Group items tagged

Science literacy is frequently touted as a key to good citizenship. Based on a two-year ethnographic study examining science in the community, the authors suggest that when considering the contribution of scientific activity to the greater good, science must be seen as forming a unique hybrid practice, mixed in with other mediating practices, which together constitute "scientifically literate, good citizenship." This case study, an analysis of an open house event organized by a grassroots environmentalist group, presents some examples of activities that embed science in "good citizenship." Through a series of vignettes, the authors focus on four central aspects: (1) the activists' use of landscape and spatial arrangements, (2) the importance of multiple representations of the same entity (e.g., a local creek), (3) the relational aspect of knowing and becoming part of a community, and (4) the insertion of scientific into moral discourse, resulting in what they call a "stewardship triad." (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

This entry is about how bullying affects children at a young age. Since i am doing my study on discourse communities it is interesting to look this over and keep in mind some of the things it brings up. This is especially true since in my example of my own roomates, bullying doies happen quite a bit. The only problem is that this talks about your students 4-5th grade, but i still find info pertaining to college level kids as well.

Using an ethnography of discourse approach, this article argues that literate interactions in a rural eastern Kentucky community are strongly linked to symbolic values assigned to self through the gender-based division of reading and writing labor. Noting that literate practices are God-given attributes of women's "nature," it describes how literate interactions provide contexts in which a woman can negotiate her social, religious, and cultural identity. What constitutes acceptable literate forms is culturally constrained by a tension between maintaining "country" values while assimilating those "proper" women's literate forms which augment, rather than replace, oral forms. Men's identities are not linked to these literate practices, creating minimal or non-literate behavior. These cultural constructs of literacy affect both men's and women's behavior in classroom, workplace, or urban interfacing situations, affecting mobility problems. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

This article considers the different kinds of learning that are appropriate for the rapidly expanding range of writing that constitutes an everyday part of most people's working lives. It discusses the importance and demands of everyday writing in work, and the role of formal education in preparing people for the localised learning about writing that is necessary upon entering work. It considers the issue of the transfer of knowledge, and argues that both metacognitive and conceptual understandings about writing are crucial elements in enabling people to transfer and adapt foundation literacy skills to the workplace.