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Much discussion has taken place in real life and in cyber space about the future of Henry Archer. He has been the subject of gossip, with the nature of his conception, and then gained a stepfather, seemingly a gentleman, who cared for both Henry and his mother. Coercive control came to dominate the relation between Rob Titchener and Helen Archer, giving an outward appearance of perfection in all aspects of family life. Henry experienced the gaslighting along with Helen and having seen his mum stab his new adoptive father, Henry was left without his mum, and in the care of evil Rob, effectively prevented from contact with his staid, and consistently caring grandparents. This paper will consider the impact of the trauma on Henry's potential psychological self as an older child and adolescent, looking at the impact of attachment, disparate parenting styles, social learning theory and domestic violence. There is also a comparison to a case study which could illustrate Henry's future, should he decide to begin a career in serial killing.

This chapter investigates how we have come to know what we know, in the United States, about the terms “ability” and “disability” through the story of Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan Macy. What is the narrative of Helen Keller as told through children’s literature? How might the ways in which her life is presented contribute to stereotypes of what it means to be disabled? What, if any, are the ways in which authors of these books resist writing about her as someone who “overcame” her disabilities? How is Helen Keller’s relationship with her teacher, Anne Sullivan, portrayed and what might this representation contribute to the concepts of dependence and interdependence?

This project provides a sociological analysis of common themes through a content analysis of 20 children’s books on Helen Keller.

The theme of the widely circulating “story of the water pump moment” (when Keller realizes that hand movements signify language) depicts a one-sided relationship of Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan Macy. This informs the narrative representations of Anne Sullivan Macy as “miracle worker” and Helen Keller as “miracle child.” Another theme is the “complexities of resistance,” which shows how these narratives uphold the stereotype that Helen Keller needed to “overcome” her disabilities while also resisting this notion and showing how she also helped Anne Sullivan Macy.

This demonstrates how widely circulating stories such as those about Helen Keller shape what we know about what it means to be abled or disabled, challenges simplistic binary understandings of the disability experience, and points to the power of narratives to shape systems of beliefs.

I Am Helen Keller is a student-friendly reader; yet, it offers realistic insights into Helen’s life as a: student, writer, lecturer, vaudeville performer, and activist. The book relates to students’ real lives because Helen is portrayed as a genuine person rather than an object for herofication; an individual with economic challenges and personality flaws as well as successes. Young students are introduced to the concept of mentoring, as people who sponsored and helped Helen achieve her life goals are described. Helen Keller overcame personal adversity and is often presented to young people in character education. The heart of her story, however, is that she was one of the first civil rights leaders for people with disabilities. She was at the forefront of attitude changes around the world. In this lesson, students engage in analyzing key points of Helen Keller’s life through a read-aloud and Anticipation Guide, discussion, cooperative group work, research, and presentation skills using educational technology.

This chapter explores the queasy relationship between food and sex on The Archers. For listeners, food provides an imaginative reference point; consumption of food hints towards characters embodiment and occupation of physical space. To the extent that these characters have boundaries, the way they approach and react to food reveals their rigidity or permeability, and the tones in which characters offer, provide, prepare, coax and force food upon one another tells us a lot about the sexual politics at play in Ambridge. In The Archers, women cook and men eat. Characters who rebel against this norm often subvert traditional masculinity in other ways.

Through close reading (and obsessive listening), this chapter analyses the ways in which food allows the relationships on The Archers to act as foils to one another. It also explores: food as metaphor; food used both to sustain and fortify the boundaries of the self and to besiege the ego boundaries of others; how characters are given weight in acoustic space; female emancipation; male helplessness; the hunger/satiety/aural claustrophobia of listeners.

Charlotte Brontë integrated her own and her sisters' traumatic boarding school experiences into her novel, Jane Eyre (1847) as a way of expressing her anger through autobiographical fiction. The aim is to link contemporary research into boarding school trauma to the relevant events, thereby identifying what she wrote as a testimony contributing to the long history of the problematic nature of boarding schools.

Autobiographical fiction is discussed as a form of testimony, placing Jane Eyre in that category. Recent research into the traumatic experiences of those whose parents chose to send them to boarding school is presented, leading to an argument that educational historians need to analyse experience rather than limiting their work to structure and planning. The traumatic events the Brontë sisters experienced at the Clergy Daughters' School are outlined as the basis for what is included in Jane Eyre at the fictional Lowood School. Specific traumatic events in the novel are then identified and contemporary research into boarding school trauma applied.

The findings reveal Charlotte's remarkable insight into the psychological impact on children being sent away to board at a time when understandings about trauma and boarding school trauma did not exist. An outcome of the analysis is that it places the novel within the field of the history of education as a testimony of boarding school life.

This is the first application of boarding school trauma research to the novel.

As the internet has evolved through the emergence of social media, so too have the communicative practices of The Archers listeners. Many of them now use Twitter to comment, discuss the show or participate in the omnibus episode ‘tweetalong’. Primarily, this chapter recognises the hundred-plus Twitter accounts which have been created by listeners to authentically roleplay characters, organisations, animals and even objects from the show. I frame these practices and ground the chapter in academic discourses of ‘fan fiction’. Reflecting on my own activity as @borsetpolice, I look at the role and place of this fan fiction from the individual practitioner’s perspective but also the wider listener base. In this chapter, I develop an argument that these practices contribute towards the community of listeners online, as well as the show itself. I explore the types of activities and accounts involved, where they often focus around major storylines, and then reflect in detail on the individual’s motivations and practice. I situate this in terms of an opportunity to become involved in an online community that aspires towards everyday rural ideals, and how this can be understood as a significant affective experience for listeners. This need for escapism into ‘banal’ worlds, the desire to participate, and the sense that fan fiction is a game that we take part in are also drawn out as significant.

I address the question, Is theory useful when collaborating with teachers to improve student engagement?

We based our work on four principles of motivation drawn from the research literature: students are more likely to engage in learning if teachers support their perceptions of competence, autonomy, belongingness, and make learning meaningful. To bridge the gap between theory and practice, we suggested that teachers use certain instructional strategies, like open-ended questions, related to supporting student engagement. These strategies were both more complex than the standard practices and more challenging to implement, given the current U.S. emphasis on standardized testing. In two longitudinal studies, we provided rationales for engagement principles and instructional strategies related to student engagement and encouraged teachers to use new practices. Mixed methodology included online observation measures and video of classroom instruction, retrospective interviews with teachers, and student interviews and experience sampling self-reports.

Short case studies of teachers change illustrate the examples of implementation. In both studies, about half the teachers made significant instructional changes, which were related both to teacher perceptions of student engagement and to student self-reports.

Insights gained from the studies may offer researchers practical information about how to work with teachers to improve engagement in the classroom. They include whether teachers can understand abstract motivation terminology, consider students’ “basic needs” when planning instruction, and implement strategies so that they are likely to support student engagement. Other learnings include the strong impact of teacher culture on change efforts and the need to consider teachers’ “basic needs” if we are to support them in instructional change. Long-term collaboration and establishing mutual trust may be the best way for both researchers and teachers to develop common understandings for supporting student motivation in the classroom.

Because access to new technologies is unequally distributed, there has been considerable discussion in Australia and elsewhere about the growing gap, the “digital divide,” between the information-rich and information-poor (Bolt & Crawford, 2000; Castells, 2001; Companie, 2001; Gordon, 2001; Haywood, 1998; Negroponte, 1996; Nixon, 2001). Most schools have incorporated computers and Internet access into classrooms, partly in response to concerns about the gap between technology “haves” and “have nots” (Facer et al., 2001). Such concerns have led to high-profile information technology policy initiatives in the USA (Lentz, 2000; US Department of Commerce, 1999), U.K. (Selwyn, 2000), Australia (Foster, 2000) and other nations. Many families have invested in computer systems at home in order to provide their children with access to the growing body of information available through technology. Similarly, in an attempt to “redress the balance between the information rich and poor” by providing “equal access to the World Wide Web” (Virtual Communities, 2002), the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Virtual Communities (a computer/software distributor) and Primus (an Internet provider) in late 1999 formed an alliance to offer relatively inexpensive computer and Internet access to union members in order to make “technology affordable for all Australians” (Virtual Communities, 2002).