The journey as a transcultural experience for international students

An international two-year Erasmus Mundus MA, Transcultural European Outdoor Studies (TEOS), uses the journey as a central metaphorical concept, the “peregrinatio academica”, and experiential pedagogy. Students study human nature interactions through the lens of outdoor education and recreation while travelling for a semester at a time in three European countries: England, Norway and Germany. We argue that the transcultural concept is facilitated by the diverse nationalities of the student cohort and the concept and experience of the journey. Empirical evidence from student feedback, course discussions, and staff reflections is used to explore the ways in which the programme elucidates ideas of expert and Eurocentric knowledge of landscape and learning by valuing individual knowledge constructions and new research. Simultaneously, we argue that the typical European “gaze” on the “other” somehow is reversed as “others” gaze at European cultures, and, to some degree, contribute to destabilizing culturally taken-for-granted knowledge. This offers new opportunities for a more nuanced transcultural exploration of human nature interactions in diverse landscapes and cultures. We conclude that the knowledge and skills developed by this programme supports the development of “transculturalized” students with the enhanced capacity to shift between and discuss diverse positions and ways of viewing and knowing.     

“闯关东”精神的文化内涵及其价值

"闯关东"精神孕育于长达三百年之久的"闯关东"运动中,是中国东北地域文化的重要组成部分,是中华民族精神文化中不可或缺的宝贵财富。自强不息的抗争精神、艰苦奋斗的拼搏精神、自力更生的创业精神、携手并进的民族精神构成了"闯关东"精神丰富的文化内涵,具有极其珍贵的历史价值和现实意义。     

庐陵史学特征及其在中国史学史上的地位

庐陵史学发达宏富,史备众体,尤其是在宋明时期,史学大家叠出,史学著作丰硕,史书类型繁多。诞生了龙衮、欧阳修、徐梦莘、罗泌、龙文彬等众多的史学家,编撰了《江南野史》、《新唐书》、《新五代史》、《集古录》、《三朝北盟会编》、《路史》、《西域行程记》、《广舆图》、《豫章书》和《明会要》等重要史学著作。庐陵史学重文献网罗、考证和历史经验总结,从整体上看具有父子同撰、通今博古、文史兼通、诗文咏史、金石证史等特征,有史料、校勘和辑佚价值。庐陵史学享誉海内外,口碑较好,在中国史学史上具有重要地位和作用。     

“To This Day”: Aetiology,Rhetoric, or Literary Motif?

ABSTRACT

Many biblical stories exhibit an intentional association between “subjective facts” deriving from the narrative and “objective facts” belonging to external historical reality. This article examines stories belonging to the “departure on a journey” pattern which contain references to objective facts which follow a virtually fixed formula and occur at a standard location in the narrative. Both the frequency with which these facts are adduced and their formulaic nature make it difficult to adopt external criteria such as those proposed by either of the two conventional models (aetiological and communication), suggesting rather an inner—literary—link between the two sets of facts.     

‘My Journey to School …’: Foregrounding the Meaning of School Journeys and Children's Engagements and Interactions in their Everyday Localities

This paper gives prominence to children's own accounts of school journeys. The characteristics of school journeys in Fife, Scotland are outlined, and the nature of children's school journey experiences discussed. The focus is on children in the latter years of primary school, concentrating mainly on the experiences of those who walk without adult accompaniment on their school journeys. By drawing attention to the meaning of these journeys to children this paper brings to the fore children's active and imaginative engagements in and with their environments. This situates school journeys as an integral part of children's geographies indicative of the regulation of the child's realm and the active part which children play in redefining this.     

‘Encabsulation’: Horse-Drawn Journeys in Late-Victorian Literature

Recent scholarship has pursued the figure of the urban flâneur or flâneuse across the literature of the nineteenth century with spectacular results. In this article I turn the attention away from the solitary city stroller to the urban passenger by looking at one of the primary ways in which Victorians moved around London. In 1900 there were some 50,000 horses working in London, although by 1914 with the coming of motorized transport that number was down to 1400. Experiential perceptions of the city, of space and time, changed accordingly, as did the very nature of the city street. So the most compelling evidence of what Victorian cab journeys could and sometimes did feel like lies in their contemporary depiction. Although it draws upon detailed reports drawn from contemporary newspapers and applies some of the postmodern ideas of such theorists of urban geography as Michel de Certeau and Henri Lefebvre, the article is mainly concerned with literary representations of the horse-drawn cab, of the ‘hansom’ in particular. To journey across the city in a horse-drawn cab is shown to have run the risk of moral misunderstanding, sinister hijacking, financial humiliation and – more enticingly – of erotic encounter.     

芜湖市居民出行心理行为研究

本文运用行为地理学原理,对芜湖城市居民出行行为进行了两次实际调查,在对调查资料初步分析整理基础上,研究了芜湖市居民出行过程中心理行为的各种表现及其影响因素,提出了解决城市客运交通问题的思路和对策,为加强城市交通规划、建设和管理提供参考依据。     

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.