Intercultural literacy dialogue: international assessment moderation in early childhood teacher education

ABSTRACT

This research reports intercultural dialogue of meaning making in literacy by lecturers, engaged with an assessment moderation process of early childhood education (ECE) preservice teacher education across Australia, New Zealand and Sweden. The purpose of the dialogue was to inform pedagogical and conceptual knowledge in their courses. The research question is: How does intercultural dialogue inform teacher education literacy practices? Methods include (1) a blind assessment review process using 30 examples from ‘high’ to ‘low’ exemplars of ECE students’ literacy assessment annotations, some from each country, and (2) textual analysis of intercultural student feedback and reflection from student forum comments and, semi-structured reflexive interviews with students about the assessment moderation process. Rich academic reflections on the data have led to our recommendations that the conceptual framework of intercultural praxis could be applied in early childhood preservice teacher education practice. Further, we suggest there are increased possibilities for the use of intercultural literacy with ECE preservice student teachers using virtual and explicit collaborations and texts as explained in this research.     

Rapping About Rap: Parental Mediation of Gender-Stereotyped Media Content

Abstract

This article examines adolescent reports of parental mediation of hip-hop music videos, a medium that has been celebrated for its artistry and empowering youth, yet criticized for stereotyped portrayals of women and men. Survey data of 315 adolescents (M age?=?15.2, SD?=?1.73) investigated the relationship between adolescent reports of viewing hip-hop music videos, parent-child communication about these videos, and attitudes about gender and the music videos. Respondents reported low levels of both positive and negative parental mediation of hip-hop music videos, yet when they occurred, reports of negative mediation positively predicted critical attitudes about these videos.     

Governing Sleepiness: Somnolent Bodies, Discourse, and Liquid Modernity

This paper is an inquiry into how a new truth about sleepiness is being produced in a society increasingly organized around the primacy of expertise and its representation in print and visual media. Sleepiness originally described a benign, naturally occurring corporeal moment, a precursor to sleep. Increasingly, however, a new and disturbing meaning of somnolence is found in a juncture of medical and epidemiological research, social movements, and popular culture. Alongside the idea that sleepiness is a tranquil promise of repose is another, emerging truth. Sleepiness, we are told, is hazardous to self and others, and, importantly, it is each person's responsibility to resist this seductive call of the body. How, we ask, is a private, routinely occurring state of partial consciousness deprivatized, linked to public health vernaculars, and transformed into a reprobate condition? This alternative, disturbing truth about sleepiness is shown to be emerging from several disparate, seemingly unrelated caches of scientific studies, social movement literatures, magazines and newspapers, and web sites. The ideas of Michel Foucault, who pioneered the contemporary study of discourse, are shown to be particularly apropos to this inquiry, though not without some modification to make them more amenable to a contemporary society shaped increasingly by what Zygmunt Bauman calls “liquid modernity.”     

Posttraumatic Play: Towards Acceptance and Resolution

Many children who experience trauma demonstrate it through posttraumatic play (PTP). This type of play is seen by professionals as a repetitive reenactment of the traumatic event within the child’s play. Reliving the event in this way may serve to retraumatize the child and lead to other psychiatric or behavioral problems. This article examines the issues surrounding childhood trauma and PTP. It uses a case study to illustrate the phases of a play therapy approach that incorporates Ericksonian principles, in order for the child to achieve resolution and acceptance. The countertransference issues that a clinician may encounter also are discussed. Editor's Note: This article is the recipient of the Judith Mishne Memorial Award for Excellence in Clinical Social Work Theory and Practice.     

The Effects of Gender Identity and Heavy Episodic Drinking on Alcohol-Related Violence

This study examines the impact of masculinity and femininity on violence enacted while under the influence of alcohol. Our review of the literature, data analysis, and interpretations are framed by feminist pathways theorizing and a critique of existing gender research in the area of alcohol use and violence. Data come from a survey of Midwest university students (N = 422). The relationships between masculinity, femininity, heavy episodic drinking and three forms of alcohol-related violence (against strangers, friends/acquaintances, and intimate partners), are assessed with a series of logistic regressions. Results suggest that even when controlling for sex, gender is an important predictor for alcohol-related violence. We situate these findings within a sociology-of-gender framework.     

Amidst the Reign of Behaviour and Disorder: Recalling Schools as Problems

In May 2013 one of the most profoundly influential books of the late twentieth and early twenty‐first century was released in its fifth edition. Yet, it is not unreasonable to speculate that this newest edition will pass largely unnoticed, even as new diagnoses (and the loss of current ones) seep into the everyday. The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM‐5) will undoubtedly be influential in education – defining and re‐defining student maladies. Its list of extensive categories provides, so it is argued, a means to uniformly identify mental disorders. Applied in educational contexts, children and young people can thus be categorized by clinical experts and teachers able to identify an individual's problems, and in theory, respond appropriately. Criticism of the DSM includes debate over its application in cross‐cultural contexts as well as the ways that socio‐economic differences are, to put it bluntly, diagnosed differently. Although these issues of diagnosis do get attention, historical contexts can remain bereft in commentary. In this paper we consider the value that historical perspectives can bring to an analysis of the contemporary effects of DSM‐inspired readings of education and disadvantage. The paper also draws on two projects, one with young people, the other with parents of young children, both of whom experienced disadvantage and precarious relationships with education. In these excluded contexts, people are more likely to come into contact with diagnostic repertoires that originate from the DSM. Drawing on Georges Canguilhem's analysis the ‘concept' as well as Michel Foucault's discussion of Canguilhem's work, this paper considers how attention to school problems is important for disengaging with education's appetite for psychiatric disorders.     

Interparental Conflict and Adolescents' Romantic Relationship Conflict

This study examined associations between interparental conflict and adolescents' romantic relationship conflict. High school seniors ( N =183) who lived with married parents completed questionnaires about their parents' marriage and their own romantic relationships. A subset of 88 adolescents was also observed interacting with their romantic partners. Adolescents' perceptions and appraisals of interparental conflict were related to the amount of conflict in romantic relationship and adolescents' conflict styles. Adolescents' appraisals of interparental conflict (i.e., self-blame, perceived threat) moderated many of the associations between interparental conflict and conflict behavior with romantic partners. The patterns of moderated effects differed by gender. These findings suggest that the meanings boys and girls ascribe to interparental conflict are important for understanding how family experiences contribute to the development of romantic relationships.     

Side-by-side: An evaluation of Connecticut’s police and youth interaction model

This study evaluated a community-based intervention program designed to promote positive youth development and to create positive interactions between police and youth in a non-enforcement environment. A pre–post-design was used to compare the results of the program for participating youth and police officers, particularly changes in each group’s attitudes toward the other. The results showed that participation in the program improved police officers’ and youths’ attitudes toward each other. For youth, the rate of change in attitudes was greatest for minority youth and for youth who had prior negative experience with the police. That is, youth who had negative prior experiences with police and began with negative attitudes toward police developed more positive attitudes toward police as a result of participating in the program. Furthermore, having opportunities for positive interactions between police and youth played an important role in decreasing negative perceptions of police for ethnic minority youth. This study suggests that community-based programs that involve police with youth can improve participants’ attitude toward each other, which might impact future interactions.