From “Admissions” to “Recruitment”: The Professionalisation of Higher Education Admissions

This paper deals with the strategicpressures which are reinforcing andaccelerating the professionalisation of thepolicies and procedures for the admission ofundergraduate students to higher education (HE)in the UK. It reviews the assumptions andpractices which have, until fairly recently,dominated the ways in which students areadmitted and then surveys new models which areemerging as higher education institutions(HEIs) seek to respond to the demands of a massHE system and pressures for greater socialinclusiveness in the student body. Thesemodels in turn create new needs, both human andtechnical, which the HE system has begun toaddress.     

The role of education in the development of Black feminist thought, 1860‐1920

Very few English secondary schools now include ‘Comprehensive’ in their titles, and political enthusiasm for comprehensive schools is hard to detect. According to David Skelton of Policy Exchange, politicians, like anthropologists, have often ‘investigated them, read thoroughly about them and even visited them, but they don’t really understand them’. Drawing on a variety of source materials, this article discusses the early comprehensive schools movement, the period of intensive circulars and legislation in the 1960s and 1970s and the subsequent waning of interest in comprehensive schools as a policy topic. At the heart of the discussion is a focus on politics and politicians at both the national and local levels, with close reference to some key personalities of the post-war period. It is argued that the story of comprehensive schooling in England needs more balance and that we should look to the present generation of politicians and historians to provide this.     

From “survival” to “leadership”: the practice of civic education in Australia

This chapter describes the study as it was conducted in three public high schools in Sydney: a governmental comprehensive high school, a non-government or private high school, and a government “selective school”. The results suggest that civic education revolved around an identifiable, yet not clearly articulated, set of civic values. For teachers, civic education's main goal was to prepare students for harmonious integration into Australia's highly multicultural society, to maintain and reinforce social cohesion, and, consequently, to foster acceptance of diversity. For students, civic education was an enigma. Although they participated in civic education experiences they could rarely identify them as such. Furthermore, few students could identify subject matter of civic education through what was taught in school subjects.     

The Realistic Meaning of“the Human World”From“Chuang-Tzu”

The human world is always changing; one generation is different from another. It is easy to do nothing, but rather difficult to do something without hurting the spirit. Only those who have no prejudice and do not insist on their own selves can follow the changes and not suffer. Everything has its natural ability. And as to human beings, the best way of protecting ourselves and getting an advantageous position in the human world is to forget what must be forgotten; to be\"useless\"; to let everything do its own work according to its own ability and have its own names.     

From “Boy-Government” and “Student-Government” to “Learner-Government”: The Best of Both Worlds?

In the history of South African education there have been three contrasting attempts to incorporate learners into the authority structures of schools, namely: “boy-government” (prefect system), “student-government” (Student Representative Councils (SRCs)) and “learner-government” (Representative Councils of Learners (RCLs)). This article traces the historical development of these traditions in governance in South African schools. Against this background, it proffers a historical analysis of these traditions to show that the phrase “learner representative council” is at a crossroads, that is, it is being stretched and pulled in different directions in post-apartheid South Africa. It points out that “student-government” was born out of the rejection of the unpopular “boy-government”. It also provides a critical analysis of the attempt of the national Guides for Representative Councils of Learners (Guides for RCLs) (DoE 1999) to blend the “prefect” and “SRC” traditions in order to strengthen democracy at school level. In doing so, it argues that the Guides for RCLs undermine democratic SRCs developed in the anti-apartheid education struggle. In the end, the article defends the “student-government” tradition because of its potential to educate for democratic citizenship in post-apartheid South African schools.     

Imagining the Singapore “Nation” and “Identity”: The role of the media and National Education

This article presents an analysis of two state ideological apparatuses in Singapore to understand how the city-state constructs its sense of nationhood and national identity. The analysis shows how Singapore uses the media to represent its impoverished national identity, and through a state-led curriculum intervention, uses National Education to re-mediate its lack of a national identity. The conclusion points to the difficulties and paradoxes of Singapore's national project of constructing a preferred (national) identity over other identities.     

From externalizing student behavior to student-specific teacher self-efficacy: The role of teacher-perceived conflict and closeness in the student–teacher relationship

Data gathered from a longitudinal study within regular upper elementary schools were used to evaluate a theoretical model within which teachers’ perceptions of conflict and closeness in the student–teacher relationship were considered as the intermediary mechanisms by which individual students’ externalizing behavior generates changes in teachers’ student-specific self-efficacy beliefs (TSE) across teaching domains. Surveys were administered among a Dutch sample of 524 third-to-sixth graders and their 69 teachers. Longitudinal mediation models indicated that individual students’ externalizing behavior generally predicted higher levels of teacher-perceived conflict, which, in turn, resulted in lower student-specific TSE across teaching domains (i.e., instructional strategies, behavior management, student engagement, and emotional support). Teacher-perceived closeness, however, was not found to mediate the link between externalizing student behavior and student-specific TSE. Instead, support was found for an alternative model representing the hypothesis that TSE, irrespective of teaching domain, mediated behavior-related changes in teachers’ perceptions of closeness in the student–teacher relationship.     

Stiegler’s ecological thought: The politics of knowledge in the anthropocene

Abstract

My objective in this article is to consider the implications of Bernard Stiegler’s theory of the neganthropocene for the politics of knowledge and education. Stiegler sets out his theory of the neganthropocene in his recent books, Automatic Society and The Neganthropocene, in order to respond to what he writes about in terms of the entropic conditions of the hyper-industrial society of the anthropocene. In this respect Stiegler extends his earlier work on hominisation, technics, technology, and hyper-industrialisation to take in the concept of the anthropocene and related environmental, ecological concerns. In this article I set out Stiegler’s theory of the neganthropocene, before thinking through the politics of knowledge and education that could make this utopian transformation from an ecologically unsustainable to a sustainable society possible. What would the politics of knowledge of the neganthropocene look like and how would they work in the context of the (global) education system?     

Learning the rules of the game: The role of generic “you” and “we” in shaping children's interpretations of norms

A critical skill of childhood is learning social norms. We examine whether the generic pronouns “you” and “we,” which frame information as applying to people in general rather than to a specific individual, facilitate this process. In one pre-registered experiment conducted online between 2020 and 2021, children 4- to 9-year-old primarily living in the midwestern U.S. (N = 146, 75 girls, 71 boys, M_age = 7.14, SD = 1.69, 82% White) interpreted actions described with generic pronouns (vs. “I”) as normatively correct and selected the speaker who used generic pronouns as the rule-follower, particularly when generic pronouns were presented first. There were no significant effects of age. These results illustrate how generic pronouns influence how children discern unfamiliar norms and form interpersonal judgments.     

The role of the teaching headteacher: A question of support?

This article reports findings from a study of 100 headteachers of very small Scottish primary schools. The main aim of the research was to follow up a sample of those schools that had participated in a larger study of all small schools in Scotland in 1996 to explore the role of the teaching headteacher. Evidence for this follow up study was collected from a postal survey and from interviews in nine case study schools. The research found that although the dual role of the teaching headteacher remained largely unchanged, pressures have increased while the available support is still perceived to be inadequate.     

“From the Intuitive to the Intentional”: Designing a Constructivist Online Course

Online programs are becoming more ubiquitous in higher education; however, there has been a lack of research on the merit of this style of educating. Using the concept of constructivism as a framework, the idea that individuals construct their own understanding of world experiences, the authors generated a case study to explore the efficacy of teaching “havruta study,” text analysis in student pairs with instructor facilitation, in an online format. Findings suggest that, through careful consideration of communication styles and student needs, highly interactive in-house courses can be adapted to online settings.     

The second chance to change life —— From the movie “17 again”

非著名影视评论家Mr．Fang每期都会为“影视风暴”增加一点小内容。我们向您推荐的电影,您都看了吗？您理解那些电影的内涵吗？您是将看电影当做娱乐消遣,还是一种英语学习的方式呢？Mr．Fang为您深度剖析影视作品。让您对我们推荐的每一部电影都看得懂记得牢!     

From words to text: inference making mediates the role of vocabulary in children’s reading comprehension

We examined the relationship between inference making, vocabulary knowledge, and verbal working memory on children’s reading comprehension in 62 6th graders (aged 12). The effect of vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension was predicted to be partly mediated by inference making for two reasons: Inference making often taps the semantic relations among words, and the precise word meanings in texts are selected by readers on the basis of context. All independent variables were significantly and moderately correlated with reading comprehension. In support of our prediction, the link between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension was significantly mediated by inference making even when verbal working memory was controlled. An alternative mediation hypothesis (vocabulary as a mediator of the effect of inference making on comprehension) was not supported by the data. The study replicates and extends the findings of earlier work (Cromley & Azevedo, 2007; Segers & Verhoeven, 2016; Ahmed et al., 2016).     

From the “Revolutionary” to “Modernity” ——the Research on the Political System since the Founding of PRC

改革开放以来的中国政治实践表明,政治行为变化诱导政治系统及其子系统发生局部或全部的变迁,这种变迁既是原有政治系统的一种部分性延续,也是新系统结构渐成雏形的开端.除政治系统的外部环境发生改变外,新中国建立的组织化的政治系统自身的生存与维系产生困境,其内部的结构张力是导致系统变迁的关键性要素.当封闭的政治环境向半开放或开放的条件转变,在内外部因素共同作用的情景下,政治系统经历了由领袖权威式结构的“让位”到以“民族-国家”为核心的结构性“归位”,由政治系统核心因素替换引发的系统变迁标志着中国的政治系统开始了性质与行为方式的变化.     

The spiritual component of children’s lives: the role of media

Drawn from a larger study of Canadian children’s sense of self and media habits, this study explores the role of religiosity and/or spirituality within 535 children’s (281 girls, 254 boys; 5–13 years of age) self‐reported media preferences and habits over a three‐year period. Results indicate that the theme of spirituality and/or religiosity emerged most frequently within the context of after‐school activities, music listening habits and the reading habits of participants’ mothers. Aside from children in Grade 1 (five–six years), girls were more likely than boys to mention issues of spirituality and religiosity, particularly during preadolescence (10–13 years). Younger children reported more issues of spirituality than older children. Results are discussed in terms of educational implications for critical media literacy.     

Teachers’ responses to student misbehavior: the role of expertise

In a quasi-experimental study, we investigated whether preservice and inservice teachers differed in their responses to minor student misbehavior. The participants’ task was to estimate how likely they would be to apply various predefined intervention strategies, while we simultaneously assessed response latencies. Results indicated that preservice teachers were more likely to choose harsh interventions such as school suspension, whereas inservice teachers were more likely to use mild strategies such as ignoring and nonverbal responses. The response latencies showed that the application of mild strategies seemed to belong to the behavioral routines of inservice teachers and were less likely to belong to those of preservice teachers. However, neither the ratings nor the response latencies of the two groups of teachers differed when it came to the application of moderately harsh strategies. The results are discussed with respect to teacher development and teacher education.     

The grand emotion of “Ode to the west wind”

The imagine of Shelley's Ode to the west wind vividly represent manly beauty. Reading this poem, we feel a vast boundless and grand emotional world.