Rethinking the possibilities for hegemonic femininity: exploring a Gramscian framework

In this paper I consider and challenge the ways in which hegemonic femininity has mainly been conceptualised in the gender literature. This approach has several limitations, including being strongly binary, positioning girls and women as Other and frequently essentialised. After suggesting some criteria for a more useful conceptualisation, I consider some of the alternatives, which I critique for their dependence on sexuality and sexual desire. I propose an alternative definition of hegemonic gender performances, avoiding binary distinctions, building on Francis et al.'s (2016) suggestion that a more directly Gramscian conceptualisation may be useful. Having outlined this alternative, I examine how it is played out in the specific context of one English primary school classroom

Being 'nice' or being 'normal': girls resisting discourses of 'coolness'

In this paper we consider discourses of friendship and belonging mobilised by girls who are not part of the dominant ‘cool’ group in one English primary school. We explore how, by investing in alternative and, at times, resistant, discourses of ‘being nice’ and ‘being normal’ these ‘non-cool’ girls were able to avoid some of the struggles for dominance and related bullying and exclusion found by ourselves and other researchers to be a feature of ‘cool girls’ groupings. We argue that there are multiple dynamics in girls’ lives in which being ‘cool’ is only sometimes a dominant concern, and that there are some children for whom explicitly positioning themselves outside of the ‘cool’ group is both resistant and protective, providing a counter-discourse to the dominance of ‘coolness’. In this paper, which is based on observational and interview data in one school in the south of England, we focus on two main groupings of intermediate and lower status girls, as well as on one ‘wannabe’ ‘cool girl’. While belonging to a lower status group can bring disadvantages, for the girls we studied there were also benefits

Integration of an online simulated prescription analysis into undergraduate pharmacy teaching using supplemental and replacement models

To describe student use and perceptions of online simulated prescription analysis following integration of supplemental and replacement models into pharmacy practice teaching. Strathclyde Computerized Randomized Interactive Prescription Tutor (SCRIPT) is a simulated prescription analysis tool designed to support a pharmacy practice competency class. In 2008-2009, SCRIPT scenarios were released to coincide with timetabled teaching as the supplemental model. In 2009-2010, SCRIPT also replaced one-sixth of the taught component of the class as the replacement model. Student use and performance were compared, and their perceptions were documented. In both cohorts, the majority of use (over 70%) occurred immediately before assessments. Remote access decreased from 6409 (supplemental) to 3782 (replacement) attempts per 100 students. There was no difference in student performance between the cohorts, Students reported group and individual use and 4 targeted approaches using SCRIPT. E-learning can reduce the staff time in pharmacy practice teaching without affecting student performance. SCRIPT permits flexible learning that suits student preferences

Post enrolment based course timetabling: a description of the problem model used for track two of the second International Timetabling Competition

In this paper we give a detailed description of the problem model used in track-two of the second International Timetabling Competition, 2007-2008 www.cs.qub.ac.uk/itc2007/). This model is an extension of that used in the first timetabling competition, and we discuss the rationales behind these extensions. We also describe in detail the criteria that are used for judging solution quality and discuss other issues that are related to this. Finally we go over some of the strengths and limitations of the model. This paper can be regarded as the official documentation for track-two of the timetabling competition

New perspectives on language and gender: Linguistic prescription and compliance in call centres

Despite a shift to service-based economies, male-dominated, high-status workplaces have been the predominant focus of research into language and gender in the workplace. This study redresses this shortcoming by considering one female-dominated, low-status, highly regimented workplace that is emblematic of the globalized service economy: call centres. Drawing on 187 call centre service interactions, institutional documents, interviews, and observations from call centres in two national contexts, the study employs an innovative combination of quantitative and qualitative discourse-analytic techniques to compare rule compliance of male and female workers. Female agents in both national contexts are found to comply more with the linguistic prescriptions despite managers and agents emphatically denying the relevance of gender. The study offers a new perspective on language and gender, pointing to the need to expand the methodologies and theories currently favoured to understand how language perpetuates occupational segregation in twenty-first-century workplaces

Topological obstructions to fatness

Alan Weinstein showed that certain characteristic numbers of any Riemannian submersion with totally geodesic fibers and positive vertizontal curvatures are nonzero. In this paper we explicitly compute these invariants in terms of Chern and Pontrjagin numbers of the bundle. This allows us to show that many bundles do not admit such metrics.Comment: 32 pages. To appear in Geom. Topo

Vector bundles on the projective line and finite domination of chain complexes

Finitely dominated chain complexes over a Laurent polynomial ring in one indeterminate are characterised by vanishing of their Novikov homology. We present an algebro-geometric approach to this result, based on extension of chain complexes to sheaves on the projective line. We also discuss the K-theoretical obstruction to extension.Comment: v1: 11 page

Neurodiverse Minds and Ethnographic Practice

Earthling and Autisman Once upon a time on a small, green quiet planet. Autisman: So – welcome to my home world. Earthling: Don’t you feel weighed down? It feels as if I’ve got weights strapped to my arms and legs. Autisman: Ah, but on your planet, I always feel as if I’m swimming around in space, weightlessly. Earthling: Okay. Now I understand you. I really understand. (Higashida, 2007:74

An Ethnography on the Experience of Autistic Children and their Families in Scotland

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