MULTIMEDIA PEDAGOGY AND MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM

New technologies provide tools to reconstruct education as we begin a new millennium. In particular, multimedia technologies, like CD‐ROMs and Web sites, produce new resources and material for expanding education. In examining the Shoah Project—which documents the experiences of survivors of the Holocaust—we demonstrate how it provides important tools for historical and religious education, as well as making the reality of the Holocaust vivid and compelling in the contemporary moment. In this context we discuss how multimedia can provide an important supplement to multicultural education, bringing the experiences of marginal and oppressed groups to the mainstream. Yet we also argue that effective multimedia education requires historical contextualization, the skills of media literacy, and engaging pedagogical presentation in the classroom to make it effective as a supplement to traditional classroom and print‐based education. We show how educational technologies, such as those produced by the Shoah Foundation and the UCLA Film and Television Archives, can help reconstruct education for the twenty‐first century.     

应试教育、素质教育与学生的社会评价

对应试教育、素质教育与教育发展阶段的关系以及社会对学生评价的性质进行一些理论上的探讨。     

从教育质量到质量教育的议论-香港特区的经验与教训

教育质量渐渐成为内地教育政策议论中的一个重要议题。在香港特区, 有关教育质素与优质教育的议论已推行了近十年。本文旨在探讨香港特区教育质素政策的发展,并分析有关政策措施带来的一种“核数文化”的后果;继而剖析香港特区推行的优质教育所蕴含着对教育的特定的知识论与本体论的设定;最后应用哈贝马斯对知识旨趣的三种界定,来说明优质教育的三种不同的构思,并揭示现行香港特区所推行的优质教育措施的偏闭与局限。     

对高等院校学生党员教育的思考

大学生是国家宝贵的人才资源,要正视大学生党员教育的现状。大学生党员在发挥先锋模范作用方面具有得天独厚的条件,他们大多是理论学习的标兵和积极工作的表率,但也存在一些问题,包括理想信念淡漠、理论学习脱离实际、进取精神不强。如果注重加强组织队伍建设,学习注重理论联系实际,健全制度、加强群众监督,引入党员导师制,大学生党员教育的效果会有效提高。     

美国助学贷款经验及其对中国的启示

引语 :国家助学贷款政策出台于 1999年 ,2 0 0 0年由担保贷款改为信用贷款。在我国高等教育“奖、助、贷、勤、补、免”的学生资助体系中 ,国家助学贷款已经成为最主要的措施之一。然而 ,国家助学贷款的运行状况并不尽人意 ,存在很多申请不到和收不回来的现象。助学贷款的路在何方 ?完善的助学贷款制度和政策框架如何建立 ?本刊特别组织了这次高教助学贷款的理论与实践论坛 ,邀请了海内外研究者、实践者共同撰文 ,以笔谈的形式为我国高教助学贷款的发展和完善献计献策。按照学生贷款的理论基础、政策含义 ,中国国家助学贷款中存在的矛盾和问题 ,以及解决问题的途径和模式探索这样一个逻辑关系 ,将笔谈文章刊载如下。     

TERMS OF INCLUSION: UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN PUBLIC EDUCATION

Abstract In this review essay, Harvey Kantor and Robert Lowe explore the history of the culture wars in public education in the United States. Drawing on three books — David Tyack’s Seeking Common Ground, Jonathan Zimmerman’s Whose America? and Amy Binder’s Contentious Curricula— Kantor and Lowe review the history of struggles over the content of history texts and over the place of religion and religious values in the classroom. They suggest that while these struggles have been partially successful in freeing public education from the racial and ethno‐religious particularisms that informed its origins, the more inclusive curriculum that resulted from these efforts has been rendered largely symbolic by the persistence of segregation and the inequality of resources that accompanies it.     

STUDENT RIGHTS, CLARENCE THOMAS, AND THE REVOLUTIONARY VISION OF EDUCATION

A bstract .  In his concurring opinion to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Morse v. Frederick , Justice Clarence Thomas argues that the Tinker decision, which granted students constitutional rights in public schools, should be overturned on originalist grounds. In this essay, Bryan Warnick, Bradley Rowe, and Sang Hyun Kim make the case that Thomas's originalist analysis is inconclusive. Instead of looking at court decisions relating to public education starting in the middle of the nineteenth century to establish original meaning, as Thomas does, they argue that a better strategy involves an analysis of educational ideas circulating closer to the time of constitutional ratification. Using this strategy, the authors show that many prominent educational writers (a) believed that it was important for students to learn to act independently and to value their constitutional rights, and (b) believed that students learn best by imitating civic examples. These two ideas work together in early American educational thought to imply that schools should exemplify the sort of respect for self-governance and individual rights that is present in the larger constitutional order. Thus, Warnick, Rowe, and Kim argue that there are originalist reasons for supporting student rights that Thomas ignores. In the end, this analysis not only highlights the limitations of originalist interpretative strategies, it also reminds us, more broadly, of a way to reconcile liberty and order in civic education.     

EXPERIENCES WITH CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT

Continuous assessment has been employed increasingly as a means of assessment and much discussion has resulted about its merits and demerits. This study examines the objectives of an assessment scheme and finds that continuous assessment can both increase the reliability and validity of an assessment method. Research carried out by the Department of Education at Queen's University is also drawn upon to show that continuous assessment creates a rise in real standards.

The focus is upon the BA (Hons) Business Studies Degree at Newcastle Polytechnic, which introduced continuous assessment in 1980. This has since incurred the criticism of the Board of Examiners as a “soft option”. The research which this criticism stimulated, therefore, examined the course work marks, the examination marks and the final aggregate mark — the findings of which are clearly shown by means of diagrams and tables. The relationships between the various sets of marks and between the marks and the class of degree are also examined.

The study concludes that whilst the examiners’ criticism was probably justified, the overall difference between final aggregate mark and examination mark in terms of degree class was, in fact, small, and at the same time it was evident that real standards had risen.     

SWEDEN: FUTURE STUDENT ENROLMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The report referred to at the end of this article is devoted to trends and forecasts in connection with the population, education and the labour market in Sweden.

The information presented below is based on the elements of this report dealing with the future development of higher education in Sweden, especially in the context of the recent reform of the Swedish educational system.     

ANXIETY AND ACHIEVEMENT IN A MULTICULTURAL SITUATION

Oral reading comprehension test scores are generally determined by a variety of factors, not only by task difficulty and examinee proficiency, but also by stimuli extraneous to the testing task itself — such as group vs. individual testing situation, scorer method and bias, and examinees’ sociolinguistic background, motivational disposition, and anxiety during the test.

By giving the same examination under the same testing conditions to students, teachers and administrators generally believe that they are thereby being fair in their testing practice. However, if the same test situation debilitates the motivation and performance of some groups while increasing the motivation and performance of others, the assumption of fairness in standardised test procedure may be only illusory. Indeed, while stimuli in the test situation appear to be held constant from the examiner's point of view, they may interact with background variables to differentially affect levels of test performance (Cole and Bruner, 1970).

Two types of anxiety effects have been differentiated in the literature, namely debilitative and facilitative effects (Alpert and Haber, 1960).

The present study sets out to examine the effects of the following factors on oral reading comprehension test scores: (a) anxiety under varying test conditions, (b) students’ gender, (c) students’ native language, (d) the testing situation (individual vs. group), and (e) the relative difficulty of the English language texts.

Two studies were conducted during an advanced English reading course at Haifa University to examine these issues. Study One, based on a sample of 170 students, was designed to examine the affective, cognitive, and sociolinguistic correlates within the test situation. No meaningful relationship was observed between students’ attitudes and test performance. Study Two, using 112 students, was undertaken to examine the roles of anxiety, sociolinguistic background, and text difficulty within the oral testing situation in greater depth. Test scores were affected by gender and ethnic affiliation but not by text difficulty, reported level of anxiety, or group vs. individual testing situation.     

FINANCING OF LIFELONG EDUCATION BASED ON EXPERIENCES IN YUGOSLAVIA

The introduction of the concept of lifelong education in higher education brings numerous problems and requires new solutions. One such problem is how to finance programmes of lifelong education. The following article looks at this problem with reference to the system employed in Yugoslavia. The article is based on a paper presented by Professor Barbara Jel?i? and Professor Bozidar Jel?i? at the 24th Session of the Seminar “University Today” (Dubrovnik, 27 August” 1 September, 1978).