Schooling as a positional good: the Brazilian metropolitan regions in recent decades

In this article, I aim to determine whether, in view of the trend of educational expansion in recent decades in Brazil, the role played by schooling in the labor market of Brazilian major metropolitan regions has changed, becoming positional rather than absolute. To this end, I analyze the influence of schooling on people’s income and occupational status. Based on data from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD-IBGE) for years 1995, 2005 and 2015, I compare ordinary least squares models that use absolute and positional measures of schooling. The results show that the explanatory power is greater for positional measures than for absolute ones, and that this advantage has increased over recent decades. As a result, it is argued that although educational expansion possibly makes the chances of access to a certain absolute schooling level less unequal, it also ends up undermining the opportunity structure related to it.     

随机结构动力学及其进展

简述了随机结构动力学的发展历程，给出了日益复杂的随机结构动力学问题的解析方法，并以实例说明随机结构动力学在土木和航空工程中的应用。讨论了工程结构的各种随机损伤，包括运动失稳、首通问题和疲劳损伤。     

Halting progress: some comments on recent British educational policy and practice

The Thatcher governments have invented very little in respect of current educational policy. Long standing struggles over central‐local control and the ‘naturalness’ of academic selection are central features around which policies advance and retreat. The economic and social policies of Thatcherism have, however, accentuated the rhetoric and reality of vocationalism as a widely acceptable counterpoint to an expansion of de facto selective provision which rewards the fractions of capital and class from which it expects support. There are few grounds for expecting an early reverse to these tendencies.     

Parental Choice and Schooling: some factors influencing Muslim mothers’ decisions about the education of their daughters

In recent years parental choice in education has become an important focus of political debate. Muslim demands for the state funding of Islamic schools have attracted a significant amount of media attention, with opposition sometimes coming from those who argue that such schools are likely to offer limited opportunities to pupils, particularly girls. This article reports on a small‐scale research project which examined the attitudes and values of Muslim women in the UK to their daughters’ education, particularly the basis on which they had selected either a private Islamic school or state primary school. It considers whether the concept of parental choice is a valid one for these women     

Schooling cultures: institutionalizing heteronormativity and heterosexism

This paper explores how some schooling cultures in New South Wales (hereafter NSW), Australia, police and silence non‐heterosexuality through a number of institutional processes which enable homophobia and heterosexism to flourish, while normalizing and constituting heterosexuality as the dominant and only valid sexuality. The discussion shows that despite an apparent broader societal ‘tolerance’ for non‐heterosexuality, as well as legislation that condemns anti‐‘homosexual’ discrimination in education in NSW, homophobic prejudice — often in the form of silence, omission and assumption — prevails. It illustrates that schools need to be much more aware and proactive in addressing issues pertaining to this social justice issue to ensure a safe and equitable learning and teaching environment for all members of the school community.

There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses.

(Foucault, 1978 Foucault, M. 1978. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An introduction, Edited by: Hurley, R. New York, NY: Vintage.  [Google Scholar], p. 27)

Lying is done with words, and also with silence.

(Rich, 1980 Rich, A. 1980/84. On lies, secrets and silence. Selected prose 1966–1978, London: Virago.  [Google Scholar]/84, p.186)     

The French connection: some contributions of French-language research in the post-Piagetian era

This article presents French-speaking researchers' contribution to the field of differential developmental psychology. Following a brief review of key Piagetian ideas pertaining to his conceptualization of individual differences, the core of the article traces methodological and theoretical transformations that were necessary for understanding individual differences within a general theory of cognitive development. On a methodological level, French-speaking researchers went from standardizing Piaget's clinical method to constructing developmental scales and operational tests. On a theoretical level, Reuchlin's writings guided Longeot, and several other French (Lautrey and Bideaud) and Genevan (de Ribaupierre and Rieben) researchers into a scientific quest for a genuine integration of differential and developmental psychology. We present an overview of the pluralistic and multidimensional model of cognitive functioning and development that emerged from the work of the French-Swiss team of researchers. Concluding remarks focus on the actual research agendas of researchers interested in resolving the challenging issue of understanding relationships between inter- and intraindividual differences and general tendencies in cognitive development.     

Performance in Home Schooling: An Argument against Compulsory Schooling in the Netherlands

International Review of Education - Although home education is a growing phenomenon in many Western countries, it is almost non-existent in the Netherlands. Under Dutch educational law, children...