Socially Responsive Museum Pedagogy

Art museums in the United States have long been called upon to provide educational and engaging experiences for their visitors; more recently, this expectation has expanded to address the most salient needs of local communities and respond to issues of social inequality. At The Ohio State University's Wexner Center for the Arts, these collaborations are woven into the mission of the institution and serve as a foundation of its educational framework. In this chapter, the authors highlight specific community collaborations between the Wexner Center for the Arts, the Department of Arts Administration, Education, and Policy at Ohio State, and the Columbus, Ohio, community. They suggest that these programs not only individually serve as examples for other institutions and university students engaged in museum education scholarship, but also collectively form a socially responsive museum pedagogy enacted in an ongoing cycle of collaborative inquiry.

Music Education and Utopia

This chapter applies the ideas developed in the previous chapters to music education theory and practice. It presents utopia as method in music education, emphasizing its meaning as a hermeneutic, visionary, and exploratory tool. This leads to reconceptualizing music education as utopian theory and practice regarding two different approaches of music education: politically or socially responsive music education and esthetic music education. They represent two sides of music and music education, which need each other regarding political engagement and musical autonomy, being based on music as social fact or as existing for its own sake. This reconceptualization helps to overcome a long-standing dichotomy in international music education.

Rethinking Music Education and Social Change

The arts and particularly music are well-known agents for social change. They can empower, transform, or question. They can be a mirror of society’s current state and a means of transformation. They are often the last refuge when all attempts at social change have failed. But are the arts able to live up to these expectations? Can music education cause social change? This book offers timely answers to these questions. It presents an imaginative, yet critical approach. It is optimistic and realistic. It rethinks music education’s relation to social change and offers a new vision in terms of music education as utopian theory and practice. This allows one to unearth the utopian energy of the music education profession and to openly imagine how the world could be otherwise—while at the same time critically scrutinizing respective conceptions. Utopia, being an important topic in sociology and political science, offers a new tradition of thinking and a scholarly foundation for music education’s relation to social change. However, music education is not only a means for social transformation. It also has artistic and aesthetic dimensions. Thus, connecting music education with utopia leads to two approaches in terms of politically or socially responsive music education and “esthetic” music education. Rethinking music education and social change within the framework of utopia offers much-needed opportunities for reconceptualizing music education in the 2020s.

Linking Judging Moral to Acting Moral: A Relational Motivations Approach to Judging and Practicing Covid-19 Behaviors

Building on the Relational Motivation Theory, the present research argues that relational motivations (RM) underlie both the regulation and the moral judgment of socially (un)responsive Covid-19 behaviors (e.g., physical distancing) and links these two via moral identity. We hypothesize that different types of socially unresponsive behaviors are judged morally wrong through perceptions of RM violations and that a stronger concern for unity predicts the extent to which individuals self-report to perform socially responsive Covid-19 behaviors. Additionally, the role of moral identity as an individual-level moderator variable linking perceptions about RM violation to the practice of Covid-19 responsible behaviors is explored. The results support the predictions with data collected from participants living in Turkey and the USA. In both cultures, socially unresponsive Covid-19 behaviors of others were judged morally wrong through RMs, plus individuals’ general concern for unity predicted their self-reported socially responsive Covid-19 behaviors. Additionally, for the sample from Turkey, results revealed that the general concern for unity was positively associated with self-reported tendencies to perform Covid-19 socially responsive behaviors only among individuals with a low or moderate moral identity, but not when moral identity was high.

Students’ Perceptions of higher education in Sāmoa: Finagalo fa’aalia o alo ma fanau a’oa’oina ile Iunivesetē Aoao o Sāmoa

<p>This thesis evaluates and analyses Sāmoan student perceptions of higher education in Sāmoa. This work offers an insider’s account of Sāmoan education in particular, focussing on current students belonging to the National University of Sāmoa (NUS). A Pasifika and Sociological framework was used in this study, employing Pasifika research methods of talanoa and aspects of Fa’afaletui. Nineteen NUS students and one student support staff were interviewed for this study. This thesis is not focussed on exploring linear pathways instead it focusses on student resilience in prioritizing their education. Thus, important of this work is to inform the National University of Sāmoa of their students’ needs and the challenges they face in order to provide appropriate support that are culturally and socially responsive to a Sāmoan student’s worldview.</p>

Students’ Perceptions of higher education in Sāmoa: Finagalo fa’aalia o alo ma fanau a’oa’oina ile Iunivesetē Aoao o Sāmoa

<p>This thesis evaluates and analyses Sāmoan student perceptions of higher education in Sāmoa. This work offers an insider’s account of Sāmoan education in particular, focussing on current students belonging to the National University of Sāmoa (NUS). A Pasifika and Sociological framework was used in this study, employing Pasifika research methods of talanoa and aspects of Fa’afaletui. Nineteen NUS students and one student support staff were interviewed for this study. This thesis is not focussed on exploring linear pathways instead it focusses on student resilience in prioritizing their education. Thus, important of this work is to inform the National University of Sāmoa of their students’ needs and the challenges they face in order to provide appropriate support that are culturally and socially responsive to a Sāmoan student’s worldview.</p>

Reinvigorating Life: An Architecture for Younger Onset Dementia

<p>Most people are familiar with dementia, but few realise that it is not just an old persons’ disease. Younger onset dementia (YOD) is defined as the onset of dementia before age 65, some afflicted are as young as 30. People with YOD often have children at home, were recently employed, are physically fit and have active social lives. There are currently no facilities in New Zealand for people with YOD, resulting in their institutionalisation in aged-care facilities withdrawn from the local community and environment. The loss of physical and social stimulation often results in confusion, high anxiety and a faster progression of symptoms. Seeking to develop a specialised YOD facility, this thesis examines; existing literature across multiple disciplines, examples of successful YOD facilities internationally, and proposes both a participatory and iterative design method to establish how architecture can reinvigorate the lives of those affected by YOD and instigate a more socially responsive approach to design. This extends to the wider group of ‘lives’ including the care workers, the community and ultimately NZ. The need to provide architecture for memory, autonomy, and therapy was developed from the literature establishing key objectives for the design. In response to the lack of community interaction which occurs with existing dementia facilities, the thesis explores the possibilities inherent in Tschumi’s method of disprogramming. A garden centre is introduced to both contribute to and benefit from the YOD facility. The merging of YOD facility and garden centre into an infinity loop offers continual interaction, establishes a stimulating environment, and reaffirms those affected by YOD as relevant and active members of the community. The thesis engages with the discourse on projective practice to regain memory, autonomy, and activity for those affected by YOD, providing a reinvigorating architecture while simultaneously promoting a more socially responsive approach to design.</p>

Reinvigorating Life: An Architecture for Younger Onset Dementia

<p>Most people are familiar with dementia, but few realise that it is not just an old persons’ disease. Younger onset dementia (YOD) is defined as the onset of dementia before age 65, some afflicted are as young as 30. People with YOD often have children at home, were recently employed, are physically fit and have active social lives. There are currently no facilities in New Zealand for people with YOD, resulting in their institutionalisation in aged-care facilities withdrawn from the local community and environment. The loss of physical and social stimulation often results in confusion, high anxiety and a faster progression of symptoms. Seeking to develop a specialised YOD facility, this thesis examines; existing literature across multiple disciplines, examples of successful YOD facilities internationally, and proposes both a participatory and iterative design method to establish how architecture can reinvigorate the lives of those affected by YOD and instigate a more socially responsive approach to design. This extends to the wider group of ‘lives’ including the care workers, the community and ultimately NZ. The need to provide architecture for memory, autonomy, and therapy was developed from the literature establishing key objectives for the design. In response to the lack of community interaction which occurs with existing dementia facilities, the thesis explores the possibilities inherent in Tschumi’s method of disprogramming. A garden centre is introduced to both contribute to and benefit from the YOD facility. The merging of YOD facility and garden centre into an infinity loop offers continual interaction, establishes a stimulating environment, and reaffirms those affected by YOD as relevant and active members of the community. The thesis engages with the discourse on projective practice to regain memory, autonomy, and activity for those affected by YOD, providing a reinvigorating architecture while simultaneously promoting a more socially responsive approach to design.</p>

Nearby Pockets for Promoting Students' Social Interaction on Malaysian Campus Ground

Recently, nearby pockets on campus ground have become an important tool to improve academic outcomes by enhancing students’ social-learning activities. However, nearby open spaces and pocket parks of Malaysian universities lack the promotion of social interaction and informal activities that affect the academic experience, especially in the outdoor spaces. Therefore, there is a need to enhance students' social interaction on campus ground in Malaysian universities. This study aims to understand the preferred attributes of nearby pocket parks in Malaysian universities to predict students’ social interaction. This study employed a visual preference survey (VPS) conducted in three Malaysian universities, including Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), to assess the visual preferences of 415 students toward six pocket parks photographs. Multiple regression analysis was used to predict the relationship between students' social interaction and preferred pocket parks. The results indicate that students preferred pockets that provide variety in softscape and activities as well as offer proper hardscape and shade to enhance their social interaction. The results also show that students from different ethnicities, education status and universities have different social interaction levels on Malaysian campus grounds. The current study contributes to integrating nearby pocket parks in outdoor social interaction to improve campus urban design and academic experience. Hence, the study's findings are of great importance for policymakers, architects, landscape architects, urban planners, and researchers in the field in creating sustainable-socially responsive campuses.

Getting the Story Right: Reflecting on an Indigenous Rubric to Guide the Interpretation of Mortality Data

The Family Violence Death Review Committee (FVDRC) is one of five Mortality Review Committees (MRCs) that sit within the Health Quality & Safety Commission, Aotearoa, New Zealand. A key goal of the work of these committees is the reduction of the unequal burden of disparities shouldered by Māori (Indigenous peoples). Guidance to the committees on interpreting and reporting Māori mortality comes from Te Pou (the pillar/post), a Māori responsiveness rubric published in 2019 by Ngā Pou Arawhenua (the caucus of Māori MRC members). This guidance was called upon by the FVDRC in the preparation of its sixth report, “Men who use violence,” published in 2020. In this article, the FVDRC reflects on how it strove to uphold responsibilities toward Te Titiriti o Waitangi 1 in its sixth report to get the story right ( Tika—to be correct or true), be culturally and socially responsive ( Manaakitanga—hospitability, kindness, support), advance equity, self-determination and social justice ( Mana—prestige, authority, spiritual power), and establish relationship for positive change ( Mahi Tahi—working together). Opportunities for improved responsiveness in FVDRC reporting are identified, alongside suggestions for extending the guidance in Te Pou. Reflective practice on responsiveness to Māori/Indigenous peoples is recommended more generally for MRCs.