A NARRATIVE CASE STUDY EXAMINING THE EXPEREINCES OF MEN TEACHING SPECIAL EDUCATION IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES

Over the past several decades, the landscape of the workplace has changed in many industrialized nations. In the United States this time period has seen the outright elimination or outsourcing of well-paying “blue collar” jobs. The workforce continues to evolve, change, and become more global, and men and women are making nontraditional occupational decisions, whether by choice or necessity. The traditional views of men and women have begun to shift. However, gender assumptions about masculinity have failed to keep pace with the shift. There are approximately 1.8 million elementary grade level teachers in United States public schools; of these, a mere 9% are male. The paucity of male teachers in the elementary grades has been a concern for many years. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly 86% of all special education teachers are female. In 2012, 86.2% of all special education teachers were female, and by the following year, the number had dropped to 80.4%. The evidence indicates that more men are embarking on nontraditional career paths. Despite theses changes there is minimal research looking at the experiences of men working as special education teachers My goal in this study was to obtain a better understanding of the influences on and the process by which men make the decision to pursuing a career teaching special education in the elementary grades. The study utilized social role theory (Eagly, 1987), and Stead’s (2014) social constructionist theory as well as Williams’ (1992) glass escalator proposition The findings of this study confirm some of the factors related to career choice, experiences and barriers faced by men in nontraditional careers detailed in the literature. Three themes emerged for each research question: Experiences, advocacy, and benefits. Three themes emerged around the second research question exploring the experiences of men in a female-concentrated profession: The male body, communication, and perception. Three themes arose around the third research question: administration, My Masculinity, and pay. The findings run counter to Williams’ glass escalator proposition, which posits men working in female-concentrated professions are at an advantage. The findings advance support for Buschmeyer’s theory of (2013) alternative masculinity.

El cuento y la novela digital: estructura del texto e interactivdad

Resumen Desde hace algunas décadas la computadora, las tablets, los teléfonos inteligentes, los libros electrónicos, el internet y la conectividad irrumpieron en nuestras casas, cambiando de manera casi radical nuestra manera de aprehender el mundo. Es cierto que hoy en día, el fenómeno multimedia y su impacto sobre la sociedad fueron analizados desde diferentes perspectivas,tratando establecer los cambios en el comportamiento y hábitos que lo digital acarrea. Evidentemente, el mundo literario, como todos los ámbitos de la cultural, ha sido afectado por este fenómeno tecnológico y sus innovaciones. Varios autores y críticos literarios han analizado el tema desde varias ópticas, tales como Christian Vanderdrope y Roger Chartier quienes han estudiado los cambios que van desde las transformaciones físicas del libro hasta variaciones en la estructura del texto;Clément y Landow estudian, también la estructura misma de ciertos textos narrativos contemporáneos; escritores como Andrés Neuman, Leonardo Valencia, Vicente Mora o Fernando Escobar, entre otros,crean y reflexionan sobre el uso que ellos mismos hacen de la herramienta digital a través de susblogs. Estas nuevas textualidades es lo que nos proponemos estudiar en este trabajo, describiendo el impacto de su evolución y mutación artística, básicamente centrándonos en la estructura del texto ya sea del cuento o la novela; así como establecer la novedosa vinculación que estos textos mantiene con sus lectores.

Neojihadism and Muslim–Christian relations in the Mindanao Resistance Movement: a study of Facebook digital narratives

Religion is surely not the most important factor in explaining the conflict in the Southern Philippines. Economic, political and criminal issues also contribute to explaining the violence in the country. Yet the religious narrative influences the narration of the conflict, impacting on its frame of understanding both within the country and from the perspective of global audiences. This study presents the results of field research on three Facebook pages in English (and therefore addressed to global audiences) related to resistance movements in Southern Philippines, notably BIFF and MNLF, which openly include neojihadist symbols and contents in their narratives. How do these narratives depict and affect Christian–Muslim relations within the local movement and the local society in Mindanao? And how does the local version of the global neojihadist narrative contribute to shaping Christian–Muslim relations in the global Muslim public sphere? This article shows the potential impact of the neojihadist ideology on the narration of the resistance movement, highlighting the consequences for the negotiation of Christian and Muslim identities.

Historiographic Metafiction and the Neo-slave Narrative: Pastiche and Polyphony in Caryl Phillips, Toni Morrison and Sherley Anne Williams

The classic slave narrative recounted a fugitive slave’s personal story condemning slavery and hence working towards abolition. The neo-slave narrative underlines the slave’s historical legacy by unveiling the past through foregrounding African Atlantic experiences in an attempt to create a critical historiography of the Black Atlantic. The neo-slave narrative is a genre that emerged following World War II and presents us with a dialogue combining the history of 1970 - 2000. In this thesis I seek to explore how the contemporary counter-part of the classic slave narrative draws, reflects or diverges from the general conventions of its predecessor. I argue that by scrutinizing our notion of truth, the neo-slave narrative remains a relevant, important witness to the history of slavery as well as to today’s still racialized society. The historiographic metafiction of the neo-slave narrative rewrites history with the goal of digesting the past and ultimately leading to future reconciliation.

Mapping Memories: Cuban Exiles Navigate Home

This flyer promotes the lecture "Mapping Memories: Cuban Exiles Navigate Home" by Patricia L. Price, the Dean of Academic Affairs at Stella & Charles Guttman Community College, City University of New York, Manhattan. This lecture was held on November 16, 2015 at Modesto M. Maidique Campus, Green Library 220.

Interpreting independence in Latin American cinema today: the digital option

Globalisation has transformed “independence” into, at best, “inter-dependence”. In Latin American film, this process has been experienced as a decline in the national productions, now usually co-productions, and a tendency towards the self-exoticising as films cater for a festival-circuit global audience; similarly, theatrical exhibition takes place in one of a handful of the global multiplex complexes. Moreover, narrative film itself has long been regarded as inherently “dependent”, on the conservative sectors that have provided its finance, with the word “independent” referring to authorial features only. However, the very same processes that have allowed for such an unprecedented corporate control of these film industries have also spawned a parallel network of local, regional and national filmmaking, distribution and exhibition through digital media. From the “Mi Cine” project in Mexico to the “Cine Piquetero” in Argentina, digital filmmaking is empowering viewers and restoring agency to local filmmakers. In this paper I argue for this understanding of “independence” in the contemporary cinematic spheres of Latin America: the re-appropriation, amidst the transnationalism of the day, of the democratising potential of cinema that Walter Benjamin once thought was inherent to the medium.

Personalização e previsibilidade do sorriso digital smile design

A estética é algo que interfere no bem-estar das pessoas e o sorriso não é excepção, sendo até considerado um factor estético essencial nos dias de hoje, perante uma sociedade cada vez mais exigente relativamente aos padrões de beleza. A área da estética dentária, encontra-se em constantes mudanças devido à evolução da qualidade dos materiais e das técnicas utilizadas, levando a melhorias na reprodução das características naturais dos dentes. O médico dentista tem a responsabilidade de adquirir conhecimento e habilidades profissionais para a elaboração de tratamentos estéticos dentários que satisfaçam as expectativas dos pacientes quanto ao seu sorriso. Actualmente, o médico dentista possui várias opções para planear os tratamentos, entre as quais, o planeamento digital através do Digital Smile Design. O Digital Smile Design (DSD), criado pelo Doutor Christian Coachman, veio responder à procura elevada por tratamentos cada vez mais personalizados por parte dos pacientes. O DSD amplia a visão relativamente aos diagnósticos, melhora a comunicação entre as diferentes especialidades na área da medicina dentária e cria planos previsíveis durante o tratamento dentário. Trata-se de um programma onde são trabalhadas imagens fotográficas do paciente para a elaboração de um tratamento estético que responda as necessidades biológicas, funcionais e emocionais do paciente. Este poderá acompanhar e visualizar todos os passos do tratamento e deste modo, torna-se parte integrante do processo. O paciente expressa a sua opinião e as suas expectativas quanto ao resultado final. Neste trabalho realizou-se uma revisão narrativa da literatura sobre a técnica Digital Smile Design utilizando as palavras-chaves: Digital Smile Design; Visagism; dental planning; meaning of smile; mock-up. Os objetivos deste trabalho foi o de conhecer a técnica Digital Smile Design, os princípios do visagismo e a importância do planeamento nestes contextos. O sucesso de um tratamento está dependente de um correcto planeamento e de uma execução clínica e laboratorial cuidadosa.

Pixel review: Dance and digital wizardry conjure stunning illusions

A number of artists have explored the fusion of technology with performing arts. From Gideon Obarzanek​ and Frieder Weiss' projection mapping techniques with Glow and Mortal Engine to Garry Stewart and Thomas Pachoud's​ experiments with real-time looping and layered video in Proximity, it seems that infusing performance with choreographed bodies, screen-based design and choreographed pixels is the next frontier of contemporary performance.

Linked Data in the Digital Humanities: Examples, Projects, and Tools

Harnessing the potential of semantic web technologies to support and diversify scholarship is gaining popularity in the digital humanities. This talk describes a number of projects utilising Linked Data ranging from musicology and library metadata, to the representation of the narrative structure, philological, bibliographical, and museological data of ancient Mesopotamian literary compositions.

The Coming of Post-reflexive Society: Commodification and Language in Digital Capitalism

Language is a unique aspect of human communication because it can be used to discuss itself in its own terms. For this reason, human societies potentially have superior capacities of co-ordination, reflexive self-correction, and innovation than other animal, physical or cybernetic systems. However, this analysis also reveals that language is interconnected with the economically and technologically mediated social sphere and hence is vulnerable to abstraction, objectification, reification, and therefore ideology – all of which are antithetical to its reflexive function, whilst paradoxically being a fundamental part of it. In particular, in capitalism, language is increasingly commodified within the social domains created and affected by ubiquitous communication technologies. The advent of the so-called ‘knowledge economy’ implicates exchangeable forms of thought (language) as the fundamental commodities of this emerging system. The historical point at which a ‘knowledge economy’ emerges, then, is the critical point at which thought itself becomes a commodified ‘thing’, and language becomes its “objective” means of exchange. However, the processes by which such commodification and objectification occurs obscures the unique social relations within which these language commodities are produced. The latest economic phase of capitalism – the knowledge economy – and the obfuscating trajectory which accompanies it, we argue, is destroying the reflexive capacity of language particularly through the process of commodification. This can be seen in that the language practices that have emerged in conjunction with digital technologies are increasingly non-reflexive and therefore less capable of self-critical, conscious change.