Thinking skills: The question of generality

This paper examines the question of whether there are useful general thinking skills. It offers a working definition of 'thinking skill' and identifies ways in which this concept has been over-applied. Thinking skills, used across domains, are not inevitably weak as a result of the generality-power tradeoff. Admitting that thinking skills require domain-specific knowledge for their application, it is contended nonetheless that there are general thinking skills that involve substantial amounts of domain-independent knowledge. These skills usually address 'generic thinking tasks', common mental challenges that people face in many practical and intellectual endeavours, including the 'domain of practical affairs'. The educational implications of these findings are discussed.     

Spaces of Mediation: Excavating Art's Boundaries

Ideas of social responsibility and exploring art's place in society are widespread and prevalent. Access, community, participation, empowerment are words that appear with increasing frequency within disparate discourses. From Glasgow's successful bid to be UK City of Architecture and Design 1999, [1] to lottery guidelines [2] and policy research [3], there appears to be a preoccupation with such terminology. However, does this demonstrate a true desire to find a point of mediation between discourses, between one place or one group and another? Do projects establish sustainability in the relationships that are built up between apparently disparate elements or are these terms linked mainly to high profile events that intervene, then move on, leaving people with little more than a memory of the encounter? This paper proposes that in order to shift the topography of art practice – the where, how and on whose terms it occurs – spaces and forms of mediation have to reconstruct the very sub structure on which they are founded.     

Portraits of resilience: headteachers in two different cultures

This article provides two ‘portraits’ of headteachers in primary schools in England and Hong Kong, derived from semi-structured interviews with these individuals. Contrary to some claims that such a small sample is worthless, this article argues that what is most meaningful is sometimes derived from the singular and unique; that generalisations in education are as likely to be useful if they are ‘fuzzy’ generalisations as if they are from scientific or statistical generalisations; and that the individual case can strip away the clutter of large contexts and allow recognition of a common shared humanity. What these portraits also show is that responses to larger contexts are heavily dependent on personality and local context, and that if policy implementation and professional development are to have impact, then an attention to the personal and the local are going to be critical factors in any success in these areas.     

Inclusion: Culture,Policy and Practice: A Queensland Perspective

Schools are currently undergoing a process of reconstructed educational thinking and practice in Queensland. They are being challenged to review their organisational structures, the curriculum they teach and their pedagogical practices with the intention of transforming their structures, curriculum and pedagogies to ensure that all students are truly included in the school community. This paper reviews the background research that has informed the inclusion movement and the role schools play in developing inclusive education and outlines the specific initiatives that have been undertaken in Queensland, Australia.     

The determinants of parenting: a process model

This essay is based on the assumption that a long-neglected topic of socialization, the determinants of individual differences in parental functioning, is illuminated by research on the etiology of child maltreatment. Three domains of determinants are identified (personal psychological resources of parents, characteristics of the child, and contextual sources of stress and support), and a process model of competent parental functioning is offered on the basis of the analysis. The model presumes that parental functioning is multiply determined, that sources of contextual stress and support can directly affect parenting or indirectly affect parenting by first influencing individual psychological well-being, that personality influences contextual support/stress, which feeds back to shape parenting, and that, in order of importance, the personal psychological resources of the parent are more effective in buffering the parent-child relation from stress than are contextual sources of support, which are themselves more effective than characteristics of the child.     

PISA truth effects: the construction of low performance

This article seeks to unpack the taken-for-granted notion of low performance, arguing that performance and competency are not a given categories; rather they are “objects-for-thought” that receive their discursive and material contours through a chain of translations. As suggested previously by Gorur, PISA is analyzed through the lens of Latourian Science and Technology Studies. The arguments in this article are based on an analysis of situations constructed to observe how performance is enacted in socio-material practice, as 15-year-old students collaboratively solve PISA scientific-literacy items. As background a text analysis, concerning how scientific literacy and performance are discursively constructed in various PISA materials, is reported. We suggest the notion of ‘competency’ be linked to the historical event of trying to start to detect it and argue that PISA results are products of the situated adjustments that are enacted by students and items created in the very moments of scientific measurement.     

心理疾病污名的结构:基于IAT的测量

以63名大学生为被试,采用内隐联想测验对心理疾病污名的结构进行研究。结果发现,负面刻板印象、负性情绪体验以及消极行为倾向的IAT效应显著,并且三者之间相关显著。本研究证实心理疾病污名主要由负面刻板印象、负性情绪体验以及消极行为倾向三个成分构成。     

Educational Research: The Importance of the Humanities

It is one sign of the lack of understanding of the value of the humanities, to educational research and inquiry as well as to our world more widely, that such justifications of them as are offered frequently take a crudely instrumental form. The humanities (which in this essay are not distinguished from the arts) are welcomed insofar as they are beneficial to the economy, for example, or play a therapeutic role in people's physical or mental well‐being. In higher education in the UK, they are marginalized for similar reasons, on the grounds that they neither appeal to the lucrative overseas student market nor constitute a significant source of grant income from research councils, industry, or other funding sources. While their place in educational research is still defended in many quarters, the increasing demand that research should have “impact” can leave the humanities appearing ineffectual. Furthermore, the very idea of research is widely taken to mandate empiricist and “scientific” approaches. Although there are no easy solutions to this state of things, Richard Smith argues in this essay that those of us who value the humanities in and for themselves might adopt two approaches in particular: to pursue vigilant criticism of the rampant instrumentalism and scientism of our time, and to emphasize the importance of that distinctive feature of humane inquiry: interpretation.     

理解：翻译的灵魂

在翻译活动中，译者的任务就是最大限度地再现源语信息，以达到“忠实”、“通顺”。然而，对原作的“忠实”，在目的语中所表现出的“通顺”，都须以准确理解原作为前提。为了达到翻译的目的，译者必须首先克服种种障碍，准确地理解原作。     

以“意图性”为核心的语篇性标准探究

语篇的意图性是Beaugrande ＆ Dressler的7个语篇性标准之一（另外六个标准是衔接性、连贯性、信息性、可接受性、语境性、互文性）。语篇意图性的体现过程就是意义的建立和理解过程,所以意图性与另外六个语篇性标准都有千丝万缕的联系,可以说另外六个语篇性标准都是为“意图性”服务的,意图性是主,其他六个标准是仆。     

Editorial: Heart and Reason: The Religious Quality of Experience

The concept of responsibility shows that Christian education is a frontier or boundary exercise, with the Bible as a primary resource to help us make the fitting response. The teacher and pastor are key persons in the process     

The Politics of Terror: Rereading Harry Potter

This article claims that J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, with its use of magic, frightening storylines, and character ambiguity is beneficial to children who are dealing with issues related to terror and terrorism. The author explains that the scenarios presented in Rowling's series teach children strategies for coping with both physical and psychological victimization, and argues that the series explores morality issues, allowing child readers to analyze terror-related questions such as why some people are considered evil, why difference is often believed to be bad, and why good people do bad things. It is acknowledged that many critics believe that the same elements claimed as beneficial in the essay are actually immoral and dangerous to child readers. These critics' evaluations are countered in two ways: first, the author uses expert evidence to demonstrate that children are capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality by the age of 5, making fantasy the most viable means for children to cope with terror; and second, the author examines and interprets specific passages within the series to demonstrate how various scenes lead children to explore important, yet frightening issues while remaining in an emotionally safe state. The author concludes that the series has proven to be more beneficial than harmful by presenting evidence gathered from actual child readers who state that the Harry Potter series has allowed them to confront and cope with terror and terrorism in their own lives.     

Cognitive efficiency: Toward a revised theory of media

Within and beyond the field of educational technology, Richard Clark's writings are widely believed to have shown that any number of media are equally capable of delivering any instruction, so that media choices are about cost and efficiency but not about cognition and learning (Clark, 1983; 1994b). However, if it is accepted that one type of efficiency is cognitive efficiency, then it follows that media choices are often about cognition and learning and can profit from an understanding of cognitive processes. Media and learning can then be reconnected in limited ways that do not compromise any of Clark's main points, and doing this will bring media work into line with current research into the role of surface information codes.     

社会化小农的历史进程:中国的经验

小农的社会化是一个立体式的过程,主要表现在纵向一体化与横向社会化两个方面。始于20世纪50年代的国家化过程消灭了传统小农,通过组织整合和计划经济实现了小农与国家权力的纵向一体化。始于20世纪90年代的社会主义市场经济则引导着小农进入一个社会化的交换过程之中。正是由于前后相继的两个向度的一体化过程,小农开始进入到一个立体式的社会关系网络之中,传统小农开始向社会化小农转变。     

Transfer of learning: paradoxes for learners

There are three kinds of transfer: from prior knowledge to learning, from learning to new learning, and from learning to application. The central thesis of this chapter is that all three should start from the dilemmas or paradoxes learners may have when trying to reach transfer. Six of these are described. They are finding relevant prior knowledge; the paradox of tacit knowledge; using relevant prior knowledge while learning; recognizing relevant situations and conditions; the paradox of near transfer and far transfer; and the paradoxical “what” of transfer, including learning to learn. In order to optimize transfer one needs to help learners solve the problems they encounter and to find ways out of the various dilemmas and paradoxes. For the three kinds of transfer exemplary studies are described that illustrate the kinds of solutions developed and their effectiveness.     

Editorial: On behalf of children

Conclusion When you think about it, many of the things we do are expressly designed to maintain a sense of wonder because once it is lost, childhood is lost. I still vividly recall a class discussion with one of my teachers about the existence of Santa Claus when I was 10 years old. By that time, nobody in the class was a believer. Sister Christopher told us that she still believed in Santa until she was 13. When we asked her how she could have been so gullible, she said that just about the time she was beginning to question the myth, her father (she later found out) climbed up on the roof in the middle of the night to make “reindeer tracks” and lines from the runners of the sleigh. Now that was a man who really wanted to keep the wonder alive! If you reflect on all of the people you know and love, I'll wager that most of them are individuals who have managed to keep some sense of awe intact despite its erosion throughout life. Early childhood practitioners are fortunate because we have the best possible role models of wonder to follow. Being in the company of young children whose sense of wonder is at a lifetime high helps to keep us from becoming jaded and disaffected. For if we allow children to show us the way, they can lead us back to wonder.     

远方的城市:关于都市美学的思考

城市是一个在它成为任何别的东西以前的体验环境.无论城市体验可能是什么,它都可能是组成城市的多维度中最重要并最有力的一个维度.应把都市体验当作可供分享的环境,一个凝结在一起的却复杂的自然环境、社会环境和文化环境的一部分来探究,从外部、从远处这样一个不同的视角来探究.在城市体验的基础上建构起城市美学的内涵,进而通过分析城市的变迁,探寻理想的都市体验样态,以及都市美学在这种都市体验中的意义.     

Tragedy and Teaching: The education of narrative

Abstract

This is the second of two articles that are connected in a reading of The plague by Albert Camus. The other article is a determined narration of the events of a tragedy that befalls a city on the coast of Algeria. That article resists analysis beyond the decisions that are made regarding text to use, and of course interpretations to make. This article is juxtaposed to the first, with the intention of taking key themes of education and narration and considering them within the context of another tragedy and another kind of narration. In this article the narratives of government education policy are considered in relation to the event of a tragic earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. The government narratives are then replaced by the narratives of Oran to consider alternative ways of thinking about tragedy and education and in particular to think about the ways in which the narrative relates to the tragedy and to any learning that might happen as a result of, and during, a tragedy.     

A history of instructional design and technology: Part I: A history of instructional media

This is the first of a two-part article that will discuss the history of the field of instructional design and technology in the United States. A definition of the field is provided and the major features of the definition are identified. A rational for using instructional design and technology as the label for the field is also presented. Events in the history of instructional media, from the early 1900s to the present day, are described. The birth of school museums, the visual and audiovisual instruction movements, the use of media during World War II, and the interest in instructional television, computers, and the Internet are among the topics discussed. The article concludes with a summarization of the effects media have had on instructional practices, and a prediction regarding the effect computers, the Internet, and other digital media will have on such practices over the next decade. Portions of this article are from a chapter that will appear inTrends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (Reiser & Dempsey, in press). Some segments of the article previously appeared in a book chapter by Reiser (1987).