bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Inclusive Education
Authors: Foreman Phil
Published: September 2018

Inclusive education is a widely accepted pedagogical and policy principle, but its genesis has been long and, at times, difficult. For example, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights included statements about rights and freedoms that have, over the decades, been used to promote inclusive educational practices. Article 26 of the Declaration stated that parents “have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” This declaration later helped some parent groups and educators to advocate for equal access to schooling in regular settings, and for parental choice about where their child would be educated.

Following the widespread influence of the human rights-based principle of normalization, the concept of inclusive education received major impetus from the Education of All Handicapped Children Act in the United States in 1975, the United Nations (UN) International Year of Disabled Persons in 1981, and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006. A major focus of the UN initiatives has been the right of people with a disability to participate fully in society. This focus has obvious consequences for the way education is provided to students with a disability or other additional educational needs. For many years, up to the last quarter of the 20th century, the major focus for such students was on the provision of separate specialized services, with limited attention to the concept of full participation in society. Toward the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century, there has been increasing acceptance, through parental action, systemic policy, and government legislation, of inclusivity as a basic philosophical principle.

Both the type of instruction that should be provided to students with a disability and the location of that instruction in regular or specialized settings have been topics for advocacy and research, sometimes with mixed and/or controversial conclusions.
Effective Practices for Teaching Content Area Reading
Authors: Stevens Elizabeth A. , Vaughn Sharon
Published: September 2018

Adequate reading skills are necessary for college and career readiness and success in the work force, but many students do not have sufficient reading skills. The 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress demonstrated that fourth- and eighth-grade students had made little to no progress in reading since the previous report in 2017. Elementary level students often receive dedicated English language arts instruction during the day, but this is not always true for secondary level students . One way that educators can support students across the grade levels is by providing evidence-based reading instruction within content areas (i.e., science and social studies instruction).

Researchers have investigated ways for teachers to provide high-quality content area reading instruction to support the reading comprehension and content acquisition of students in general education settings. Previous research suggests that paraphrasing and text structure instruction support readers’ identification of key ideas and the integration of those ideas across paragraphs and passages when reading content area texts. These practices align with reading comprehension theory in support of conscious text processing while reading. Teaching readers to generate main ideas during reading may improve the reading outcomes and content acquisition outcomes not only for typical readers but also for struggling readers and those identified for special education. Educators’ implementation of such practices within science and social studies instruction may improve students’ reading performance and content learning across grade levels.
Mindfulness and “Educational New Ageism”
Authors: Schwimmer Marina , McDonough Kevin
Published: September 2018

Mindfulness meditation is a growing social phenomenon in Western countries and is now also becoming a common part of life in public schools. The concept of mindfulness originated in Buddhist thinking and meditation practices over 2,500 years ago. Its original purpose was mainly to alleviate people’s suffering by providing a path to inner wisdom and vitality, which implied the development of compassion, patience, and forgiveness, as well as other values conducive to inner peace. In the 1970s, this practice was popularized in the West as it was adapted to and integrated with secular intervention programs aimed at reducing stress and dealing with chronic pain.

Packages promoting mindfulness practices are disseminated commercially, backed by research in neuroscience and developmental psychology, for use in schools through programs like MindUp and Mindful Schools. In recent years, there has been a marked uptick of interest from educational researchers in mindfulness education. Several distinct research orientations or approaches can be discerned—mindfulness-based intervention (MBI), an instrumental approach that views mindfulness practices in clinical or therapeutic terms; a spiritualist approach, which emphasizes the rootedness of MBIs in ancient religious traditions and focuses on the benefits of mindfulness practices for individual spiritual growth; and a political approach, which highlights the potential benefits of MBIs to develop students’ capacities for democratic deliberation and participation.

Contemporary mindfulness education in schools also sometimes reflects the cultural influence of New Age values, an orientation distinct from the instrumental, spiritualist, and political approaches, and whose impact may raise troubling questions about the purported educational benefits of MBIs. Accordingly, the alliance between New Age values, neoliberal economic and cultural values, and mindfulness practices in contemporary democratic societies and schools should be given due consideration in assessing the relative educational costs and benefits of MBIs. In particular, cultural and educational values at the intersection of neoliberal values entrepreneurialism and New Age values of personal and spiritual growth may have corrosive rather than benevolent effects on the pursuit of democratic values in schools.
Education and Media Discourses
Authors: Mockler Nicole
Published: September 2018

Over the past 30 years, a growing field of scholarship has explored the relationship between education and the media. Scholars within this field have explored representations of education, schooling, teachers’ work and students in print and other news media, utilizing approaches that include critical discourse analysis, news framing analysis and, more recently, corpus-assisted discourse analysis. The relationship between these representations, public understandings of education and education policy has also been explored in the research literature, with a focus on the complex interplay between media discourses and public policy around education. The emergence of social media and the engagement of both educators and members of the general public on social media around issues related to education has seen this relationship shift in the first two decades of the 21st century. This, along with the growth of computer-assisted research approaches (including corpus-assisted analysis and network analysis, for example) has brought new theoretical and methodological possibilities to bear on the field.
Art-Informed Pedagogies in the Preparation of Teachers in the United States
Authors: Cahnmann-Taylor Melisa , Sanders-Bustle Lynn
Published: September 2018

There are several interrelated themes in arts-informed pedagogies and teacher preparation: (1) the arts as tools to improve students’ academic achievement in other content areas such as math, science, social studies, language arts, and foreign language; (2) the arts as holistic and dynamic process for meaning-making; (3) the arts for teachers’ own professional identity and satisfaction (e.g., for teacher reflection, teacher retention, job satisfaction, and relationship-building); and (4) the arts for social change, social justice, and education advocacy work. There are a series of key questions and concerns regarding where, how, and why arts-informed teacher education practices are used, who uses them, and to what end.
Inclusive School Reform in Eswatini
Authors: Nxumalo Cebsile P.
Published: September 2018

Inclusive school reform has been a subject of concern in many countries, including the Kingdom of Eswatini. One of the forces that has shaped this reform agenda are the demands on transforming schools to embrace inclusive education, thus catering for diverse learners. Effective and sustainable inclusive reform is dependent on comprehensive school reform (CSR) approaches to change, with a focus on embracing and catering for diversity of learners from a broader perspective other than disability and special needs. CSR is one approach to change that is being used with some success in general education and has proven to have the potential of developing more inclusive schools. This is because such reform develops effective, sustainable programs that improve educational outcomes for all learners, with or without special needs and disabilities. CSR provides administrators and teachers with a framework to develop successful, effective, and sustainable inclusive programs. Each country has designed its own ways to ensure inclusive school reform. Inclusive school reform in Eswatini is situated within the context of a comprehensive larger school change effort that promises to improve educational outcomes for all learners while providing the necessary support to allow general classrooms to be changed to accommodate a diverse range of learners. The Southern Africa Development Community school reform model known as Care and Support for Teaching and Learning (CSTL) or “Inqaba,” which means fortress—a safe haven for all learners—has played an important role in the implementation of inclusive school reform in Eswatini. The Inqaba model is a comprehensive response and represents a pragmatic pathway toward inclusive quality education. Creating a caring, supportive, and inclusive teaching and learning environment in every school requires implementing a diverse, comprehensive, and multisectoral response, such as Inqaba, despite some challenges.
Educational Administration and Leadership in China
Authors: Baocun Liu , Yalun An
Published: September 2018

China has a long history of education, and its institutionalized educational leadership and administration can be traced back more than 2,000 years. Since then, educational leadership and administration systems have evolved with the development of society, politics, economy, and culture, and an educational leadership and administration system with significant Chinese characteristics has been formed.

The current educational leadership and administration system in China is stipulated by different laws and regulations of the country. The State Council and the local people’s governments at various levels are responsible to guide and administer educational work under the principles of administration by different levels and a division of responsibilities. This educational leadership and administration system in China is related not only to the history of the centralized culture but also to the administration system of the country.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the world is undergoing significant development, profound change, and major adjustments, while China is currently at a key stage for reform and development. World multi-polarization, globalization of the economy, development of the knowledge economy, dramatic changes in science and technology, competition for talent worldwide, and the trend toward industrialization, informatization, urbanization, marketization, and internationalization in China pose a severe challenge to education and its administration. At the same time, some serious problems in educational leadership and administration remain to be solved.

Facing these challenges and problems, the government called for reforms to promote the educational governance system and modernization of the educational governance capability to educational administration. The new educational governance system emphasizes empowerment, autonomy, shared governance, social participation in policymaking, and administration.
Optimism, Pessimism, and Realism in Educational Leadership
Authors: Mertkan Sefika , Sugrue Ciaran
Published: September 2018

Leadership has received unprecedented attention in the educational leadership literature. With only a few skeptics rolling their eyes, the importance of leaders in educational reform and school improvement goes uncontested in the 21st century while the search for effective leadership—the Holy Grail of educational effectiveness and improvement—continues. That leaders, motivated by moral purpose, bring about change, uplifting “failing” schools, is the common perception. Apart from an exceptionally small number of studies, educational leadership research has generally focused on effective leadership, the implicit assumption being that leadership, by default, is positive and leaders are always well-intended, even if not always highly effective in the execution of their responsibilities. Destructive forms of leadership that would eventually harm followers or the organization have been virtually neglected. Regardless of the silence on the dark side of leadership, however, a limited number of studies, mainly from the business field and to a much lesser extent, from the public sector and schooling, suggest that negative or even destructive forms of leadership may be more widespread than is popularly perceived. Recent portrayals of contemporary educational leadership suggest that the field needs to be re-conceptualized and recalibrated in ways that acknowledge rather than ignore leaders’ frailties and the use and abuse of power by leaders with darker dispositions. In reviewing the leadership literature, a new settlement, a rapprochement, must be found between the positives and the negatives, the transformative and the destructive, as a means of recapitulating the field with more wide-eyed and real-world characteristics and achievements, where leaders and followers alike can survive and thrive while engaged in leadership praxis for everyday life and work.
Transformational Leadership and Change in Education
Authors: Litz David , Blaik-Hourani Rida
Published: September 2018

Transformational leadership is one of the most widely discussed and utilized notions that has risen to the forefront of educational administration. Transformational leadership was initially conceived of as a process whereby leaders strategically transform the system or organization to a higher level by increasing the achievement and motivation of their followers. Early theorists would also argue that transformational leadership and change are inexorably intertwined, which in turn underscored the importance of a leader’s ability to positively transform the attitudes, norms, institutions, behaviors, and actions that structure our daily lives. Later writers and researchers would gradually extend and develop the theory and argue that the goal of transformational leadership is to transform people as well as organizations. Early work on transformational leadership concentrated on politics, business, and the armed services, and the research emphasized the value of “followers” as a distinguishing factor present in the transformational leadership model. This distinction is likely what led scholars to apply its tenets to modern educational contexts, which are typically characterized by significant pressures to implement widespread reforms and change. In this regard, transformational leadership is often viewed as well suited to education as it empowers followers (i.e., instructors) and provides them with a sense of hope, optimism, and energy and defines the vision of productivity as they accomplish goals. Additionally, transformational leaders work toward influencing shared beliefs and values to create a comprehensive level of change and innovation and aim to nurture a school culture that is oriented toward a learning ethos, whereby such leaders seek to expand the capacities of each employee, enhance their ways of thinking, and promote individual ambition. In this way, learning and growth becomes a shared responsibility.

Transformational leadership has garnered significant attention and popularity. However, when viewed from a globalized and cross-cultural perspective it raises significant questions regarding generalization. One key question in the literature surrounding transformational leadership is whether the concept can be applied across national and organizational cultures. Theoretical education debates often focus on transformational leadership’s reliability and viability within educational environments, especially regarding how such environments define and handle change, organizational learning, institutional effectiveness and improvement, and enhancing student outcomes.
Action Research as Continuous Professional Development in Southeast Asia
Authors: Shaik-Abdullah Sarimah , Suppiah Shanmugam S. Kanageswari , Chinnappan Mohan
Published: September 2018

The quality of education in any country rests on school communities as a whole. However, the real implementers of innovations and changes in curriculum are teachers. Teachers, as practitioners, are the ones most often held accountable for successes and failures in educating schoolchildren. The way to facilitate teachers in handling challenges and keeping up with curriculum renewals is through constant support in the form of continuing professional development (CPD) by means of action research. Action research as CPD has been viewed as a critical platform for advocating change, which is the outcome of teachers’ ability and autonomy to lead in making informed decisions about their own practices. Given its usefulness, action research is found well established, vastly practiced, and widely published in Western countries. This has raised the question of the widespread use of action research as CPD in the Southeast Asian (SEA) region. Preliminary analysis reveals that in some SEA countries, such as Timor Leste, there is limited literature on action research, while in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, action research has been well documented. At the same time, there is an emerging trend in SEA countries to adopt different models of action research. In Malaysia, for instance, action research has been primarily classroom based, whereas in Indonesia, a critical and community based approach to action research seems to be prevalent. This suggests that the kinds of action research conducted in the different SEA countries may reflect variations in cultural, economic, and geographical landscapes. Given the importance of action research to teacher practitioners and school leaders, and in providing an identity to the action research approaches conducted in Southeast Asia, the historical trail of action research presents a window into the nature of CPD concerns of each country, as well as the successes and challenges of conducting action research as CPD for sustained impact.
Development of Cross-School Professional Learning Communities
Authors: Middlewood David , Abbott Ian
Published: September 2018

Effective schools are widely recognized as those in which the adults who work there are committed to their own learning and where learning is at the heart of everything undertaken, in effect learning organizations. In such learning cultures, there is a perpetual process of change and development and such schools have become known as Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). Such PLCs are discovering that one of the most successful ways of supporting continuous development is through the use of in-house structured research which identifies relevant learning needs at all levels and strives to meet these needs through the school’s provision.

In the 21st century, very few schools operate in isolation and collaboration between schools or groups of schools has become essential for their improvement and for the development of the education system as a whole. The use of in-house research both within and across schools increases the validity of both the learning and the collaboration, which, at its most effective is based on willing participation, trust, and notions of professional partnerships, where all parties are willing to learn from each other, whatever their official or apparent status.

Although barriers to this development of cross-school PLCs through in-house research do exist, notably pressures from a competitive environment with a focus on measurable outcomes, a lack of resources including time, the growth of such communities is proving powerful through the use of student voice, staff involvement and leaders’ firm beliefs. Furthermore, a new kind of educational leadership is emerging which depends much less on hierarchical structures and more on openness to new ideas, acceptance that progress is often uneven and rarely simplistic, and a recognition of the importance of personal qualities of all those involved, including the leaders.
Hierarchical Organizational Structure and Leadership
Authors: Saiti Anna , Stefou Theodoros
Published: September 2018

When using the hierarchical approach, one delegates duties from the upper to the lower levels of a hierarchical structure. This system is characterized by an echelon arrangement (“a pyramid organization”), which gives the impression of a pyramid. This kind of structure is the simplest type of work distribution and is based upon the Fayol principles, namely, the unity of administration and a hierarchical scale. Certainly, this system of organizational structure (as with any system) has both advantages and disadvantages. A hierarchical approach expresses the classical view of the organizational structure and may be implemented in any kind or size of organization. If organizations are to enhance employees’ motivation and team spirit then employees’ perceptions are an important tool. Within this framework, individuals in the military and educational sector have a rather sensitive working environment, one quite different from other sectors.

Leadership is without doubt the most essential part of any organization and is key for the efficient performance and continued development of an organization. Flexible networks, open communication processes, and leaders with vision and a creative, constructive, and positive spirit favorably affect employees’ feelings and enhance innovation and fluidity. Taking into consideration that a highly hierarchical system may adversely affect incentives to exert effort as well as the efficiency of communication channels, one may consider the importance of the contribution of a leader and the development of leadership as an acute issue that has a significant impact upon staff morale and efficient performance, especially in military and educational sector.
Action Research in Teacher Education
Authors: Ryan Thomas
Published: September 2018

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Please check back later for the full article.

Herein the term Action Research is addressed by reflecting upon two words, action and research, united within this century to create something quite useful and commonplace. The word research, which has a long and traceable evolution, has been linked to seeking and to action, which is certainly the opposite of inaction. Upon closer examination, it is the action that can be either covert or overt, since thinking can be an action. When used together Action Research presents an opportunity to seek, pursue, and track one’s actions to arrive at a target. Yet how a person decides to seek provides context. Regardless of the path taken, Action Research involves certain steps, such as reflection, that are focused, strategic, and seeking within a social context to move forward.

Action Research is malleable, flexible, and therefore can be many things depending upon how the terms are demarcated. However, herein Action Research is both a strategy and orderly process that supports those who may seek to examine, to change, and/or to improve. Action Research is a commitment and an approach from within that provides a structure that can simplify and guide an inquiry. Action Research (AR) can meet the needs of the individual or a group as it supports self-inquiry and group-inquiry equally, while unfolding in a series of steps and phases. The action step may include either cognitive and/or psycho-motor acts; the reflection step includes efforts to look back and within, whereas the third step, revision, demands that an action researcher plan for their next step. This AR process may include additional steps; however, AR remains cyclical and recursive and at times piecemeal as steps may overlap, accelerate, and challenge the action researcher over time, since theory and practice can be quite disparate.
Spirituality and Education in the United States
Authors: Mitchell Roland W. , Mitchell Nicholas E. , Mitchell Chaunda A.
Published: September 2018

Spirituality and education have historically been tightly intertwined concepts. Spirituality is the timeless pursuit by humanity for certainty, understanding, and an abiding connection to each other and the cosmos. Education represents humanity’s efforts at grouping practices, insights, and often contested knowledges in such a manner that they are passed across generations, groups, and communities. The combination of the two reflects humanity’s pursuit at making sense out of the environment.
Mental Toughness in Education
Authors: St. Clair-Thompson Helen , Mcgeown Sarah
Published: September 2018

Mental toughness encompasses a range of positive psychological resources which have been found to be beneficial across a wide range of contexts (e.g., education, sports, work). According to the most popular model used in education contexts, the attributes of challenge, commitment, control (emotion, life), and confidence (in abilities and interpersonal) have been found to be beneficial across a wide range of educational outcomes and experiences, including school attainment, attendance, classroom behavior, peer relationships, academic motivation and engagement, and the ease of educational transitions. However, conceptual debates of mental toughness (e.g., trait vs. state; domain specificity) are ongoing and pose important questions for the operationalization and measurement of mental toughness as it continues to be explored across different educational settings. Of particular importance is the debate about whether mental toughness is a state or a trait. Being a state indicates it could be developed given the right environment and support, suggesting value in working with pupils and teachers to develop interventions. Further research is therefore necessary to fully understand whether, how, and why we can utilize the development of mental toughness to optimize educational outcomes.
India and Africa
Authors: Alpers Edward A.
Published: September 2018

Connections between India and Africa have existed for thousands of years, with the intensity of linkages varying over time. The earliest known relations involve the anonymous exchange of food crops and domestic livestock, which date to the second millennium bce. Commercial contacts are recorded from the beginning of the Current Era, while from the rise of Islam and the creation of Islamic states in India from the 14th century on enslaved and war captive Africans begin to appear in India. Trade relations continued throughout the early modern period (c. 1500–1750) and intensified in the 19th century, focusing on Gujarat and Zanzibar. Indian textiles were the most important Indian commodity during these centuries, while ivory and other primary products dominated exchanges from Africa.

The consolidation of a British Empire in the Indian Ocean intensified these relations, giving rise to the movement of migrant labor to both South Africa and the East African Protectorate (eventually Kenya Colony). During the high colonial period an Indian merchant class developed from Ethiopia to South Africa. Indian nationalism played out in various ways in South Africa, Tanganyika, and Kenya. In turn, African nationalism and independence had its own reciprocal, sometimes violent, impact on Indians residing in East Africa, while Afrikaner nationalism and the creation of formal apartheid differentially affected Indians and Africans in South Africa. In the post-colonial era, state relations between India and the independent states of Africa focused on questions of both national and human development. Finally, Indian residents continue to seek their place in independent Africa, while African students in India face prejudice there.
Women in Angola
Authors: Candido Mariana P.
Published: September 2018

European colonial powers established the contemporary boundaries of Angola during the Conference of Berlin (1884–1885). However, colonialism dates to the 15th century, when Portuguese merchants first contacted the Kingdom of Kongo along the Congo River and established early settlements in Luanda (1575) and Benguela (1617). Parts of the territories that became known as Angola in the early 20th century have a long history of interaction with the outside world, and as a result European primary sources provide much of the information available to historians. The reports, official correspondence, and diaries were produced by European men and are therefore problematic. However, by reading against the grain scholars can begin to understand how women lived in Angola before the 20th century.

Some, such as Queen Njinga, had access to political power, and others, such as Dona Ana Joaquina dos Santos e Silva, enjoyed great wealth. Kimpa Vita was a prophet who led a movement of political and religious renewal and was killed as a result. Most women never appeared in historical documents but were fundamental to the economic and social existence of their communities as farmers, traders, artisans, mediums, and enslaved individuals. The end of the slave trade in the 1850s led to the expansion of the so-called legitimate trade and plantation economies, which privileged male labor while relying on women’s domestic contributions. The arrival of a larger number of missionaries, colonial troops, and Portuguese settlers by the end of the 19th century resulted in new policies that stimulated migration and family separation. It also introduced new ideas about morality, sexuality, and motherhood. Women resisted and joined anticolonial movements. After independence, decades of civil war increased forced displacement, gender imbalance, and sexual violence. The greater stability at the end of the armed conflict may favor the expansion of women’s organizations and internal pressures to address gender inequalities.
Value and Values in Global Sport
Authors: Brownell Susan , Besnier Niko
Published: September 2018

Since Antiquity, sporting bodies and performances have been assigned an economic value, and sporting events, particularly those with large audiences, have been organized with a view to their capacity to generate wealth and reinforce social hierarchies. At the same time, athletes have long embodied moral and ethical values such as virtue, beauty, purity, and sacrifice. Sport is thus a prime context in which a society negotiates the relationship between the material, in the form of value, and the symbolic or ideational, in the form of values.

Sport and the sporting body can be commodified when they are assigned a value calculated in terms of a standardized currency and traded in a market. However, even in capitalist societies, sport often retains features that are shaped not by the market economy but the gift economy—in which exchange is governed by values such as honor, trust, and prestige. Sport offers a wealth of examples in which value and values come into conflict, exposing the fact that they are not incommensurable, but rather economic value is simply one kind of culturally constructed value among many.

Victors in the ancient Greek Olympic Games received only awards made from plants, including a crown of olive branches, but returned home to be bestowed with material riches. An elite Roman man produced gladiator games as a “gift” to his supporters, but in deciding whether to allow a defeated fighter to live, he had to weigh the cost of losing a gladiator (who was a valuable piece of property) against displeasing his supporters. The association that runs Japanese sumo is not a modern legal corporation; rather, its members are retired wrestlers who have bought the wrestling name of an elder that has been passed along for as long as 250 years—and the name cannot be bought with a bank loan. In the name of amateurism, 19th-century Victorians banned professionals from taking part in Olympic sports amidst the massive commodification of leisure and popular culture that accompanied the rise of the modern industrial economy.

Much of the Cold War was fought using athletes as proxies for the socialist and capitalist economic systems, as socialist nations denounced the exclusive gender and class values of “bourgeois” sports and sought to create an alternative model. After the end of the Cold War, the influx of capital into sports finally led to the death of the amateur ideal, quickly followed by the emergence of the migrant professional athlete. At the start of the 21st century, the massive revenues in college sport challenged the American notion of the unpaid student-athlete, while the global trade in athletes sucked ever greater numbers of athletes from the Global South into the professional sports of the wealthy Western countries as well as, increasingly, East Asian and Middle Eastern countries.

Sport is a fascinating realm for examining conflicts between value and values, and how they are shaped by the global economy in the 21st century, taking on new forms that echo the past while moving into uncharted territory.
Gabriel Vargas and La familia Burrón
Authors: Benítez Carrillo Maira Mayola
Published: September 2018

Gabriel Vargas Bernal created one of the greatest examples of Mexican comic strips, The Burrón Family. He had a remarkable career as a prolific cartoonist, screenwriter, historian, and journalist, with many titles published throughout decades of work. His predominant topic is social criticism and his narrative style is that of journalistic humor. Self-taught, he worked for the country’s most important–newspapers. Over the years, he wrote pieces on sports and the most popular festivals in Mexico, completed comic strips to support literacy campaigns, and designed many types of comics: historical, religious, war, detective, ecological, didactic, humor, and adventure. In 1948, he created the comic La familia Burrón, a series that tells of a poor family’s daily life in a working-class neighborhood. The author’s sense of criticism was the key to allowing readers to identify with the almost one hundred characters who appeared on its pages. Many of them came from real life and were recreated on the pages of this comic, which was published for six decades.

Vargas had a clear critical view of Mexican society. He incorporated costumbrist scenes and knew how to use idioms and popular expressions through his characters, adapting them to each decade in which the comic strip was published. His stories are full of humor and absurd situations, a mix of reality and fiction. The strip had a half-million printings per week and has been published in compilation books that are among the most sold at Mexico’s main book fairs. Vargas’s work is a necessary reference to learn and understand the idiosyncrasies of Mexicans—their customs, traditions, conflicts, and short-comings—in the urban environment.
Sones de la tierra in the Mexico City Inquisition
Authors: Cruz Eloy
Published: September 2018

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition of Mexico City was in between 1569 and 1820. Its task was to regulate the moral life of the society of New Spain and it was authorized to punish offenders. The crimes that were usually persecuted were acts against the Catholic faith (heresy, blasphemy, sorcery, and idolatry) or against accepted morality (indecency, bigamy, sexual harassment, homosexuality, and sedition).

The Court placed limited attention to the sones de la tierra (sounds of the land) from 1766 to 1819. The sones were sung dances that were eventually considered unsuitable and were denounced for various reasons: the lyrics of the songs contained vulgar words or heretical or blasphemous concepts, the steps of dances were indecent, the choreography implied actions that parodied known acts of the Christian liturgy, or by some combination of these factors.

The archive of the Inquisition of Mexico is practically the only source of information on music and street poetry in the cities and towns of the colony.

The sones de la tierra are the origin of the current cultural music genre called son mexicano, the most significant part of the traditional music and poetry of the country.

The sones de la tierra of the Baroque period and the current Mexican sones have three basic elements: music, poetry, and choreography. The music is based on recurrent rhythmic-harmonic patterns (ostinato) on which instrumental or vocal improvisations are made. Each determined pattern generates a son with a specific name. Thus, it is possible to speak of sones typical of the Baroque period (chacona, zarabanda, chuchumbé, and saraguandingo) or in present-day Mexico (bamba, maracumbé, petenera, and oaxacado). Some can be documented both in the 18th century and in the 21st century (matachines, fandango, panaderos, and zacamandú).

The poetry of the sones is based on the active principle of the copla, a poetic form based on the octosyllabic quatrain in various modalities (seguidilla and décima). The current Mexican variants are directly related to the Spanish poetry of the Golden Age.

The dance of the sones is performed mainly in couples who dance without having physical contact, using different steps whose main characteristic is the zapateado.

The archive of the Inquisition of Mexico mentions some sixty sones. The complaints and interrogations of the Court provide information about the sung lyrics, the ways of dancing, the people who practiced them, their geographical distribution, and some social attitudes regarding their use. This information shows that the sones de la tierra were common throughout the territory of New Spain and were practiced by people of almost all social classes.

The study of the sones de la tierra allows us to understand the existence and behavior of the different variants of the Mexican sones of today, which represent one of the fundamental elements of Mexican culture.
Mexico and the New Neoliberalism
Authors: Schwartzman Kathleen C.
Published: September 2018

Neoliberalism swept over Mexico like a tsunami. It swept away the country’s edifice of economic nationalism and left in its place an economy based on principles of neoliberalism. These neoliberal practices go by the names of the structural adjustment programs (SAPs), or the Washington Consensus. In 1982, when Mexico declared its lack of adequate resources to meet external debt service payments, it (like other Latin American countries) entered into debt renegotiations. These renegotiations required Mexico to implement reforms such as the privatization of state-owned enterprises, currency devaluation, and state budget reductions. Later agreements expanded upon the neoliberal reforms (the 1986 adherence to GATT; the 1992 revision of Article 27 of the Constitution, the 1993 signing of NAFTA, and the 1994 peso devaluation). Multiple iterations of the Foreign Investment Laws opened up Mexico to foreign investors. The goal of the neoliberal adjustments was to stabilize the economy and make it attractive for foreign direct investment. FDI, as well as open trade, promised to bring economic well-being and political stability to Mexico. The evaluations of the post-1982 reforms are mixed, but by the 21st century, tend toward “disappointing.” Increasing globalization has further marginalized Mexico. Neoliberal globalization is essentially about Mexico’s integration into the current global economy and the interaction of the global and the local. Mexico has been integrated into the global economy since Cortez, but the tsunami of neoliberalism has left Mexico with fewer armaments for successful development.
Korean Popular Culture in Argentina
Authors: Koeltzsch Grit Kirstin
Published: September 2018

The cultural movement known as Hallyu (or Korean Wave) and the transnational popularity of K-pop music and dance have long been established as an important phenomenon in the global world, including in Latin America. This form of South Korean contemporary popular culture has had a major impact in Argentina, especially among the young population. Despite the cultural and geographical distance, young Argentines incorporate aspects of K-pop culture in their daily lives, including music, dance, K-drama, and food, and some of them even try to learn the Korean language. Thanks to technology, they perceive, almost in real time, what happens on the Asian continent and connect with fans and fandoms, not only in Korea but also in other parts of the world. This shows that globalization is not a process of homogenization; these young Latin American people also take the Korean Wave as motivation to learn about transpacific history and cultures. Furthermore, K-pop is a visual phenomenon, and dance plays an important role. The dance routines or choreographies are complex, and emphasize the music. Dance definitely transcends language barriers. Thus, young Argentines explore new aspects of corporality through dance performances. In their spare time, they organize dance contests and activities, and so generate spaces for their own articulation. It is particularly interesting to draw attention to gender role performance and the way in which local youth react to the influence of a transgressive gender identity performed by Koreans, in the context of a strongly patriarchal and heteronormative Argentine society. It shows that body/ dance articulation is not just a tool for creativity but also for disputing gender norms and stereotypical gender images in our society.
The Study of Ecology in Latin America and the Caribbean
Authors: Raby Megan
Published: September 2018

Fieldwork in Latin America and the Caribbean has played a major role in the development of the modern science of ecology––the study of organisms’ relationships with one another and the physical environment. Since the colonial era, natural historical knowledge had grown and circulated through expeditions and naturalists’ encounters with indigenous and enslaved people’s environmental knowledge. Observations of the life histories, behavior, and geographical distribution of the regions’ species laid the groundwork for the emergence of ecology as a self-conscious discipline during the late 19th century. Major figures in the foundation of ecology were inspired by travel throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, and especially by the large number and variety of species found in rainforests and other tropical areas. The growth of colonial and independent national scientific institutions––including botanical gardens, museums, and geographical surveys––also created important foundations for ecological research, although these were primarily oriented toward agricultural and economic improvement. As field stations specifically devoted to ecological research emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, long-term, place-based studies of living organisms became possible for the first time. Research at such institutions helped to shape key ecological concepts––including the ecological community, ecosystems, and species diversity––and contributed directly to the rise of the biodiversity ideal in conservation. Despite their historic importance, field studies in Latin America and the Caribbean remain significantly underrepresented in ecology in the early 21st century.
Emerging Aspergillus Species Almost Exclusively Associated With Primary Immunodeficiencies
Authors: Seyedmousavi S , Lionakis M S , Parta M , Peterson S W , Kwon-Chung K J
Published: September 2018

Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is the most serious mold infection encountered in patients with iatrogenic immunosuppression. IA is also a major cause of mortality and morbidity in individuals with primary immunodeficiency (PID). Although Aspergillus fumigatus is the most common etiologic agent of IA reported in PID patients, followed by A. nidulans, multiple poorly recognized Aspergillus species such as A. udagawae, A. quadrilineatus, A. pseudoviridinutans, A. tanneri, A. subramanianii, and A. fumisynnematus have been reported almost exclusively from patients with inborn defects in host antifungal defense pathways. Infection in PID patients exhibits patterns of disease progression distinct from those in iatrogenic immunosuppression. Specifically, the disease can be extrapulmonary and chronic with a tendency to disseminate in a contiguous manner across anatomical planes. It is also more refractory to standard antifungal therapy. This synopsis summarizes our understanding of emerging rare Aspergillus species that primarily affect patients with PIDs but not those with acquired immunodeficiencies.
The Effect of pH on Spore Germination, Growth, and Infection of Strawberry Roots by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. fragariae, Cause of Fusarium wilt of Strawberry
Authors: Gordon T. R. , Stueven M. , Pastrana A. M. , Henry P. M. , Dennehy C. M. , Kirkpatrick S. C. , Daugovish O.
Published: September 2018

Previous work has shown that raising the pH of acidic soil to near neutrality can reduce the incidence of Fusarium wilt. The basis for this effect has not been established. The present study assessed effects of pH on spore germination, growth, and infection of strawberry roots by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. fragariae, the cause of Fusarium wilt of strawberry. There was not a significant effect of pH (5 versus 7) on the rate of spore germination at either 20 or 25°C for any of the three tested isolates (one representative of each clonal lineage of F. oxysporum f. sp. fragariae found in California). Likewise, pH did not have a significant effect on fungal growth at 20°C. At 25°C, two isolates grew faster at pH 7 than at pH 5. Growth of the third isolate was unaffected by the difference in pH. For the strawberry cultivar Albion, the frequency of root infection was significantly higher for plants grown in acidified soil (near pH 5) than for plants grown in soil near neutrality. The higher frequency of root infection in acidified soil was associated with a lower level of microbial activity, as measured by hydrolysis of fluorescein diacetate.