bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Brain Effects of Environmental Enrichment and Deprivation
Authors: Kolb Bryan
Published: June 2020

The role of experience in brain organization and function can be studied by systematically manipulating developmental experiences. The most common protocols use extremes in experiential manipulation, such as environmental deprivation and/or enrichment. Studies of the effects of deprivation range from laboratory studies in which animals are raised in the absence of sensory or social experiences from infancy to children raised in orphanages with limited caregiver interaction. In both cases there are chronic perceptual, cognitive, and social dsyfunctions that are associated with chronic changes in neuronal structure and connectivity. Deprivation can be more subtle too, such as being raised in a low socioeconomic environment, which is often associated with poverty. Such experience is especially detrimental to language development, which in turn, limits educational opportunities. Unfortunately, the effects of some forms of socioemotional deprivation are often difficult, if not impossible, to ameliorate.

In contrast, adding sensory or social experiences can enhance behavioral functions. For example, placing animals in environments that are cognitively, motorically, and/or socially more complex than standard laboratory housing is associated with neuronal changes that are correlated with superior functions. Enhanced sensory experiences can be relatively subtle, however. For example, tactile stimulation with a soft brush for 15 minutes, three times daily for just two weeks in infant rats leads to permanent improvement in a wide range of psychological functions, including motoric, mnemonic, and other cognitive functions. Both complex environments and sensory stimulation can also reverse the negative effects of many other experiences. Thus, tactile stimulation accelerates discharge from hospital for premature human infants and stimulates recovery from stroke in both infant and adult rats. In sum, brain and behavioral functions are exquisitely influenced by manipulation of sensory experiences, especially in development.
Queering Criminology Globally
Authors: Ball Matthew
Published: June 2020

Queer criminology is an emerging field of research addressing significant oversights within the disciplines of criminology and criminal justice studies—namely the limited attention paid to the criminal justice experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Drawing from the diverse meanings of the concept of “queer”—as an umbrella identity category and as an impetus for deconstruction and political disruption—queer criminology is developing along multiple paths including research into: LGBTQ people as victims and offenders; LGBTQ people in their interactions with the criminal justice system and its agents; LGBTQ people as criminal justice agents; and the ways in which criminal justice policies may be “queered.” It has also been a site of important theoretical development regarding issues such as: the role of deconstructionist and identity-focused approaches for addressing injustice for LGBTQ people; the best place for queer criminological research to be positioned in relation to the broader discipline of criminology; and who ought to constitute the subjects of queer criminology and thus how fluid the boundaries of the field can be. Queer criminology is also developing a stronger presence in a global context. It is increasingly moving beyond the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom where it developed, and the relevance of its insights are being tested in new political, social, and cultural contexts. As an emerging and dynamic field, queer criminology in its many forms is set to continue to disrupt criminology for some time to come, offering important insights to ensure that criminal justice knowledges and practices respond appropriately to the experiences of LGBTQ people.
Narrative Criminology
Authors: Presser Lois
Published: June 2020

Narrative criminology is a relatively new theoretical perspective that highlights the influence of stories on harmful actions and patterns of action. Narrative criminology researchers study stories themselves, rather than what stories report on, for effects. Narrative criminology takes a constitutive view of stories as opposed to the representational view that is rather more common within criminology. Hence a hallmark of the perspective is its bracketing of the accuracy of the stories under investigation. Stories legitimize conduct, compel action, and induce detachment, however fanciful they may be. Narrative criminologists analyze the role of stories in active harm-doing, passive complicity, desistance from offending, and resistance to harm. The field of narrative criminology has evolved rapidly.
Chemoreception in Fishes
Authors: Ueda Hiroshi
Published: June 2020

Chemoreception is the physiological capacity whereby organisms detect the varied external and internal chemical information required for survival and is the most primitive sensory process. Fish living in water have respiratory, gustatory, and olfactory chemosensory systems that detect water-soluble chemical cues. Respiratory chemoreception mainly in the gills detects changes in the levels of three respiratory gases: oxygen (O2), carbon dioxide (CO2), and ammonia (NH3). Gustatory chemoreception (gustation), which involves several taste receptor genes, is primarily involved in the tasting of foods. Olfactory chemoreception (olfaction), which involves between 15 and 150 olfactory receptor genes, is involved in a variety of important biological functions such as procuring foods, recognizing hazards (predators, contaminants, and toxic and alarm substances), discriminating species (individual, kin, and conspecific), controlling social behavior (dominance hierarchies, symbiotic behavior, territorial behavior, and schooling behavior), and reproductive and migratory behavior (mating, search for spawning site, imprinting, and homing). The olfactory functions are primarily controlled by hormones secreted from various endocrine glands that are the key mediators and integrators of external and internal information in organisms. Conversely, olfactory stimuli cause changes in hormone conditions.

One good example is the amazing olfactory abilities of salmon. They can memorize information related to their natal stream odors during downstream migration in juveniles so that, after they travel thousands of kilometers in the ocean over many years during feeding migration, they are able to use their homing abilities to migrate precisely to their natal stream for reproduction in adults. Olfactory memory formation and retrieval of natal stream odors in salmon, which are primarily controlled by the brain–pituitary–thyroid hormones and brain–pituitary–gonad hormones, respectively, are essential to imprinting and homing migration. Salmon olfactory systems can discriminate seasonally and yearly stable compositions of dissolved amino acids in their natal streams produced by biofilms in the riverbed. Ocean and freshwater ecosystems may have been affected by climate change-related CO2-induced acidification that impairs olfactory-mediated neural and behavioral responses in fish.
Distributed Leadership
Authors: Youngs Howard
Published: June 2020

Distributed leadership is a diverse concept, prominent in the education field since the turn of the millennium. Practitioners, researchers, and policymakers often tout it as a preferred mode of leadership. Distributed leadership has historical roots in the leadership studies field and first came to prominence in the education field as an alternative unit of analysis for understanding leadership through a distributed perspective rather than a focus mainly on discrete leader behaviors. This perspective was surpassed but not replaced by a normative position where distributed leadership is a means for organizational development. Research studies reveal distributed leadership has many forms in practice. The associated knowledge production emerging from such studies as well as typologies and critical commentaries expose multiple positions. Distributed leadership is not only a diverse concept, but a complex one. Despite its popularity, critical perspectives related to power and issues of social justice still require further development. There are also calls to reposition distributed leadership as a hybrid of dispersed and individual leadership.
Globally Minded Leaders
Authors: Heffron John M. , Papa Rosemary
Published: June 2020

The pressures—economic, political, and cultural—on educational leaders to think and act globally have perhaps never been greater than they are today. However, although it may go without saying that we live increasingly in a world of interdependent causation, of interconnectedness (and not simply between the local and the global, but between people and forces everywhere), this fact alone fails to fully explain the need for globally minded leaders in education. When so much of today’s interdependence tends to favor the strong over the weak on an essentially uneven playing field, a favorite complaint of critics on both the right and the left, the ways and means and ultimate purpose for producing such school leaders lie elsewhere, beyond today’s competitive stance. It lies in identifying and providing an unshakeable moral foundation for universal norms of social justice and equity; it lies in a revolutionary new approach to the knowledge base required of globally minded educational leaders, one that turns for guidance to humanistic thinkers around the world, past and present, the only test of their relevance being a philosophical one, not a psychological, an empirical, or a purely practical one; and it lies in embracing the multifaceted yet singularly cognizant of the human at heart. All this because the aim first and foremost is to develop thinkers, and then and only then practitioners. Practice follows from theory and theory from abstract, almost mathematical logic, a dialectical process of reasoning and argumentation. Globally minded school leaders distinguish themselves as masters of the lost art of argument, engaging actively in public dialogue and debate that seeks information, not some false standard of objectivity in the betterment of the human condition. Finally, the anthropological attitude that pursues processes of meaning making and value creation—not limited to an understanding of indigenous cultures, but extending to human and social relations in all their infinite variety—is the attitude of the globally minded leader. Such a one, in this sense of the term, is never finished, but in a perpetual state of becoming, a learning organization bound only by the self-imposed limits of his or her own curiosity and imagination. But the nature of one’s convictions is especially important here; it determines one’s actions, which in turn determine our value as human beings and as citizens of the earth, in linking commonalities of thought to actions that matter. Where do our convictions lie? This is the question globally minded educational leaders, in their challenges to sovereignty at home and abroad, are continually asking themselves on this journey with their learners.
Collective Efficacy and Teacher Collective Efficacy
Authors: Saidin Khaliza , Yaacob Aizan , Ahmad Nasir Nurul Shahidah
Published: June 2020

Efficacy is a person’s degree of beliefs and confidence to implement a task and produce a positive change. Efficacy can be divided into two aspects, namely self-efficacy and collective efficacy. In the context of education, the focus of research on efficacy is on teacher self-efficacy and collective teacher efficacy. Teacher self-efficacy is teachers’ belief in their own ability to carry out a task in order to bring positive changes, while collective teacher efficacy is the shared belief of teachers from different backgrounds and competencies in their ability to achieve the same goal. Collective efficacy depends on teacher self-efficacy to create collective beliefs in ensuring the achievement of the school’s vision and mission. Studies on collective teacher efficacy have brought positive effects on student performance and achievement and become an indicator of student performance. However, the research trend has shifted to focus on the relationship between collective teacher efficacy and teacher leadership. It was found that collective teacher efficacy not only influenced student performance and achievement but also affected teacher leadership.

In the Malaysian context, studies on collective teacher efficacy are still scarce and they mostly focused on demographic levels, factors affecting teacher collective efficacy, level of collective teacher efficacy and the relationship between collective teacher efficacy and student achievement. As teacher quality is an important factor in educational improvement, it is proposed that future studies in the Malaysian context emphasize the relationship between teacher collective efficacy and issues regarding teacher leadership as they eventually bring positive effects on students’ academic achievement. Therefore, more research is needed to address the role of teacher collective efficacy on teacher leadership in promoting quality of teaching and learning. A large scale radical improvement in the educational field is highly needed.
Trust in Principals
Authors: Zayim-Kurtay Merve
Published: June 2020

Trust is generally considered as the basis of relationships between major school stakeholders and contributes not only to productive attitudes and behaviors but also to the accomplishment of collective goals. The principal is the key person in creating the atmosphere and the conditions conducive to trust in which trust-based relationships among school constituencies can flourish. Specifically, school culture characterized by collegiality, professionalism, and consideration generally leads to higher trust in the principal if consistently supported by trustworthy behaviors of the principal. This brings several benefits to and desirable outcomes for school organizations, employees, and eventually students. Collaborative culture, organizational justice, teacher professionalism, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors, with reduced burnout, is by no means an exhaustive list of positive organizational and work-related outcomes. Moreover, trust in the principal plays an essential role in the thorough and smooth implementation of educational changes and better student outcomes. However, trust in the principal is still an underexplored area of research. In addition to reliance on simpler correlational methods and cross-sectional data, which fall short of demonstrating multiple mechanisms that create and sustain trust in the principal, possible moderating roles of school characteristics have not received enough attention. Also, teachers are the primary focus of trust studies whereas parents’ and students’ perspectives have been generally overlooked. Thus, both theoretical and methodological shortcomings call for further studies about trust in the principal in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding across different school settings.
Earth Education
Authors: Johnson Bruce , Manoli Constantinos
Published: June 2020

Earth education is an alternative approach to environmental learning, which has been developed as a potential serious response to the environmental crises we face. With roots in frustrations with traditional nature education that led to the innovative Acclimatization program, earth education has grown into a more comprehensive approach to environmental learning. The early work of Acclimatization led to earth education. The programmatic approach used in earth education, with its components of ecological understandings, feelings, and processing, have led to innovative aspects such as the I-A-A (Inform-Assimilate-Apply) learning model and the inclusion of “magic.” The Institute for Earth Education is the non-profit organization leading this approach and its work under the leadership of Steve Van Matre helps to propel these ideas.
Educational Management
Authors: Lynch Richard , Asavisanu Poonpilas , Rungrojngarmcharoen Kanog-on , Ye Yan
Published: June 2020

Educational management is one of a trilogy of overlapping concepts, along with educational administration and educational leadership. These three concepts are related but nonetheless possess definitional differences depending on where the terms are applied.

The complexity of educational management as a concept is evidenced by its inclusion of related but subsidiary though important notions such as ethics, culture, and diversity within differing educational systems. The overall purpose of educational management is to effectively and efficiently create and maintain environments within educational institutions that promote, support, and sustain effective teaching and learning, but how those key objectives are set and the means by which they are attained may differ significantly depending upon education system or level and across educational cultures. In striving to accomplish these goals, educational managers, through thoughtful practical application of management principles, enlist and organize a society’s available resources to attain the educational goals that have been set by that society’s political leaders. As such, the various educational goals set by differing societies to which educational managers at all levels of the educational system must respond are by definition changeable along with changing socioeconomic conditions within a society and the disruption occasioned by the rapid development of digital technologies used as management tools. Educational management, while guiding planned change, must be responsive to unplanned, disruptive change created by rapid changes in both social structures and cultures as well as advances in digital technologies. This is where the element of educational leadership that directs and guides the entire process of educational management and administration takes on particular importance. Leadership includes both manager and teacher professional ethics and is expressed within a variety of theories of ethical leadership in education that respond to cultural imperatives in differing societies. Educational management must be responsive to both global and local changes due to technological developments that directly impact teaching and learning through changes in curriculum in terms of pedagogical and assessment practices. It is in how educational management as a discipline evolves to effectively meet the needs of educational systems contingent upon the challenges derived from technological, social, cultural, and economic changes sweeping the globe in the first decades of the 21st century that will determine the effectiveness and efficacy of management practices going forward. Effectively and innovatively managing change is the primary challenge facing educational management locally, regionally, and globally in the decades ahead.
School Choice and Educational Pluralism
Authors: Bertagna Giuseppe , Magni Francesco
Published: June 2020

The early 21st century is an age in which freedoms seem to expand continuously and without limits; in addition to the traditional market freedoms, there is freedom of choice related to gender, to sex, to family, to health, to life and to end of life—to name just a few domains that have embraced the ethos of individual freedom. Nonetheless, in this context of growing freedom for everybody, there is a particular freedom whose “domain” has been limited, especially in Italy: the freedom of choice related to school and education. The constraints placed upon freedom of educational choice defaults, perhaps unintentionally, to a standard orthodoxy enforced by the state and its supposedly omniscient bureaucracy.

What is meant by “school choice”? It means the freedom to choose the school, the teachers, the educators, the experiences, and the educational pathways that one supposes best for one’s children, without incurring legal and economic penalties. It also means accepting that the government may regulate the system of state and non-state schools (i.e., it sets out the rules and main goals in terms of the learning and educational values with which teaching institutions should comply). Yet, to balance this, the government, except in cases of exceptional and regulated substitution according to the subsidiarity principle, may not ordinarily manage the organization and functioning of state schools and—more evidently—of non-state schools through a centralized governmental administration. These activities should be left to the individual responsibility of schools, families, companies, private investors, and the institutions of civil society. Last but not least, “school choice” means that the government bears the key responsibility of checking that schools comply with the established rules and values, and that students receive a satisfactory education, and of then making the results of those checks transparent and available for the public. This way, the government can give families very useful information that equips them to make their school choice responsibly.
School Boards
Authors: Ford Michael
Published: June 2020

School boards are a fixture of America’s public education system. The vast majority of public school students obtain an education overseen by one of over 13,000 locally elected school boards. Yet scholars and advocates continue to debate the legitimacy, efficacy, and even need for school boards. Supporters argue that school boards are bastions of local control designed to represent citizen values. Critics dismiss school boards as under qualified, overly political, and generally not up to the task of improving student outcomes. Key areas of school board research include board zones of discretion, superintendent relations, the link between school board governance and outcomes, and role of special interest groups in board elections. All of these research areas relate to the larger question of whether school boards are the appropriate model for the oversight of public education.
Managing Leadership Dilemmas
Authors: Cardno Carol
Published: June 2020

Some of the most complex and challenging problems that arise for educational leaders are actually “leadership dilemmas.” This type of dilemma, which must be owned by the leader, contains a strong tension between a desire to achieve the goals of the organization and simultaneously preserve positive relationships. Performance appraisal is one of the main contexts in which this dilemma arises for the leader. In most cases it is not recognized or is avoided because of its potential to create conflict and unpleasantness. Common avoidance approaches include polarizing the strands of the dilemma and attending to either an organizational demand or a relationship concern, and in such cases the problem is only partly solved and resurfaces at a later date. Because there is often a high level of anxiety experienced by both parties in staff appraisal situations, the avoidance of dilemmas is ubiquitous and poor performance is not confronted. Consequently, many significant issues that impact on student learning are not attended to effectively, and these problems persist and recur. When educational leaders are motivated to deal with these extremely difficult problems, they must engage in a learning loop that allows them to reflect on and change values that do not lead to long-term problem resolution. They must be willing to surface and confront the conflict inherent in a leadership dilemma. This involves understanding the nature of a leadership dilemma and being able to analyze the defensive theory of action that blocks learning when conflict is present. It involves knowing about and practicing an alternative theory of action that can guide efforts to be productive in addressing the problem. In order to manage leadership dilemmas, specific skills for double-loop learning, such as the Triple I approach, must be acquired and internalized so that productive conversations can occur.
Metacognition and Epistemic Cognition
Authors: Moshman David
Published: June 2020

Cognition refers to knowledge and associated inferential processes, ranging from elementary forms of perception to advanced forms of reasoning. Metacognition, a term used since the late 1970s, includes both knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition. Knowledge of cognition includes both general knowledge of cognition and knowledge about one’s own cognition. Regulation of cognition includes planning, monitoring, and evaluation of one’s cognitive processes and products. Metacognition is crucial to and intertwined with many aspects of cognition even in the preschool years, when children are already developing theories of mind. Much of cognitive development is the development of metacognitive knowledge and self-regulation. Educational efforts abound to teach metacognitive skills, promote metacognitive development, and/or take student metacognition into account in designing instruction.

Epistemic cognition is knowledge about the fundamental nature of knowledge, especially the justification and truth of beliefs. Research on epistemic development beyond childhood shows progress from objectivist to subjectivist to rationalist conceptions of knowledge. Objectivists appeal to foundational truths that can be observed, proved, or learned from the authorities. In cases of disagreement, someone must be wrong. Subjectivists recognize that knowledge is constructed, and conclude from this that truth is entirely relative to the constructor’s subjective point of view. “Truth” in any stronger sense is deemed a myth, because we all have our own equally valid perspectives. Rationalists acknowledge the subjective construction of knowledge and the perplexities of truth but maintain that some beliefs are better justified than others and that we can make progress in understanding. Research in child development shows that children proceed through a similar sequence in constructing intuitive theories of mind, suggesting that epistemic development may be a recursive process in which people reconstruct subjectivist and rationalist insights at multiple levels. Epistemic development is generally seen as the result of self-regulated processes of reflection and coordination. Research in educational psychology has highlighted individual differences in epistemic beliefs and has shown the value of active inquiry and peer argumentation in promoting epistemic progress within and across diverse fields of study.
Conceptual Change
Authors: Mason Lucia
Published: June 2020

Individuals of all ages have misconceptions about phenomena of the natural and physical world. They may think, for example, that summer is hotter because the Earth is closer to the Sun, and it is colder in winter because the Earth is farther away from the Sun. This explanation is not compatible with the scientific explanation of the phenomenon. Scientific learning often implies the revision of naïve conceptions, or conceptual change, which is not a quick and easy process. Researchers have addressed the question of the nature of conceptual change in terms of what the acquisition of new science knowledge entails when students hold misconceptions and need to revise their mental representations. Various approaches have been proposed to account for the mechanisms that underlie conceptual change and to draw implications for teaching and learning processes.

For some decades conceptual change was only examined from a purely cognitive perspective (“cold” conceptual change), while more recently motivational and emotional aspects (“warm” conceptual change) have received attention. Research findings indicate that individual differences in misconceived prior knowledge, along with differences in achievement goals, self-efficacy, interest, and epistemic beliefs, as well as differences in the emotions experienced in learning contexts, are all associated with conceptual change. More recently, research has challenged the idea that misconceptions disappear permanently after conceptual change has taken place. Previously acquired, incorrect information still competes with the newly acquired correct information. The executive function of inhibition seems to be involved when naïve and scientific conceptions co-exist in the learner’s memory and the latter is used to produce a correct answer. Further research is needed on the role of inhibitory control in relation to learning concepts and affective states during scientific learning.
Working Memory: Models and Applications
Authors: Sepp Stoo , Howard Steven J. , Tindall-Ford Sharon , Agostinho Shirley , Paas Fred
Published: June 2020

In 1956, Miller first reported on a capacity limitation in the amount of information the human brain can process, which was thought to be seven plus or minus two items. The system of memory used to process information for immediate use was coined “working memory” by Miller, Galanter, and Pribram in 1960. In 1968, Atkinson and Shiffrin proposed their multistore model of memory, which theorized that the memory system was separated into short-term memory, long-term memory, and the sensory register, the latter of which temporarily holds and forwards information from sensory inputs to short term-memory for processing. Baddeley and Hitch built upon the concept of multiple stores, leading to the development of the multicomponent model of working memory in 1974, which described two stores devoted to the processing of visuospatial and auditory information, both coordinated by a central executive system. Later, Cowan’s theorizing focused on attentional factors in the effortful and effortless activation and maintenance of information in working memory. In 1988, Cowan published his model—the scope and control of attention model. In contrast, since the early 2000s Engle has investigated working memory capacity through the lens of his individual differences model, which does not seek to quantify capacity in the same way as Miller or Cowan. Instead, this model describes working memory capacity as the interplay between primary memory (working memory), the control of attention, and secondary memory (long-term memory). This affords the opportunity to focus on individual differences in working memory capacity and extend theorizing beyond storage to the manipulation of complex information. These models and advancements have made significant contributions to understandings of learning and cognition, informing educational research and practice in particular. Emerging areas of inquiry include investigating use of gestures to support working memory processing, leveraging working memory measures as a means to target instructional strategies for individual learners, and working memory training. Given that working memory is still debated, and not yet fully understood, researchers continue to investigate its nature, its role in learning and development, and its implications for educational curricula, pedagogy, and practice.
Bilingual Effects on Cognition in Children
Authors: Bialystok Ellen
Published: June 2020

Since the mid-20th century, there have been dramatic changes in our conception of how bilingualism affects children’s cognitive development, moving from one of certain negativity, to unlimited advantage, and finally resting in a current state defined largely by confusion because of the complexity in how bilingualism is defined. However, the question has great consequences, so it is important to evaluate the evidence to understand the impact. Such information determines how families make decisions about their home language, particularly regarding the maintenance of heritage languages; how schools offer programs based on alternative languages; how clinicians assess children for learning or other special needs; and how communities offer services to diverse members. By defining the concepts more precisely than has typically been the case, the complexity of the relation between bilingualism and cognition becomes clear. The evidence shows that bilingualism impacts cognitive level and brain function across the lifespan, but the nature and extent of those effects are modified by the type and degree of bilingualism and the nature of the task. Understanding the conditions under which various effects emerge is essential for interpreting the effects of bilingualism on children’s cognitive development and their potential role in education.
Educational Leaders Without Borders
Authors: Papa Rosemary , English Fenwick W.
Published: June 2020

Educational leaders in many countries have come to realize that (a) many of their problems are similar to those in other nations; (b) some of those problems fall outside the boundaries of the nation-state and involve many countries; (c) not only does the problem of social, material, and political inequalities fall outside the purview of the school to resolve, but beyond basic literacy and numeracy skills, schools tend to reproduce such inequalities; and (d) an awareness of educational issues when shared and dissected can present new opportunities for the local leader. Educational Leader without Borders (ELWB) is a group of international scholars and researchers who have joined together to study and discuss their potential solutions outside the politics of the local nation-state. An urgent situation has developed as mass migrations have erupted from climate change and war (leading to failed states) and from neoliberal attacks on promoting solutions for schools, thus further eroding schools’ efficacy for children of the poor and disenfranchised.

The most difficult problems are those resulting from long-standing cultural practices which are deeply embedded in the public mindset and past traditions. Misogyny is one such tradition. It begins with denying young girls access to formal schooling in many parts of the world, excluding them when menstruation begins, and following the cultural traditions that support limiting rural boys in their education. Neoliberal pursuits have erupted and expanded the chasm between those-who-have and those-who-have-not. Western education is bashed and seen as polluted by these neoliberal norms.

As ELWB scholars, we wrestle with the research done on others by others as the field of education is a context-bound integration of the society within which it is embedded. The context is shaped by the history, culture, and political policies of the specific nation state which are heavily influenced especially by economic and military considerations. Global awareness of issues, we believe as educational leaders, raise the possibilities of greater local understanding and ultimately on-the-ground actions by those immediately affected: school leadership, staffs, students, families, and communities. The counternarrative for this is the one-size-fits-all educational neoliberal approach found in the growing tentacles of artificial intelligence and all of its media supports. ELWB seeks new knowledge that is enhanced by all that technology offers but is not bound by it. We believe that human interactions are steeped in promising practices, with localized actions and the belief that education offers happiness in life while supporting the planet earth. This is the goal of the ELWB.
Tibet and Modern China
Authors: Wang Xiuyu
Published: June 2020

Modern relations between Tibet and the Chinese state retained many previous patterns of connection and contestation in trade, diplomacy, and religion, but also exhibited new and heightened conflicts over strategic, political, and economic control. From the 7th to the late 19th century, the Tibetan regions went through successive periods of imperial expansion, political division, Mongol rule, indigenous dynasties, and Qing rule, in close chronological correspondence with China’s political formations. However, since the late 19th century, the degree to which Tibet was integrated into the modern Chinese state became progressively greater. Unprecedented levels of direct, secular, and extractive control were imposed through military and economic policies inspired by a Han-centered nationalism that rejected traditions of ecclesiastical legitimation, flexible administration, and local autonomy practiced during the Yuan and the Qing periods. As modern Chinese politics has been convulsed by the forces of antiforeignism, antitraditionalism, socialism, industrialization, and state capitalism, the Tibetan populations in China have been subject to intense state pressure and social upheaval. From a historical perspective, the direct Chinese rule since the mid-20th century was a departure from past Tibetan religious, political, and environmental trajectories. At the same time, the present international discourse surrounding the Tibet issue represents the latest phase in Tibet’s historical entanglements with great power competition in Asia.
Zheng He and Ming China’s Voyages in the Early 15th Century
Authors: Wade Geoff
Published: June 2020

Over the first three decades of the 15th century, Ming China dispatched a succession of naval fleets through the Southeast Asian seas and across the Indian Ocean, reaching South Asia, the Middle East, and even the east coast of Africa. These were the largest and best-armed naval fleets in the world at that time, comprising more than 100 ships and tens of thousands of troops. Like similar overland military missions sent to Đại Việt and Yunnan in the same period; these missions were initially intended to awe foreign powers and create legitimacy for the usurping emperor, Yongle. The maritime missions were generally led by eunuch officials, the most famous of whom was Zheng He. In the 21st century the Chinese state depicts these missions as “voyages of peace and friendship” and utilizes this trope in its contemporary diplomacy. However, the Ming sources reveal that military violence was an integral aspect of the successive voyages, whilst the fact that many rulers from Southeast Asian polities were taken to China by the eunuch-led missions also suggests that some degree of coercion was employed. The missions were ended by the court in the mid-1430s over concerns about the costs and the need for such missions.
Women’s Literature in African History
Authors: Kalu Anthonia C.
Published: June 2020

African literature refers to (a) African oral literature (also called Orature) and (b) written African literature from West, North, Central, East, and Southern Africa. African oral literature encompasses works from Africa’s ancient and classical narrative traditions and spans oral narratives, proverbs, drama, poetry, chants and songs, riddles, and so on. With the earliest known works located in ancient Egypt, written African literature includes inscriptions on pyramid walls, the short story, the novel, poetry, drama, autobiography, and so forth. Women’s literature in Africa refers to African literatures by and about women. While storytelling styles vary by region and experiences shaped by history and society, the themes are linked by complex worldviews rooted in a common evocation of human experiences that seem unique to the continent. The languages of African literature include Africa’s indigenous languages as well as the languages acquired by different African societies as a result of the continent’s encounters with the East and experiences of Western colonization.
Popular Culture in Francophone Central Africa
Authors: Jewsiewicki Bogumil , Pype Katrien
Published: June 2020

In the Belgian Congo, colonial authorities such as state officials and missionaries strongly monitored the leisure activities of the urban population. The latter gradually managed to set up their own sphere of entertainment and communication, and appropriated the popular culture offered to the colonial subjects. An example in case is the Bills movement, a type of masculinity developed in colonial Kinshasa (then Léopoldville), and inspired by American western films. The development of local popular cultures happened in local languages, and, among other things, led to hybrid music and dance forms such as rumba and maringa which set the tune of the townships and mining camps. Locally produced musical styles gradually became important vectors in the search for political independence. One can argue that in Francophone Central Africa, popular culture nourished anticolonial sentiment and expression.

Postcolonial leaders invested heavily in music and mass media as well. Probably best known is Mobutu’s politics of animation, which happened in Lingala, and served to glorify the leader and to cement national sentiment. This propaganda program was inspired by the rich cultural heritage of ethnic groups, and relied on mass events and mass media. In Kagame’s post-genocide Rwanda, folkloric dance remains an important technology to solidify national cohesion.

Since the mid-1990s, as nation states deregulated their media, new radio and television entrepreneurs appeared, and they nourished local popular culture with new styles and genres. In particular, the Nigerian Nollywood films traveled to Central Africa. This happened in the wake of the increased popularity of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity, which has generated a thriving gospel culture. The digitalization of society, especially social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook, transformed how people relate to others in the diaspora, spawned new social groups, such as Yoyettes in urban Cameroon, and had an impact on the ways in which people retrieve and share information, as well as how they engage with their leaders. These then provide alternative avenues for expressing and mediating citizenship and kinship.
Women in Seychelles
Authors: Choppy Penda
Published: June 2020

Seychellois society is generally perceived to be matrifocal. This is because women’s influence is considered all pervasive, from the family unit to church and political activities and public service institutions. Since its social revolution in the last quarter of the 20th century, Seychelles has been considered very avant-garde in its promotion of women in responsible positions. It is important to note, however, that though this promotion of women has not specifically targeted any social class, it is working-class women who have benefited the most from it. In the first place, the working class in Seychelles has always been a much larger majority. The landowning and merchant class have, since the early settlement period and throughout colonial history, been restricted to a few but very influential people. Thus, though women in these classes have also benefited from social reform and emancipation, it has not been the norm to assess changes within their ranks simply because their numbers are negligible compared to the working class. Second, social reform in Seychelles was led by a socialist government, which emphasized a classless society, with the intention of leveling the field for working-class people. Thus, women’s emancipation has almost always been seen from a working-class perspective. If there is an economic middle class in 21st-century Seychelles, it has emerged from the working class. Thus, this article tends to focus on the working class.

It is also important to note that a result of women’s emancipation and accession to prominent positions in government and middle management has been the perceived tendency to emphasize the failures of the male population. With no less than ten women’s associations in existence and the current global push for promoting women’s causes, Seychellois men have begun to feel marginalized and have formed their own associations to promote their cause and image.

However, the matrifocal nature of Seychellois society might indeed be just a perception. In effect, men still hold the top positions in key domains of power such as the Cabinet and Parliament. Women ministers are often perceived as having been promoted through the benevolence of a male presidency. In fact, there is a certain amount of gender power conflict in Seychelles, which might result from (a) the clashing of patriarchal and matriarchal systems imposed by colonialism, (b) male subjugation and female exploitation during and after slavery, and (c) female emancipation during the socialist era.
Women in Postcolonial Africa
Authors: Makana Selina
Published: June 2020

As scholars of Africa continue to challenge the place and role of Africa in world history, shedding light on women as valid historical actors in postcolonial Africa within the last three decades remains an ongoing and much-needed endeavor. African women in the past and the present have used their position as breadwinners, mothers, and community leaders to influence their social, economic, and political worlds and to assert their power. In the 21st century, they have become known especially for their success as formidable politicians and peace activists. Even in the age of cyberactivism, women in postcolonial Africa have demonstrated their ability to mobilize across ethno-linguistic lines to effect change in their societies. It is important to move beyond the male-centric perspectives on Africa by highlighting not only the diverse experiences of women in the post-independence era but to also underscore the fundamental roles they continue to play in defining and redefining the postcolonial political economies, and their place in them.
Food and Diet: Methods
Authors: Gijanto Liza
Published: June 2020

Studies of food and diet across the African continent primarily include the shift from foraging, or hunting and gathering, to plant and animal domestication. Many researchers have concentrated on (1) hunter gatherer subsistence, (2) origins and patterns of agriculture (animals and plants), and (3) influences of geography, climate, and environment. Such studies utilize methods and sources from traditional historiography (i.e., primary documentary sources) as well as oral and archaeological materials. While linguistic analysis is limited, the bulk of the evidence used to determine the origins of food production and transition from procurement lies in the archaeological record and involves methods ranging from basic analysis of faunal and botanical remains to chemical and DNA analysis.
The Archaeology of Highveld Farming Communities
Authors: Sadr Karim
Published: June 2020

The Highveld covers a quarter of South Africa’s central plateau and is one of the most extensively investigated archaeological landscapes in Africa. Cattle-herding, farming communities first occupied these grasslands sometime between the 15th and the 17th centuries. A surge in the importance of cattle pastoralism among the so-called Late Iron Age populations of southern Africa seems to have caused this “grassland rush.” With it came a boom in the construction of dry-laid, stone-walled structures, an innovation the success of which is evidenced by the tens of thousands of ruins visible on aerial imagery of the Highveld. In places their agglomeration reaches urban proportions. Sotho-Tswana culture dominated this grassland rush by assimilating the many Nguni- as well as Khoesan-speaking communities that had also moved into the Highveld. The Highveld’s cultural landscape was rearranged by the southern African civil wars of the 1820s—the Difeqane, as it is known in the Tswana language. Shortly thereafter, the arrival of white settlers in the late 1830s heralded the beginning of the colonial period.

Archaeologists in the Highveld have largely aimed to illustrate the historical record and oral traditions pertaining to the Sotho and Tswana communities. More usefully they can focus on questions that these records cannot answer. For example, archaeology can help to fill the many gaps in the records; it can investigate the history of things—such as the changing regional settlement patterns and the diffusion of technological innovations—about which the records are silent, and it can test hypotheses to explain the evolution of social and political complexity in the precolonial Highveld. In this way archaeology can help to balance the mostly “top-down” political view provided by the oral traditions and historical records with a “bottom-up” view of social, technological, and architectural developments among the precolonial farming communities of the Highveld.