The struggle continues: El Centro de los Trabajadores Agrvcolas Fronterizos

As a participating student in the Border Studies Program in the fall semester of 2000, the author did a field study working as a volunteer at El Centro de los Trabajadores Agrvcolas Fronterizos (The Border Agricultural Workers' Center, or CTAF). In this ethnography, he intertwines the exploration of several different relationships. He examines the relationship between the current struggles of farm workers in the U.S. and the movement led by Cesar Chavez in the 1970s; and the relationship between the ''periphery'' and the ''center.'' He also reflects upon his own position within the progressive movement, given the social privilege that adheres to him by virtue of race, class, and sex.     

Notes on contributors

The author participated in the Border Studies Program in the fall semester of 1999. He carried out his field study as a volunteer at Casa Vides in El Paso, Texas. Grounded in the same philosophical principles as the Catholic Worker movement, Casa Vides serves as a shelter for immigrants who are involved in political asylum proceedings in the United States. Because all of the residents of the intentional community of Casa Vides experienced militarization in their home countries and on the Mexico-U.S. border, this ethnography examines the themes of ''community'' and ''militarization'' and the dynamics between the two.     

Getting personal: Writing-stories

The author participated in the Border Studies Program in the fall of 2000, and during that time she conducted a field study at the Center for Environmental Resource Management in El Paso, Texas. Most of her time was devoted to a project that built composting toilets in two communities on the periferia of Ciudad Juárez. The author's work on this environmental project provided her a lens into social interpretations of the two sides of the Mexico-U.S. border. This ethnography looks at language dichotomies - the social construction of difference - in order to analyze how stereotypes functioned in the maintenance of structural inequalities.     

On the Improvement of Educational Work

Middle-level education and citizen's education [see glossary] in the Border Region has in the past suffered from serious problems of dogmatism and old-fashioned orthodoxy, thus departing from and even opposing the needs of the Border Region and of the Border Region peoples. The senior cadre meeting of the year before last and the third meeting of the Government Committee in the spring of last year pointed out a clear and correct policy: for the purposes of the War of Resistance Against Japan and of service to the Border Region peoples, the education of cadres comes first, citizen's education second. That is, we must change those aspects of education that are not relevant to carrying on the War of Resistance and not relevant to the Border Region and its people, thus making education fully compatible with revolutionary San-min chu-i [Three People's Principles] (which is to say, the New Democracy) and with the spirit of the Ten Great Policies,* and suitable to the present needs for construction in the Border Region. The Conference on Rectification of Studies in Middle-Level Schools during the first half of last year and the rectification movement in the various Middle Schools during the second half of last year generated criticism of old-fashioned orthodoxy and dogmatism; this is a great step forward and is a key transformation of middle-level education in the Border Region.     

Portraits of Mujeres Desjuiciadas: Womanist pedagogies of the everyday,the mundane and the ordinary

In this article, Ruth Trinidad Galvan describes her ethnographic study with rural women and their communities in Central Mexico, as well as her affiliation with a grassroots popular education organization. The organizing mechanism of the small savings groups and the women's work and participation in them inspired a reconceptualization of ''pedagogy'' situated in the multiple subject positions and conditions of campesinas. The reconceptualization of ''pedagogy,'' thus stems from a womanist perspective as it is based on the socio-cultural and economic conditions affecting campesinas, and situated in a complex web of interpersonal relationships of the everyday. Trinidad Galvan, then, describes the organic pedagogical forms of spirituality, well-being and convivencia as interrelated modes of teaching and learning, knowledge creation and identity production. Her work with campesinas and exploration of womanist pedagogies further expand US knowledge of immigrant peoples' values and experiences, as well as the ways they live, learn and teach each other in the everyday.     

John Wilson and the Place of Morality in Education

This paper asks whether it would be better not to talk about morality in schools. The issue is raised through a consideration of changes in public discourse and especially in educational discourse, where categories such as ''personal, social and health education'' and ''citizenship education'' are more salient than ''moral education''. Drawing on John Wilson's arguments, the paper considers claims for the indispensability of the concept of morality. It is argued that such claims, in Wilson's own writings, are applied to both an ''individual'' and a ''social'' conception of morality. Contrary to Wilson, the paper argues that the ''wisest strategy'' for public education is to take the social conception of ''morality in the narrow sense'' as a central focus.     

The Educational Significance of Mental Tests

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a training program in creative thinking and problem solving on children from varying racial backgrounds and social-class levels. The Ss were 218 fifth and sixth grade students. All Ss were administered the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, Form A. The experimental Ss participated in the eight-week Productive Thinking Program and the control Ss in the Gates-Peardon Reading Exercises. At the completion of the Program, all Ss were administered the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, Form B. The results indicate that participation in the Productive Thinking Program enabled the students to improve their creative thinking and problem-solving abilities. Neither race nor social-class level affected the child's ability to increase these skills.     

The role of mediating organizations for school reform: independent agents or district dependents?

This paper examines the role of mediating organizations in helping schools engage in whole school change as part of a school district's reform agenda. Specifically, it examines the Learning Community Program in Los Angeles, a programme designed by an external school reform organization, to assist schools in planning and implementing LEARN (Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now). The programme's success is shaped by the district and school contexts in which it operates. As mediating agent, the Learning Community Program must balance the challenges facing the schools ‐‐ particularly their readiness to engage in reform ‐‐ with the demands of the district for scale, accountability and resources. As it does so, it faces the challenges of maintaining program flexibility, building sustainable changes, and preserving its organizational independence. These pressures generate three central dilemmas and threaten to undermine the success of the district's reform and the Learning Community Program ‐‐ scale versus sustainability, district mandates versus site autonomy, and organizational independence versus survival. It concludes that mediating agencies can be constrained by their dependence on policymakers for critical resources.     

A Study of the Changing Face of Further Education Structures through the use of College Documents

This paper offers the results of a single university department (Sociology) where the entire undergraduate body was broken down by entry-year based cohorts (1996-97, 1997-98 and 1998-99) and demographics ('sex', 'age at entry', and whether or not the student was first in family to attend university) using a questionnaire. Their attitudes towards the current financial predicaments of students were assessed. Results indicate that there are fewer mature students in the two more recent-year cohorts (possible reasons are discussed). Also, responses, where divisions occur, are largely age-group related, with the split being at the 'under 30'/'over 30' point (age groupings are discussed). Students over 30 being more cautious about debt and feeling that mature students need greater financial support.     

Résumés

Abstract

La simulation de l'ordinateur comme un outil de l'éducation de gestion du pare Robert E. Manning and Fletcher I. Potter

Un jeu d'interaction pour examiner les échanges entre les valeurs économiques et écologiques Paul J. Rago

Modèles d'integration dans la planification et décisions de l'environement David Clinton Kyler

La participation de la communauté dans la gestion des déchets dangereux: Une comparison entre une visite sur-site et une visite simulée Deborah Anne Simmons

Le développement et la conservation des attitudes vers l'environement des élèves des écoles primaires Harold H. Jaus

Une comparison entre l'attitude des étudiants américains et non-américains vers l'issue de l'environement physique A. Doyne Horsley     

Résumés

Abstract

La methode explicative et l'éducation écologique non formalisée en malière de gestion des ressources naturelles E. C. Olson, Mary Lynne Bowman, et Robert E. Roth

La familiarisation et la compréhension de l'environment William E. Hammitt

La tǎche de l'éducation écologique en République Dominicaine Clinton L. Shepard

La persuasion et la formation des attitudes dans les activités fluviales organisées David Cockrell, Steve Bange, Joseph Roggenbuck

L'évaluation directe: un instrument de gestion permettant las justification, l'évaluation et la modification de programmes Paul F. Nowak

Les bénéfices économiques réalisés par les visiteurs d'un centre d'information Ted T. Cable, Douglas M. Knudson, David J. Stewart     

Learning through Media at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century

This paper summarizes the developments in educational media in Slovenia as it prepares for the twenty-first century. Initiated by the Ministry of Education and Sport and the National Education Institute, the program Computer Literacy was introduced which contributed in big changes in the introduction and use of modern media and information technology in the educational process. The programme is a six-year programme which started in 1994 and is coming to an end in 2000.

L'apprentissage par les médias au tournant du 21e siècle

Cet article résume les développements des médias éducatifs en Slovénie qui préparent le 21e siècle. Initié par le Ministère de l'Education et des Sports et l'Institut National pour l'Education, le programme d'initiation à l'informatique a été introduit et contribué à apporter de grands changements dans l'utilisation des médias modernes et de la technologie de l'information dans le programme éducatif. C'est un programme qui a débuté en 1994 et qui s'achèvera en 2000.

Lernen mit Medien an der Wende zum 21. Jahrhundert

Dieses Papier faßt die Entwicklungen im Bereich der Unterrichtsmedien in Slowenien an der Grenze zum 21. Jahrhundert zusammen. Initialisiert durch das Ministerium für Erziehung und Sport und das Nationale Institut für Pädagogik wurde das Programm ? Computer Literacy” eingeführt, das seinen Anteil an den grossen Änderungen bei Einführung und Nutzung der modernen Media und der Informationstechnologie im pädagogischen Prozeß hatte. Das Programm ist ein Sechsjahresprogramm, das 1994 begann und im Jahr 2000 enden wird.     

Nomadic inquiry in the smooth spaces of the field: A preface

Framing this essay as a preface to a return to the field in order to collect more data for her study of the older, white southern women of her hometown, this researcher uses Laurel Richardson's (1994) concept of ''writing as a method of inquiry'' in order to revisit some of the places in which she has already done field work. By employing Deleuze and Guattari's (1980 1987) image of the nomad deterritorializing space, she revisits some of those spaces- mental space, the space of the text, and the space of theory- in order to work out of the failure of her received understanding of fieldwork and to think differently about the spaces and places in which her research takes place.     

TEXTBASE ALPHA: a different approach to the management of qualitative data

This paper addresses the usefulness of angels in breaking out of the Hegelian enclosure that typifies late 20-century critical thought and practice. Grounded in efforts to create a broadly accessible book about an interview study of women living with HIV AIDS, the paper sketches interpretive and textual strategies toward a less comfortable social science. After providing background to the study and an overview of the book's format, the paper presents an overview of the angel inter texts. This is followed by probing four thematics: displacement dispersal deferral, translation as betrayal, rhizomatics, and feminist ethnography as a ruin rune. Each is prefaced with quotes from readers of the book as a sort of ''fold'' of ''response data'' in order to situate the book within a larger field of the failures of representation in order to begin to theorize the failures of the book in moving toward a different scene of representation.     

A 'Polytechnism' for the British Universities: Embracing a revised 'Soviet' model for academia

This paper offers a review of the former soviet higher education system and compares it with the current UK system, arguing that there is much that the latter can learn from the former. It goes on to argue that the 'academic drift' of the former polytechnics in the UK towards 'university' style teaching and courses was wrongheaded, and that the drift should now go the other way, with universities all moving towards a Soviet style 'polytechnism' in their structures, courses and mission statements.     

Changing the culture: The governance of the Australian pre-millennial university

Australian universities have undergone considerable reform in the past decade. What is seen as the 'unkindest cut of all' has been a more conservative federal government's substantial economic cut-backs in higher education from 1996 onwards. They have precipitated profound changes in its culture as the university becomes privatised, marketised, globalised and increasingly student-driven. In these shifts, the deregulated higher education sector is operating out of a 'busnocratic' rationality where choice and positional advantage are integral to market logic. This paper explores how universities are responding rapidly to fiscal stringency through the adoption of tactics and strategies which appropriate the operation of business for the governance of university culture     

To what extent is the culture of a university department supportive of equal opportunities for women?

Most British universities now have equal opportunities policies but the extent to which these policies have brought about real change in university departments is not clear. Management theory suggests that when trying to implement change in an organisation it is important to understand that organisation's culture. Opportunity 2000, a business initiative to try to increase the number of women (especially managers) in the British workforce stresses the importance of cultural change. However, there has been little attempt to 'measure' culture in relation to gender in university departments. This article explores the findings from an attempt to use Johnson & Scholes's cultural web to 'measure' the culture in a business studies department in an 'old' British university     

The Effectiveness of Training in the Evaluation of Classroom Instruction as an Aid to Self-Evaluation in Student Teaching

Abstract

This study hypothesized that participation in a training program in the evaluation of classroom instruction prior to student teaching would improve students' ability to evaluate their own classroom performance during student teaching.

Junior education students, 58 classified as trained or Experimental and 53 untrained or Control, were compared during student teaching on their ability to evaluate the lessons they taught. The five areas to be considered were introduction, organization, procedures and techniques, items relating to children, and items relating to the teacher.

Results indicated that in four of the five categories the differences between the groups were in a direction favorable to the trained students and that in two of those categories the difference was significant at the five percent level. It was concluded that the Experimental Training Program was effective in some areas.     

The twilight years? Educational ethnography and the five moments model

The growth and variety of qualitative research in education is used as a test case to challenge the narrative of ethnography proposed by Denzin and Lincoln. Their characterization of qualitative methods in terms of five (subsequently six) ''moments'' is not reflected in research on education. Ironically, their model is shown to be a modernist narrative that does not do justice do the diversity of qualitative research in the past. It is suggested that qualitative research has always been marked by greater diversity than is captured in unilinear developmental histories.