Education for what? Shaping the field of climate change education with children and young people as co-researchers

ABSTRACT

Children and young people are often positioned as the next generation of leaders in whom the public imagines or expects to overcome the legacies of climate and environmental inaction. Increasingly analyses of progress in environmental education independently identify the need for researchers and teachers to ‘listen to children’s voices’. In this paper we argue that climate change education presents a significant platform not only for youth voices, but also for a genuine activation of children’s political agency in schools, universities, and the public domain. In so doing, we draw upon the government funded project Climate Change?+?Me, which has involved working with 135 children and young people from across Northern NSW, Australia as co-researchers investigating young people’s voices in climate change. We conclude that climate change education can open up an entirely new field of educational experience and inquiry when it is inclusive of and led by young people.     

Documentation of the Yazdi-Bandi Vault at the Plaza of Sadr-e-A’zam,Tehran

ABSTRACT

This article intends to document a previously unsighted sample of yazdi-bandi over an outlying structure in the old Bazaar fabric of Tehran, namely a plaza known as Timché-ye Sadre-A’zam. Recent renovations of the plaza have concealed the work under an austerely flat drop ceiling in gypsum. The old yazdi ceiling was only accidentally discovered by the authors following the trail of hearsay and local legends. The plaza is of late 19th century construction, a period that witnessed an evolutionary and aesthetic climax in all aspects of architectural geometry in the country, including the various branches of kaarbandi. With the limitations that the authors faced, basic tools were used in the scanning and surveillance of the ceiling. Photographs were collected using a wide-angle lens. They served as raw data for the reconstruction of the yazdi plan in AutoCAD, This article presents the findings, and for a better understanding of the entire premise by the reader, supplements them with preambles on the evolutionary history, geometrical analysis, a preview of the state of scholarship and a collection of relevant terms and concepts in the study of yazdi, in particular, and kaarbandi as a whole.     

Including babies and toddlers: a new model of participation

ABSTRACT

Models relating to the participation of children are often explicitly aimed at facilitating or evaluating participation in decision-making processes on local levels. However, these models often build on hierarchically ordered ‘ladders’ of children’s involvement starting with passive involvement and increasing gradually to highly active engagement. Such models become problematic when designing or evaluating participative activities for young children. On the basis of two ethnographic studies conducted in children’s libraries, we propose an alternative model based on a view of participation as processual rather than definitive. Theoretically, the paper draws mainly on human rights theory as well as on theories and concepts derived from childhood studies such as participation and citizenship. The new model of participation demonstrates how the idea of participation can be operationalized at practical levels to include the very youngest children.     

Children’s independent mobility: the role of school-based social capital

ABSTRACT

Research has documented the decline in children’s independent mobility (CIM) globally. CIM is a measure of the level of a child’s freedom to move about his or her local neighbourhood without direct adult supervision. This paper explores the effectiveness of three intervention programmes to change travel behaviours of children to and from school in 26 Catholic primary schools in a range of urban and regional settings in Victoria, Australia. Using pre and post intervention surveys with 1600 students and parents, and interviews with school principals, we measured the influence of a range of individual, social, and built environment factors on the effectiveness of these intervention programmes. The degree of social connectedness of the school and the individual was found to have the most impact on the effectiveness of the intervention programmes to change behaviours, while the interventions themselves were not greatly effective without being embedded in a supportive school culture.     

清代学者利用金石资料研究唐代地理的成就及意义

清代是金石学研究的黄金时期,有关金石的著述层出不穷,研究成果亦蔚为可观。因唐代石刻在历代碑石中所占比重较大,故清代学者的金石研究成果中有关唐代历史的内容最为繁富,而墓志碑石的特殊性又决定了其中蕴含着大量地理方面的内容,因此清代金石研究中有关唐代地理的部分颇有价值。本文即从折冲府府名考逸、郡县之沿革隶属及地名讹误、佛教寺院、《长安志》考补等四个方面论述清代学者的研究成就,探讨这些成果的价值及其对今后唐史研究的借鉴意义。     

The ultimate return: Dissent,apostolic succession,and the renewed ministry of roman catholic women priests

ABSTRACT

Significant numbers of practising Roman Catholics dissent from the Church’s orthodox teachings, especially those relating to sex, gender and contraception. Many such dissenters even occupy positions of ecclesiastical authority themselves. This raises interesting questions about how dissent manifests differently in various Christian traditions; how disagreement about fundamental principles only become legible if expressed in particular ways. This paper draws on research on Roman Catholic Woman priests whose claim to sacerdotal legitimacy rests on their having been ordained in apostolic succession by bishops within the Roman Catholic Church. It asks how do women priests negotiate both difference and repetition at the very same time. The ethnography prompts deeper reflection on Christianity’s long history of dissent which I argue has been written from a predominantly male and Protestant perspective. One in which dissent that leads to institutional differentiation is prioritized over dissent borne quietly that seeks to contain itself.     

Alice Munro’s Narrative Historicism: “Too Much Happiness”

Alice Munro’s “Too Much Happiness” relates the final years of its subject Sophia Kovalevsky (1850–1891), a nineteenth-century Russian mathematician, writer, and subsequent feminist icon. Munro’s narrative here does not always fit with her earlier fictional practice. By examining Munro’s earlier work, and glancing at a later sequence of narratives with regard to her uses of historical matters, this discussion outlines the generic implications of “Too Much Happiness” and their effect upon our estimation of the remainder of Munro’s fiction.     

The Implications of Immigration Federalism for Non-citizens’ Rights and Immigration Opportunities: Canada and Australia Compared

This article explores the development of immigration federalism in Australia and Canada (expressed through the establishment of state/provincial/territorial immigrant selection programs) and its implications for immigrants’ rights and immigration opportunities. Given the very limited scholarship on the issue, and the lack of previous comparative studies on immigration federalism in Australia and Canada, our research is exploratory by nature. Our finding is that provincial/state/territorial programs offer some advantages to prospective applicants (such as increased immigration opportunities), but, at the same time, raise a number of concerns (such as an increased dependence on employers). As our study reveals, the costs and benefits of immigration opportunities under state/provincial/territorial programs differ for skilled and low-skilled workers, whereby the latter are given only limited access to permanent residence, and on more onerous conditions than skilled workers. Drawing on these findings, we identify areas in need of further research and policy response.     

Why have generational orderings been marginalised in the social sciences including childhood studies?

ABSTRACT

This paper considers why age and generation tend not to be recognised as social variables in the same way that gender, ethnicity and class are mainstreamed within Social Science disciplines. It questions why the concept of the generational order is not always integral to either Childhood Studies or the related sub-disciplines, such as Children’s Geographies. It begins from a starting point that Childhood Studies is generally a multi-disciplinary field but seems stuck from moving forward conceptually. The politics of Childhood Studies can result in sub-disciplinary silos rather than working in a more interdisciplinary way. The politics of childhood in society have progressed in terms of children’s rights and participation yet the theoretical development of children’s agency has been stuck. The paper discusses the lack of extensive empirical investigation of the generational order, suggesting that ‘generational orderings’ may be a more dynamic way to engage with processes of generationing.     

Cottages and the Country House: Power,Paternalism and Protest in Elsecar

In the period c.1790 to 1870, the small rural hamlet of Elsecar, near Barnsley, was transformed into an extensive industrial village, with a thriving economy based on iron and coal. Most of this development was instigated, controlled and financed by the local landowners, the 4th and 5th Earls Fitzwilliam. As well as being passionately interested in the practicalities and potential of industrial development, the Earls also looked to the welfare of their workers, providing a wealth of benefits including pensions, sick pay and purpose-built industrial housing. Using a historical approach based on a variety of source material, this paper explores the Earls’ provision of workers’ housing as a way in which to consider wider themes of power, control, inequality and resistance as they were expressed both in the physicality of the houses themselves, and in the cultural meanings which were attributed to them by contemporary observers. The paper argues that workers’ housing functioned as a visible embodiment of power relationships within Elsecar and, because of this, it continues to have a significant resonance in the modern world.