Weldon’s search for a direct proof of natural selection and the tortuous path to the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis

W F R Weldon first clearly formulated the principles of natural selection in terms of what would have to be observed in natural populations in order to conclude that natural selection was, indeed, acting in the manner proposed by Darwin. The approach he took was the statistical method developed by Galton, although he was closer to Darwin’s conception of selection acting on small individual variations than Galton was. Weldon, together with Karl Pearson, who supplied the statistical innovations needed to infer the action of selection from populational data on trait distributions, laid the foundations of biometry and provided the first clear evidence of both stabilizing and directional selection in natural populations.     

Teachers' Questions in the Infant,Junior and Secondary School

Ten teachers in infant schools, 10 in junior schools and 10 in secondary schools had their teaching recorded. Subsequent analysis was made of the teachers' use of questions categorised as of fact, closed solution, open solution, task supervision and routine. When the first two categories were combined, the results for the junior schools were very similar to those reported by Galton and his colleagues in 1980 and 1999. Moreover, the results for both the infant and secondary schools differed very little from those of the junior schools. Some implications of these results are discussed.     

Inference generation, story comprehension, and language skills in the preschool years

Several researchers have shown that children’s ability to make inferences is related to their reading comprehension. The majority of research on this topic has been conducted on older children. However, given the recent focus on the importance of narrative comprehension in prereaders, the current study examined the relationship between inference making and story comprehension in 4- to 5-year-olds. We examined children’s online inferences while narrating a wordless book as well as children’s story comprehension of a different storybook. We found that children’s total number of inferences was significantly related to their story comprehension. Three types of inferences were significantly related to story comprehension—characters goals, actions that achieved those goals, and character states. In a hierarchical regression controlling for children’s age and expressive vocabulary, a composite of these three inference types significantly predicted children’s story comprehension.     

Kids,College, and Capital: Parental Financial Support and College Choice

Parents vary in both their willingness and ability to pay for their children’s college expenses, yet there is little research on how adolescents’ expectations of future financial support from parents affect their college enrollment decisions. Using data from the High School Longitudinal Study, I fill this gap in the literature by examining the predictors of parents’ plans to pay for college and estimating the effect of having a parent that plans to pay for college on an adolescent’s probability of college attendance. The results suggest that after parents’ ability to pay is taken into account, social class remains a strong predictor of whether parents plan to pay for their children’s college education. Additionally, parent’s plans to pay for college have a measurable impact on children’s college enrollment as long as the child is aware of or agrees with the parent’s plans. Therefore, it is likely that socioeconomic differences in parents’ pledges of financial support to adolescents contribute to postsecondary stratification. The results from this study suggest that policymakers and researchers who are concerned about educational inequality should pay greater attention to the role of parental financial support in structuring children’s ability to access college.     

Time,things, teacher,pupil: engaging with what matters

This article presents an empirical study of everyday life in school and a methodological attempt to emphasise children’s views and to find ways other than representation to analyse them. The empirical portion took place in a Finnish elementary school in which the author was the class teacher. The ten-year-olds in the class engaged in an unstructured classroom diary activity in which they freely wrote their observations, thoughts and stories. The study takes a relational materialist approach to the children’s writings focusing on various moments and gatherings in the classroom as assemblages and illustrates how time, things, teacher and pupils are co-produced in them. Temporality and materiality are also considered in relation to research methodologies. Research with children is reconceptualised based on the focus on mattering. The analysis is enacted as a non-linear and nomadic process through retelling and responding to the children’s texts. It highlights particular situations, unstabilities, ‘tiny’ things and the complexities of children’s lives in educational environments.     

Neural transmission and general mental ability

Galton (1883, Inquiries into Human Faculty. London: Dent) hypothesized that higher intelligence (IQ) is a consequence of greater mental speed, which is reflected by shorter reaction times (RT). Contemporary interest in such proposals has relied on very few experimental paradigms, and these have been criticized on methodological grounds. In aiming to address these problems, this study examines correlations between mental ability and speed of nerve conduction in the patellar reflex arc. Preliminary results of a pilot study (gathered to test the equipment) are reported.     

A limited,apolitical, and open Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire’s work is often characterized and used in terms that seek to produce widespread political and economic changes across societies. Peter Roberts, however, in his book Paulo Freire in the twenty-first Century, offers readers a much different way of approaching Freire’s work. Throughout his book, Roberts presents Freire as recognizing the limitations of educational initiatives, as not seeking specific macro-political objectives, and as emphasizing openness to alternative discourses. These themes weave throughout each chapter of the book, in which Roberts examines a wide range of topics, from Freire and Dostoevsky to reason and emotion to political correctness to Freire and the Tao Te Ching. In this review essay, I engage a number of purposes. I elucidate and trace these three themes as they weave throughout and support the various topics that Roberts examines in his book. I illustrate how Roberts’s treatment of these themes challenges many of the interpretations of Freire’s work found within the critical literature, and, through this critique, it offers readers new ways of thinking about Freire’s thinking. Lastly, I discuss how Roberts’s thoughts suggest new ways that Freire’s work, and critical education in general, might begin to make more meaningful and practical inroads into public education and might develop new avenues of scholarship on Freire’s work.     

Higher Education,College Degree Major,and Police Occupational Attitudes

Existing police research has produced mixed results regarding the benefits of college education on the outlooks of officers. In addressing many of the well-documented methodological concerns of prior research, the current study augments the existing police education-occupational attitudes literature by examining the impact of varying levels of education (i.e. high school, some college, and bachelor’s degree and higher) on officers’ job satisfaction, views of top management, and role orientation(s). In addition, among those with a bachelor’s degree, the relevance of degree major on officers’ occupational outlooks is assessed. Our results address and inform advocacy efforts to make college education a bona fide occupational qualification.     

Education,death and awakening: Hesse,Freire and the process of transformation

Education is a key theme in a number of Hermann Hesse’s novels and short stories. This paper focuses on Hesse’s last and longest fictional work, The Glass Bead Game, and analyses the transformation of Joseph Knecht, the central character, in the light of Paulo Freire’s theory of education. It is argued that over time Knecht develops a critical consciousness, becoming less certain of his certainties, more aware of his own incompleteness, and increasingly convinced of the importance of teaching. Dialogue plays a pivotal role in the development of Knecht’s critical awakening and his understanding of himself and his vocation as a human being. The paper discusses the relationship between conscientisation and contemplation, considers the significance of death as a theme in the novel, and reflects on some of the educational implications arising from Hesse’s work.     

Powerful knowledge,esoteric knowledge,curriculum knowledge

This paper seeks to introduce a wider audience to a set of ideas developed by a group of sociologists of education who draw on Basil Bernstein’s late work on knowledge structures and whose epistemological stance is grounded in Social Realism. The paper’s main substantive focus is the concept of ‘powerful knowledge’ – recently popularised by Michael Young – and the implications of this notion for curriculum change. ‘Powerful knowledge’ connects with two other key ideas – ‘knowledge of the powerful’ and ‘esoteric knowledge’ – all of which have fed into recent debates about curriculum development and change. Various inter-connections between these ideas are examined. The paper concludes by identifying three chronic ‘tensions’ which impede efforts to extend powerful knowledge to socially and economically disadvantaged students.     

The “Educated” Consumer: The Formation of Memory,Attention, and Imagination in Consumer Culture

This article offers a critique of consumer culture that draws on Augustine’s vision of human consciousness, exploring consumerism’s formative effects on the memory, attention, and imagination of consumers. Drawing on William Cavanaugh’s analysis of consumers’ disposition of detachment, it explains how consumer culture distorts memory, attention, and imagination in consumers. It addresses the effects of consumerism on declarative, episodic, and procedural memory, on open awareness and concentration, and on intellectual, fantasy, empathy, and strategic imagination. The author suggests that religious educators should consider their work a form of reattachment therapy.     

Microdialogue in Absalom, Absalom!

William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! has aroused general concern and has been well received since its publication. In light of the polyphonic features of the novel, this thesis attempts to adopt Bakhtin’s theory of polyphony to probe into the dialogues in Absalom, Absalom!. This thesis is a discussion on the microdialogue in the hero’s inner heart.     

Borrelli,Mill, Emily and Me

In this paper, I explore the insights suggested by Michele Borrelli's ‘The Utopianisation of Critique’ in the context of a real‐life educational encounter that involves an attempt at being ‘critical’. Borrelli's observation that all positive utopian critique implies an inevitable degree of dogmatism takes on a new—and less depressing—significance when examined in the light of such an encounter. Acknowledging the tensions suggested by Borelli's analysis is, I argue, what makes a particular educational stance ‘critical’. Rather than leading to conceptual confusion, this should be seen as integral to the transformative and motivational potential of the educational process.     

The Good,the Bad,and the Ugly of Pedagogy in Harry Potter: An Inquiry Into the Personal Practical Knowledge of Remus Lupin,Rubeus Hagrid,and Severus Snape

On the 20th anniversary of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, we examine the narratives of pedagogical practice of three teachers at “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”. By drawing on these characters’ stories of teaching as presented in Rowling’s novels, we foreground their personal practical knowledge and the relationship of this knowledge to their curriculum-making. We do this in order to highlight the importance of narrative perspective and context in the assessment and evaluation of teachers’ pedagogical practice.     

Why does parents’ involvement in youth’s learning vary across elementary,middle, and high school?

This research examined why parents’ involvement in youth’s learning varies as youth progress through school. 3074 Chinese youths (M age = 13.89 years) in elementary, middle, and high school and their parents reported on parents’ homework assistance and academic socialization. Youth and parents also reported on potential mechanisms underlying variation in these two types of involvement over the school years. Parents’ homework assistance and academic socialization were both higher in elementary than middle school in which they were higher than high school. Youth’s invitations for involvement, along with parents’ involvement role beliefs, involvement self-efficacy, and perceived involvement norms contributed to the tendency for the two types of involvement to be higher in elementary than middle school. Only youth’s invitations and parents’ perceived norms contributed to the tendency for the two to be higher in middle than high school.     

当代中国政治发展：问题、动力和前景

中国的政治发展在实践中逐渐摸索出了一条以渐进改革为主的符合中国国情的政治发展道路。党的领导、人民当家作主和依法治国是当代中国政治发展的基本方向。党内民主和基层民主的成功实践将累积成为推动政治发展的制度经验。在渐进平衡中保持经济和社会的可持续发展将成为中国政治发展的未来。     

Invisible theatre,ethics, and the adult educator

This article probes the ethics of one of the more controversial as well as exciting forms of adult education—the mode of theatre of the oppressed called ‘invisible theatre’. Looking at claims made by practitioners—Augusto Boal’s especially—and drawing on concrete theatre pieces, the author asks: What are invisible theatre’s claims to ethicality? How valid are the claims? Are the claims and practices compatible with adult education principles? And how might invisible theatre be conducted more ethically? The article demonstrates that despite invisible theatre’s highly ethical mandate, Boal’s defences of invisible theatre are wanting, the levels of deception and danger are problematic, and the standard practices and claims are incompatible with certain adult education principles and commitments, including the Freirian commitment to non‐manipulation. At the same time, it is shown, there is potential for invisible theatre praxis which is both effective and ethical, albeit changes are called for. Suggestions for improved practice include: invisible theatre troupes committing themselves to becoming ethically reflective practitioners, making minimal deception the new norm, reining in the level of conflict, exploring the ‘opaque’, and no longer taking as a given that invisible theatre should never be ‘outed’.     

Games of subversion and sabotage: issues of power,masculinity, class,rurality and schooling

This paper presents a longitudinal insight into the experiences of ‘Adam’, a young boy who lives with his single‐parent father (a farmer and builder) in a rural working‐class community on the outskirts of a provincial town in Tasmania, Australia. Adam’s story juxtaposes my representations of him as an eight year old in 1999 and as a 12 year old in 2003. Such longitudinal analysis highlights how increasing mismatches between Adam’s home and school life, and mismatches between hegemonic masculinity and formal schooling, interact to amplify issues of school disengagement and alienation. Adam’s external expressions of masculinity, and in particular his concerted efforts to subvert and sabotage official school cultures and practices, are explored as issues of power, masculinity, class and rurality.     

Linking rights,needs, and fairness in high-stakes assessments and examinations

This paper presents a novel explanation for the continued absence of a children’s rights strategy within high-stakes educational assessment with reference to the competing purposes of high-stakes assessments and group-based constructions of fairness in assessment. We provide an original critique of group-based perspectives on the validity of assessment accommodations which supports an individual perspective on fair educational assessment. From this, the (almost forgotten) concept of ‘student assessment needs’ is (re-)introduced as a central axiom, to be constructed through feedback from, and dialogue with, students about their experience of high-stakes assessments, giving primacy to their purpose as an attainment demonstration opportunity for the student. To promote a new movement towards student participation in educational assessment processes and reforms, we propose ‘rights respecting assessment’, complementary to UNICEF’s ‘Rights Respecting Schools’ initiative, in which regular system-wide student representation would contribute to the development of high-stakes examination systems. In recognition of this aspiration, this paper is co-authored with a recent school-leaving age examination candidate.