The Selection of Vice-Chancellors: The Australian Experience

This paper examines appointment procedures and selection criteria for the position of vice-chancellor in eight of Australia's nineteen universities which advertised a vacancy during 1984 and 1985. Among issues analysed are: advertisement formalities; information provisions; and selection processes and criteria including initial action taken, composition of selection committees, identification of selection criteria and selection processes employed. Ways of imprroving subsequent appointment procedures and of ensuring legitimacy for appointees are discussed.     

Education and development: Thirty years of continuity and change

At the end of the 30th volume of IJED and in the year that the journal published its 1000th paper, it is appropriate to look back at the journal's development. In doing so, this article will discuss a series of important issues regarding the future of the field of international education and development and how it engages with development studies. The paper concludes that the challenge for IJED and for the wider work of its readership is to start imagining a more radical future in which we seek more purposefully to build bridges with other disciplines, engage with new methodological tools and encourage fresh voices but above all else communicate more clearly what we do and do not know about the wonderful complexity of the education–development relationship.     

中小学职业体验可持续发展的路径选择

职业体验是一种重要的教育性实践活动。职业学校专业性、教育性、文化性的实训基地蕴涵专业价值、育人价值、化人价值,为中小学职业体验提供了现实可能。面向中小学职业体验的规范化、制度化、科学化,政府部门、科研机构、职业学校、中小学校四方主体需形成教育合力,健全普职资源共建共享机制,促进职业体验可持续健康发展。     

For free: continuity and change by team teaching

Team teaching is advocated in education to offer students multiple explanations to complex concepts and to improve teacher development. However, team teaching is typically associated with high staff cost due to the increased amount of teachers involved. The authors argue that team teaching can be conducted in a cheap way by including novice teaching assistants in the lectures and train them ‘on the job’. Additionally, novice assistants cause reflection on action and prevent a mechanization of the course. The authors use Brookfield’s four lenses to reflect on the application of team teaching in a Swedish undergraduate course on software modeling over three years, involving 3 teachers and collecting evaluation data from close to 400 students. The reflection shows that team teaching can be used as a cost-effective way to introduce novice teachers to a course, while at the same time receiving benefits from their participation in lectures and course development.     

Guidance in Secondary Education: The Flemish Experience

This paper outlines the characteristics of peer mediation in schools and its potential, evident in the literature, for reducing pupil–pupil conflicts referred to teachers. Then, drawing on personal experience, research and a review of literature, the author argues that for peer mediation projects to be effective they need to be in synergy with the culture of the school, including its approach and vision to the management of conflict. Making this argument requires a means of modelling school culture, which will be outlined. Finally, the author argues that attention also needs to be given to how the service will be sustained.     

Plus ça change: Change and continuity in literacy teaching

This paper reports the findings of a longitudinal study of the literacy teaching of two teachers who were involved in a large-scale government initiative to change the way literacy is taught. These two teachers were identified at the outset of the study as being very different in ways in which they thought about the teaching of reading and writing. The research follows these two teachers over 3 years by interview and observation. Although these teachers made substantial changes to the organisation and management of their literacy teaching, their pedagogical approach did not change. It is argued that although programmes and procedures may be mandated on a large scale, individual differences between teachers’ may make the implementation of any such programme more variable in its impact than policy makers would like to expect.     

Between continuity and change: identities and narratives within teacher professional development

This year-long ethnographic case study examined high school teachers’ participation in technology-focused professional development. By pairing a dialogical perspective on teacher identity with a micro-level analysis of narratives, findings indicate that teachers use language and other semiotic resources to express their own identity as well as to acknowledge, expand on, and counter others’ identity claims. Moreover, technology integration may challenge teachers’ established identities or threaten their authority in the classroom. This analysis suggests that teacher educators need to value teachers’ established and emergent identities as well as create space for dialogic narratives in order to facilitate technology integration in schools.     

Headship: A Case of Going for the Juggler

This paper explores the possibility of developing collaboration within and between schools and colleges as a way of subverting central government pressure to introduce greater competition between institutions. The paper examines the concept of collaboration, issues connected with its promotion, potential links between collaboration and state schooling as a public professional service, the relevant national and local policy contexts, and possibilities for collaboration within and between institutions. Some guidelines are offered for initiating inter‐institutional collaboration.     

Teachers’ Culture in an English Primary School: continuity and change

This paper uses ethnographic data to investigate the impact of recent government legislation on primary school teachers. The reactions of one inner city primary school are reported in detail. It is argued that primary schools have distinctive cultures and these shape the response to the legislation. The relationship is dynamic as the legislation also influences the culture. The headteacher's role is undergoing particularly marked changes. Heads are finding it necessary to give considerable reassurance to teachers, stressing continuity rather than repudiation of past practices. Innovation can be seen as a technological, political or cultural process and the implications of these perspectives for teachers’ work are explored.     

Aggression between peers in early childhood: individual continuity and developmental change

43 children were observed in play with "best available friends" at 2 and again at 5 years of age. An arousing stimulus, an angry interaction between adults, was introduced during play sessions to increase the likelihood of elicitation of aggressive patterns. Dimensions of physical aggression at age 2 (e.g., object-related aggression, bodily aggression) predicted dimensions of children's physical aggression at age 5. However, substantial sex differences in the stability of aggression were found. Among boys, the disposition to engage in physical aggression was highly stable, with correlations ranging as high as r = .76. Certain dimensions of physical aggression at age 2 were also positively associated with verbal aggression at age 5. Fewer and more modest correlations were found among girls. The frequency of aggression, particularly bodily aggression (e.g., hitting, pushing), initiations of aggression, and the average length of aggression episodes, decreased between 2 and 5 years of age. These results indicate that relative aggressiveness tends to remain stable despite declines in the frequency of aggressive behavior between 2 and 5 years of age.     

国外中小学学校课程决策的经验与启示

国外中小学在课程决策方面有丰富的实践经验。它们赋予学校一定的决策自主权,充分发挥决策主体的作用,建立基于学生生活经验的个性化学习决策理念,注重实践性课程决策,创建决策团体,发挥集体优势,建立一定的保障措施。这些对我国中小学学校课程决策具有参考价值。     

Interest change and continuity from early adolescence to middle adulthood

The present paper discusses the continuity and change of individuals’ vocational interests by reviewing recent research on interest development across the life course. Five forms of change and continuity were proposed to adequately describe interest development. The developmental trajectory of interests based on a recent meta-analysis by Low, Yoon, Roberts, and Rounds (2005) was presented. Mechanisms resulting in change and continuity are discussed within a biopsychosocial context. Implications for understanding the way interests can simultaneously change and become stable were presented.     

The First Year Experience Project: A model for university-wide change

Studies of Australian first year students (McInnis & James, 1995; McInnis, James, & Hartley, 2000a) show that initial experiences on campus are important, and influence students' persistence in higher education. In this paper we present the way in which one Australian university has sought to address the issues of first year student progression and withdrawal, grounded in theory and research. We begin by reviewing the literature on withdrawal, and conclude that each university must understand the experiences of its own students, if it is to address attrition. Next, analysis of Tinto's six principles (Tinto, 1987, 1993), which underpin successful attempts to enhance first year student success and progression at university, and Peel's (1999) "basic set of expectations" in relation to attempts to address transition issues by universities, leads us to the conclusion that a coordinated, informed, university-wide response to transition issues will improve the learning experiences of all first year students. We then apply Fullan's theory (1991) of successful change processes to the context of La Trobe University. Drawing on this theoretical background, we discuss the processes of the First Year Experience Project, the vehicle for change that is in place at La Trobe University. We highlight the dynamic nature of the change process, and emphasise the way in which evaluation is embedded in that process. Finally, we attempt to synthesise the theory and the practice, showing where the First Year Experience Project at La Trobe University fits with theory, evaluating the success of the change model in relation to its objectives, and raising issues for the future.     

Sources of continuity and change in activity level in early childhood

Actigraphs and parent and observer ratings were used to explore genetic influences on continuity and change in activity level (AL) in early childhood. Over 300 pairs of twins wore actigraphs for a 48-hr period in the home and laboratory at ages 2 and 3. AL was genetically influenced at both ages with little evidence of differential heritability across age. For all measures, genetic influences contributed to phenotypic continuity. With the exception of the actigraph measure of AL in the home, new genetic effects emerged at age 3 indicating that genetic factors influence both continuity and change in AL in early childhood. Nonshared environmental influences were also a source of change in AL across the transition from infancy to early childhood.     

Examining the Pipeline: People of Color's Pathway to Headship

Predictions indicate that a large majority of the heads of independent schools in the United States will retire within the next decade. Although there is a push for a greater representation of people of color in this position, in order for people of color to be considered, it seems that they are held to a higher standard than their white counterparts. The data from this study show that there is a significant statistical difference in the percentage of recently appointed heads of color who are alumni of independent schools, as well as those who have held a senior-level position. Furthermore, a greater percentage of heads of school of color than of heads of school who are white are alumni of selective graduate schools or hold a terminal degree. Last, heads of color reported that they found it important, yet difficult, to develop relationships with the educational search firms who often serve as the gatekeepers to these highly coveted positions. The results of this study, although they call for changes which will be daunting to make, give independent schools the necessary framework to move beyond the criteria and approaches currently used to identify viable head-of-school candidates.     

Educational Reform in Viet Nam: a process of change or continuity?

Comprehensive national educational change is a complex and often difficult process. In countries such as Viet Nam where the govemment exercises tight control over social and economic development strategies, wide scale changes to an education system are often not possible. Viet Nam's increasing engagement with private sector development has, however, enabled greater flexibility for improving and strengthening its education system. In response to Viet Nam 's transition to a market economy, educational planners have had to consider strategies for making the education system more responsive to current and future labour demands. Accordingly, beginning in the early 1990s, the Govemment of Viet Nam put in place policies to enable the education system to 'modemise'. Guided by the principle that an investment in education is an investment in economic development, the government has pursued and continues to pursue an agenda of educational refonn by means of curriculum reforns. Early evidence indicates that despite an initial rapid development and implementation of change-driven policies and Strategie directions, the pace of reform is slowing down. The thesis of this paper is that a programme of substanrial education change and innovation in VietNam is actually a programme of cautious reform based on select targeting of particular school populations, in this case, populations in the arger cities, economic priority zones and urban areas.     

西方国家中小学教师流动的经验与启示

师资配置不均衡是制约我国区域与城乡教育均衡和高效发展的重要因素。本文通过对西方国家中小学教师流动理论与实践的研究发现,西方教师流动往往建立在人力市场供求关系、内部人力市场和人力资本等理论基础上;各国政府实施了相应的政策法规和激励举措以项目的形式来推动教师流动;教师个人、机构及政策等因素都影响着教师流动的效果。这些为我国建构中小学教师流动机制的理论框架、指导原则与阶段性目标提供了有益启示。