Search Results (4)

Abbott Elementary, the Emmy-award winning mockumentary-style comedy television show, chronicles the day-to-day efforts of a group of teachers in a Philadelphia public elementary school who, despite the odds stacked against them, are determined to help their students succeed. With humor and heart, the show also uncovers some of the larger policy issues at play in U.S. urban public education, such as teacher shortages, school funding, and school choice. This essay describes the development of an interdisciplinary Honors seminar for undergraduate students at a large, public university in the Midwest U.S. that used episodes of Abbott Elementary as a central curricular text to support students in analyzing current policy issues in urban education. Drawing on Giroux’s concept of media as public pedagogy, this essay details how the course design employed a critical intersectional multiculturalism cultural studies approach to create opportunities for students to engage in a multiperspectival analysis, including (1) an understanding of political culture, (2) textual analysis, and (3) audience reception. Implications and recommendations are made for selecting and integrating popular culture media as curricular text in interdisciplinary coursework. Full article

This research study explored barriers and facilitators to collaboration between National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) psychologists, Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCOs), and Senior Leadership Teams (SLT) in Irish post-primary schools (students aged between 12 and 18 years). NEPS’ role in facilitating collaboration is uncertain, exacerbated by the absence of policy outlining the SENCO role and tensions between special and inclusive education. It is unclear what the experiences of collaboration between NEPS psychologists and post-primary schools might be within this nebulous policy context. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was used, framed by Dynamic Systems Theory. Participants were NEPS psychologists, SENCOs, and SLT. Phase 1 involved an online survey (n = 278), which identified barriers and facilitators to collaboration and informed Phase 2. This paper presents Phase 2, comprising semi-structured interviews (n = 9). Interviews were analysed using multi-perspectival interpretative phenomenological analysis, facilitating experiential exploration of collaboration between NEPS, SLT, and SENCOs. Participants described the experience of transitioning from working in silos to collaborative hubs. Systemic and interpersonal factors facilitated deliberate construction of evolving, dynamic, collaborative spaces between post-primary schools and NEPS. Policy gaps arise regarding consultation, collaboration, special education, and inclusion. This research begins to clarify the varied ways in which practice occurs in these gaps and indicates ways in which NEPS psychologists can collaborate with SENCOs and SLT to create active, effective hubs of knowledge to support students. Full article

The soil security framework has been conceptualized and views soil as a resource that needs to be secured to avoid or minimize adverse environmental/anthropogenic impacts and undesirable consequences for people. Our critical literature review suggests that measurements, estimations, simulations, or digital mapping of soil properties fall short in assessing soil security and health. Instead, soil security that considers soil ecosystem functionality based on regionalized and optimized relationships between targeted functions and site-specific soil environmental conditions allows for the discernment of actual and attainable efficiency levels for observation sites. We discuss the pros and cons that undergird the paradigm shift toward a pedo-econometric modeling approach. Such a multiperspectival approach to soil security allows for simultaneous interpretations from economic, pedogenic, agronomic, environmental, biotic/habitat, and other perspectives. This approach is demonstrated by modeling total nutrient efficiencies in complex multi-use soilscapes with diverging soil environmental interests and concerns. Full article

The purpose of this article is to propose a cubist homiletic based on the Picasso-originated art movement known as cubism. To that end, I explore the twofold question: What is cubist preaching, and why do we need it today? It is a critical inquiry into a theology and methodology of cubist preaching and its contextual rationale. In particular, I adopt cubism’s artistic-philosophical routine of transcendental deconstruction and multi-perspectival reconstruction as the key hermeneutical and literary methodology for cubist preaching. This cubist way of preaching ultimately aims for the listener to encounter the Sacred in what I call an ubi-ductive way—a neologism made by conjoining the two terms, ubiquitous and -ductive, beyond what is possible through conventional inductive and deductive preaching. Full article