From the July ＆ August Issue, 2013

Dog： I want to know how to play with this toy. Who can show me？     

July的由来

July罗马统治者朱里斯·凯撒大帝被刺死后,著名的罗马将军马克·安东尼建议将凯撒大帝诞生的7月,用凯撒的名字——拉丁文Julius(即朱里斯)命名。这一建议得到了元老院的通过。英语7月July由此演变而来。July的由来     

July的由来

罗马统治者朱里斯·凯撒大帝被刺死后,著名的罗马将军马克·安东尼建议将凯撒大帝诞生的7月,用凯撒的名字--拉丁文Julius(即朱里斯)命名.这一建议得到了元老院的通过.英语7月July由此演变而来.……     

July的由来

罗马统治者朱里斯·凯撒大帝被刺死后,著名的罗马将军马克·安东尼建议将凯撒大帝诞生的7月,用凯撒的名字--拉丁文Julius(即朱里斯)命名.这一建议得到了元老院的通过.英语7月July由此演变而来.……     

Eighth IHPST Group International Conference,Leeds, July 15–18, 2005

Announcement

Eighth IHPST Group International Conference, Leeds, July 15–18, 2005     

Supersurveillance,democracy, and co-operation – the challenge for teachers

The paper explores pedagogies of surveillance and counter pedagogies of radical democracy and co-operative practice and their implications for continuing professional development (CPD). Teachers have had to respond to an increasing naturalisation of surveillance in schools. However, this naturalisation can be countered by drawing upon the emergent development of the co-operative education movement in the UK. I argue that critical to developing effective pedagogies of radical democracy and co-operation is the formation of a “public space” of discussion and debate about courses of action. This will be illustrated through research drawn from a co-operative school and its use of information technologies. Although the intentions are to improve standards of learning, the hidden curriculum implicit in the use of the technologies can lead to “supersurveillance.” Teachers, I argue, have a critical role in the deconstruction of the naturalisation of supersurveillance and both pre-service and CPD urgently need to address this.     

NEET,unemployed, inactive or unknown – why does it matter?

Background: The UK, like most countries across Europe and other advanced economies, has experienced an alarming rise in the levels of young people (aged between 16 and 24 years) who are detached from both the labour market and the education and training system. In the UK, there are nearly a million 16–24-year-olds who are recorded as being not in education, employment or training (NEET). For governments throughout Europe, the need to address high levels of youth unemployment and social disengagement has become an urgent priority. As a result, policy-makers are faced with the challenge of developing effective interventions to prevent these levels being sustained over the longer term, with potential scarring effects on successive generations, and concomitant economic and social impacts.

Purpose: This paper will inform the development of policy and practice targeted at NEET prevention and reintegration of those young people who have become NEET, with suggestions for areas to be addressed and methods and mechanisms which might be incorporated into programme implementation. The paper highlights gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the size, characteristics and geographical distribution of young people in the NEET group in England, and questions the continued relevance of the term ‘NEET’ to capture youth disengagement.

Sources of evidence: After drawing on Europe-wide data to present a picture of the scale of youth unemployment throughout the continent, official UK data are used to drill down to specific issues which are the focus of the piece, in particular, the regional disparities in the size of the group whose destination is ‘unknown’. This is discussed in the context of a range of literature relating to the emergence of the term ‘NEET’ and the characteristics of the NEET group. A review of current policy intervention in England to tackle the NEET ‘problem’ is also presented.

Main argument: This paper will suggest that the implementation of effective policy interventions to address the ‘NEET’ issue is highly problematic, due to three overriding concerns. These are: (a) a lack of clarity in the definition of this group in England; (b) inadequacies in determining with any precision how many under-18s there are in this group, or where they are located, leading to large numbers whose post-education destination is ‘unknown’; and (c) misguided stereotyping of NEET young people’s behaviour, attitudes and aspirations. These problems have partly been exacerbated by budget cuts and changes to guidance and support services, as well as inadequacies in mapping and tracking systems.

Conclusions: The paper concludes with recommendations that policy development must, in the first instance, be underpinned by robust and reliable data about the size and composition of the group, derived from impartial, independent mapping and tracking services. Furthermore, policies designed to reduce the NEET population should include measures which tackle NEET prevention, re-engagement strategies for the hardest to reach groups and active labour market policies for the young unemployed.     

Book Reviews – Buchbesprechungen – Analyses Bibliographiques

Book Reviews

Book Reviews – Buchbesprechungen – Analyses Bibliographiques     

Elitebildungsforschung im Vergleich – Frankreich,USA und Großbritannien

Research on elites (that is, on status groups that occupy dominant positions) is characterized by the lack of connection between studies that focus on elite recruitment and those that focus on the exercise of power by elites. As underlined by Giddens (Elites and power in British society, 1974), both types of approach are important and should complement each other in the analysis of mediations between the class structure, the organizational structure and the power structure in a given society. Giddens also insists on the need for recruitment studies to take account of two different dimensions: the types of channel that are privileged by elite groups to reproduce their social position, and the degree of social closure or openness of these channels to other groups (Parkin, The social analysis of class structure, 1974). This distinction is used to organize the present chapter, which focuses on a single channel that has come to play a crucial role in post-industrial societies, that is schools and, more precisely, upper secondary and higher education institutions, and on their influence in three different national contexts: France, the United Kingdom and the United States. In the first section, the specific features of elite education are examined. The second section explores the extent and modes of institutional and social closure.