Normative Ways Research Articles

Preservice Science Teachers’ Uses of Inscriptions in Science Teaching

This study investigated preservice science teachers’ uses of inscriptions in their peer teaching activities and was guided by the following research questions: (1) What kinds of inscriptions and inscriptional practices do preservice science teachers use in their peer teaching activity? and (2) How and for what purposes do preservice science teachers use inscriptions and inscriptional practices in their peer teaching activity? This study followed a multi-participant case study approach. Video recordings of seven preservice teachers’ lessons were analyzed for inscriptional use. Results indicate that preservice teachers used inscriptions in both pedagogical and normative ways, and the level of abstractness of inscriptions used varied across different science sub-disciplines. Our findings demonstrated that preservice teachers have multiple purposes when using inscriptions and that their purposes differ from scientists’ purposes. Preservice teachers used inscriptions: to convey final form scientific knowledge; to engage students in scientific practice; to make thinking visible; to connect multiple ideas using multiple inscriptions; and to provide data or example from nature. In addition to these purposes, preservice teachers also used inscriptions as formative assessment, to engage students in the lesson and to review at the end of a lesson. We conclude that science topics and the different purposes of the sequences of activities could be responsible for the variety of uses of inscriptions across lessons. In addition, the different uses of inscriptions may impact students’ understandings of scientists’ inscriptional practices. Implications for science teacher educators incorporating inscriptional practices in science teaching methods courses are discussed.

“I can't remember them ever not doing whatI tell them!”: Negotiating face and power relations in ‘upward’ refusals in multicultural workplaces in Hong Kong

Abstract This paper explores how refusals are constructed and negotiated in multicultural workplaces in Hong Kong. A particular focus is on the ways in which Hong Kong Chinese subordinates negotiate issues of face and power relations when refusing their expatriate superiors. Despite abundant research on refusals in a variety of contexts across cultures, there are very few studies of multicultural workplaces. This is particularly surprising considering that refusals have been described as a frequent “ ‘sticking point’ in cross-cultural communication” (Beebe et al. 1990). This paper addresses this gap by drawing on more than 80 hours of authentic audio- and video-recorded spoken workplace discourse and a corpus of emails collected in multicultural workplaces in Hong Kong. Findings of this exploratory study indicate that refusals are complex communicative activities that are carefully negotiated among participants. We argue that in contrast to earlier studies, participants' socio-cultural backgrounds do not appear to be the main determining factor of how issues of face and power relations are negotiated in upward refusals. Rather, a range of other factors, including media of communication, normative ways of interacting in a workplace, the relationship between interlocutors, as well as the content of the refusal, are more relevant for explaining participants’ communicative behavior.

“They're all just little bits, aren't they”: South Australian lesbian mothers' experiences of marginalisation in primary schools

Multiple formations of family have always been a part of Australia's social and historical landscape, yet social norms typically function to marginalise some family forms while according others a privileged status. Marginalisation on the basis of sexuality, for example, whilst arguably somewhat less prevalent than in previous decades, nonetheless continues for those families positioned outside the heteronorm. Institutions such as schools can play an important role in transforming marginalising practices, yet research such as that presented in this article suggests that schools often also perpetuate marginalisation, even if unintentionally. Drawing on interviews conducted with twenty-three lesbian mothers, this article highlights the often subtle ways in which such mothers with children in South Australian primary schools experience marginalisation by educators. Specifically, we argue that marginalisation occurs in the form of injunctions made upon lesbian mothers to inform educators about their families (and to do so in often highly normative ways), to accept that it is their role to manage discrimination, and to treat as routine the marginalisation of their families. Such findings indicate that changes still remain necessary within Australian educational practices in order to ensure the full inclusion of lesbian mother families on terms of their own making.

Biomedicine, psychology and the kindergarten: children at risk and emerging knowledge practices

This study moves in the space between two fields: science and technology studies (STS) and childhood studies; it thus belongs to the broader STS literature that investigates everyday practices outside the laboratory. The interpretation of ethnographic and bibliographic data on contemporary cardiovascular and obesity prevention in German kindergartens makes evident that when knowledge travels from biomedical laboratories to the preschool, then psychology comes into play! Bodies of knowledge such as behavioural or cognitive theories shape prevention and intervention practices, which could be seen as originally resulting from biomedical findings and trends. Accompanying this development is a change in the primary sciences that deal with childhood: these are no longer pedagogy or developmental and educational psychology (at least in their traditional forms), but ‘developmental science’. All this shapes contemporary childhood in quite normative ways. It thus remains an open question what non- or less normative institutional practices and bodies of knowledge could look like.

Heritage studies and the privileging of theory

Heritage studies is yet to have a debate about its theorisation at the global level. Many of the core ideas that shape the field are rooted in the contexts of Europe and the USA and geographically rolled out in normative ways. This paper argues it is important we embark on pluralising how heritage is studied and theoretically framed, in ways that better address the heterogeneous nature of heritage, for both the West and the non-West. The themes of modernity, cities and international cultural policy provide evidence of why we need to better position the academic study of heritage in relation to the rapid geo-political and geo-cultural shifts now taking place.

From Classroom to Consulting Room: Engaging United Kingdom Doctors with Medical Anthropology

Beginning with cultural competency— used here in its simple sense to refer to any training health care professionals receive that is designed to enhance their understanding of the complex interplay between health seekers' values, beliefs, cultural practices, and everyday experiences of a non-biomedical nature (Wear 2003)—this paper argues that biomedical training systematically sets aside potentially contradictory knowledge about patients' and medical professionals' fundamental experiences of health. This education strategy intends to insulate established norms of practice from radical change and to discourage physicians in training from becoming aware that they could choose any number of normative ways to practice medicine.

CIRCUMSTANCES AND EFFORTS: HOW IMPORTANT IS THEIR CORRELATION FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF INEQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IN HEALTH?

The way to treat the correlation between circumstances and effort is a central, yet largely neglected issue in the applied literature on inequality of opportunity. This paper adopts three alternative normative ways of treating this correlation championed by Roemer, Barry and Swift and assesses their empirical relevance using survey data. We combine regression analysis with the natural decomposition of the variance to compare the relative contributions of circumstances and efforts to overall health inequality according to the different normative principles. Our results suggest that, in practice, the normative principle on the way to treat the correlation between circumstances and effort makes little difference on the relative contributions of circumstances and efforts to explained health inequality.

Reconceptualising elite athlete programmes: ‘undoing’ the politics of labelling in health and physical education

High-performance sport is a big business, with nations such as Australia and New Zealand dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of facilities and in creating sporting centres of excellence. Historically, high-performance sport and elite athlete programmes (EAPs) were regulated to an extra-curricular space in schools or local communities, but over the last couple of decades, schools in Australia and New Zealand have introduced EAPs into health and physical education (PE). Recent work has begun to explore the rationale for these programmes and their educational priorities, but little research has explored how the elite athlete body is being constructed within this curriculum space. In this paper, I consider two interrelated problems. The first concerns the conflicting discourses of winning in high-performance sport versus getting everyone healthy and active in health and PE. The second involves an explanation of how the elite athlete body is being constructed in these programmes. I argue the juxtaposition of the elite athlete body as disciplined, attractive and healthy to other bodies as lazy, unattractive and unhealthy renders the other bodies as pathological or resistant to disciplinary institutions of the school. In particular, I focus on the ways in which young people's bodies are conceptualised within EAPs in relation to recreation, health, PE and other curriculum spaces. Throughout this paper, I provide examples to illustrate how EAPs may perpetuate normative ways of thinking that legitimatise elitism in schools. I propose that under radical reform, EAPs may have the potential to provide educational value and opportunities to students. I conclude by offering the cultural studies curriculum model that retains sport and desirable educational outcomes for health and PE as an alternative to elite athlete or talent development models.

Conflict cultures in organizations: How leaders shape conflict cultures and their organizational-level consequences.

Anecdotal evidence abounds that organizations have distinct conflict cultures, or socially shared norms for how conflict should be managed. However, research to date has largely focused on conflict management styles at the individual and small group level, and has yet to examine whether organizations create socially shared and normative ways to manage conflict. In a sample of leaders and members from 92 branches of a large bank, factor analysis and aggregation analyses show that 3 conflict cultures-collaborative, dominating, and avoidant-operate at the unit level of analysis. Building on Lewin, Lippitt, and White's (1939) classic work, we find that leaders' own conflict management behaviors are associated with distinct unit conflict cultures. The results also demonstrate that conflict cultures have implications for macro branch-level outcomes, including branch viability (i.e., cohesion, potency, and burnout) and branch performance (i.e., creativity and customer service). A conflict culture perspective moves beyond the individual level and provides new insight into the dynamics of conflict management in organizational contexts.

Gender Inequality in the New Millennium: An Analysis of WNBA Representations in Sport Blogs

While there is very little scholarship that has examined sport blog accounts of women's sport like that of the WNBA, there is a wealth of scholarship that has explored the ways in which women's sport is most frequently represented in traditional media outlets such as television, newspapers, and magazines. Scholarship on traditional media, gender, and sport reveals that female athletes such as those in the WNBA are often covered in normative ways, that is, ways that highlight a particular form of femininity, motherhood, and sexuality while downplaying female athleticism (Banet-Weiser, 1999). Yet little is known about whether or not these representational strategies persist within the interactive world of new media blogs where fans have the opportunity to post their own interpretations of events in discussion board posts. This analysis begins to fill that gap by examining WNBA accounts to see if traditional media themes related to gender and sport are represented within two sport news blogs with differing editorial foci: Deadspin and Women Talk Sports . Our analysis suggests that dominant ideologies and representational patterns most frequently produced in traditional media accounts are often reproduced in Deadspin while Women Talk Sports offers a unique opportunity for more critical engagement with these ideologies.

Rethinking Sexual Difference and Kinship in Juliet Mitchell’s Psychoanalysis and Feminism

Returning to Juliet Mitchell’s own rereading of her account of sexual difference, this article takes up the question of how structures of kinship—along with the laws of sexual difference that constitute them—are transmitted. According to Mitchell, the construction of sexual difference is characterized by a certain degree of conservatism in that, despite efforts to effect social change, certain normative ways of organizing sexuality manage to persist and to be conveyed across generations. She stresses that this transmission, if it is in fact one, is not necessarily a conscious operation. As such, it is difficult to locate within a precise topography and may require us to rethink the conditions of address and reception at work in the notions of “acquisition” or “transmission.” This essay analyzes two of the examples that Mitchell offers for understanding the historical acquisition of unconscious ideas related to sexual difference, namely, the case of transgenerational guilt and that of the child who emerges into heterosexuality despite being raised by two parents of the same sex. Acknowledging Mitchell’s suggestion that sexual difference is marked by recalcitrance, but refusing the way in which she binds sexual difference to the semantic opposition between masculine and feminine, this essay offers an understanding of kinship that, first, recognizes the inadequacy of mimetic accounts of sexuality that treat parents as “models” for the formation of sexual desire and, second, argues that “invariant” laws of sexual difference, which are not merely reproduced from one generation to the next, do not persist without alteration. The trajectory of psychic contents is not unwavering, and what is relayed into the present is only communicated with translations, transpositions, and deviations that leave what is passed on changed and never fully predictable.

Humor in the workplace: A regulating and coping mechanism in socialization

Professionals transitioning into a workplace face the challenge of socializing into their new working communities. One important factor in this process is humor (Plester and Sayers, 2007). We present a case study of how a newcomer transitioning towards integral status interacts with the use of humor in her new workplace. Using the Communities of Practice framework (Wenger, 1998), we examine workplace discourse collected from a new recruit, Emma, and her colleagues in a Hong Kong firm. The analysis portrays a picture of how humor is a critical element as Emma negotiates relationships with other colleagues and works towards her assigned tasks. Findings suggest that humor can be an indicator to newcomers of appropriate or inappropriate behavior. Humor can be used for newcomers’ integration into the workplace; humor can be used by integral members to mold newcomers into the normative ways of doing things. We argue that humor may be used as a regulating and coping mechanism in workplace socialization.

Placing guilt and shame: lone mothers' experiences of higher education in Aotearoa New Zealand

This study examines twelve lone mothers' experiences of higher education at two universities in New Zealand. Interviews illustrated that lone mothers are often constructed by society as people who deserve to feel guilt for burdening taxpayers and for raising children without a live-in father. This guilt is visceral. It is felt in and lived through bodies on a daily basis. For most of the interviewees, however, succeeding at university also prompted feelings of pride. Drawing on Elspeth Probyn's ideas about guilt, shame and pride enabled us to understand more about lone mothers' experiences of higher education. We remain less certain about guilt's affective capacity for politics in our particular case. For some mothers feeling guilt lead to a questioning of normative constructions of motherhood but for others this was not the case. It would seem, therefore, that guilt's transformative potential can be mobilized in both emancipatory and more normative ways. We also found that lone mothers engaged in higher learning occupy paradoxical space. Some become empowered to see their lives and relationships differently, from the margins and from the centre, through guilt and pride.

“I’m Glad I was Designed”: Un/Doing Gender and Class in Susan Price’s “Odin Trilogy”

Susan Price’s “Odin Trilogy” (2005–2008) is a juvenile science fiction series that depicts a future where class relations have become polarised due to late capitalist and technological developments and where ways of doing gender continue to be strongly connected with class. The society in the novels is based on slavery: people are either Freewomen/Freemen or bonders. Here wealth and genetic engineering regulate normative ways of doing gender and class and define borders between humanity and inhumanity. By drawing on recent feminist theory and queer theorisations of Butler (2004) and Halberstam (2005), I will examine gender and class as both material and performative aspects of identity that are “un/done” in relation to heteronormative life trajectories. I focus on the two female protagonists and their classic role reversal: one escapes slavery while the other is forced to become a bonder. The classic scenario becomes more complicated when the girls escape together to Mars and start a new life there as a queer couple. The girls’ “queer life trajectories” (Halberstam) challenge normative ways of doing gender and class and open up possibilities for reading Price’s trilogy as a critique of neoliberalist and postfeminist discourses of gender, class, identity and choice.

A deeper look at how teachers say what they say: A quantitative modality analysis of teacher-to-teacher talk

Analysis of teacher-to-teacher talk provides researchers with useful information regarding the teaching profession and teachers’ perspectives. This article provides a description of a method, with accompanying example, examining teacher-to-teacher talk by incorporating semantic modality and examining trends of its usage in a quantitative manner. Analysis of the example presented showed a tendency for teachers to use normative and probability modality, signaling a prevalence of assertions concerned with normative ways of teaching. The example analysis provides a replicable framework for other researchers to apply and adapt the analysis method described. Specifications and discussion of this method are provided in detail.

Instant Messaging and Microblogging: Situated-Learning Platforms for Educationists and Workplace Mentors

We explore how newcomers learn to socialize into the workplace through instant messaging and microblogging. Findings demonstrate that instant messaging can be one mechanism of learning the normative ways of 1) making calls and 2) shifting discussions between the online and offline, while microblogging can be another mechanism of learning the culture of 1) bantering humor and 2) social talk ignoring the physical official hierarchy. We conclude that it is the features of instant messaging and microblogging which characterize newcomers’ use in workplace learning, arguing that the instant messengers and microblogs can function as “situated-learning platforms” on the Internet in which people can learn and practice the normative ways of doing things simultaneously. We suggest that instant messaging and microblogging could be considered as “subjects to be learnt” for teachers and workplace mentors, rather than merely “tools for learning” for workplace newcomers.

Binds and bounds of communion: Effects of interpersonal values on assumed similarity of self and others.

Assumed similarity refers to ascribing similar attributes to the self and others. Because self-other similarity facilitates communion, people who value communion should be prone to assume self-other similarity; but because self-other similarity also evokes obligation, they may be prone to assume similarity only with others with whom they are or would feel comfortable being interconnected. We tested these hypotheses in 5 studies (total N = 1,709). In Study 1, students indicated their political preferences and estimated other students' preferences. In Studies 2-5, students described their personality and the personalities of the following targets: actual or imagined romantic partners in Study 2; ingroup members (students from the respondents' university) and outgroup members (students from a foreign university) in Studies 3-4; and specific liked and disliked others in Study 5. As hypothesized, people with stronger communal values were more likely to assume self-other similarity with liked others, romantic partners, and ingroup members, but not with disliked others and outgroup members. These effects replicated across different cultures (India, Korea, and the United States) and remained significant when controlling for self-esteem, national identification, and attribute desirability. Although people who valued communion tended to depict themselves and liked and ingroup others in relatively normative (typical) ways, which partially explained assumptions of similarity and indicated that those assumptions were to some extent accurate, communal values continued to predict distinctive self-other similarity or "false consensus" even after controlling for the normative prevalence of attributes.

Qatari Women and Physical Activity: Highlighting Positive Examples of Regular Participation

Abstract Background: Research reports a dramatic increase in the rate of overweight and/ or obese Qatari nationals. Limited research has been completed on the female subset population; however, it appears that the majority of Qatari women are insufficiently physically active for health benefits. Reasons for high inactivity levels among Qatari women are typically attributed to conservative social norms that are prevalent within the GCC region. To date no research has considered ways in which Qatari women are able to negotiate these social norms in ways that enable them to participate in physical activity on a regular basis. Objective: This research sought to determine positive examples of Qatari women participating in regular physical activity and to identify facilitators for their participation. Methods: Using a qualitative framework, 10 young Qatari women, aged 18–25, were interviewed over a 2-hour period. Questions asked, related to the women's participation in physical activity from childhood through to adult hood, and took into consideration the ways in which the family, schools and social networks acted as a barrier or an enabler. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using an interpretive framework and thematic analysis. Results: Results indicate that opportunities for these Qatari women to participate in regular physical activity are enabled through family support, developing or established health literacy's and access to culturally appropriate facilities. Conclusion: This research shifts the focus of Qatari women's participation in physical activity from a deficit framework to one that highlights possibilities towards establishing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Future research should extend upon these findings to understand ways in which the Qatari population can advocate for culturally appropriate and meaningful physical activity promotion within Qatari society.

Interaction in the Semi-Structured Interview: A Comparative Analysis of the Use of and Response to Indirect Complaints

The validity of interview data for social science research is under sophisticated critique. In this article, verbal interaction in semi-structured interviews (SSIs) is compared to that in naturalistic conversation in terms of participant use of and response to indirect complaints (ICs). SSIs are analyzed with Boxer's (1993a&c) IC coding scheme and compared to her findings on conversational data. Interviewees are demonstrated to communicate like friends as opposed to strangers, intimates, or other possibly unique pattern. The SSIs are also shown to be asymmetric in that interviewers focus on topic control although, at times, respond to ICs in more normative ways through offering different kinds of commentary. The pattern of interviewer commentary mirrors that of the conversational data except in relation to the dearth of commiseration in the SSIs. In conclusion, the value of this analysis is that it suggests, tentatively, that interviewee contribution within SSIs might, in some situations, be extrapolated to one particular kind of everyday interactional context—communication between friends— although the asymmetry of the interaction demonstrates its institutional nature.

Undoing diversity: knowledge and neoliberal discourses in colleges of education

In this article we analyze discourses of ‘diversity’ in colleges of education in Chile. We contend that the use of discourses of diversity, as reproducing the separation between mainstream subjectivities and those uncontained by the category of normal, is one of the ways universities align themselves with the rules of a democratic society, based on ideas of multicultural understandings and tolerant communities proliferated by inter-governmental institutions such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and others. Our interest is to question the marginalization of cultural politics through the intensification of these discourses. At the same time, we explore the relations between the advancement of neutral discourses of difference and the value-free practices expressed in neoliberal educational agendas. We use discourse analysis to read interviews with future teachers. We understand students’ narratives as perpetuating normative ways of thinking and legitimating those knowledges promoted by institutional curricula.