Early Childhood Play With Reclaimed Resources: Potential Benefits for Young Children

Sustainable play practices offer many benefits to young children, developmental and cultural, and these are examined in an English context. The authors claim a shared European heritage for children's play practices; one that has been eroded with the commodification of play materials, the manufacture of commercial toys and games accessible only to the wealthy child. After demonstrating the value of education for sustainable development, the chapter considers how reclaimed resources can be used to promote this end. It discusses a small-scale research project that visited four English early years settings to see whether and how the staff followed sustainable principles. It was found that the approaches of the four settings varied considerably, using resources that spanned the spectrum from commercial to natural, and concluded that more should/could be done to encourage play with reclaimed materials to set children on the path to greater environmental awareness and intercultural harmony

The Representation of Public Relations Profession and Public Relations Practitioners in the Context of Entertainment Culture in Turkish TV Series

The purpose of this chapter is to explore how the public relations profession and public relations practicioners are depicted in Turkish television series between the years 2000-2010, which are the most preffered entertainment sources of the public on TV. A study is conducted using qualitative content analysis of the two Turkish TV series that had the highest ratings. It analyses the public relations practitioners' characters and occupational roles to look for positive or negative portrayals in order to understand whether these portrayals are shedding a positive or negative light upon the profession of public relations. The results of the study shows that in both of the TV series public the relations profession and public relations characters are portrayed positively in general and from a professional perspective in both of the TV series. © 2014 by IGI Global. All rights reserved