Science Literacy and media Literacy: a missing link?

The study of science in the media is increasingly highlighted within science programmes and represents an authentic context for interdisciplinary collaboration. Yet the literature on ‘media across the curriculum’ makes surprisingly little mention of links to science and cross-curricular approaches to teaching about and with science-based media resources is an area that is under-explored. This research study focuses on science in the news. The project involved 28 teachers from seven schools and brought together science and English teachers to explore collaborative working with the aim of promoting critical engagement with media reports with a science component. Teachers planned, developed and implemented a school-based activity with an emphasis on ‘connected learning’ rather than the compartmentalised learning that tends to accompany the discrete treatment of science matters in science class and media matters in English class. Not only did the project raise teachers’ awareness of science in the media as a potential, purposeful and profitable area for collaborative working, but it demonstrated how the synergy of the different experiences and expertise of science and English teachers produced very varied approaches to a programme of activities with an enhanced capacity to promote criticality in relation to science literacy and media literacy.

The Critical Reading of the Images Associated with Science-Related News Reports: Establishing a knowledge, skills, and attitudes framework

For the majority of adults, the media constitute their main source of information about science and science-related matters impacting on society. To help prepare young people to engage with science in the media, teachers are being exhorted to equip their students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to respond critically to science-related news reports. Typically, such reports comprise not only text, but also visual elements. These images are not simply adjuncts to the written word; they are integral to meaning-making. Though science teachers make considerable use of newspaper images, they tend to view these representations unproblematically, underestimating their potential ambiguity, complexity, and role in framing media messages. They rarely aim to develop students’ ability to ‘read’, critically, such graphics. Moreover, research into how this might be achieved is limited and, consequently, research-informed guidance which could support this instruction is lacking. This paper describes a study designed to formulate a framework for such teaching. Science communication scholars, science journalists and media educators with acknowledged relevant expertise were surveyed to ascertain what knowledge, skills, and attitudes they deemed useful to engagement with science related news images. Their proposals were recast as learning intentions (instructional objectives), and science and English teachers collaborated to suggest which could be addressed with secondary school students and the age group best suited to their introduction. The outcome is an inventory of learning intentions on which teachers could draw to support their planning of instructional sequences aimed at developing students’ criticality in respect of the totality of science news reports.

An exploratory study of specialist and generalist teachers: predicting self efficacy in delivering primary physical education.

We aimed to determine whether primary school teachers’ motivational regulations to exercise and self efficacy in delivering a physical education (PE) lesson are different based on prior PE training. Two groups of qualified primary school teachers were recruited; PE specialists and a group of generalist primary school teachers who also teach PE. All teachers completed the Behavioural Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire-2, International Physical Activity Questionnaire and the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale. PE specialists demonstrated significantly higher levels of intrinsic motivation towards exercise participation and took part in more physical activity in comparison to the generalist teachers. Regression analysis showed that being a PE specialist predicted higher scores in instructional strategies and classroom management in PE. Our findings support the useof Self Determination Theory concepts in understanding teacher’s exercise participation motivations. These findings have implications for the modelling role of teachers in encouraging children to be physically active.

‘Who Ate All the Pride?’:Patriotic Sentiment and English National Football Support.

The growing popularity of English national insignia in international football tournaments has been widely interpreted as evidence of the emergence of a renewed English national consciousness. However, little empirical research has considered how people in England actually understand football support in relation to national identity. Interview data collected around the time of the Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup tournaments fail to substantiate the presumption that support for the England football team maps onto claims to patriotic sentiment in any straightforward way. People with far-right political affiliations did generally use national football support to symbolise a general pride in English national identity. However, other people either claimed not to support the England national team precisely because of its associations with nationalism, or else bracketed the domain of football support from more general connotations of English patriotism.

Marriage and gender inequality: work–family arrangements of Portuguese and British highly qualified women

This article examines work–family reconciliation processes in order to understand if, over the course of marital life, women become socially closer or further away from their partner. Drawing on work–life interviews with highly qualified women in Portugal and Britain, we compare these processes in two societies with different historical and social backgrounds. Findings reveal three main configurations of social (in)equality which emerge during married life: growing inequality in favour of the man, in favour of the woman or equality between spouses. With due attention to the importance of national specific factors, we present three main conclusions. First, (in) equality is built up over the course of marital life and female strategies for reconciling family and work are at the core of this process. Second, the national specificities can mould the effects of cross-national gender mechanisms. Third, the intersection between cross-cultural phenomena such as conservative attitudes towards domestic work and national specificities (such as the availability of part-time options) is a rather complex process which needs further research.

UW Collegium Musicum, Handel and Fielding Italian Arias and English Song March 14, 2011

Concert Program

Cultural adaptation of websites: a comparative study of portuguese and dutch corporate websites

Master Thesis Presented at Instituto de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto for obtaining the Master’s degree in Digital Marketing under the supervision of Professor José de Freitas Santos