bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Rodríguez, Luis J.
Authors: Metcalf Josephine
Published: July 2020

Luis J. Rodríguez is a Chicano memoirist, novelist, poet, children’s author, and activist. Born in 1954 in Mexico, his family migrated to the United States when he was young. As a youth, he spent many years immersed in the street gangs of Los Angeles while concurrently partaking in community protests and mobilizations that became known as the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s. It took Rodríguez several years to extract himself from a life of crime and addiction to drugs, though all the while he was writing, painting, and being inspired by revolutionary figures. His first book of poetry was published in 1989, but it was his memoir of gang life, Always Running—La Vida Loca: Gang Days in LA, released in 1993 in the aftermath of the LA riots, that garnered him mainstream literary attention. Always Running and its sequel, It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions and Healing, eighteen years later, can be labeled testimonio for detailing a Latina/o “lived” experience and fighting social injustices. In many ways Rodríguez can be deemed a “classic” Chicana/o author: he addresses the experience of migration and writes in both English and Spanish; he explores themes of prejudice and identity for Mexican Americans in the United States; and he considers the role of heteropatriarchal aspects of Mexican culture in defining his relationships (with women and children). His steadfast dedication to Native American/indigenous spirituality is a more recent focus in his life and writings, situating him among a long list of Chicana/os who have embarked on the “Red Road,” that is, life as indigenous-identified subjects. But what most arguably sets Rodríguez apart from fellow Chicana/o writers is his allegiance—throughout all his works in all genres—to proletarian politics and concerns for the working classes. His critiques of deindustrialization and its subsequent effects, particularly poverty, are reflected, for example, in his depictions of the Bethlehem Steel Mill of LA, where Rodríguez worked.
Information and Meaning
Authors: Wheeler Wendy
Published: July 2020

Since the publication of Claude Shannon’s groundbreaking paper, “A Mathematical Theory of Communication,” in two parts in the Bell Laboratory journal in 1948, understanding and research concerning communication and information has received a technicized treatment. As biosemiotics has been at the forefront in arguing, all living organisms communicate, but they do not do so in the digital mode used in information technology (IT) engineering. Life communicates in inherited, evolutionary ways that are traceable from single cells all the way to complex humans. What IT engineers call “redundancy” those studying living organisms call “meaning.” The trade between individual organisms and their environment takes place in the circulation, interpretation, and feedback loops of semiosis. In this way, organisms are able to maintain the features of adaptive, creative, and evolutionary learning systems by modeling their worlds in open, receptive fashion via the use of iconic and indexical signs. In other words, organisms make use of natural, then cultural metaphors and metonyms.
Rhetorical Contexts of Colonization and Decolonization
Authors: Na'puti Tiara R.
Published: July 2020

Colonization and decolonization continue to be debated both in terms of their meaning and their efficacy in Communication Studies scholarship and across related fields of inquiry. Colonization is part of ongoing processes of subjugation that are linked to other forms of oppression including labor, occupation, and resource extraction. Inquiries about processes of colonization also involve examining corresponding efforts in decolonization processes. Decolonization entails an effort to critically reflect on colonialism and its impact upon colonized people and environments, it involves processes entangled with issues of sovereignty, self-determination, and territory, and so on. Indigenous Studies scholarship helps to foreground Indigeneity as a place from which broader inquiries on colonization and decolonization may be launched. The legitimacy of colonialism and its communicative dimensions has been a concern for scholars. Within the field of Communication, it notes particular contexts of colonization inquiry that overlap across topics and various areas of the discipline. Research on colonialism and its influence spans throughout rhetorical theory and critical/cultural studies to organizational communication and global communication. This scholarship has employed expansive methodologies from applied research to theoretical work and considered a wide range of issues from domestic, international, and transnational perspectives. The study of these powerful structures in rhetoric draws on interdisciplinary fields and raises challenges to intellectual traditions of the West, which have maintained the rhetoric canon. Rhetorical scholars call for the need to examine artifacts that exist at the “margins” and “outside” the imperial centers. They have theorized methods of rhetorical analysis that attend to the colonial and decolonial elements of discourse, power, and identity.
Pacific Media
Authors: Ross Tara
Published: July 2020

Pacific media are viewed here as the media of the Pacific region, an area that covers vast cultural, economic, and geographic differences. Like the region, Pacific media are diverse, ranging from large media systems in the bigger island groups to little more than government-produced newsletters in smaller island states. Pacific media face unique challenges, with their small yet diverse and often scattered audiences, which, inevitably, influence both their media practices and content. Like all media, they also face the contemporary challenges of rapid technological change and shifts in audience tastes. There has been relatively little research on Pacific media (at least compared with media elsewhere), but what there is demonstrates a range of media systems, where radio is important and web and social media are growing in influence. Checks on media freedom have been an issue in some Pacific states, as has the influence of foreign ownership and content. Cultural norms around community and social obligation appear to be influential in shaping both the structure of some Pacific media (which are notable for their commercial/community hybridity) and a close relationship with their audiences. In terms of academic scholarship, there is a need for more empirical research to build on earlier works—to fill gaps in understanding about Pacific audiences and their evolving transnational media practices, and the mediascapes of underexplored island states, and to map contemporary media practices in the face of rapid change. There is also a need for more research that can build local theory about Pacific media, particularly research by Pacific researchers that is grounded in Indigenous Pacific perspectives.
Climate Justice
Authors: Gethmann Carl Friedrich , Kamp Georg
Published: July 2020

The expected climate change is and will be fraught with conflicts at private, societal, and global levels. Because of the temporal scope of the developments, future generations as well will be affected by its consequences. Therefore, the debate on how to cope with climate change and its consequences necessarily includes pivotal ethical questions. Philosophical ethics critically reviews suggestions and arguments given in the debate and develops justified solutions. It therefore analyzes conflict constellations, reconstructs the conditions of and options for their resolution, and defines the limits of justifiability. Even though individual behavior lies in the focus of ethical consideration, the specific conditions for acting make organized collective action indispensable for achieving relevant effects. Because nobody can be obligated to actions that he or she cannot perform at all, or at least not successfully, all on one’s own (ultra posse nemo obligatur), organized and institutionalized action lie in the focus of ethical consideration. States especially, with their organizational and regulative power, are indispensable to manage social conflicts, to overcome social dilemmas, and to create suitable conditions for effective measures. Because there is no privileged principle of justice that guides the distribution of burdens and benefits in international cooperation, the procedural fairness of international negotiation is of special significance.
Autonomy in Political Philosophy
Authors: Elster Jakob
Published: July 2020

The concept of autonomy is one of the key concepts of political philosophy. It plays an important role in discussions of the limits of state coercion, in particular in arguments against paternalistic laws and policies, and in questions concerning the legitimacy and authority of the state. Although the term “autonomy” is used in different ways, a common understanding of the concept of autonomy relates to the idea of leading one’s own life: the autonomous person develops her own understanding of how her life should be and acts accordingly, without interference by others.

Autonomy plays three main roles in political philosophy. First, autonomy provides a goal, to be realized through political means; this requires that the state protect people from interference with their autonomy, ensure the availability of sufficient resources, and foster the mental abilities necessary for autonomy. Not least, promoting autonomy can entail that the form of government be democratic, as citizens’ autonomy is best protected in a democratic regime.

Next, autonomy can impose a set of constraints, limiting the legitimate use of coercion in realizing political goals. First, coercion can only be used for certain purposes. The most well-known constraint of this kind involves the rejection of paternalism: coercion may never be used to promote a person’s own good against her will. Next, there are constraints connected with the kind of justification that can be given for coercive actions: in order to be compatible with autonomy, these must be justified in ways that the coerced have actually accepted or could have accepted.

Finally, autonomy can play a role in arguments about the grounds for political authority. Although authority and autonomy might seem to be inimical, autonomy can ground the right to command either through citizens’ consent or through their voluntary actions by which they become committed to follow a common set of rules.

Autonomy can only play these roles if it is valuable, and there are several arguments why autonomy is valuable. First, there are instrumental reasons: the good both of individuals and of society is best served if people have a large degree of autonomy. Next, people have an interest in their choices and actions being their own, representative of who they are. Also, there is a strong symbolic and relational aspect to the right to autonomy: being denied this right is insulting and amounts to a denial of one’s equal standing. Finally, there might be an intrinsic value to autonomy, as only autonomy allows us to be fully human.
Territorial Threats and Military Dictatorships
Authors: Kim Nam Kyu
Published: July 2020

Many scholars consider the military dictatorship a distinct authoritarian regime type, pointing to the singular patterns of domestic and international behaviors displayed by military regimes. Existing studies show that compared with civilian dictatorships, military dictatorships commit more human rights abuses, are more prone to civil war, and engage in more belligerent behaviors against other countries. Despite their coercive capacity, rulers of military dictatorships tend to have shorter tenures than rulers of non-military dictatorships. Additionally, military dictatorships more quickly and peacefully transition to democracy than their non-military counterparts and frequently negotiate their withdrawal from power.

Given the distinct natures of military dictatorships, research on military dictatorships and coups has resurged since 2000. A great body of new research utilizing new theories, data, and methods has added to the existing scholarship on military rule and coups, which saw considerable growth in the 1970s. Most studies tend to focus on domestic issues and pay relatively little attention to the relationship between international factors and military rule. However, a growing body of studies investigates how international factors, such as economic globalization, international military assistance, reactions from the international community, and external threat environments, affect military rule.

One particularly interesting research topics in this regard is the relationship between external territorial threats and military rule. Territorial issues are more salient to domestic societies than other issues, producing significant ramifications for domestic politics through militarization and state centralization. Militaries play a pivotal role in militarization and state centralization, both of which are by-products of external territorial threats. Thus, external territorial threats produce permissive structural conditions that not only prohibit democratization but also encourage military dictatorships to emerge and persist. Moreover, if territorial threats affect the presence of military dictatorships, they are more likely to affect collegial military rule, characterized by the rule of a military institution, rather than military strongman rule, characterized by the rule by a military personalist dictator. This is because territorial threats make the military more internally unified and cohesive, which helps the military rule as an institution.

Existing studies provide a fair amount of empirical evidence consistent with this claim. External territorial threats are found to increase the likelihood of military regimes, particularly collegial military regimes, as well as the likelihood of military coups. The same is not true of non-territorial threats. This indicates that the type of external threat, rather than the mere presence of an external threat, matters.
Labor and Trade Protection in Comparative Perspective
Authors: Owen Erica , Sung Rena
Published: July 2020

Research on the domestic politics of trade typically begins with a theory about who benefits from trade and who is harmed by it. The actors—for instance, firms, workers, or industries—who benefit from trade are expected to support liberalization while those who are harmed are expected to oppose liberalization. For individuals, exposure to globalization through the labor market—including the type of job, firm, or industry—is likely to be an important determinant of individuals’ preferences over policies governing the global economy. To understand the domestic politics of trade with respect to labor, therefore, it is important to ask two key questions.

First, what explains the preferences of workers? Broadly, scholars can be divided between those that argue different economic factors (i.e., labor market consequences) explain attitudes toward free trade and those who argue that noneconomic factors (e.g., values, information) are the main drivers of attitudes. Empirical tests of these theories rely on survey data. Second, how do trade pressures influence elections and when do workers’ interests influence policy outcomes? Research on mass politics shows that workers’ interests with respect to trade shape not only support for incumbents in elections but also whether elected officials support free trade. Domestic institutions also play an important role in this process, with research suggesting that democracies and left-leaning governments implement trade policies that are more favorable to workers.

Yet trade in the 21st century looks very different from trade 30 years ago. It no longer involves only (or even primarily) the exchange of final goods but also trade in intermediate goods and services. Trade is also closely linked to the production strategies of multinational firms, including offshoring. These fundamental changes in the nature of global economic activity have important implications for the how the interests of workers relate to those of their employers, and by extension the politics of trade. As a result, scholars are increasingly incorporating new models of trade into analysis of politics at the individual and aggregate levels.
Socioeconomic Status and Cultural Difference
Authors: Ishii Keiko , Eisen Charis
Published: July 2020

Socioeconomic status (SES) is a multidimensional construct based on access to material resources and one’s own rank relative to others in a social hierarchy. It fundamentally shapes individuals’ psychological and behavioral tendencies. In many ways, socioeconomic variation parallels East–West cultural dynamics. Like East Asian cultures, lower SES fosters interdependence, a reduced striving for personal choice, holistic thinking, and the attribution of events and behavior to external causes. In contrast, similar to Western cultures, higher SES supports independence, a strong desire for control, self-expression through choice, analytic thinking, and internal attribution. SES has also been found to shape additional psychological tendencies. Because limited access to resources and education makes it necessary to rely on other people, lower SES has been shown to be linked to a greater understanding of others’ emotions and a tendency to act altruistically.

Although the evidence is still limited, this article describes what is known about the simultaneous influence of SES and culture. Some studies have explored similar SES effects across cultures. However, reflecting the variation in the dominant ideas and practices shared among people within sociocultural contexts, some studies have suggested that socioeconomic contexts elicit different psychological processes across national cultures. Higher-SES individuals especially seem to adjust themselves to culturally sanctioned ideas and practices. The article suggests directions for future research that will enhance our understanding of the interplay between SES and national cultures.
Psychology and Neoliberalism
Authors: Clegg Jennifer , Lansdall-Welfare Richard
Published: July 2020

Neoliberalism is a transatlantic free market ideology based on individual liberty and limited government, developed by Hayek and von Mises. In its third wave (1980–2008), commitment to deregulation, privatization, and individual freedom moved beyond the economy into politics and culture. The citizen was recast as a consumer, and public servants became required to satisfy consumer choice. This addressed 1970s social turmoil and improved economies, but the increased wealth went to elites while resources declined for the poor. Hayek had argued for social welfare safety nets initially, but these were rejected by peers in the Mont Pelerin Society. Business-funded transatlantic think tanks promulgated the neoliberal tenets that markets are wiser than any government and state interference makes things worse. Yet, despite these rhetorical claims, neoliberalism has actually been imposed, driven, and underwritten by governments that claim their policy is nonintervention. Neoliberalism soon influenced the political economies of most countries in the developed world, but the degree of separation engendered between rich and poor is a political choice: most extreme in the United States, with the United Kingdom a close second. Establishing neoliberal values like autonomy and choice as taken for granted occurred by “hollowing out” organizations and communities in ways that block dissent and drastically narrow the scope for debate.

Psychology is both an academic and applied discipline, with applied psychologists significantly outnumbering academics throughout the 20th century. Expansion was particularly marked during third-wave neoliberalism (1980–2008) in the United Kingdom, when the British Psychological Society grew more than fivefold to over 40,000 members. Two special editions of journals in 2018 and 2019 raised concerns about the relationship between psychology and neoliberalism. In sum, they argued that applied psychology’s self-presentation as a discipline that can solve the problems experienced by individuals glosses over the social origin of most human difficulties, and that modern psychology’s alienated and individualist epistemology makes it a potent neoliberal institution rather than a discipline that can generate alternatives.
Brain Basis of Blindsight
Authors: Bridge Holly
Published: July 2020

The sensation of vision arises from the detection of photons of light at the eye, but in order to produce the percept of the world, extensive regions of the brain are required to process the visual information. The majority of information entering the brain via the optic nerve from the eye projects via the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of the thalamus to the primary visual cortex, the largest visual area, having been reorganized such that one side of the brain represents one side of the world.

Damage to the primary visual cortex in one hemisphere therefore leads to a loss of conscious vision on the opposite side of the world, known as hemianopia. Despite this cortical blindness, many patients are still able to detect visual stimuli that are presented in the blind region if forced to guess whether a stimulus is present or absent. This is known as “blindsight.” For patients to gain any information (conscious or unconscious) about the visual world, the input from the eye must be processed by the brain. Indeed, there is considerable evidence from functional brain imaging that several visual areas continue to respond to visual stimuli presented within the blind region, even when the patient is unaware of the stimulus. Furthermore, the use of diffusion imaging allows the microstructure of white matter pathways within the visual system to be examined to see whether they are damaged or intact. By comparing patients who have hemianopia with and without blindsight it is possible to determine the pathways that are linked to blindsight function. Through understanding the brain areas and pathways that underlie blindsight in humans and non-human primates, the aim is to use modern neuroscience to guide rehabilitation programs for use after stroke.
Immigrants and Crime
Authors: Stageman Daniel L.
Published: July 2020

The gap between public perception of immigrant criminality and the research consensus on immigrants’ actual rates of criminal participation is persistent and cross-cultural. While the available evidence shows that immigrants worldwide tend to participate in criminal activity at rates slightly lower than the native-born, media and political discourse portraying immigrants as uniquely crime-prone remains a pervasive global phenomenon. This apparent disconnect is rooted in the dynamics of othering, or the tendency to dehumanize and criminalize identifiable out-groups. Given that most migration decisions are motivated by economic factors, othering is commonly used to justify subjecting immigrants to exploitative labor practices, with criminalization often serving as the rationale for excluding immigrants from full participation in the social contract. When considered in the context of social harm, immigrants’ relationship to crime and criminality becomes more complex, especially where migration decisions are forced or made under coercive circumstances involving ethnic cleansing, genocide, or other state crimes; many recent examples of these dynamics have rendered large numbers of migrants effectively stateless. Experiencing the direct or collateral effects of state crimes can, in turn, affect immigrants’ participation in a wide range of crime types, from status crimes such as prostitution or survival theft to terrorism and organized criminal activity such as drug trafficking or human trafficking. While there is no available research evidence indicating that immigrants participate in any given crime type at higher rates than the native-born, the dynamics of transnational criminal activity—reliant on multinational social networks, multilingual communication, and transportation across borders—favor immigrant participation, though such crimes are often facilitated by multinational corporations.
Female “Deviance” and Pathways to Criminalization in Different Nations
Authors: Hadi Syeda Tonima , Chesney-Lind Meda
Published: July 2020

Global-level data suggests that the number of women and girls in prison is growing and at a faster rate than the male prison population is. In order to meaningfully address this shift in female deviance and criminalization, more attention should be given on the specific ways that women and girls are labeled “deviants” and subsequently criminalized. Women and girls have been criminalized, imprisoned, and harshly punished for “moral” offenses such as adultery or premarital sex or for violations of dress codes or even for being a member of the LGBTQ community. Women and girls have also been reportedly been imprisoned for running away from their homes (often from abusive situations), for being raped, and even for being forced into prostitution. Furthermore, victims of domestic violence or sex trafficking and sex workers have been administratively detained or simply detained for seeking asylum, having committed no crime. The feminist criminological perspective has widened an understanding of all forms of female deviance. This perspective stresses the importance of contextual analysis and of incorporating unique experiences of women and girls at the intersection of not only gender, race, class, and ethnicity but also nationality, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, and immigration or migration status, and against the backdrop of national as well as international conflict. Now the challenge is develop effective solutions both to address female victimization and to end the silencing of women and girls through criminalization on a global level. Effective implementation of a gender-mainstreaming strategy, adopted in United Nations policies such as “the Bangkok Rules,” is one of the proposed solutions.
Black Girls and Mathematics Learning
Authors: Morton Crystal , Tate McMillan Danielle , Harrison-Jones Winterbourne
Published: July 2020

Though the formal and informal mathematics learning experiences of Black girls are gaining more visibility in the literature, there is still a paucity of research around Black girls’ mathematics learning experiences. Black girls face unique challenges as learners in K–12 educational spaces because of their marginalized racial and gender identities. The interplay of race and racism unfolds in complex ways in Black girls’ learning experiences. This interplay hinders their development as mathematics learners and limits their access to transformative learning. As early as elementary school, Black girls are labeled as having limited mathematics knowledge and are often disproportionately placed in “lower level classrooms” devoid of any rigorous and transformative learning experiences. Teachers spend more time socially correcting Black girls rather than building on their brilliance. Even though Black girls value mathematics more and have higher confidence in mathematics than their White counterparts, they are still held to lower expectations by their teachers and are less likely to complete an advanced mathematics course. Nationally and globally, mathematics serves as an academic gatekeeper into every avenue of the labor market and higher education opportunities. Thus, the lack of opportunities Black girls have to engage in rigorous and transformative mathematics potentially locks them out of higher education opportunities and STEM-based careers. The mathematics learning experiences of Black girls move beyond challenges in K–12 spaces to limiting life choices and individual and community progress. To improve the formal and informal mathematics learning experiences of Black girls, we must understand their unique learning experiences more fully.
Teaching Efficacy and Inclusive Practices in Asian Countries
Authors: Ahsan M. Tariq , Malak Md. Saiful
Published: July 2020

Since 2010, understanding teacher efficacy for effective inclusive practices has consistently been prioritized by inclusive education researchers. However, a leading-edge conceptualization about the type and degree of teacher efficacy essentially required for teachers to make a classroom inclusive is unclear. Specifically, a set of comprehensive evidence-based components of teacher efficacy is an intense demand of the contemporary age of inclusive schooling. The evidence generated through research regarding effective inclusive teacher efficacy in various contexts of the world indicates that some generic universal trends in variables that have an impact on teaching efficacy are perceptible along with some contextual factors that influence teaching efficacy for inclusive practices. Specifically, research studies conducted with a focus on Asian countries identified some unique contextual variables (i.e., gender, class size, etc.) that have contrasting findings on developing teaching efficacy for inclusive practices. Considering such common and distinct research-evidences a mechanism on enhancing efficacy for teachers and professionals is essential to better practice inclusive education.
Disability Studies in Education and Inclusive Education
Authors: Baglieri Susan , Bacon Jessica
Published: July 2020

Disability studies (DS) is a transdisciplinary field of scholarly inquiry whose members seek to understand disability and disablement as cultural phenomena. Scholars who adopt disability studies in education (DSE) perspectives aim to understand how disability is conceptually configured in the research and practice that shape learning, education, and schooling. The DSE field strives to discern and theorize medical and social models of disability in order to promote critical examination of the cultural conditions in which educational practices are performed. The commitments and understandings that arise within DSE lead proponents to conceptualize inclusive education reform as a radical project, and call for the development of policy, teaching, and teacher education practices that acknowledge and resist ableism.
Propaganda and Public Pedagogy
Authors: Graham Phil
Published: July 2020

Propaganda and public pedagogy are rarely juxtaposed in education research contexts. However, the two terms are closely related and require joint consideration for the broader future of critical education research. The terms describe state-based educational processes conducted on a mass scale and are in fact describing “the same thing” to a large degree. Both are forms of mass rhetoric that were swiftly tempered to industrial strength in the early 20th century during World War I. Since then, propaganda has come to be treated as a cultural derogatory, an inherently oppressive force, while public pedagogy has come to be framed as an unmitigated force for good. However, both are nationalist projects that involve the school in both positive and negative ways.

Ultimately, this contribution is about methods, methodology, and axiology (the logic of values). By juxtaposing propaganda and public pedagogy as historically isomorphic terms, and framing both as state-based rhetorics designed to propagate specific habits, actions, attitudes, and understandings en masse, it becomes evident that if public pedagogy is to become an applied research agenda it requires applied methods and methodologies, along with conscious and positive normative theses in respect of purpose. The methods and methodologies, and in many important cases the axiologies developed by the propagandists, provide a rich source for assessment and potential application in the field of public pedagogical research. At some level that suggests a Faustian bargain: surely, the immensely negative connotations of the term “propaganda” preclude the application of its methods and values in the practice of public pedagogic research. Yet if public pedagogy is something that educators aspire to do rather than merely analyze or seek to understand, then the methods of the propagandists are, if nothing else, the most obvious starting point.
Postwar School Reforms in Norway
Authors: Thuen Harald , Volckmar Nina
Published: July 2020

Comprehensive schooling has been a cornerstone in the development of the Norwegian welfare state since World War II. Over the years it has been extended, initially from 7 to 9 years and later to 10-year compulsory schooling, since the late 1990s including virtually all Norwegian children between the ages of 6 and 16. In education policy, the interests of the community versus the individual have played a key role, reflected in a line of conflict between the political left and right.

During the first three to four decades after the war, through the Labor Party, the left wing was in power and developed education policy according to a social-democratic model. The ideal of equality and community in schools had precedence. The vision was to create a school for all that had a socially and culturally unifying effect on the nation and its people. Social background, gender, and geographical location should no longer create barriers between pupils. Ideally, school was to be understood as a “miniature democracy,” where pupils would be trained in solidarity and cooperation. Compulsory schooling was thus regarded as an instrument for social integration and for evening out social inequalities.

But one challenge remained: How could a common school for all best take care of the individual needs of each pupil? The principle of individualized teaching within the framework of a common school was incorporated in the education policy of social democracy and was subjected to experimentation and research from an early stage. But with the political shift to the right toward the 2000s, a sharper polarization can be observed between the interests of the community versus the interests of the individual. The political right profiles education policy in opposition to the left-wing emphasis on the social purpose of the school system. In the early 21st century, the interests of knowledge, the classroom as a learning arena, and the performance of each pupil take precedence. Based on the model of New Public Management, a new organizational culture is taking shape in the school system. Where the political left formed its policy from the perspective of “equality” during the first postwar decades, the right is now forming it from the perspective of “freedom.” And this is taking place without significant opposition from the left.

The terms “equality” and “equity” provide the framework for the analysis of the changing polarity between collective and individual considerations and between pupils’ freedom and social solidarity in postwar education.
Mentoring Across Teacher Career Stages
Authors: Irby Beverly J. , Abdelrahman Nahed , Lara-Alecio Rafael
Published: July 2020

In education, mentoring is generally defined as a supporting and guiding relationship between an experienced teacher and a preservice or in-service teacher with less experience. Individual studies regarding mentoring in teachers’ specific career trajectories have been conducted; however, a meta-study chronicling such trajectories—of published works on the mentoring of teachers across their career stages, phases, or trajectories—has not been accomplished. Based on a critical review of 1,051 studies, an overview of practical insights for those who mentor teachers or for teachers who are mentored across career levels, as well as an example of a teacher career phase model with mentoring can be observed.
School Climate and Its Impact on School Development in Nigeria
Authors: Yusuf Habibat Abubakar , Amzat Ismail Hussein
Published: July 2020

Climate is a multifaceted concept in an organization, with few distinctions in the context of school settings. Although research on school climate stems from the study of organizational climate, and became a central variable in the educational research with a comprehensive review of the literature, there are significant differences in the approaches to the study of school climate. Scholars have studied climate at various levels of education, for example, elementary schools, secondary schools, and higher level schools as well as among teachers and school leaders. There is some divergence and variations in school climate across those contexts; there are also substantial similarities as shown in many past studies. School climate as a key player in school development can be driven by internal factors like interactive behavior and external factors such as school location, school size, student population, educational policies and socio-economic changes.

Studies of climate in the educational context is multidimensional and can be viewed in a variety of ways due to diverse social effects. Climate has been investigated in relation to the general working environment of school, quality of school experience, school values and norms, interpersonal relationships of individual school members, teaching and learning practices, structure of the school, and feelings toward school life. In this regard, school climate is explored in relation to school development in Nigeria and focuses on those factors that have a greater potential to support teaching and learning practices, including school plants, school leadership, school culture, collegiality, school safety, and academic achievement. Relating these constructs to school development in Nigeria will give more precise and sizeable understanding on the importance of school climate towards attainment of sustainable school success.
Challenges to Educational Leadership and Equity in México
Authors: Sánchez Marta
Published: July 2020

Challenges to Mexican educational leadership and equity fundamentally have to do with class struggle and shaping the national identity to conform to one of two competing narratives: México as a country that strives to ensure its place in the first world, subordinating itself to the demands of external bodies and forgoing its own history; or México as a country that sustains and advances its historical struggle for social justice. México’s democratic teachers represent an important voice of educational leadership, as they struggle for educational equity for their students and through active resistance to reforms that rob teachers of their labor rights and intellectual autonomy, and rob students of their rights to the vast epistemological resources that their languages, history, culture, and identity represent. Facing new forms of colonialism that neoliberal education reform ushered in, the teachers fight in contested space that the Mexican curriculum is; they do so with renewed commitments to defeat education reform efforts that have more to do with the restructuring of their labor rights than the education of children in the classroom.
Decolonization of Environmental Education from the Perspective of Southern Environmental Thinking
Authors: Noguera de Echeverri Ana Patricia , Bernal Arias Diana Alexandra , Echeverri Noguera Sergio Manuel
Published: July 2020

A bet, a clamor, an algid need, to “thinking us” (as a collaborative, and reflexive thinking in a prospective way) about environmental education, or better, the environmentalization of education, in a decolonization that helps us think: How do we inhabit “this South that we are” in times of environmental crisis? Thinking us, in this environmental crisis, that is civilizatory. Thinking about it, and thinking us from an “environmental turn” (a change in the way we look at everything, far from seeing life as a resource, and far from devastating capitalism): from the environmental as an object to the environmental as deep and complex symbolic–biotic relationships between ecosystems and cultures. It is an environmental turn that recognizes the felthinking() Body-Earth (Noguera, 2012) that we are in an aesthetic, sensitive transit, in which the polyphonic voices of these lands emerge in the South Environmental Thought. Our paths are many, however. One of them that we wish to name Methodesthesis as the path of feeling, where the sensitive, the sensibility, the sense, the senses, and the sentient allow an understanding of the language of the Earth and the permanent aesthetic creations of the Earth-Nature-Life that we are, in a radical dissolution of the cognitive subject and the measurable object. It is an ontic, epistemic-ethical-aesthetic-political proposal, but above all it is an urgency, an enjoyment, a poetic flourishing of life itself, of the Earth and of us as life and land, in a decolonized southern environmental education and decolonizing that allows transitions for a more poetic dwelling in this South than we are.
Gender Differences in Reading, Writing and Language Development
Authors: Reilly David
Published: July 2020

The topic of gender differences in reading, writing, and language development has long been of interest to parents, educators, and public-policy makers. While some researchers have claimed that gender differences in verbal and language abilities are disappearing, careful evaluation of the scientific research shows otherwise. Examination of nationally representative samples of educational achievement data show that there are moderately sized gender differences in reading achievement favoring girls and women (d = −0.19 to −0.44 across age groups), and substantially larger gender differences in writing (d = −0.42 to −0.62), spelling (d = −0.39 to −0.50), and grammar (d = −0.39 to −0.42). Explanations for observed gender differences in verbal and language abilities suggest a complex network of biological, social, and cultural forces rather than any single factor.
European Imperialism and China’s Response in the 19th Century
Authors: Halsey Stephen
Published: July 2020

During the 19th century, the great powers imposed a series of unequal treaties on China that violated the country’s sovereignty. These agreements guaranteed Europeans, Americans, and later the Japanese rights of extraterritoriality, opened an increasing number of treaty ports to international commerce, and fixed import tariffs at 5 percent to facilitate foreign penetration of Chinese markets. Qing officials launched an important reform movement called “Self-Strengthening” in the 1860s to enhance state power and combat foreign influence, and these efforts continued until China’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. Although the imperial court in Beijing placed its imprimatur on this political program, the principal impetus for these changes came from high-ranking provincial authorities of Han Chinese ethnic extraction such as Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, and Ding Richang.

Despite the partial political decentralization of the period, these reforms had a lasting impact. Over the course of a half century, the Self-Strengthening Movement and the subsequent New Policies (1901–1911) laid the foundation of a powerful military-fiscal state in China, a polity organized around the imperative of war-making. This form of political organization combined money, guns, and bureaucracy in new ways and replicated certain institutional features of European states without, however, transforming China into a poor imitation of “the West.” Officials augmented these core reforms with a series of state-sponsored enterprises in shipping, telegraphy, mining, and banking to develop a small modern sector within the economy. At an intellectual level, authorities such as Li Hongzhang formulated a new conception of statecraft focused on the pursuit of wealth and power to protect the empire’s sovereignty. Meanings of this term remained fluid prior to 1895, but together with ideas such as rights, independence, and commercial warfare it served as part of the basic vocabulary for this new philosophy of governance. In sum, the late Qing state amassed the sinews of power with considerable success, particularly in urban areas, and strengthened itself beyond the minimal threshold necessary to retain its independence during the height of European imperialism.
West Africa and the African Diaspora
Authors: Holsey Bayo
Published: July 2020

West Africa and the African diaspora share an intertwined history. From the earliest moments of the development of the diaspora, West Africans and members of the African diaspora have sought ways to connect to each other. They have done so through the exploration of cultural links, travel back and forth between West Africa and the diaspora, and the development of shared philosophical and political movements. They have celebrated the idea of a collective “African” identity shaped by people on both sides of the Atlantic including the Pan-African Movement, the New Negro Movement, and Negritude. The late 20th century has seen the travel of diasporic subjects to West African countries including Ghana, the Gambia, and Senegal, which have fashioned themselves as African homelands. Artists, activists, and migrants continue to travel back and forth between West Africa and various points in the African diaspora and, in doing so, shape the contours of the Black Atlantic World. The continuous communication and contact between West Africa and the diaspora constitute an ongoing dialogue that has led to cultural innovations on both sides of the Atlantic.
The History of Eastern African Foragers
Authors: Prendergast Mary E.
Published: July 2020

Humans have foraged across diverse eastern African landscapes for millions of years. In the 21st century, few eastern Africans rely exclusively on foraging, but there are groups for whom this strategy remains central to daily life. Drawing analogies between present and past lifeways is one approach to understanding ancient foragers, but multiple lines of evidence are needed to appreciate past variation. Ethnohistories, historical linguistics, and genetics are also potential sources of information on past foragers. However, most data come from the archaeological record, key to investigating the diversity of ancient foragers in terms of technology, subsistence, mobility, social organization, and cultural expression.

The spread of herding and farming in eastern Africa over the past five millennia had a definitive impact upon foraging lifeways. Ethnographic, archaeological, and ethnohistoric evidence enables development and testing of hypotheses for past forager–food producer interactions. Some evidence suggests that past social groups (or individuals in them) may have shifted among foraging and food-producing strategies on a situational basis. Other data indicate that foragers may have joined herding and farming communities, and vice versa.

Eastern African foragers have played an underappreciated role in large-scale social, economic, and political systems. Beginning in the late Pleistocene (some 130,000 years ago), prehistoric obsidian exchange networks extended over hundreds of kilometers. Early in the Common Era (nearly 2,000 years ago), foragers were involved in Indian Ocean economic spheres that extended to western and southern Asia. The precolonial and colonial ivory and slave trades in the 16th through 19th centuries exploited and impacted foraging communities. Settler colonialism in the 20th century had devastating impacts on foragers and their access to ancestral lands. More recent threats to forager livelihoods include economic “development” and environmental destruction. The future of the foraging lifeway is in peril, and the 21st-century state plays a key role in determining if it will continue.