Time for action? Elementary engineering education - Challenging teachers, policy makers and parents

Grounded in the findings of a three year exploratory student whereby teachers' and policy makers' perceptions of elementary level engineering education were analysed, this paper focuses upon three strands of engineering education activity: Pedagogy: Practice, and: Policy. Taking into account the challenges associated with introducing engineering education at an elementary level across the UK, the paper critiques the role played by the 'competition model' in promoting engineering to children and 4 to 11 years. In considering the 'added value' that appropriately developed engineering education activities can offer in the classroom the discussion argues that elementary level engineering has the potential to reach across the curriculum, offering context and depth in many different areas. The paper concludes by arguing that by introducing the discipline to children at a foundational level, switching on their 'Engineering Imaginations' and getting them to experience the value and excitement of engineering, maths and applied science a new "Educational Frontier" will be forged. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2014.

Resisting the final word:challenging stale media and policy representations of students’ performative technological encounters in university education

This article explores powerful, constraining representations of encounters between digital technologies and the bodies of students and teachers, using corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It discusses examples from a corpus of UK Higher Education (HE) policy documents, and considers how confronting such documents may strengthen arguments from educators against narrow representations of an automatically enhanced learning. Examples reveal that a promise of enhanced ‘student experience’ through information and communication technologies internalizes the ideological constructs of technology and policy makers, to reinforce a primary logic of exchange value. The identified dominant discursive patterns are closely linked to the Californian ideology. By exposing these texts, they provide a form of ‘linguistic resistance’ for educators to disrupt powerful processes that serve the interests of a neoliberal social imaginary. To mine this current crisis of education, the authors introduce productive links between a Networked Learning approach and a posthumanist perspective. The Networked Learning approach emphasises conscious choices between political alternatives, which in turn could help us reconsider ways we write about digital technologies in policy. Then, based on the works of Haraway, Hayles, and Wark, a posthumanist perspective places human digital learning encounters at the juncture of non-humans and politics. Connections between the Networked Learning approach and the posthumanist perspective are necessary in order to replace a discourse of (mis)representations with a more performative view towards the digital human body, which then becomes situated at the centre of teaching and learning. In practice, however, establishing these connections is much more complex than resorting to the typically straightforward common sense discourse encountered in the Critical Discourse Analysis, and this may yet limit practical applications of this research in policy making.

The effect of the advanced placement examination for credit policy by the Florida State universities on the acceleration of a student's postsecondary education

The purpose of this research study was to determine if the Advanced Placement program as it is recognized by the universities in the Florida State University System (SUS) truly serves as an acceleration mechanism for those students who enter an SUS institution with passing AP scores. Despite mandates which attempt to control uniformity of policy, each public university in Florida determines which courses will be exempted and the number of credits they will grant for passing Advanced Placement courses.^ This is a descriptive study in which the AP policies of each of the SUS institutions were compared. Additionally, the college attendance and graduation data on members of a cohort of 593 Broward County high school graduates of the class of June, 1992 were compared. Approximately 28% of the cohort members entered university with passing Advanced Placement scores.^ The rate of early and on time graduation was significantly dependent on the Advanced Placement standing of the students in the cohort. Given the financial and human cost involved, it is recommended that all state universities bring their Advanced Placement policies into line with each other and implement a uniform Advanced Placement policy. It is also recommended that a follow-up study be conducted with a new cohort bound under the current 120 credit limitation for graduation. ^

Sexual harassment of Miami-Dade County Public School students by school personnel

The purpose of this research was to assess the type and extent of sexual harassment of Miami-Dade County Public School (M-DCPS) students by school employees. In addition, the school system's existing procedures for handling such harassment were investigated, including students' awareness of and willingness to follow such procedures.^ Over 500 seniors from fourteen high schools around the county completed surveys which asked them to indicate whether or not they had received training on the topic of sexual harassment, whether or not they were aware of their school's policy on sexual harassment, whether or not they would feel comfortable reporting an incident of sexual harassment, whether or not they had experienced various forms of sexual harassment, and if they had been harassed, whether or not they reported the incident to a school official.^ Results indicated that sexual harassment of M-DCPS students by school employees is widespread, and the procedures that are currently in place to deal with this harassment are ineffective. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of the sample population indicated that a school employee had sexually harassed them; however, only four percent (4%) reported the incident to a school official. Responses indicated that this discrepancy exists because few students have received any training, few are aware of their schools' policies, and few are comfortable with the existing reporting procedures. ^

Sexual Health Education and Family Planning: A Vital Component of the Healthy Start Program

The paper will describe the Healthy Start program as a comprehensive sex education program and implications for preventing subsequent adolescent pregnancies.

Fundamental Fairness in Sexual Misconduct Adjudications: Evaluating Private Universities for Due Process Rights in their Policies and Procedures

There is a national debate on how universities should respond to sexual assault, specifically the advantages and shortcomings of the campus adjudication Process. One major critique of university adjudication is that it does not provide the necessary due process rights to the accused and is therefore not fundamentally fair. This study seeks to assess this validity of this critique by seeing if sexual misconduct policies lack due process and if so, to what extent. This investigation is a comparative case study of 14 private higher education institutions, belonging to the Ivy Plus Society, analyzing their policy and procedure documents for indicators of due process. Findings show that schools are complying between 45% and 85% of due process indicators with an average of 65%. Colleges do lack due process rights and need to revise their policies and procedures to clearly present these rights. Key recommendations include guaranteeing a hearing procedure with impartial decision-makers and the opportunity to submit evidence and witnesses.

Desistance from Sexual Offending: A Policy and Research Agenda Whose Time Has Come

For the past three decades or so, criminal justice policies have been enacted under the assumption that individuals who have been convicted of a sex offense are life course persistent sex offenders. In that context, research has been heavily focused on the assessment of risk and the prediction of sexual recidivism.Simultaneously, little to no attention has been given to the majority of individuals convicted of sex offenses who are not arrested or convicted again.Researchers have witnessed a growing gap between scientific knowledge and the sociolegal response to sexual violence and abuse. The current legal landscapecarries important social implications and significant life course impact for a growing number of individuals. More recently, theoretical and research breakthroughs in the study of desistance from crime and delinquency have been made that can help shed some light on desistance from sex offending. Desistance research, in the context of sex offending, however, represents serious theoretical, ethical, legal, and methodological challenges. To that end, this article introduces a special issue exploring current themes in desistance research by examining the life course of individuals convicted of a sexual offense while contextualizing their experiences of desistance.

Looking at ‘both sides’ of teacher education research and policy-making: insights for the teacher education research community

Teacher education researchers appear generally not well equipped to maximise a range of dissemination strategies, and remain largely separated from the policy implications of their research. How teacher education researchers address this issue and communicate their research to a wider public audience is more important than ever to consider within a global political discourse where teacher education researchers appear frustrated that their findings should, but do not, make a difference; and where the research they produce is often marginalised. This paper seeks to disrupt the widening gap between teacher education researchers and policy-makers by looking at the issue from ‘both sides’. The paper examines policy–research tensions and the critique of teacher education researchers and then outlines some of the key findings from an Australian policy-maker study. Recommendations are offered as a way for teacher education researchers to begin to mobilise a new set of generative strategies to draw from.

The sexual health knowledge of people with intellectual disabilities: A review.

There is a growing recognition that people with disabilities have the same sexual needs and rights as people without disabilities. However, less attention is paid to the sexuality of people diagnosed with intellectual disabilities. This narrative review summarises what is currently known about the level of sexual health knowledge of people with intellectual disabilities. A literature review was conducted of the published literature using Google Scholar, PubMed, PsychInfo, EBSCOhost, and Science Direct. Forty eight articles were identified that addressed the question about the level of sexual health knowledge of people with intellectual disabilities. Overall, studies demonstrate that people with intellectual disabilities are highly variable in levels of sexual knowledge, but on average have a range of deficits in knowledge compared to non-disabled individuals. More tailored education and support in accessing formal and informal sources of information are needed.

From policy development to effectiveness and alignment: An analysis of the UK’s Higher Education Open Access policy landscape

The number of Open Access (OA) policies that have been adopted by universities, research institutes and research funders has been increasing at a fast pace. The Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMAP) records the existence of 724 OA policies across the world, of which 512 have been adopted by universities and research institutions. The UK is one of the leading countries in terms of OA policy development and implementation with a total of 85 institutional1 and an estimated 35 funder2 OA policies. In order to understand and contextualise how OA policies are developed and how they can be effectively implemented and aligned, this brief looks at two areas. The first section provides an overview on the processes evolving around policy making, policy effectiveness and policy alignment. In particular, it summarises the criteria and elements generally specified in OA policies, it points out some of the relevant steps informing the development, monitoring and revision of OA policies, it outlines what OA policy elements contribute to policy effectiveness, and highlights the benefits in aligning OA policies. The second section revisits the issues previously discussed within the context of the UK institutional (universities) OA policy landscape.

Open Access policy effectiveness: A briefing paper for UK Higher Education Institutions

There are now almost 700 Open Access policies around the world, two thirds of them in universities and research institutes. There is considerable variation across these policies in terms of the conditions they lay down for authors and of their effectiveness. This briefing paper lays out the main issues that affect the effectiveness of a policy in providing high levels of Open Access research material.

Teaching boys in neoliberal and postfeminist times: Feminization and the question of re-masculinization in the education system and policy field

This paper focuses on teaching boys, male teachers and the question of gendered pedagogies in neoliberal and postfeminist times of the proliferation of new forms of capitalism, multi-mediated technologies and the influence of globalization. It illustrates how a politics of re-masculinization and its reconstitution needs to be understood as set against changing economic and social conditions in which gender equity comes to be re-focused on boys as the ‚new disadvantaged‘. This re-framing of gender equity, it is argued, has been fuelled by both a media-inspired backlash discourse about ‚failing boys‘ and a neo-positivist emphasis on numbers derived primarily from standardized testing regimes at both global and national levels. A media-focused analysis of the proliferation of discourses about ‚failing boys‘ vis-a-vis the problem of encroaching feminization in the school system is provided to illuminate how certain truths about the influence of male teachers come to define how the terms of ensuring gender equity are delimited and reduced to a question of gendered pedagogies as grounded in sexed bodies. Historical accounts of the feminization of teaching in the North American context are also provided as a basis for building a more informed understanding of the present, particularly as it relates to the contextualization of policy articulation and enactment regarding the problem of teaching boys. In light of such historically informed and critical media analysis, it is argued that what is needed is a more informed, evidenced based policy articulation of the problem of teaching boys and a more gender sensitive reflection on the politics of masculinities in postfeminist times. (DIPF/Orig.)