Media Ecologies

In this chapter, we frame the media ecologies that contextualize the youth practices we describe in later chapters. By drawing from case studies that are delimited by locality, institutions, networked sites, and interest groups (see appendices), we have been able to map the contours of the varied social, technical, and cultural contexts that structure youth media engagement. This chapter introduces three genres of participation with new media that have emerged as overarching descriptive frameworks for understanding how youth new media practices are defi ned in relation and in opposition to one another. The genres of participation—hanging out, messing around, and geeking out—refl ect and are intertwined with young people’s practices, learning, and identity formation within these varied and dynamic media ecologies

An Examination of the Self-Efficacy Theory Effect on the Recruitment and Training of the 21st Century Worker

The 21st century American worker faces challenges unprecedented in his or her lifetime. The newly expanded global marketplace creates opportunities for employers to produce and sell products and services to more individuals and countries than ever before. However, the pressure of the new global economy places the burden on American employers to transform processes to be highly efficient and productive to remain competitive. Many American employers actively seek to recruit and train skilled employees worldwide who can meet their corporate need for profitability. The American job seeker faces shifting local labor market industries, changing job titles and job descriptions, and the loss of job opportunities in many industries once seen as the backbone of the American workforce. In essence, the American worker faces the risk of being left behind and left out of the possible achievement of the American dream. The challenge of finding effective methods for increasing the skill set of the American workforce looms large and difficult. Many influences will shape the future of the American job seeker as they consider career track options. These influences include their own level of knowledge about job market opportunities and the skills required to perform these jobs; their own level of motivation to seek out training and education needed to meet the demands of the new industries; and ultimately their own level of confidence, or “self-efficacy” in their perceived abilities to succeed in high growth job industry occupations critical to the future health of the American economy and its’ citizens

Living and Learning With New Media: Summary of Findings From the Digital Youth Project

Summarizes findings from a three-year study of how new media have been integrated into youth behaviors and have changed the dynamics of media literacy, learning, and authoritative knowledge. Outlines implications for educators, parents, and policy makers

Strategies for Successful Grant Seeking

The Strategies for Successful Grant Seeking workshop will provide participants with an engaging understanding of how and where to find federal, state, and foundation grant opportunities; design projects for grant seeking; and write competitive grant proposals to increase the chance of funding your project and achieving your grant goals and objectives

Motivated Offense: The Role of Group Membership and Status Competition on Attributions of Offense and the Desire for Punitive Action

Norms of political correctness dictate that people should avoid making "offensive" comments (particularly about marginalized groups), and that some offenders ought to be punished. While there is research on judgments of offense, it involves comparing sensitivity to criticisms delivered by ingroup versus outgroup members. Researchers have not yet addressed why individual differences in offense judgments exist, and little attention has been directed at offense judgments that are generated by political correctness concerns. What is more, there is little research on the relationship between offense and the desire to punish offenders. In an experiment testing the influence of the group membership and status of a speaker, this thesis found that women were more offended and more in favor of punishing the speaker than men, and both men and women were more offended when the comment came from a man. Additionally, individual differences that predict offense and endorsement of punishment were identified. Specifically, the more individuals valued status, the more likely they were to desire punitive action against a high status speaker. Finally, latent class analysis revealed a class of people who endorsed punitive action but were not offended, suggesting that for some, punishing political incorrectness stems from opportunity rather than offense. The findings indicate that taking offense and punishing perceived offenders is motivated by more than just objective rules of acceptable speech

Reading ads, reading the world

This paper challenges the reductive notion of children as ‘efferent' readers who learn to decode written language in order to ‘take away’ knowledge. This anachronistic idea has become entrenched in current UK curriculum and education policy. However, it is well established that decoding letters and sounds is only one aspect of reading, that reading is cultural and that learning to read, not only words but also images and sounds, develops children's comprehension and criticality. With this in mind, I seek to share a process through which children and young people were able to develop as readers with a particular focus on the reading of media texts. I present an account of media education activity which focused on the way children read media texts, in the classroom. I suggest that with appropriate pedagogic and conceptual tools children develop as critical, cultural and collaborative readers of words, images, sounds and texts and thereby of the world

Gender Differences in the Vocational Interests of Youth Considering High Job Growth and Green Energy Occupations

For more than 100 years, vocational psychologists and educational researchers have sought to identify the significant influences shaping occupational interests. This descriptive study used a series of vocational card sort exercises with 139 rural high school youth to identify gender differences in occupational interests toward working in 60 of the nation\u27s fastest growing occupations, including new and emerging 21st century green energy roles. Through a classroom-based exercise, youth sorted cards from four decks into piles (1 - 5) at their desk. Sorting the card into pile (1) expressed Strong Dislike; pile (2) Dislike, pile (3) No Interest, pile (4) Some Interest, or pile (5) Strong Interest toward the occupational information depicted on each card. Four decks of 60 cards were used to measure youth expressed interest toward performing the occupational tasks (A), holding the occupational titles (B), working in the type of workplace environments (C), and using the type of tools and technology (D) used by workers in each occupation. A Total Occupational Interest Score reflected the summation of four scores from deck (A+B+C+D) by each youth toward each occupation. Significant differences in occupational interests were found. Female youth expressed strongest interest toward health care, and lowest interest toward green energy roles. Male youth were most interested in construction, transportation, advanced manufacturing, and homeland security. Both groups most preferred working in traditional roles for each gender to perform in the workplace

Reading and re-reading Shrek

This article presents the findings of a small-scale research project which aimed to enable young people to reflect on their childhood responses to the popular films, ‘Shrek’ and ‘Shrek 2’. During the project the participants develop new readings of the films in the light of their own recent experiences both of life and of other texts. The research draws on reader response theories to describe the complex readings of the films made by two young women from Rotherham. These readings include an engagement with an element of the films’ narrative structure, the relationship dilemma between the main characters. There was also clearly recollection of enjoyment of the animation style, the humour and the fairytale intertextuality of the film. However, the strongest response was based on more recent experiences and involved considerable empathy with the characters. This has important implications for both educational research and classroom practice. This paper argues for an increased recognition of the significance of children and young people’s engagements with popular children’s films as integral to their development as readers and creators of narrative texts

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy