scholarly journals Academic Reading and Pacific Students: Profiling Texts, Tasks & Readers in the First Year of University in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Mary Ruth Toumu'a

<p>Central to tertiary study in the literate world is the storage, transmission and retrieval of knowledge via the written word through the complex, multi-faceted and largely invisible process of academic reading. With New Zealand's changing demographics and increasing participation in tertiary education by students of Pacific descent, it cannot be assumed that there is a sufficient degree of match between the cultures of academic literacy of the institution and those of the linguistic /ethnic minority student readers; and this is an issue that requires in-depth investigation. This thesis focuses on student readers of Pacific descent undertaking their first year of study in selected 100-level Humanities and Commerce courses in a NZ university. By drawing together the composite skills, cognitive and socio-cultural traditions of reading research, this study conceptualizes academic reading as the dynamic interplay between Text-Task-Reader within any given socio-cultural context. This three-part understanding of academic reading enables a rich profiling of Readers, Texts, and Tasks within their contexts. It permits the systematic discovery and documentation of the nature of the challenge inherent in the academic texts and tasks of the first year of university, and enables the characteristics of the prototypical 'good reader' in a specific discipline to be established. By identifying and holding the core first year academic reading Task of 'reading to understand and remember' constant, the complex interactions between the Reader and Text were able to be observed, thus providing insights into the ways in which these Pacific readers made meaning from Text. Then, through the holistic profiling of cognitive, affective, skills, and socio-culturally based reader features, the Pacific student readers' academic reading personae were constructed. Combined, the readers' profiles reveal group trends, and individually, the complete holistic profiles of two case study readers were able to be woven together from the various profiling 'strands', thus highlighting the usefulness of the profiling system and the uniqueness of the individual readers. Finally, a comparison between the 'good reader' and the 'real' student readers affords an understanding of the degree of 'fit' between the readers' characteristics and the expectations of the institution. It is argued that this type of holistic profiling is of considerable value to institutions, enabling them to respond in informed, strategic ways to the academic literacy development requirements of their Pacific (and other) students, on both an individual and group scale.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Mary Ruth Toumu'a

<p>Central to tertiary study in the literate world is the storage, transmission and retrieval of knowledge via the written word through the complex, multi-faceted and largely invisible process of academic reading. With New Zealand's changing demographics and increasing participation in tertiary education by students of Pacific descent, it cannot be assumed that there is a sufficient degree of match between the cultures of academic literacy of the institution and those of the linguistic /ethnic minority student readers; and this is an issue that requires in-depth investigation. This thesis focuses on student readers of Pacific descent undertaking their first year of study in selected 100-level Humanities and Commerce courses in a NZ university. By drawing together the composite skills, cognitive and socio-cultural traditions of reading research, this study conceptualizes academic reading as the dynamic interplay between Text-Task-Reader within any given socio-cultural context. This three-part understanding of academic reading enables a rich profiling of Readers, Texts, and Tasks within their contexts. It permits the systematic discovery and documentation of the nature of the challenge inherent in the academic texts and tasks of the first year of university, and enables the characteristics of the prototypical 'good reader' in a specific discipline to be established. By identifying and holding the core first year academic reading Task of 'reading to understand and remember' constant, the complex interactions between the Reader and Text were able to be observed, thus providing insights into the ways in which these Pacific readers made meaning from Text. Then, through the holistic profiling of cognitive, affective, skills, and socio-culturally based reader features, the Pacific student readers' academic reading personae were constructed. Combined, the readers' profiles reveal group trends, and individually, the complete holistic profiles of two case study readers were able to be woven together from the various profiling 'strands', thus highlighting the usefulness of the profiling system and the uniqueness of the individual readers. Finally, a comparison between the 'good reader' and the 'real' student readers affords an understanding of the degree of 'fit' between the readers' characteristics and the expectations of the institution. It is argued that this type of holistic profiling is of considerable value to institutions, enabling them to respond in informed, strategic ways to the academic literacy development requirements of their Pacific (and other) students, on both an individual and group scale.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 184-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan Lloyd ◽  
Alexandra Blazely ◽  
Lisa Phillips

PurposeNon-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is reasonably common, particularly among young people with prevalence rates of up to 25 per cent reported. Many factors contribute towards NSSI, including depression, anxiety and history of abuse and NSSI is a risk factor for suicide. Many people who engage in NSSI do not seek help, potentially due to concern about sigmatising attitudes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of gender and disclosure on stigmatising attitudes towards individuals who engage in NSSI.Design/methodology/approachParticipants were 384 first-year university students (77.4 per cent female; mean age 19.50 years (SD=3.53)) who completed measures of stigmatising attitudes in response to vignettes featuring individuals who engaged in self-harming behaviour. Vignettes varied in the gender of the individual as well as whether the NSSI was disclosed or not.FindingsThe results support the attribution model of public discrimination in relation to NSSI stigma. Perceptions of higher personal responsibility for NSSI behaviour and higher levels of danger and manipulation were positively associated with stigmatizing attitudes and behaviours. Male research participants reported significantly higher levels of stigmatizing attitudes and behaviours than females.Social implicationsThe level of stigmatising attitudes towards individuals who engage in NSSI is significant and may impact on help-seeking behaviour.Originality/valueBetween 10 and 25 per cent of adolescents engage in some form of NSSI, but only a minority seek help to address this behaviour. This study suggests that attitudes by peers may influence help-seeking. Further research is required outside of tertiary education settings.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-87
Author(s):  
Petru TĂRCHILĂ

Judicial psychology is the science that analyzes and tries to understand the criminal phenomenon in general and its determinant factor in particular, by the complexity of factors that generate it and by the diversity of its forms of manifestation. Although the determining factor of criminal behavior is always subjective being generated by the psychic of the offender, this aspect must be correlated with the context in which it manifests itself: social, economic, cultural context etc. Judicial psychology investigates the behavior of the individual in all its aspects, seeking a scientific explanation of the mechanisms and factors enhancing criminal favors, thus enabling the identification of the preventive measures to be taken to reduce the categories of offenses. It studies the psycho-behavioral profile of the offender, identifying the causes that determined its behavior in order to take preventive measures.The domain of judicial psychology is mainly deviance, conduct that departs from the moral or legal norms that are dominant in a given culture. The object of judicial psychology is the criminal act, correlated with the psychosocial characteristics of the participants in the judicial action (offender, victim, witness, investigator, magistrate, lawyer, civil party, educator, etc.). The science of judicial psychology also analyzes how these characteristics appear and manifest themselves in concrete and special conditions of their interaction in three phases of the criminal act: the pre-criminal phase, the actual criminal phase and the post-criminal phase.


2013 ◽  
Vol 215 ◽  
pp. 703-726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Attané ◽  
Zhang Qunlin ◽  
Li Shuzhuo ◽  
Yang Xueyan ◽  
Christophe Z. Guilmoto

AbstractTraditionally, marriage is a near universality in China. However, in the coming decades, owing to the growing sex imbalance, millions of men will be unable to marry. As a consequence, bachelorhood is becoming a new demographic concern, particularly affecting men from the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups. In China's cultural context today, heterosexual marriage remains a prerequisite for family formation and, in rural society particularly, the legitimate setting for sexual activity. Under such circumstances, bachelorhood is likely to produce privations on various fronts, the consequences of which for both the individual and the community are still largely unknown. This article focuses on the opinions and sexual behaviour of bachelors, and highlights significant variations from those of married men. It is based on the findings of an exploratory survey conducted in 2008 in selected villages in a rural county in Anhui province, referred to here as JC county. The survey provides insights into the more general situation of rural men unable to marry in a context of female shortage, and indicates the conditions a growing number of Chinese men will face in the near future.


Author(s):  
Elisabeth El Refaie

AbstractThis paper uses the example of 25 young people's responses to a Daily Mail cartoon on the subject of gay marriage in order to explore the pragmatics of humor reception. The results indicate that the enjoyment of a multimodal joke depends to a large extent on the background knowledge, values and attitudes of the individual. If, for instance, a cartoon is too threatening to someone's core sense of identity, it is likely to create anger and alienation rather than amusement. Humor appreciation is also shown to depend on the broader socio-cultural context in which the cartoon is encountered.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
J.H.P. Jonxis

Malnutrition in the first year of life may cause permanent damage to the individual. There may be a permanent retardation in growth if the malnutrition is a serious one and the food intake is severely insufficient over a longer, period. Specially when malnutrition occurs in the first months after birth, it may cause damage to the central nervous system.As long as the breast-fed child gets enough breastmilk, it is unlikely that serious problems  arise. The declinein feeding in many developing countries is a serious problem, especially because the alternatives for human milk are not always available, owing to economic factors. In the, countries of the Western world there exists just, the opposite problem owing to partial over-nutrition abnormalities in fat metabolism may occur, which may influence the health of the individual later on in life.


2000 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 85-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mechthild Gretsch

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 27 (S.C. 5139), the Junius Psalter, was written, Latin text and Old English gloss, probably at Winchester and presumably during the reign of King Edward the Elder. Junius 27 is one of the twenty-nine complete or almost complete psalters written or owned in Anglo-Saxon England which have survived. (In addition to these twenty-nine complete psalters, eight minor fragments of further psalters are still extant.) This substantial number of surviving manuscripts and fragments is explained by the paramount importance of the psalms in the liturgy of the Christian church, both in mass and especially in Office. Junius 27 is also one of the ten psalters from Anglo-Saxon England bearing an interlinear Old English gloss to the entire psalter. (In addition there are two psalters with a substantial amount of glossing in Old English, though not full interlinear versions.) Since our concern in the first part of this article will be with the nature of the Old English glossing in the Junius Psalter, and its relationship to other glossed psalters, it is appropriate at the outset to provide a list of the psalters in question. At the beginning of each of the following items I give the siglum and the name by which the individual psalters are traditionally referred to by psalter scholars. An asterisk indicates that the Latin text is a Psalterium Romanum (the version in almost universal use in England before the Benedictine reform); unmarked manuscripts contain the Psalterium Gallicanum. For full descriptions of the manuscripts, see N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip D. Langton

This laboratory practical requires first-year students to anticipate the effects of drugs active at cholinergic and adrenergic receptors on gut motility in order to design experiments during an authentic inquiry exercise. Rather than specifying a strict sequence of drug additions that aim to provide ideal demonstrations of pharmacological and physiological antagonism, I have instead designed switches into the drugs provided and set students, working in small teams, the task of identifying the switched drugs, an inquiry activity. To extend the teamwork aspect, laboratory reports were submitted by the student teams rather than individual students. Staff observed that discussions within the teams were stimulated by the inquiry-led nature of the practical. The quality of the laboratory reports submitted by teams were substantially improved over the individual reports submitted in previous years. (Students previously worked in teams, but simply followed a list of prescribed experiments and wrote individual reports.) Although, in conversation, teams of students had an improved understanding of the regulation of gut motility by the parasympathetic and sympathetic divisions of the autonomic nervous system and could readily distinguish between pharmacological and functional antagonism, no attempt was made to evaluate learning because the revision was triggered by the observed effect of a technical error and was not otherwise planned. It is likely that laboratory practicals, in general, would benefit from inclusion of inquiry.


2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 429-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Kenny ◽  
Emily Lancsar ◽  
Jane Hall ◽  
Madeleine King ◽  
Meredyth Chaplin

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document