to operationalize social justice education within their classes.