Western educational historiography and the institutionalization of normal schools in modern China (1901–1944)

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wang Chen ◽  
Luo Wei ◽  
Wu Yuefei

PurposeThis paper traces the incorporation of western educational histories in the development of normal-school curricula during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China (1901–1944). It uses publication networks to show how the study of comparative educational history facilitated the international circulation of knowledge in the teaching profession, and how the “uses” of educational history were shaped by larger geopolitical forces.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyzes the international exchange of texts between normal schools in China and Japan and, subsequently, between normal schools in China and the United States. A database of 107 publications in the field of western educational history that were adopted in China reveals specific patterns of textual citation, cross-reference, and canon-formation in the field of educational historiography.FindingsWith conclusions derived from a combination of social network analysis and clustering analysis, this paper identifies three broad stages in China's development of normal-school curricula in comparative educational history: “Japan as Teacher,” “transitional period” and “America as Teacher.”Research limitations/implicationsStatistical analysis can reveal citation and reference patterns but not readers' understanding of the deeper meaning of texts – in this case, textbooks on the subject of western educational history. In addition, the types of publications analyzed in this study are relatively limited, the articles on the history of education in journals have not become the main objects of this study.Originality/valueThis paper uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to uncover the transnational circulation of knowledge in the field of comparative educational history during its formative period in China.

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-439
Author(s):  
Phillip M. Hash

The purpose of this study was to explore music instruction in selected normal schools of the United States during the nineteenth century. The sample consisted of all eighteen state normal schools organized before the end of the U.S. Civil War and provided insight into the earliest period of music at these institutions. Research questions focused on normal school music (a) faculty, (b) curricula, and (c) diploma/degree programs, as well as (d) influence on the teaching profession, normal school students, and society at large. Normal schools prepared future classroom teachers and eventually specialists to teach music to K–12 students throughout the United States. They also helped professionalize the role of music teacher, solidify music’s place in K–12 curricula, and improve the efficacy of instruction among America’s youth. The preparation normal schools provided contributed to the national culture and the ability of average citizens to experience music as both listeners and performers. Although teacher education has evolved a great deal since the nineteenth century, practices related to music instruction in state normals during this time might hold implications for solving current problems in music education and preparing generalists and specialists today.


2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Satlin ◽  
Liang Chen ◽  
Gopi Patel ◽  
Angela Gomez-Simmonds ◽  
Gregory Weston ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Although the New York/New Jersey (NY/NJ) area is an epicenter for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), there are few multicenter studies of CRE from this region. We characterized patients with CRE bacteremia in 2013 at eight NY/NJ medical centers and determined the prevalence of carbapenem resistance among Enterobacteriaceae bloodstream isolates and CRE resistance mechanisms, genetic backgrounds, capsular types (cps), and antimicrobial susceptibilities. Of 121 patients with CRE bacteremia, 50% had cancer or had undergone transplantation. The prevalences of carbapenem resistance among Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter spp., and Escherichia coli bacteremias were 9.7%, 2.2%, and 0.1%, respectively. Ninety percent of CRE were K. pneumoniae and 92% produced K. pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC-3, 48%; KPC-2, 44%). Two CRE produced NDM-1 and OXA-48 carbapenemases. Sequence type 258 (ST258) predominated among KPC-producing K. pneumoniae (KPC-Kp). The wzi154 allele, corresponding to cps-2, was present in 93% of KPC-3-Kp, whereas KPC-2-Kp had greater cps diversity. Ninety-nine percent of CRE were ceftazidime-avibactam (CAZ-AVI)-susceptible, although 42% of KPC-3-Kp had an CAZ-AVI MIC of ≥4/4 μg/ml. There was a median of 47 h from bacteremia onset until active antimicrobial therapy, 38% of patients had septic shock, and 49% died within 30 days. KPC-3-Kp bacteremia (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 2.58; P = 0.045), cancer (aOR, 3.61, P = 0.01), and bacteremia onset in the intensive care unit (aOR, 3.79; P = 0.03) were independently associated with mortality. Active empirical therapy and combination therapy were not associated with survival. Despite a decade of experience with CRE, patients with CRE bacteremia have protracted delays in appropriate therapies and high mortality rates, highlighting the need for rapid diagnostics and evaluation of new therapeutics.


mSphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Babita Adhikari Dhungel ◽  
Revathi Govind

ABSTRACT Clostridioides difficile is the leading cause of nosocomial infection and is the causative agent of antibiotic-associated diarrhea. The severity of the disease is directly associated with toxin production, and spores are responsible for the transmission and persistence of the organism. Previously, we characterized sin locus regulators SinR and SinR′ (we renamed it SinI), where SinR is the regulator of toxin production and sporulation. The SinI regulator acts as its antagonist. In Bacillus subtilis, Spo0A, the master regulator of sporulation, controls SinR by regulating the expression of its antagonist, sinI. However, the role of Spo0A in the expression of sinR and sinI in C. difficile had not yet been reported. In this study, we tested spo0A mutants in three different C. difficile strains, R20291, UK1, and JIR8094, to understand the role of Spo0A in sin locus expression. Western blot analysis revealed that spo0A mutants had increased SinR levels. Quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis of its expression further supported these data. By carrying out genetic and biochemical assays, we show that Spo0A can bind to the upstream region of this locus to regulates its expression. This study provides vital information that Spo0A regulates the sin locus, which controls critical pathogenic traits such as sporulation, toxin production, and motility in C. difficile. IMPORTANCE Clostridioides difficile is the leading cause of antibiotic-associated diarrheal disease in the United States. During infection, C. difficile spores germinate, and the vegetative bacterial cells produce toxins that damage host tissue. In C. difficile, the sin locus is known to regulate both sporulation and toxin production. In this study, we show that Spo0A, the master regulator of sporulation, controls sin locus expression. Results from our study suggest that Spo0A directly regulates the expression of this locus by binding to its upstream DNA region. This observation adds new detail to the gene regulatory network that connects sporulation and toxin production in this pathogen.


2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (12) ◽  
pp. 2639-2654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoonhee Choi ◽  
Namgyoo K. Park

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the economic and psychological mechanisms in turnover at the managerial level. The paper investigates how (1) the ease of moving posed by alternative jobs (i.e. the economic mechanism) and (2) the desire to move due to low job satisfaction (i.e. the psychological mechanism) simultaneously influence top management team (TMT) turnover and these managers' subsequent job position and pay.Design/methodology/approachUsing 25 years of panel data on more than 2,000 top managers in the United States, the paper utilizes fixed-effects logistic regressions and the ordinary least squares model to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe authors find that CEO awards (an economic mechanism) and low compensation (a psychological mechanism) independently have positive effects on turnover. Turnover due to the economic mechanism leads to a higher position and pay, whereas turnover due to the psychological mechanism does not guarantee the same outcome. Further, when examining how pay dissatisfaction influences turnover simultaneously with CEO awards, the authors find that managers with the highest pay leave their firm, and not those with the lowest pay.Originality/valueThe paper employs the pull-and-push theory in the employee turnover literature and applies it to the top management team literature. By doing so, this paper contributes original insights to how economic and psychological mechanisms simultaneously affect managerial turnover and its subsequent outcomes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-126
Author(s):  
Takisha Durm

PurposeThe Girl Who Buried Her Dreams in a Can, written by Dr Tererai, profiles a cultural, yet global experience of the power of believing in one's dream. Through this study of the similarities and differences of how children in the United States and abroad live and dream of a better life, this lesson seeks to enhance students' understandings of the power and authority they possess to effect change not only within their own lives but also in the lives of countless others in world. After reading the text, students will work to create vision boards illustrating their plans to effect change within their homes, schools, communities, states or countries. They will present their plans to their peers. To culminate the lesson, the students will bury their dreams in can and collectively decide on a future date to revisit the can to determine how far they have progressed in accomplishing their goals.Design/methodology/approachThis is an elementary grades 3–6 lesson plan. There was no research design/methodology/approach included.FindingsAs this is a lesson plan and no actual research was represented, there are no findings.Originality/valueThis is an original lesson plan completed by the first author Takisha Durm.


1961 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 134-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Leeds

Few courses in anthropology have been taught as such at the high school level in the United States. Nevertheless, both in high schools and in elementary schools, and more particularly in the private schools, information which the anthropologists consider their own special interest has been used. Thus, children may be taught information about the Eskimo, apparently the favorite culture to represent the non-Western world and almost undoubtedly the only primitive one existing in the curriculum-makers' Baedeker, although an occasional bow in made to the American plains or Southwest. Now and then, studies of the major Asian countries are made whose focus is cultural rather than properly geographical. Other cultures, ranging up to the most complex, ordinarily appear to be brought into a curriculum more as functions of the description of the locations inhabited by humans than as descriptions, informed by some conception as to the nature of culture, of the specific cultures themselves. In short, one may safely assert, I believe, that the students get some sense of the variations exhibited by societies but mostly as curiosa and oddities of peculiar peoples. They do not get a sense of the cultural necessities of variation and differences as these derive from the technological articulations with environment. Rather, variation and differences are presented as if they were more or less accidentally associated with particular kinds of geographic features. Children appear rarely to be taught that there is such a class of events as technologies which can systematically be studied like geography or economics. Rather, they become familiar only with technical activities which they see as scattered hither and yon rather planlessly on the earth's far-away surfaces, activities such as camel-herding here, rice-paddy planting there. Certainly they get no sense of the effects of technology as a formal determinant of social structure and as conditioners of ideologies; far less are they presented, or do they achieve, a notion of culture as a total system. Much less are they led to see culture as a system which operates by its own laws, which has its own distinguishing characteristics and process, and whose variants cannot be reduced to any known ultimate value hierarchy. Thus, by learning mere esoterica, they are prevented from learning the fundamental first step required of all anthropologists, the scientific and ethical principle of cultural relativism. Consequently, too, they are prevented from learning the kind of perspective on world, culture, and self which anthropology can afford.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliza Hixson

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the social impact that two events, the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Clipsal 500, have on young residents (16-19 years old) of Adelaide. The purpose of this paper is to examine how young people participate in these events and how this affects their sense of involvement in the event and contributes to their identity development. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed methods approach was adopted in which focus groups and questionnaires were conducted with secondary school students. As an exploratory study, focus groups (n=24) were conducted in the first stage of the research. The results of the focus groups were used to develop a questionnaire that resulted in 226 useable responses. The final stage of the research explored one event in further depth in order to determine the influence of different participation levels. Findings – This study found that young people demonstrated more involvement in the Adelaide Fringe Festival and their identities were more influenced by this event. Further investigation of the Adelaide Fringe Festival also indicated that level of participation affects the social outcomes gained, with those participating to a greater degree achieving higher involvement and increased identity awareness. This is demonstrated through a model which aims to illustrate how an event impact an individual based on their role during the event. Originality/value – This paper applies two leisure concepts in order to analyse the impact of events. Activity involvement is a concept which examines the importance of the activity in the participant's life. Also of importance to young people is how activities contribute to their identities, especially because they are in a transitional period of their lives.


1980 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-41
Author(s):  
Gail Guntermann

During most of the present decade the foreign-language teaching profession in the United States has devoted prodigious efforts to the creation and publication of classroom exercises to develop the learners' ability to communicate. While the resulting diversity of activities bears testimony to the ingenuity of foreign language educators, it also manifests the lack of a coherent system for specifying objectives and creating or selecting appropriate activities for practice. That ubiquitous term “communicative competence” has lacked an operational definition. The concept of functional syllabus design, founded on the identification of the sociolinguistic factors that comprise communication events, suggests some means to fill that void. Once the learners' communication needs have been ascertained, inventories of functions, notions, and keys should be valuable tools for selecting appropriate linguistic exponents and generally determining course content.


mBio ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie A. Cowardin ◽  
Sarah A. Kuehne ◽  
Erica L. Buonomo ◽  
Chelsea S. Marie ◽  
Nigel P. Minton ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT  Clostridium difficileis the most common hospital-acquired pathogen, causing antibiotic-associated diarrhea in over 250,000 patients annually in the United States. Disease is primarily mediated by toxins A and B, which induce potent proinflammatory signaling in host cells and can activate an ASC-containing inflammasome. Recent findings suggest that the intensity of the host response to infection correlates with disease severity. Our lab has identified the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-23 (IL-23) as a pathogenic mediator during C. difficile infection (CDI). The mechanisms by which C. difficile induces IL-23, however, are not well understood, and the role of toxins A and B in this process is unclear. Here, we show that toxins A and B alone are not sufficient for IL-23 production but synergistically increase the amount of IL-23 produced in response to MyD88-dependent danger signals, including pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and host-derived damage associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). Danger signals also enhanced the secretion of IL-1β in response to toxins A and B, and subsequent IL-1 receptor signaling accounted for the majority of the increase in IL-23 that occurred in the presence of the toxins. Inhibition of inflammasome activation in the presence of extracellular K+likewise decreased IL-23 production. Finally, we found that IL-1β was increased in the serum of patients with CDI, suggesting that this systemic response could influence downstream production of pathogenic IL-23. Identification of the synergy of danger signals with toxins A and B via inflammasome signaling represents a novel finding in the mechanistic understanding of C. difficile-induced inflammation.IMPORTANCEClostridium difficileis among the leading causes of death due to health care-associated infection, and factors determining disease severity are not well understood. C. difficile secretes toxins A and B, which cause inflammation and tissue damage, and recent findings suggest that some of this tissue damage may be due to an inappropriate host immune response. We have found that toxins A and B, in combination with both bacterium- and host-derived danger signals, can induce expression of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-23. Our results demonstrate that IL-1β signaling enhances IL-23 production and could lead to increased pathogenic inflammation during CDI.


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