Crossing Thresholds and Expanding Conceptual Spaces: Using Arts-Based Methods to Extend Teachers’ Perceptions of Literacy

The context for this paper is a teacher education program for adult literacy practitioners at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. This paper describes and reflects on the use of arts-based approaches to enhance these practitioners’ conceptualizations of literacy, presenting their arts-based responses and their evaluations of the methods and their contrasting definitions of literacy at the start and the end of the course. The discussion raises questions about the inclusion of visual literacy in adult literacy teacher education programmes.

Regarding the Real: Cinema, Documentary, and the Visual Arts

Regarding the Real: Cinema, Documentary, and the Visual Arts develops an interdisciplinary approach to documentary film, focusing on its cultural and formal relations to other visual arts, such as animation, assemblage, photography, painting, sculpture, and architecture. The book considers the work of figures whose preferred film language is associative and fragmentary, and for whom the documentary is an endlessly open form, an unstable expressive phenomenon that cannot but interrogate the validity of its own narratives and representational modes. Combining close analysis with cultural history, Regarding the Real calls for a re-assessment of the influence of the modern arts in subverting the structures of realism typically associated with documentary filmmaking.

Lake restoration in terms of ecological resilience: a numerical study of biomanipulations under bistable conditions

An abstract version of the comprehensive aquatic simulation model (CASM) is found to exhibit bistability under intermediate loading of nutrient input, supporting the alternative-stable-states theory and field observations for shallow lakes. Our simulations of biomanipulations under the bistable conditions reveal that a reduction in the abundance of zooplanktivorous fish cannot switch the system from a turbid to a clear state. Rather, a direct reduction of phytoplankton and detritus was found to be most effective to make this switch in the present model. These results imply that multiple manipulations may be effective for practical restorations of lakes. We discuss the present results of biomanipulations in terms of ecological resilience in multivariable systems or natural systems.

Simplification of structured population dynamics in complex ecological communities

Goldstone's idea of slow dynamics resulting from spontaneously broken symmetries is applied to Hubbell's neutral hypothesis of community dynamics, to efficiently simplify stage-structured multi-species models-introducing the quasi-neutral approximation (QNA). Rather than assuming population-dynamical neutrality in the QNA, deviations from ideal neutrality, thought to be small, drive dynamics. The QNA is systematically derived to first and second order in a two-scale singular perturbation expansion. The total reproductive value of species, as computed from the effective life-history parameters resulting from the non-linear interactions with the surrounding community, emerges as the new dynamic variables in this aggregated description. Using a simple stage-structured community-assembly model, the QNA is demonstrated to accurately reproduce population dynamics in large, complex communities. Further, the utility of the QNA in building intuition for management problems is illustrated by estimating the responses of a fish stock to harvesting and variations in fecundity.

Protracted rainfall decreases temperature within leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) clutches in Grenada, West Indies: Ecological implications for a species displaying temperature dependent sex determination

Protracted or intense rainfall may affect the reproductive success of reptilian species on a number of levels ranging from the availability of prey, the integrity of the nesting site and the subsequent survivability of offspring. For sea turtles (a species displaying temperature sex determination) nesting throughout the tropics and subtropics, rainfall has previously been shown to influence the development environment of clutches; in its extreme resulting in high levels of egg or hatchling mortality. Yet when compared to other abiotic variables affecting clutch success, rainfall has received relatively little attention. We therefore examined how fluctuations in local rainfall at a tropical nesting site for leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) affected the nest environment. Temperature data loggers placed within clutches (n = 8) revealed that protracted rainfall had a marked cooling effect on nests, so that seasonally improbable male-producing temperatures (

Reflecting on outcomes for looked-after children: an ecological perspective

Despite huge investment over the past 10 years, improving outcomes for looked-after children remains elusive. A challenge for practitioners, researchers and policy-makers has been the absence of a shared conceptual framework for considering and responding to the needs of looked-after children. A second challenge relates to the measurement of outcomes. This article considers the measurement of outcomes and the multiple factors that contribute to outcomes for looked-after children. These include factors proximate to: the young person; birth family; placement; care system; children’s services; intra-agency dynamics; inter-agency dynamics; commissioning agents; and societal level. It then proposes an organising framework which provides the basis for reflecting on how multiple variables can interact to effect outcomes for looked-after children. The ecological perspective outlined in this article aims to facilitate reflection on the complex interplay between looked-after children and their environments and thereby to act as an aid to targeting interventions more effectively and efficiently.

Political Violence and Child Adjustment in Northern Ireland: Testing Pathways in a Social-Ecological Model Including Single- and Two-Parent Families

Moving beyond simply documenting that political violence negatively impacts children, we tested a social ecological hypothesis for relations between political violence and child outcomes. Participants were 700 mother child (M = 12.1 years, SD = 1.8) dyads from 18 working-class, socially deprived areas in Belfast, Northern Ireland, including single- and two-parent families. Sectarian community violence was associated with elevated family conflict and children's reduced security about multiple aspects of their social environment (i.e., family, parent child relations, and community), with links to child adjustment problems and reductions in prosocial behavior. By comparison, and consistent with expectations, links with negative family processes, child regulatory problems, and child outcomes were less consistent for nonsectarian community violence. Support was found for a social ecological model for relations between political violence and child outcomes among both single- and two-parent families, with evidence that emotional security and adjustment problems were more negatively affected in single-parent families. The implications for understanding social ecologies of political violence and children's functioning are discussed.

Testing a social ecological model for relations between political violence and child adjustment in Northern Ireland

Relations between political violence and child adjustment are matters of international concern. Past research demonstrates the significance of community, family, and child psychological processes in child adjustment, supporting study of interrelations between multiple social ecological factors and child adjustment in contexts of political violence. Testing a social ecological model, 300 mothers and their children (M = 12.28 years, SD = 1.77) from Catholic and Protestant working class neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland, completed measures or community discord, family relations, and children's regulatory processes (i.e., emotional security) and outcomes. Historical political violence in neighborhoods based on objective records (i.e., politically motivated deaths) were related to family members' reports of current sectarian antisocial behavior and nonsectarian antisocial behavior. Interparental conflict and parental monitoring and children's emotional security about both the community and family contributed to explanatory pathways for relations between sectarian antisocial behavior in communities and children's adjustment problems. The discussion evaluates support for social ecological models for relations between political violence and child adjustment and its implications for understanding relations in other parts of the world.

Holding eternity in an hour: A practical exploration of the arts in the health care of older people with dementia

This project involved creative artists working with older people with dementia and staff from two Belfast Health and Social Care Trust supported housing centres in a mixed programme of dance, painting, music and drama which culminated in an open workshop with relatives and friends of the tenants. The study steered away from traditional medical models of art/music/dance therapy where the participant is perceived as a ‘patient’ in favour of identifying the participant as a ‘student’ who avails of a life-long learning experience. A key premise was that access to the arts is a human right, especially in the context of advancing age and cognitive impairment. . According to one the tenants of Mullan Mews, the project served to ‘awaken - or reawaken - folk with dementia to the endless vista of possibility already in their lives if they will only look for it’. A phenomenographic analysis of video data generated by the project emphasises the importance of the individual experiences of participants in the programme. The evidence from these storylines gained strength from the development of a documentary-style film text that has proved successful in capturing and translating the live experience of the project participants into a supportive text that goes beyond the written word.