The Nature of the Gift: Accountability and the Professor‐Student Relationship

In this paper I introduce the theory of gift giving as a possible means to reconcile the contradictions inherent in accountability measures of ‘faculty productivity’ in the American university. In this paper I sketch the theory of gift economies to show how, given the historical ideals that characterize the faculty‐student relationship, a theory of gift giving could help us better judge the labor of the faculty. I suggest that it is the relational character of teaching that frustrates accountability measures and that perhaps if viewed as a gift economy—and in particular an economy with ‘reproductive’ ends—we could better grasp the effectiveness of these relationships.     

Catholic and Protestant Schools,a Better Choice in the Netherlands?

Abstract

This paper focuses on the influence of the sector of education (Catholic, Protestant and public) on the success of their pupils in tertiary education and on the labour market in the Netherlands. In the United States Coleman and Hoffer (1987) could hardly find any differences between the job prospects of pupils of private and public schools, but they did find effects of Catholic secondary education on success in tertiary education. In this study, which is based on longitudinal data of a nationally representative cohort of Dutch primary school leavers in 1965, an analogous comparison is made between the success in tertiary education and the job careers of the pupils who attended Dutch Catholic, Protestant or public secondary education. Differences are found between success in tertiary education and on the labour market of those who attended Catholic, Protestant or public Dutch schools. Pupils of public schools enter the university more often than pupils of private schools and pupils of Catholic schools enter the lower valued tertiary vocational education more often than pupils of Protestant or public schools. Significant effects of school sector were only found for those job characteristics which indicate the kind of job (sector of the job, nature of the job) but not for job characteristics which indicate the level of job. Especially pupils of Protestant schools less often have jobs in the administrative‐financial sector and the medical‐social sector than pupils of non‐Protestant schools. They also less often have jobs which have an exact or social nature. These differences in success in tertiary education and on the labour market are not systematically in favour of the private Catholic and Protestant schools.     

Can Schools Achieve Both Quality and Equity? Investigating the Two Dimensions of Educational Effectiveness

This article investigates the extent to which schools can achieve both equity and quality. Data emerged from two effectiveness studies in teaching mathematics and Greek language, which were conducted to test the validity of the dynamic model of educational effectiveness. Separate multilevel analyses for each subject were conducted and it was found that the effectiveness status of schools does not change significantly when the two dimensions (equity and quality) are used to measure their effectiveness status in each subject. Changes in their effectiveness status in terms of each dimension of measuring effectiveness were also examined. In each subject, schools that were found to improve their effectiveness status in terms of the equity dimension were also found to improve their effectiveness status in terms of the quality dimension. Moreover, no school that was found to improve its effectiveness status in terms of one dimension had declining effectiveness in terms of the other dimension of effectiveness. Implications of these findings for the development of educational effectiveness research are drawn.     

Academic and Managerial Skills of Academic Deans: A self‐assessment perspective

Brazilian higher education institutions face a complex and challenging environment as the national market in education is becoming more competitive. International investment, a decrease in the population of potential students, and the proliferation of innumerable small institutions add to this complexity. Organizations are becoming flatter and the key managers within them are deans. Although deans are required to act as managerial experts, they are usually selected from the teaching body of the institution. In this paper, a group of deans from a large private institution gave their self‐assessment of their academic and managerial skills. The results revealed that they tend to have a high perception of their managerial skills, even though they have no previous managerial experience or formal training. This underlines that senior academic administrators cannot simply assume that deans, by the nature of their work environment, are proficient in managerial skills; neither that they can easily identify inadequacies nor have them self‐corrected. To accomplish the necessary institutional changes to face the complexities of the current globalized education market, a new assessment culture has to be implemented in the academic environment.     

The “Other White”: Mexican Americans and the Impotency of Whiteness in the Segregation and Desegregation of Texan Public Schools

This article analyzes the legal classification of Mexican Americans as “other white” as argued in a number of critical court cases that beginning in the 1930s up to the 1970s attempted to desegregate public schools in Texas. Since the Texas constitution declared school segregation as being only for “colored children,” Mexican Americans in their fight against de facto segregation sought to claim their legal classification as white. My objective is to further analyze these cases as presented in the literature in order to examine what the relationship between Mexican American whiteness as a legal category versus their “otherness” as a social category says about the vital role of public schools in reproducing, as well as creating, social, political, and economic marginalization.     

Accountability: a key‐word in the discourse of educational reform

This paper examines the relationship between language and power in education policy. It takes the example of accountability as the specific focus for an analysis of discursive power in the shaping of education in the 1990s. In doing so, it examines the ways in which language contributes to the construction and maintenance of norms and consensual positions in education. Drawing on work in critical linguistics and cultural theory, the paper considers how recent changes in education might be analysed in a way which relates specific examples of social and linguistic practice to larger scale theoretical concerns. The examples which provide the specific focus for discussion in this paper relate to the concept of accountability and are drawn from an empirical study of the enactment of the statutory curriculum for English in secondary schools in 1992‐93.     

Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University

William Clark University Of Chicago Press,2006正如本书第一句所言,"这是一本奇特的书"。作为一部非同寻常的大学史,它在隐秘的历史中追述,仿佛探幽览胜,以最谦卑细致的笔触写下最有富于野心的叙述——从中世纪至近代,学术生活如何完成了理性化、科层化,学术卡里斯玛如何被转移、分解和重新定义,大学如何从行会、民族团、神学院、象牙塔变为由现代国家控制的科研机构——研究型大学如何在时代的转变中形成。     

From Engagement to Impact? Articulating the Public Value of Academic Research

This paper reviews recent culture-change in British higher education (HE) and an increasing emphasis on academics evidencing, in meaningful and measurable ways, the value and contribution of their work to national societies. Discussion focuses on what is purported to be a shift from a focus on academics rationalizing the benefits of their work in terms of public engagement to a more contentious signifier of research worth, “impact”. The primary argument herein is that an impact agenda, framed in terms of assessment and by the upcoming Research Excellence Framework 2014, has not eclipsed an engagement initiative for HE in the UK but actually provided greater credence and tacit momentum. Where public engagement “pre-impact” was viewed by sections of the academic community as frivolous, faddish and tokenistic, it is now elevated as an integral component of impact-capture work and in plotting the pathways between research producer and research intermediary/end-user/collaborator. Where “impact” is a statement of the value of academic work, engagement is the method of its articulation and the means by which impacts are mobilized.

     

Public accountability in the age of neo‐liberal governance

In this paper we consider two discussion-based parents' forums at two secondary schools. We ask whether such forums can be considered as part of the small, local associative mechanisms which theorists claim have the potential to encourage a more vibrant and interactive public conversation concerning state provided welfare services. We conclude that they cannot - at least in any simple way. However, a study of the forums does raise several interesting issues to do with parents' relationships with schools, the differential resources that particular class fractions bring to bear in developing their relations with teachers, and the responses of the schools to parental voices. Access to higher education and good jobs emerges as the most important element in securing children's futures (and thus of ‘putting the family first’). Yet all the respondents see this as involving their children gaining advantages over others. What is missing from these accounts is an attempt to describe what might be done about any injustice that is recognised, or how the life-chances of the others' might be better protected. Equality of opportunity and equality of citizenship do not emerge as public issues in these versions of access to higher education and good jobs. Instead we have accounts of how to do the best for one's children in a situation of scarcity of both these resources, (Jordan et al. 1994:197) I think it goes right back to the family and they [the parent body] put the children first, right the way through life they put the children first, and they recognise that to get a good job in the end they've got to have qualifications and they want a good school (headteacher, Carson School).     

Should Creationism be Taught in the Public Schools?

This article discusses philosophicalarguments relevant to the question of teachingcreationism, especially with regard to developments inthe debate since the early 1990s.Section 1 reviews the newfactions within the creationist movement, and theoverlapping views from young earth to intelligentdesign creationism, as well as non-Christianvarieties. It also considers what are the relevantdifferences for the policy question for private,public schools, and for home schoolers, as well aspossible differences in what it means to teachcreationism. Sections 2 & 3 discuss the main legal argumentsthat have ruled in the public school case, as well asarguments from academic freedom, fairness, censorship,parental rights and majority rule. Section 4 evaluates theepistemological issues regarding competing claims oftruth, and the contention that excluding whatChristians know (Alvin Plantinga) amounts toviewpoint discrimination (Phillip Johnson). Section 5argues that religious protection arguments actuallyfavor excluding creationism more than including it. Section 6 considers the goals of education, especiallyDewey's views on science education, and what theseimply regarding the teaching of a theistic science. In Section 7, I review a new argument of Alvin Plantingabased upon a purported Rawlsian basic right of aparent not to have her children taught anything thatviolates her comprehensive beliefs, and show whyRawlsian agents would reject it.