Private blog reflections connecting course content with field experiences: preservice teachers grapple with teacher identity

A challenge experienced within teacher preparation programs is the ability to help preservice teachers connect educational theory with teaching practice. Guided by Dewey's phases of reflective thinking and Schön’s reflection on action as an ethic for inquiry, we embedded a systematic reflection of written responses, recorded in a private weblog over the course of a 15-week intermediate reading methods course. Inductive thematic analysis of responses revealed the following themes: visceral thought, vulnerability, interpretation of course content, and identity formation toward becoming a classroom teacher. Our findings exemplify how systematic reflection in a private digital space contributed to the development of preservice teachers’ professional identities.     

Acceptance of cosmetic surgery,body appreciation,body ideal internalization,and fashion blog reading among late adolescents in Sweden

This study examined adolescents’ attitudes of cosmetic surgery, as well as the relationships between these attitudes, body appreciation, body ideal internalization, and fashion blog reading. The sample comprised 110 (60 boys, 50 girls) late adolescents (mean age 16.9 years) from a Swedish high school. The results indicated that younger adolescents seem somewhat more accepting of cosmetic surgery. This was especially the case for boys’ acceptance of social motives for obtaining cosmetic surgery (boys’ M = 2.3 ± 1.55 vs. girls’ M = 1.7 ± 0.89). Girls’, and to a limited extent boys’, internalization of the thin ideal was related to more favorable cosmetic surgery attitudes. Athletic ideal internalization and body appreciation were unrelated to these attitudes. Finally, girls who frequently read fashion blogs reported higher thin ideal internalization, and also demonstrated a slight tendency of more cosmetic surgery consideration.