Citizenship and Education: from Alfred Marshall to Iris Marion Young

The welfare state was characterised by two central principles: universality and equality.It can be argued that the development of education in New Zealand was shaped and maintained by both these ideals.The public benefits of education were not, however, simply the sum of individual private benefits, for norms such as political or civic tolerance, literacy, or the values required for democratic functioning adhere to the quality of a community and are not reducible to, or contained in, the psychological characteristics of individuals.The early New Zealand educators claimed that in order that public benefits might be derived from schooling, and as an essential precondition of citizenship, all children should receive an education with common features whether they lived in town or in rural districts, whether they were rich or poor, black or white, and irrespective of their religion or their cultural practices.As Fraser expressed it in 1939:
The government's objective, broadly expressed, is that every person, whatever the level of his academic ability, whether he be rich or poor, whether he live in town or country, has a right as a citizen to a free education of a kind for which he is best fitted and to the fullest extent of his powers.(AJHR, 1939, pp.2–3; emphasis added)     

Examining the extent and nature of online learning in American K-12 Education: The research initiatives of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

In 1992, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation began its Anytime, Anyplace Learning Program, the purpose of which was to explore educational alternatives for people who wanted to pursue an education via Internet technology. Part of this grant activity was a research award to the Babson College Survey Research Group to examine online learning in American K-12 education. Three studies were conducted based on national surveys of school district and/or high school administrators. The focus of these studies was twofold: one, to examine the extent and nature of online learning in K-12 school districts; second, to examine the role of online learning in high school reform initiatives. The purpose of this article is to share the findings from these studies and to look critically at what they mean for the future of online learning in American K-12 schools.     

The promise and the promises: Partnerships from a university perspective

Abstract

This study describes issues related to the genesis of two university and middle‐school partnerships as experienced and related by the university faculty members who have participated in the process.

Benefits and tensions have surfaced from these partnerships. Some of the benefits included a broader community of professional colleagues, opportunities to collaborate on research, and firsthand experiences with school reform. The tensions involved conflicts with the university's reward system, the length of time it takes to build trust, the difficulties in establishing collaborative research agendas and balancing two worlds, and feelings of detachment from university colleagues and activities.

Although promises have been made that the university's reward system will change to give priority to work in schools, this is a major concern for non‐tenured faculty. In spite of this, there is great potential in these partnerships to affect change in teacher education.     

On the shores of Lethe: C. S. Lewis and the Romantics

Anne Lundin is Assistant Curator of the de Grummond Children's Literature Research Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her regular column on children's books runs inThe Clarion Ledger, a statewide paper. She is a doctoral candidate in Librarianship at the University of Alabama.     

The dubious promise of postsecondary vocational education: Its payoff to dropouts and graduates in the U.S.A.

The longitudinal study described in this report investigated the effects of postsecondary public and proprietary school vocational training on students' subsequent job success in the United States. The study surveyed dropouts and graduates from public and proprietary schools in six vocational programs in four major cities, and compared their personal characteristics, job placement and earnings. Results showed that, compared with graduates, dropouts were more frequently males who were black, older, of lower socioeconomic status, and more likely from public programs. Also, few students who studied for upper status jobs (accountant, computer programmer, and electronic technician) got those jobs, regardless of whether they had graduated from or dropped out of their vocational programs. On the other hand, the majority of students who studied for lower-status jobs, in which women typically predominate, (secretary, dental assistant and cosmetologist) successfully found those jobs. Further, graduates fared significantly better in job placement than dropouts. Finally, persistence in, and graduation from a program (persistence and graduation) were unrelated to students' first earnings. However, students in lower-status occupations had higher later earnings if they completed their programs. These results suggest that vocational training, which may be done more efficiently in proprietary than public schools, enhances placement and later earnings only in lower-status jobs.     

D.刘易斯的可能世界理论述评

“可能世界”这一概念在语义学诞生之后得到了更广泛的运用，但实际中的可能世界究竟是什么，仍然未能取得一致认识。作为激进实在论的代表，Ｄ．刘易斯认为可能世界和我们的世界——即“我和我周围的环境”是同一类的，因此有相同的本体地位。Ｄ．刘易斯的这种观点跟梅农是一脉相承的，始终难以为人们所接受。     

Higher education for the elderly: Continuing in the mainstream of American life

Research in Higher Education - Do persons over age 62 enroll in universities to maintain their social interaction and stay in life's mainstream? This question was researched through a...