Physics Comes to Winnipeg: The 1909 Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science

History of science can be used to bring scientific concepts to school science in a way that humanizes the protagonists and provides an appropriate context. The authors have researched the 1909 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) in Winnipeg, a significant event in the city’s history that has remained largely unexplored until now, despite the existence of the original documents. The Mathematics and Physical Science Division of the BAAS met in Wesley College, which is now the University of Winnipeg. The meeting took place with much fanfare and public attention, especially with the attendance of the prominent scientists Rutherford, Thomson, Hahn, and Millikan, all of whom were or would become Nobel Laureates. Prominent themes relating to this meeting will be discussed in this paper.     

The British Educational Research Association and the future of educational research

This paper considers the role of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) in promoting the improvement of UK research over the past 27 years. The views of some BERA representatives, as expressed at Conferences, in occasional publications and particularly in the pages of Research Intelligence, suggest a certain complacency. These representatives have devoted considerable effort to defending the existing quality of research, arguing for greater funding, and explaining how it is that educational research is so much more difficult than in any other field of endeavour. Some effort has been devoted to making more people aware of the value of existing research, but relatively little attention appears to be devoted to rallying the field to improve. This paper suggests that this relative emphasis should be adjusted, and presents a few examples of ways in which the BERA of the future, if it is to survive in strength, as it should, might address these deficiencies. In my opinion, BERA as the sole professional organization of UK educational researchers should be leading our way rather more on this, and not merely acting as our apologist.     

对科技进步的文化反思

本文主要从文化哲学的角度思考科技至上的现代生活中工具理性的高涨,价值理性的失落,期望通过对两者的文化反思,求得解决。     

The Chinese National Association for the Advancement of Education Statement on Rural Reform

The rural educational policy of this society is to make village schools the heart of reform and village teachers its spirit. We believe that the central school is a product of actual village life and that the Chinese normal school is a product of the rural central school. The purpose of rural normal education is to turn out teachers who have agricultural skills, a scientific mind, and the will to reform society. These teachers must use the least amount of money to run the best possible schools in order to nurture the peasants' strength for life. We deeply believe they can rely on the principle of the unity of teaching, study, and work to give students the ability to conquer nature and reform society. However, to realize this education on a large scale, we must have experimentation, study, investigation, extension, talented leadership, organization, planning, capital, and a tenacious spirit to assure success. Our society has a broad scope of activity but, from now on, our primary responsibility is to serve our 340 million peasants through a forceful policy of rural educational reform. We are already committed to raise one million yuan and amass one million comrades to promote one million schools and reform one million villages.     

Languages of Female Colonial Authority: The educational network of the Ladies Committee of the British and Foreign School Society, 1813-1837

This article focuses on the way women in the network surrounding the British and Foreign School Society Ladies Committee used constitutional, familial, religious and educational languages to claim an authoritative role for themselves in the development of education for non-Western women and girls. It highlights some of the ambiguities of colonial power for British women educators, which were implicit in women's self-representation of themselves as authoritative and their depictions of the non-Western female 'other'. It argues that in the two-way relation of metropole and periphery, the notion of the universal 'rational' mother employed within the network constituted an early 'professionalisation' of motherhood in relation to non-Western women, which worked to confirm the authority, responsibility and the 'Britishness' of British women themselves.     

谈英国议会改革中和平变革的机制

在现代政治转型的过程中，英国采用的是和平变革的方式，对此学术界已有共议。但英国政治变革中何以能采取和平的方式，这却是值得探讨的。本文以1832年议会改革为个案，从社会结构和政治博弈的角度讨论这个问题，试图揭示和平变革的内在机制。     

谈英国议会改革中和平变革的机制

在现代政治转型的过程中,英国采用的是和平变革的方式,对此学术界已有共议.但英国政治变革中何以能采取和平的方式,这却是值得探讨的.本文以1832年议会改革为个案,从社会结构和政治博弈的角度讨论这个问题,试图揭示和平变革的内在机制.     

英国大学拨款委员会的历史演变及启示

在梳理英国大学拨款委员会历史大框架的基础上,着重从大学拨款委员会的性质、成员、职能及经费管理运作等四方面的变化来论述英国大学拨款委员会的发展演变,旨在通过揭示英国建立中介组织恰当处理政府与大学间的关系,从而对我国正确处理国家与大学关系提供借鏊。     

当代物理学发展对科学实在论的推进

当代物理学的发展对科学实在论产生了很大的影响，牛顿的经典力学支持了洛克的“第一性质的质”，爱因斯坦的相对论只承认物体在时空四维坐标系中的绝对标示，但量子力学又否认了粒子时空标示所存在的连续性，并提出粒子的矛盾体结构。随着近代物理科学的发展，当代实在论思想也发生了从中世纪的形而上学实在论向关注关系、整体与认识行为的近代实在论的转向。     

The British response of higher education to changing educational perspectives

The primary purpose of this paper is to examine the objectives of higher education provision in Britain. The perspective of ‘educationists’ are compared with those of ‘economists’. In particular, the paper argues that the Department of Education and Science (DES) has moved substantially in the direction of the economists' approach to educational resource allocation. The paper also argues that the partticular characteristics of higher education (HE), where it is state-provided and free at the point of consumption, imbue it with the properties of a Niskanen-type bureau. This paper suggests that the current DES policy with its considerable implications for HE resource allocation can be rationalised in terms of the human capital approach and the problems of managing a bureau.“A professor was supposed to be a venerable kind of person, with snow-white whiskers reaching to his stomach. He was expected to moon around the campus oblivious of the world around him. If you nodded to him he failed to see you. Of money he knew nothing; of business far less. He was, as his trustees were proud to say of him, ‘a child’.On the other hand, he contained within him a reservoir of learning of such depth as to be practically bottomless. None of this learning was supposed to be of any material or commercial benefit to anybody. Its use was in saving the soul and enlarging the mind” (Leacock, 1922).     

The Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science: A Tortuous Tryst with Modern Science

The Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) founded by Mahendra Lal Sircar in Calcutta in 1876 was the first large-scale indigenous enterprise in colonial India for the propagation of modern science. The efforts towards the formation of the IACS were marked by a range of ideas and positions which reflected mainstream elite Indian attitudes to western science as also the many paradoxes that the colonial situation imposed on the whole enterprise. The first exposures of the Indian elite to western education had evoked an admiration for modern science, its values, and its infinite possibilities. But the admiration so generated could not run on a momentum of its own because of the limitations of the colonial education system itself. The appreciation of modern science also brought about a soul-searching as to why a civilization with a hoary tradition of science had stagnated. This, in turn, led to vigorous socio-cultural self-criticism aimed at ending what was perceived to be long slumber and degeneration. Science itself was seen as a force for such liberation and the alien colonial government as its chief facilitator. The latter was not too eager to promote science at large. Hence the need for an indigenous initiative. However, the plain existential realities of colonialism dictated that little could be achieved without the support of the government. With all its paradoxes and ironies, the IACS project was yet a grand endeavour, forming a lasting part of the Indian scientific landscape. In fact, given its peculiar circumstances, it would have been very unreal without its paradoxes.     

职业学校如何做好与企业的“接口教育”工作

当前,职校学生在就业过程中出现了工作态度不认真、做事不拘小节、缺乏责任心、无团结协作意识等问题。因此,职业学校必须加强学生的细节教育、团结合作精神教育、吃苦耐劳精神教育,以适应企业的要求。     

第二届全国高等理科教育研究会第三次常务理事会议(桂林会议)纪要

第二届全国高等理科教育研究会第三次常务理事会议于 2 0 0 2年 4月 2 6日至 2 8日在桂林广西师范大学召开。会议主要讨论了当前高等理科教育的形势、问题和对策 ,关于理科“基础科学研究和教学人才培养基地”的建设和理事会的换届问题。中国高教学会周远清会长、研究会理事长王义遒教授、秘书长王元良教授以及各常务理事单位代表共 3 0人出席了会议。会议协办单位广西师范大学校长梁宏教授参加了会议 ,并对会务工作给予了大力支持。会上周远清会长、兰州大学原副校长杨峻教授、南京大学教务处吕浩雪教授分别作了报告。现将会议内容纪要如下…     

论科学发展观的提出与意义

本文考察了新的科学发展观的提出背景，认为以人为本，全面、协调、可持续发展观的提出是一次思维领域的革命，是历史和现实的必然选择，是对传统发展观的继承和发展。并阐明了新的科学发展观意义，认为科学发展观的提出及成功实践，必将促进经济社会和生态的全面、协调、可持续发展，并最终促进人的全面发展。