Critical practice and the public pedagogy of environmental and conservation media

This article addresses the reluctance of mainstream corporate and commercial media to critically address major environmental and conservation issues. The resulting public pedagogy largely reproduces the neoliberal ideology informing much conservation practice and discourse. Nonetheless, the media retains an unrealised critical educative potential that needs to be drawn upon by critical media practitioners and educators. To do this, educators need to be cognisant of the phenomenological experience of spectatorship, the aesthetic form and relational contexts of media consumption, production and informal learning. Referring to the work of Vivian Sobchack, Henry Giroux, Pierre Bourdieu and Gilles Deleuze, the article argues that if critical practitioner-educators apply an analytic framework informed by critical realism, counter-hegemonic elements found within corporate and independent media productions and conservation initiatives may be rearticulated and re-presented in a more positive manner. For this to occur, critical media practitioners-educators need to recognise that feasible political and normative alternatives are both available and practically possible. The article ends by discussing some relatively recent non-fiction productions that express a commonality between human and non-human animals and so form the basis of a critical environmental education-media practice.

Coherence and understanding in informal conversations between native and non-native speakers of English

This study investigates informal conversations between native English speakers and international students living and studying in the UK. 10 NNS participants recorded themselves during conversations with native speakers. The audio-recordings were transcribed and a fine-grained, qualitative analysis was employed to examine how the participants jointly achieved both coherence and understanding in the conversations, and more specifically how the NNSs contributed to this achievement. The key areas of investigation focused on features of topic management, such as topic initiations, changes and transitions, and on the impact which any communicative difficulties may have on the topical continuity of the conversations. The data suggested that these conversations flowed freely and coherently, and were marked by a relative scarcity of the communicative difficulties often associated with NS-NNS interactions. Moreover, language difficulties were found to have minimal impact on the topic development of the conversations. Unlike most previous research in the field, the data further indicated that the NNSs were able to make active contributions to the initiation and change of topics, and to employ a range of strategies to manage these effectively and coherently. The study considers the implications which the findings may have for teaching and learning, for second language acquisition research, and for non-native speakers everywhere.

Topic continuity in informal conversations between native and non-native speakers of English

Topic management by non-native speakers (NNSs) during informal conversations has received comparatively little attention from researchers, and receives surprisingly little attention in second language learning and teaching. This article reports on one of the topic management strategies employed by international students during informal, social interactions with native-speaker peers, exploring the process of maintaining topic continuity following temporary suspensions of topics. The concept of side sequences is employed to illustrate the nature of different types of topic suspension, as well as the process of jointly negotiating a return to the topic. Extracts from the conversations show that such sequences were not exclusively occasioned by language difficulties, and that the non-native speaker participants were able to effect successful returns to the main topic of the conversations.

Deschooling society? A lifelong learning network for sustainable communities, urban regeneration and environmental technologies

The complexity and multifaceted nature of sustainable lifelong learning can be effectively addressed by a broad network of providers working co-operatively and collaboratively. Such a network involving the third, public and private sector bodies must realise the full potential of accredited flexible and blended formal learning, contextual opportunities offered by enablers of informal and non formal learning and the affordances derived from the various loose and open spaces that can make social learning effective. Such a conception informs the new Lifelong Learning Network Consortium on Sustainable Communities, Urban Regeneration and Environmental Technologies established and led by the Lifelong Learning Centre at Aston University. This paper offers a radical, reflective and political evaluation of its first year in development arguing that networked learning of this type could prefigure a new model for lifelong learning and sustainable education that renders the city itself a creative medium for transformative learning and sustainability.

Disabling a family? Emotional dilemmas experienced in becoming a parent of a child with learning disabilities

Becoming the parent of a child diagnosed with learning disabilities can have a dramatic impact. Chrissie Rogers, the author of this article, is both a lecturer in education studies at Keele University and the mother of a daughter who has learning disabilities. She argues here that the pressures on mothers to produce ‘perfect’ babies and to meet all their needs are immense. These pressures arise from both internalised norms and societal expectations and, in the face of these pressures, parents may feel shock, loss and disappointment. These feelings may lead, in turn, to denial, anxiety and conflict affecting both the parents and the professionals involved with the family. Drawing on a series of in-depth interviews and personal narratives, Chrissie Rogers makes a powerful case for the importance of support, whether that support is formal or informal. She suggests that, without the right levels of support and understanding, having a child with a diagnosis of learning disability can disable the whole family.