The decentralisation of the school system in post‐communist Romania

Following the fall of the Iron Curtain in December 1989, the Romanian system of education has started a deep process of reconstruction that asked for a comprehensive package of reforms among which decentralisation. Broadly the paper aims to make a contribution to the emerging knowledge base about the realities of restructuring of post‐communist education systems and the impact that governance through markets is having on public services. The paper focuses on presenting and discussing the attempts to decentralise pre‐higher education in Romania in considering the role of the state and governance in the provision of public services and the introduction of market mechanisms in education. The decentralisation of education has been proposed by the then Minister of Education Andrei Marga. Although decentralisation in pre‐higher education has been piloted for three academic years and the policy documents that introduced it have been permanently amended and updated, more than a decade later, this reform has not reached its aims mainly due to the various changes on the political scene. However, provided that no major amendments will be made to the Laws of National Education (2009), decentralisation in pre‐higher education will be a reality from 2010–11.     

The socio‐political significance of changes to the vocational education system in Germany

This paper explores the effects on social inequality in Germany of ongoing changes to the employment system and, thus, vocational education. Results based on an examination of the literature indicate that students from increasingly middle‐class backgrounds with higher levels of general, rather than vocational, educational attainment are winning the competition for ever‐fewer apprenticeships. Progress for women in education is accompanied by relative declines in men’s performance on high school exit examinations and does not translate into success in the employment system. Employers are abandoning the corporate‐state organization of vocational education. The paper concludes that school degrees are increasingly important for later career opportunities. As a result, the educational system is increasingly stratified, contributing to social inequality in Germany.     

The liberal arts‐necessary

Edward R. Murrow's documentary series See It Now's “Report on Senator McCarthy” is a telecast that stands as one of the most influential documents in American public discourse. It is also one of the least understood. The standard response has been to label the program as “flawed” because it was not “objective.” This essay argues that the text situates itself between the genre of objective news documentary and the genre of public argument through the ironic “use” of objectivity as a fabricated strategy of appeal.     

The Role of Language‐level in Conservation‐acquisition

Remmo Hamel, B. & de Witt, S. (1971). The Role of Language‐level in Conservation‐acquisition. Scand. J. educ. Res. 13‐20. The experiment investigates the role of language‐level and different types of training procedures on the acquisition of conservation of liquids. The results corroborate earlier findings that different types of training have no differential effects on conservation‐acquisition, and indicate that language‐level plays a significant role in conservation‐acquisition. The Piagetian conception of the role of language has been questioned. However, the learned conservation concept does not generalize to other situations. The results arc interpreted in terms of conditioning.     

The Immigrant Project 1980‐81

The article deals with a teacher education response to a problem relatively new in Norwegian society, namely the immigration influx of the 60s and 70s. The need to educate for a multi‐cultural society is a new one for Norway.

The Immigrant Project at Levanger College of Education tackled this problem, with the aim of showing the positive side of cultural pluralism. New methods and new materials were needed, and an inter‐disciplinary approach was adopted. The strategies adopted are explained: first‐hand observation, field work and materials preparation are all important constituents, and students had extensive exposure to social and cultural conditions of immigrant life.

The article stresses also the importan?e of feedback into the college and of public presentation via the media. Finally, the author summarises the learnings and the achievements of the project.     

The micro‐politics of openness

In this paper, David Harris, senior lecturer in sociology at the College of St Mark and St John in Plymouth, explores the context in which our current definitions of openness have evolved. He goes on to suggest that it is time to shift interest away from the level of grand design and abstract typologies towards a ‘micro‐political’ level, involving analyses of concrete practice.     

The high‐school science library

Student behavioral and emotional difficulties, often comorbid with each other and with learning difficulties and academic underachievement, have become an increasing concern to educational settings. This article first provides a conceptual framework for child assessment and highlights the role of behavior rating scales and personality inventories. This article reviews the role of behavior rating scales and personality inventories as a tool for screening students whose behavioral and emotional difficulties may affect their learning, their interpersonal relationships at school, and students who may pose significant management problems for teachers. The utility of specific uni- and multidimensional scales is reviewed relative to major behavioral and emotional difficulties shown by school students. Issues with using these tools are discussed. The Student Behavior Survey (SBS), a teacher-report scale, is described to illustrate the relative contributions of these scales.     

The Self‐esteem of Pre‐service Physics Education Students

The self‐esteem as physics teachers of students taking pre‐service physics teacher education courses was investigated before and after the courses. It was found that students who dropped out from the courses had lower self‐esteem than either the students who satisfactorily completed them or similarly qualified students who did not take the courses. There was some evidence that learning pedagogical theory enhances self‐esteem if it takes place after practical teaching experience but has the opposite effect when taught first, in the absence of any practical teaching experience.