Young people today are frequently demonized by media images as well as by classroom reports. Dominant discourses, as ways of seeing and talking about youths, are constructed and managed by adults and offer young people a limited set of roles to play and options for engaging with society. Contributors to Re/Constructing the «Adolescent» problematize the «social construction of the adolescent» through a critique of the discourses that position youths and an examination of how youths enact, contest, and sometimes transform those same discourses. These studies, combining empirical research and semiotic analyses, offer a fresh perspective on young people in western societies today, at the level of everyday discourse, embodied through gesture and symbolic action, with material effects.

The text is composed of research on the development of representational thinking from infancy through to adolescence. It makes a contribution to the theory of children's development and to practitioners' understanding.

The first comprehensive research handbook of its kind, this volume showcases innovative approaches to understanding adolescent literacy learning in a variety of settings. Distinguished contributors examine how well adolescents are served by current instructional practices and highlight ways to translate research findings more effectively into sound teaching and policymaking. The book explores social and cultural factors in adolescents' approach to communication and response to instruction, and sections address literacy both in and out of schools, including literacy expectations in the contemporary workplace. Detailed attention is given to issues of diversity and individual differences among learners. Winner--Literacy Research Association's Fry Book Award!

Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents' Lives, Second Edition focuses on exploring the impact of young people's identity-making practices in mediating their perceptions of themselves as readers and writers in an era of externally mandated reforms. What is different in the Second Edition is its emphasis on the importance of valuing adolescents' perspectives--in an era of skyrocketing interest in improving literacy instruction at the middle and high school levels driven by externally mandated reforms and accountability measures. A central concern is the degree to which this new interest takes into account adolescents’ personal, social, and cultural experiences in relation to literacy learning. In this new edition of Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents’ Lives students’ voices and perspectives are featured front and center in every chapter. Particular attention is given throughout to multiple literacies--especially how information and new communication technologies are changing learning from and with text. Nine of the 15 chapters are new; all other chapters are thoroughly updated. The volume is structured around four main themes: * Situating Adolescents’ Literacies–addressing how young people use favorite texts to perform their identities; how they counter school-based constructions of incompetence; and how they re/construct their literate identities in relation to certain kinds of gendered expectations, pedagogies, and cultural resources; * Positioning Youth as Readers and Writers–stressing the importance of classroom discourse, cultural capital, agency, and democratic citizenship in mediating adolescents’ literate identities; * Mediating Practices in Young People’s Literacies–looking at issues of language, social class, race, and culture in shaping how adolescents represent themselves and are represented by others; and * Changing Teachers, Teaching Changes–capturing the productive ambiguities associated with teaching urban adolescents to read and write in changing times, encouraging students to conduct action research on topics that are personally relevant, and using ‘enabling constraints’ as a concept to formulate policies on adolescent literacy instruction. Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents’ Lives, Second Edition is an essential volume for researchers, faculty, teacher educators, and graduate students in the field of adolescent literacy education.

Reconstructing Medical Practice examines how doctors see health care and their place in it, why they remain in medicine and why they are limited in their ability to lead change in the current system. Doctors are beset by doubts and feel rejected by systems where they should be leaders - some see their role as 'flog[ging] a derelict system to get the last breath of workability out ... for their patients'. Others simply turn away. Rigorous studies carried out at large public teaching hospitals in Australia found that doctors were reluctant to increase safety in the wider health system, despite making every effort for their 'own' patients. Doctors' self-esteem was found to be delicate due to the uncertain nature of their work; colleagues provide the support doctors need to deliver good care. However, these essential relationships and their cherished connections with patients have disadvantages: reducing doctors' ability to admit to error. On top of this, senior doctors predict a future bereft of professional values - one where medicine is 'just a job'. While the loss of professional identity introduces new risks for patients and doctors, the repercussions of the more self-serving attitudes of younger doctors are unknown. Reconstructing Medical Practice concludes that regulation, despite its recent proliferation, is a clumsy and limited approach to ensuring good care. It presents original and much-needed ideas for ways to rebuild the critical relationship between doctors and the system. By better valuing communicative interactions and workplace relationships, safe and satisfying medical practice can be reconstructed.

Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.

The field of English language arts teacher education has experienced change over the past two decades. Changes in the discipline have produced a much more expansive understanding of literacy and of what teachers of English language arts do. This volume will focus on innovations in English language arts teacher education.

Liminal Spaces of Writing in Adolescent and Adult Education addresses the persistent gap in writing reform at the middle, secondary, and post-secondary level. Through an examination of “useful” and “liminal” writing, the book explores the intellectual and creative space where structured expectations verge with individual imagination in writing. The premise of the book is built around a multiplicity of ways to invite adolescent and adult students to enter into states of liminality where they are encouraged to experiment with style, form, genre, and voice. Through research featuring the perspectives of adolescents, classroom teachers, teacher educators, graduate students, and literacy researchers, the book offers numerous insights into fostering a liminal and useful approach to writing instruction. Each author takes the reader through a journey of finding the liminal as teachers, writers, and researchers. Taken together, this tapestry of perspectives puts forth the argument that liminal moments are necessary caveats to explore in order to cultivate fully actualized writing where students are in control of structures and traditional writing expectations but also free to imagine new ways of breaking with conventions and being as writers. Thus, the book argues liminal writing is critical in bringing about sustained writing reform.

This book explores the dynamic range of literacy practices in and out of school that are reconstructing youth gender identities in both empowering and disempowering ways and the implications for local literacy classrooms.

"This book will help readers understand the ways in which literacy is changing around the world, and to keep up to date with literacy research and reporting techniques"--Provided by publisher.