Disciplinary Settings Research Articles

Discipline removal of students with disabilities in Texas: Patterns and trends across 15 years

In Texas public schools, discipline practices are governed by state and federal laws. These laws are intended to provide protections for students with disabilities to ensure that disciplinary actions take into consideration the nature and the impact of the disability. Although these laws and practices are in place, there is concern that students with disabilities continue to be overrepresented in alternative disciplinary settings. This study explores the extent to which students with disabilities have been effected by these laws and practices over a 15-year period. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to explore trends and patterns of disciplinary practices in Texas schools from 2007 to 2022. This study was interested in the extent to which students are removed from schools for disciplinary reasons, the types of disciplinary placements, and the degree to which discretionary and mandatory removals and used. Results indicate that there has been a steady decreasing trend in discipline removals for both students with and without disabilities. Simultaneously, there has been an increase in completion rates and a decrease in dropout rates. Despite these trends, students with disabilities continue to be overrepresented in alternative setting removals. Further, most of the discipline removals are for reasons that are at the discretion of the school, as opposed to disciplinary removals mandated by the state. Reasons for these discrepancies are discussed as are recommendations for improving these results.

ChatGPT: towards AI subjectivity

AbstractMotivated by the question of responsible AI and value alignment, I seek to offer a uniquely Foucauldian reconstruction of the problem as the emergence of an ethical subject in a disciplinary setting. This reconstruction contrasts with the strictly human-oriented programme typical to current scholarship that often views technology in instrumental terms. With this in mind, I problematise the concept of a technological subjectivity through an exploration of various aspects of ChatGPT in light of Foucault’s work, arguing that current systems lack the reflexivity and self-formative characteristics inherent in the notion of the subject. By drawing upon a recent dialogue between Foucault and phenomenology, I suggest four techno-philosophical desiderata that would address the gaps in this search for a technological subjectivity: embodied self-care, embodied intentionality, imagination and reflexivity. Thus I propose that advanced AI be reconceptualised as a subject capable of “technical” self-crafting and reflexive self-conduct, opening new pathways to grasp the intertwinement of the human and the artificial. This reconceptualisation holds the potential to render future AI technology more transparent and responsible in the circulation of knowledge, care and power.

Sense of place: How should we think about urban planning practices today?

Considering the recent socio-technological, psychosocial, political, and economic developments, will the urban planning practices (in the systemic sense of its exercise) be able to adapt to a growing, changing urban culture? Noting the diverse variety of contemporary spatial practices in which methods, concepts, and discourses tend to be sealed off from one another, this reflection calls for a reevaluation of the plurality dimensions and layers in the construction of the urban reality, questioning in this process, the predictable hegemony regarding the supremacy of Architecture in shaping modern and current urban imagery. This essay seeks to foster a reflection on new contemporary paradigms of Western urban life, tracing a retrospective view that allows us to look systemically at what we have built. In this process, the aim is to stimulate a future collision path, a conceptual and operational dialogue between the creative disciplines of Architecture and Contemporary Art on the current urbanization courses, proposing this possible relationship as an inseparable disciplinary set in the process of producing public space and urban territory. Putting forth the hypothesis of reassessing the established models of contemporary urban planning, the goal is to explore the possible operationality of the bauhausian canon in its historical disciplinary triad (architecture/art/design) while, in a process of symbiotic interaction, considering them as complementary tools in urban design concept, promoting a pluralistic and expanded dialogue between the processes of designing, requalifying, and resignifying the future places.

Afrofuturistic Translanguaging: Pathways to Students' Wellbeing in Disciplines

This study highlights the drawbacks of monolingual instruction in university disciplines and its adverse effects on students’ knowledge acquisition, mental, emotional, and academic well-being. Incorporating Afrofuturism, the research introduces translanguaging as an innovative component to explore the advantages of employing multilingual strategies. The goal is to mitigate limitations posed by monolingual approaches and actively contribute to safeguarding students’ comprehensive well-being in the academic context. Incorporating Afrofuturist principles, this study utilizes textual analysis with the researcher as a research instrument. It analyses how multilingual teaching not only addresses limitations associated with monolingual instruction but also positively impacts African students’ well-being. Innovative studies on translanguaging practices are highlighted, offering multilayered insights into the dynamic interplay of languages and knowledge in disciplines. The research offers an innovative approach by integrating Afrofuturist translanguaging strategies, providing valuable insights for enhancing student well-being across university disciplines. Identifying the limitations of monolingual instruction on disciplinary expertise, the study underscores its detrimental impact on African scholars’ mental, emotional, and academic well-being. By introducing Afrofuturist-aligned translanguaging practices, the research illuminates innovative strategies that surpass these limitations, demonstrating the advantages of embracing multilingualism in disciplinary settings. This Afrofuturist-inspired approach promotes a more inclusive understanding of linguistic diversity, nurturing belonging and resilience among students. Recognizing the detrimental effects of monolingual instruction on holistic growth in Africa’s universities, this study champions a transformative transition towards multilingualism.

Comparative Study of School Discipline and Environment Regarding Student Personality : A Case Study of Governments Schools in Punjab, Pakistan

This study explores the intricate interactions that exist between learning parameters, student personality development, and school discipline in government schools located across the Punjab, Pakistan. With a case study approach, the research uses a mixedmethods technique to investigate in detail the formal and informal components of disciplinary actions as well as the educational environments that shape students personalities. In an effort to clarify the nuances of disciplinary strategies, the study examines both official disciplinary regulations and routines in government schools. It also explores the many aspects of the educational setting, such as extracurricular engagement, teacher-student relationships and interactions in the classroom. Through the use of psychological frameworks, the study seeks to evaluate the impact of various instructional strategies and disciplinary settings on student’s personalities, including resilience, self-worth and social skills. It is anticipated that the results of this comparison study would provide important new perspectives on the situation of classroom management and learning environments in Punjab government schools at the moment. Moreover, the study provides actionable suggestions to improve the effectiveness of disciplinary tactics and encourage supportive learning environments that support the development of students' whole personalities. This study has consequences that go beyond the local environment, giving rise to evidence-based practices and policies in education that may be implemented in a variety of contexts. The results of this study are intended to provide complex understandings that are relevant not just to Punjab but also to guide educational policies and practices in many international contexts.

A Pragmatic Approach to Preparing Novice Doctoral Qualitative Researchers

Fifty percent of social science and education doctoral students in the United States fail to complete their programs. Within this context, studies addressing research methods pedagogy and qualitative methods in particular, continue to be limited. This mixed-methods case study addresses these issues by: 1) using the Ready Develop Integrate Perform (RDIP) model to frame the competency-based design and implementation of an introductory doctoral qualitative core course and its supporting learning management system; and, 2) examining effectiveness using a framework of direct and indirect assessment evidence from online and face-to-face learners. The current design scaffolds students through qualitative research methodology and methods learning and culminates with the implementation of an individually-chosen authentic research project. A sample of online and face-to-face students, representing 37% of eligible participants (n=23), reported a stronger sense of readiness for independent research and dissertation work. In addition to expanding the qualitative methods pedagogical literature and supporting the improvement of doctoral research education, this paper a competency-based design that may be implemented in any disciplinary setting. The detailed blueprint and implementation advice for university teachers makes this work relevant to a broad multidisciplinary and international audience.

Mixed Messages

Efforts to promote disciplinary literacy can help students integrate knowledge with ways of doing and being within disciplinary settings. Yet, effectively facilitating disciplinary literacy, even within an upper-level undergraduate physics course like the one studied here, is surprisingly hard. This article qualitatively analyzes an instructor’s responses to student lab reports and finds that his comments to students focused on issues of correctness, often at the expense of larger rhetorical concerns of the text. Analysis also suggests that the instructor was thinking about many rhetorical aspects beyond surface-level errors as he read. Together, these findings suggest that efforts to promote disciplinary literacy, especially related to writing instruction, benefit from recognizing the layered contexts of activity in which writing and responding to lab reports take place. These findings hold value for secondary and post-secondary literacy instruction; in broad terms, this study may serve as a cautionary tale by illuminating the overlapping and competing value systems involved in disciplinary literacy efforts

EFFECTIVE DESIGN FOR TRUST BY CENTERING DISABLED USER EXPERIENCE

While conducting multidisciplinary research, spanning engineering, social sciences, and humanities, on Internet of Things device (henceforth, IoT) adoption and use within disability communities, the authors noticed differences in the conceptualization and operationalization of “trust” across practical and disciplinary settings in the context of data privacy and IoT devices. We seek to present a conceptualization of trust which we believe, when pursued earnestly by designers, will be most broadly and universally effective in generating trust among users. In this presentation, following a review of conceptualizations and operationalizations of trust in a data privacy context, we will present a critique and reformulation of “trust” that centers marginalized perspectives, focusing most of all on disabled experience but also seeking to decenter privileged perspectives and keep experiences of BIPOC, LGBTQ+ persons, and women closely in view. Since power is most visible at the margins, centering marginalized perspectives is most likely to find the outlines and structures of power, and design centered on marginalized experiences is likely to be more universal than is a focus on privileged experiences even when supplemented with post hoc and ad hoc accommodations. We conducted this analysis from the frameworks of disability studies, phenomenology and postphenomenology, and feminist ethics of care.

A Transdisciplinary Approach to Reading: In Mathematics, Remedial Reading, and Biblical Exegesis

This paper studies reading comprehension in three distinct disciplinary settings: Mathematics verbal problems, remedial reading, and biblical exegesis. This transdisciplinary approach enriches our understanding of reading, enabling focus on key methods of improving reading. The transdisciplinary approach also affords us new insights into addressing equity issues. The paper's approach is influenced by Meyer's seminal work on textual organizational structure as a key method to achieve reading comprehension. Consistent with this approach, the paper advocates using signal words or keywords, as well as listing and teaching organizational structures as a means to improving literacy in reading, mathematics, and biblical exegesis. The paper recommends that these techniques should be a primary method of approaching math and biblical fluency.

Using podcasts to cultivate learner–teacher rapport in higher education settings

ABSTRACT Developing rapport with learners has presented challenges for Higher Education teaching practitioners since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, who increasingly facilitate learning within synchronous/ asynchronous online environments. Podcasts are of renewed interest as a digital learning resource in this context. We explored, inductively, views of podcasts designed for teaching and learning purposes held by students (n = 11) and by practitioners (n = 5) in two disciplinary settings. Textual feedback on two sample podcasts per student was subjected to content analysis. Findings underscored the value of podcasts as digital learning resources to help nurture teacher–student relations. Podcasts may help establish teacher credibility, may help teachers feel more familiar/approachable to learners and may provide an outlet to communicate in a kind, informal tone to attenuate learning-related anxiety. We draw on findings from our small-scale exploratory study to present practical guidance for developing podcasts designed (in part) to cultivate teacher–student rapport.

Recognizing the Plural Sector: Nonprofit Studies in a Business School Environment

The “best place” debate centers on which disciplinary setting is best for degree programs in nonprofit management education. We contribute to the discussion by reflecting on the constraints and opportunities intentionally identified in a developing program within an established business school. We ground our work in the nonprofit sector’s interdependence with the market and public sectors, and identify opportunities for reciprocity within a business school setting. Finally, we identify cultivating interdisciplinary relationships as a strategy to ameliorate tension between a competitive vs. collaborative “forced choice” approach.

Science students’ post-bachelor’s choice narratives in different disciplinary settings

In this paper, we aim to understand the implications of the structural changes of the Bologna process from a student perspective. We investigate how bachelor’s degree students’ in a post-Bologna era with three-year bachelor’s degree and two-year master’s degree units construct their post-bachelor’s choice narratives in two different science degree programmes (chemistry and natural resources) at a Danish research-intensive university. We pay special attention to how science students’ narrative repertoires and imagined futures interact with and set the scene for their choice narratives in specific disciplinary settings. We draw on theoretical ideas of science identities including ‘narrative repertories’ and ‘imagined futures’, combined with disciplinary cultures and institutional capital. The analysis draws on small-scale rich qualitative material including 12 narrative interviews and focus groups with 44 students, including reflective essays, drawings and word-cloud brainstorms. Results show that the post-bachelor’s trajectory is a choice that students must relate themselves to in their identity negotiations. We document how students within the same faculty are presented with different narrative repertoires to construct and negotiate their choices from and as a result experience different choice processes and negotiations due to the different disciplinary settings they encounter. The implications for higher education institutions are given.

Non-scientific science and non-artistic art: ‘Other’ knowledges in the political practice of Forensic Architecture

How do the disciplinary boundaries of arts education shape art’s political horizons? Sixty-five years on from CP Snow’s controversial lecture The Two Cultures, both his protagonists (on one side the arts and humanities, on the other the sciences, management, finance) have claimed significant epistemological, political and practical ground. The distance that separates them, however, appears greater than ever. Art often stands in opposition to the hegemonic tendencies of positivist forms of knowledge, dismissing them as incompatible with its political goals. Given the formal disciplinary setting of art education, exacerbated in the competitive modern academy, I suggest that such restrictions to art’s epistemological and practical horizons are, in fact, politically counterproductive. I propose that by rejecting an array of knowledges – particularly those based on ideals such as rationalism, evidence and epistemological certainty – as a priori incompatible with artistic practice, artistic education may be doing a considerable disservice to the political and social interventions of art that are shaped by it. To suggest that art could tactically engage with alternative forms of knowledge to expand the political field, I propose artist group Forensic Architecture as an example of a practice that circumvents traditional disciplinary limitations to, in Snow’s parlance, become a bona fide culture characterized by political credibility, albeit at the expense of limiting art’s epistemic influence in the process.

Conjuring criminals

ABSTRACTBy compiling official paperwork, bureaucrats in institutional settings effectively make their clients into the particular “types” of subjects best suited to preestablished institutional interventions. The efficacy of such paperwork stems from bureaucrats’ unspoken—and perhaps unacknowledged—belief in sympathetic magic, or a person's ability to transform another person or object by working on a representation of them (in this case, their institutional case file). The practice of sympathetic magic via official paperwork is particularly pervasive in disciplinary settings, like prisons, where institutional imperatives and cultural biases encourage professionals to substitute documentation for face‐to‐face interactions with their clients. How such magic works in practice becomes evident in an examination of case files belonging to adolescents incarcerated in a Brazilian juvenile prison during the first decade of the 21st century. In this case, each document added to an incarcerated individual's case file contributes to transforming him into an irredeemable criminal. [bureaucracy, magic, documents, documentation, crime, criminalization, prison, Brazil]

Developing digital creativity through authentic assessment

Digital creativity, the use of digital tools and technologies to explore creative ideas and new ways of displaying your ideas, research or work, is emerging as an important competency for graduates across many disciplines. The development of digital creativity competency in domains traditionally perceived as being less creative, including the accounting profession, has yet to be explored. This study reports on the use of an authentic assessment for learning to develop students’ digital creativity in an undergraduate competency-based accounting course. It documents the design and development of the assessment and analyses the students’ digital creative outputs as well as lived experiences. Although many of the outputs were at a lower level of digital creativity, most of the students appear to have experienced the process positively and gained insight into their course material and need for digital creativity in accounting. The design of the authentic assessment can inform the development of similar assessments in other disciplinary settings.

The wheel of fortune as a novel support for constructive alignment and transformative sustainability learning in higher education

Purpose Education for Sustainability in Higher Education (ESHE) sits within and across disciplinary settings that share the need for a framework that provides a basis for pedagogy, assessment and learning outcomes (Kalsoom, 2019). ESHE strives to create transformative learning spaces that help students gain the knowledge and skills they need to understand and contribute to shaping a world based on communities living within the limits of earth’s resources. This paper aims to offer a novel solution to the challenge of teaching students from different disciplines struggling with the complexity of sustainability. Design/methodology/approach The paper explores the development of an interdisciplinary subject designed for undergraduate students from four faculties. It presents a case study of pedagogy that moves away from three pillars/concentric circles approaches towards practices based in systems thinking and interactive transformative learning. It describes the iterative process of developing and implementing an infographic: the “Sustainability Wheel of Fortune” (Wheel), to support constructive alignment of content, assessment tasks and learning outcomes. Findings The Wheel provides a holistic, interconnected and dynamic focus for framing content and teaching. The pedagogy aligns with sustainability competencies, builds in flexibility in response to changing times and student experiences and provides teachers and students with a common framework for interrogating the possibilities for sustainable futures. Originality/value The Wheel is a novel learning tool for contemporary sustainability education. It captures key elements of approaches to and concepts about sustainability, visually reinforces the idea of a holistic interconnected approach and provides a framework that supports the constructive pedagogy of an interdisciplinary sustainability subject.

Naturaleza Muerta. Psicotanatología Forense

Lo tanático aparece a partir de la lectura psicoanalítica como un accionar silencioso, acallando el ruido de unión de Eros. La naturaleza muerta nos muestra un momento de ese equilibrio dinámico: al mismo tiempo que la vida resiste, todo se muere por causas internas (Freud, 1938/1976). La Psicotanatología Forense se propone como un conjunto disciplinar que involucra una serie de dispositivos que permiten aportar desde la psicología elementos necesarios para incorporar a la investigación judicial. Este breve texto se propone un diálogo estético con las bases epistemológicas de la psicotanatología forense, que permite abordar algunos conceptos del campo de la estética y la ciencia para definir el campo de estudio que toma como eje central la investigación de la muerte violenta en el ámbito judicial. La naturaleza muerta expresa en la pintura la frase memento mori, y con ello el detenimiento del instante y la apreciación en todas sus complejas dimensiones. Acontecimiento efímero e infinito, como la muerte.

Rapid Techniques in Qualitative Research: A Critical Review of the Literature.

Qualitative researchers are under increasing time demands to rapidly collect, analyze, and disseminate the results of their findings. Adaptations to qualitative methods may be required to enable the use of timely and relevant qualitative data across multiple disciplinary settings. The aim of this review is to briefly explore the ways in which data collection and analysis methods have been adapted in qualitative research to deal with short study timeframes. We carried out a two-phased systematic review of the literature and determined there were six primary reasons why rapid techniques were used: (a) reduce time, (b) reduce cost, (c) increase the amount of collected data, (d) improve efficiency, (e) improve accuracy, and (f) obtain a closer approximation to the narrated realities of research participants. In addition, we analyzed the characteristics of the articles, how traditional methods were adapted and evaluated, the benefits and limitations of using rapid techniques, and future recommendations.

Women Professors across STEMM and Non-STEMM Disciplines: Navigating Gendered Spaces and Playing the Academic Game

Women remain poorly represented in the highest positions in academia, despite their increasing participation. This article seeks to understand how women who have reached senior occupational positions in Higher Education Institutions have navigated their organisational and disciplinary settings. In the process we explore how experiences compare across male and female-dominated spaces, integrating field theory with Acker’s work on ‘gendered organisations’ to develop the idea of academic disciplines as ‘gendered spaces’. Empirically we draw upon a qualitative study of women professors working across science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) and non-STEMM disciplines in a large research-intensive university in the UK. Utilising Bourdieu’s concept of ‘the game’, we show how they navigate the academic game within the context of differing ‘gendered spaces’; complicit in the game yet recognising it as unfair, and thus (inadvertently) reproducing gendered structures and practices.

Calibrating digital method integration into ESP courses according to disciplinary settings

This study aims to analyse the effects of a digitally enhanced teaching strategy in an ESP course. The intervention method consists of guided corpus linguistics exercises which are progressively introduced to improve the students’ academic writing. We collected data from various task-based corpus processing, consultation and analysis stages, each one having a different complexity level: compilation of a discipline-specific expert corpus, consultation of a native speaker English corpus and analyses of both types. The pre- and post-intervention results are quantitatively and qualitatively assessed, controlling for discipline specificity. The results of a corpus consultation satisfaction survey are also included in the analysis. We conclude that corpus consultations not only lead to the improvement of ESP students’ writing but also increasing student motivation. The recommendation is to first test the digital methods in ESP courses and calibrate them according to disciplinary settings.