There is a significant, longstanding tradition in British sociological research that renders cultural capital synonymous with whiteness. This article suggests that one substantive factor that contr...

Cultural capital as whiteness? Examining logics of ethno-racial representation and resistance

This thesis aims to elucidate the influences that determine the extent to which the National Science Curriculum of Trinidad and Tobago, as presented by teachers, engages students as critical thinkers. The interpretation of critical thinking is seen in terms of an emancipatory paradigm which leads to social justice.

The work takes the form of a case study completed at a mixed gender government secondary school. The context is set within an education system that has come out of a colonial history and where critical thinking is seen as important for the economic advancement of the nation. However, the level of success necessary for achieving this advancement is not seen as being actualised within the present educational regime.

A qualitative approach was taken in which critical theory and postcolonial theory were employed in establishing the nature of the power relations at play within this setting. The methods included content analysis of curriculum documents, exercise books and textbooks, lesson observations, focus group interviews with students from Forms 1 to 5 based on a video clip stimulus and structured interviews with teachers. The interviews were all subjected to NVivo coding to determine the themes related to the research questions.

The main findings were that students’ skills in terms of the cognitive and affective domains and their critical thinking skills did not appear to develop significantly as they progressed through school nor were the students any more confident to engage in social activism. The pedagogical methods used were more based in direct instruction and did not fulfil the expectations of a critical pedagogy as advocated in the National Certificate of Secondary Education (NCSE) and Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) syllabuses.

A neoliberal agenda is seen as influencing the maintenance of an elitist education system and suggestions are provided for changes within the administration of the system, teacher training and pedagogical methods which would result in a more appealing, relevant and motivating school science.

To what extent does the National Science Curriculum in Trinidad and Tobago as presented by teachers engage students as critical thinkers

Sweep frequency response analysis is a major advance in transformer condition analysis. Frequency response is performed by applying a low voltage signal of varying frequencies to the transformer windings and measuring both the input and output signals. The ratio of these two signals gives the required response. This ratio is called the transfer function of the transformer from which both the magnitude and phase can be obtained. Changes in frequency response as measured by SFRA techniques may indicate a physical change inside the transformer, the cause of which then needs to be identified and investigated.

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Sweep frequency response analysis (sfra)an approach to detect hiddentransformer faults

ABSTRACT While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was felt widely, for Black communities – particularly in the US and Britain – it was felt more severely. This was compounded by another deadly pandemic that was devastating Black communities and evidenced by the re-emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd. Parallels can be drawn between the deadly COVID-19 virus and the anti-Black systemic racism fuelling the existence of the Black Lives Matter movement – which both disproportionately kill Black people. Therefore, many within these communities are living in a “pandemic within a pandemic”. Still, the focus on Black boys and men continued the parallels between both pandemics, failing to include the plight of Black girls and women who are also enduring the same impact as their Black male counterparts. This paper draws upon previous doctoral research about the educational journeys and experiences of Black British women graduates in light of the educational implications of the “pandemic within a pandemic” for this group. Framed by Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice (BTP) within the context of Black Feminist Epistemology (BFE), it highlights that Black women and girls have to bear an unfair “burden of care” not only for themselves but for others too. Lastly, it will argue that now more than ever, due to the “pandemic within a pandemic”, as a society we all need to be checkin’ for Black girls and women as they have been silently suffering, navigating and overcoming for far too long.

Who’s checkin’ for Black girls and women in the “pandemic within a pandemic”? COVID-19, Black Lives Matter and educational implications

Bourdieu describes capital as the political building blocks of social order that give meaning to social accumulation and consumption. Through a combination of Bourdieu’s sociology and critical race theory, this sojourn into Afro-Trinidadian boys’ achievement seeks to elucidate an approach to understanding capital as inherently raced. This is premised on an interrogation of Trinidadian society as pigmentocratically structured, where lightness is rewarded with a myriad of social advantages, and darkness denigrated as illegitimate and ‘other’. The premium placed on lighter skin is manifested interdependently in the forms of social, economic and cultural capital. As such, the operation of capital as politic not only reflects societal structures of power and domination, but importantly also contributes in the maintenance of said structures. The concept of ‘Racialised facilitative capital’ follows as inseparably both facilitator of social status and as racialised process.

‘Racialised facilitative capital’ and the paving of differential paths to achievement of Afro-Trinidadian boys

Power transformers are among the most critical and valuable assets in an electric utility. Their failure can compromise system security, reliability and result in load shedding. These factors coupled with the long lead times involved in replacement mean that condition based monitoring is fast becoming the norm for minimization of down time. Among the gamut of available test methods, Frequency Response Analysis (FRA) has become a cornerstone method in the appraisal of winding health. FRA is predominantly an offline test, requiring the transformer to be taken out of service, but the move toward a smarter grid continues to drive research into online testing. This paper details the development of a Simulink based toolbox for studying the problems associated with online FRA of power transformers. The toolbox includes various transformer circuit models and proposed online test configurations found in existing literature.

Ravi Rampersad

Papers

‘Racialised facilitative capital’ and the paving of differential paths to achievement of Afro-Trinidadian boys

Platform for studying online frequency response analysis of power transformers