Media releases

• Brock experts find wine is central to Niagara’s identity

  Thursday, September 19, 2024 | By Brock University

  EXPERT ADVISORY: September 19, 2024 – R0116

  As St. Catharines gears up for the annual Grape and Wine Festival, two Brock researchers have uncorked findings on how important wine really is to Niagara residents.

  For almost two decades, Russell Johnston, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, and Michael Ripmeester, Professor in the Department of Geography and Tourism Studies, have studied how local residents identify the Niagara region.

  In their recently published book, Meaningful Pasts: Historical Narratives, Commemorative Landscapes, and Everyday Lives, Niagara’s wine culture is one of two in-depth case studies.

  Their research, beginning in the early 2000s, originally sought to determine if and how people engage with monuments in Niagara. With the celebrations of the War of 1812 bicentennial still on the horizon at that time, Johnston and Ripmeester started surveying St. Catharines residents on the street about what sprang to mind when they thought of Niagara.

  “We both had an interest in understanding what monuments actually did, apart from what they were supposed to do, so we specifically did not use words like ‘past’ or ‘history’ when talking to Niagara residents,” says Ripmeester. “We were very much interested in whether or not people would go there — and they didn’t, at all.”

  The researchers were surprised to find that wine was identified strongly as part of the region’s fabric — sometimes, even more than the iconic waterfall at Niagara Falls.

  Johnston says that once wine was established as a key identifier, subsequent surveys dug into whether people believed there was any historical connection with wine. Results confirmed that wine was viewed “as part of Niagara’s agricultural heritage, and not just a contemporary industry.”

  “As it developed, the wine industry did a great job of inserting itself into heritage narratives so that people were able to see it as part of a longer-term agricultural trajectory of Niagara, from small towns and family farms to wine and wineries,” says Ripmeester. “So, for all kinds of reasons, the wine industry is speaking to the people of Niagara in the sense that it gives them a positive identifier.”

  The researchers say the bicentennial of the War of 1812, which fell in the midst of their research, provided an interesting counterpoint to their findings on wine. Commemoration projects and events ran from 2011 to 2014, so when Ripmeester and Johnston conducted another survey about Niagara identifiers in 2016, they expected to be able to observe the impact of this substantial investment and the extensive local media coverage surrounding it.

  Almost no one mentioned it.

  “Out of everyone we surveyed, one or two people mentioned the War of 1812,” says Johnston. “In 2016, we had the lowest number of respondents naming the War of 1812 out of all of our surveys dating back to the early 2000s.”

  Ripmeester says they were shocked by this result.

  “The federal government, the Department of National Defence, local dignitaries and historians thought it was important to give people a sound knowledge of the War of 1812 and spent tens of millions of dollars,” he says. “Yet it didn’t create a lasting impression on local people.”

   Instead, wine culture, tourism, heritage and industry continued to top the survey responses throughout the project. Researchers say this is because people name what’s personally meaningful — not necessarily what officials who work to steer public memory hope to highlight.

  “Narratives come in and out of relevance for people living in a particular community,” says Johnston. “People are often reaching for what’s right now.”

  Russell Johnston, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, and Michael Ripmeester, Professor in the Department of Geography and Tourism Studies, are available for media interviews on this topic.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  *Sarah Ackles, Communications Specialist, Brock University sackles@brocku.ca or 289-241-5483

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  Categories: Media releases

• Brock experts share tips for tackling children’s reading challenges

  Wednesday, September 18, 2024 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: September 18, 2024 – R0115

  Learning to read is no easy feat.

  And for parents whose children are struggling to find momentum, it can be difficult to know how to help.

  Differing brain structures and functions can make learning to read seem like an uphill battle, but there is hope, say two Brock University experts in the field.

  Professor of Child and Youth Studies John McNamara says learning disabilities should be thought of as a difficulty in processing information arising out of small, but important, differences in brain structures that are present at birth.

  He also notes that researchers exploring the genetics of learning disabilities have found a few genes associated with learning disabilities, including those affecting reading.

  “The good news is that our brains are malleable and even though a child may have a genetic-based learning disability, with effective instruction we can shape the brain in ways that can compensate for and reduce these processing difficulties,” says McNamara, an educational psychologist who studies young children with learning and reading disabilities.

  Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies Erin Panda studies how the brain enables people to understand language, read and control attention. Panda’s educational neuroscience research seeks to know how these processes differ between individuals and change with development, learning and effective intervention.

  Panda says different parts of the brain are involved in the various tasks of learning to read. One part recognizes letters and letter combinations, another stores words and their meanings in our internal ‘dictionary,’ while other parts hear and interpret the sounds of letters and words.

  “The brain is not naturally wired for reading,” says Panda, the co-director of Brock’s Developmental Neuroscience Lab. “To be able to learn how to read and decode words, children must be able to link the activity of those different brain areas together, which is challenging for some children.”

  Panda and McNamara have several tips to guide parents and educators in helping children learn to read.

  They agree that systematic, explicit instruction in the reading process is the most effective way to support children’s reading.

  Panda says a new emphasis in Ontario schools on “structured literacy” has potential to improve reading outcomes for children who find learning to read challenging. This approach teaches children foundational reading skills, such as how to sound out combinations of letters, so they can form representations of letter patterns in their minds to draw upon in other situations.

  As children learn more combinations of letters and their corresponding sounds, they can put these together to build words, she says.

  She points to Bob Books as an example of a “decodable book” that facilitates this process.

  “These are books children can use to develop their sounding-out skills, so that they read on their own and not rely on memorization,” she says.

  Parents and tutors can help, too.

  “We’ve seen that when supported with a strong tutor, even once or twice a week, children with learning disabilities can succeed with reading,” McNamara says. “We’ve even seen changes in the way children’s brains process information as a result of effective tutoring in the reading process.”

  In addition to seeking tutoring support “as early as possible,” McNamara encourages caregivers to look out for biologically based tendencies, such as temperament, and create “an environment that complements or supports these tendencies.”

  “For example, provide quiet spaces for a more reserved child as they’re learning to read, and also give opportunities for this child to practise being outgoing in situations that call for this,” he says.

   

  Professor John McNamara and Associate Professor Erin Panda, both in Brock’s Department of Child and Youth Studies, are available for media interviews on this topic.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  *Sarah Ackles, Communications Specialist, Brock University sackles@brocku.ca or 289-241-5483

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  Categories: Media releases