DELINQUENCY AND THE SCHOOLS

Primary teachers in their first year of teaching, and two groups of students in their final year of university, were surveyed in order to determine the nature of attitude changes during teacher education and in the first teaching year. One group of students was followed into its first year of teaching. The attitudes of the trainee teachers and novices were contrasted with those of experienced teachers and non‐education students over a two‐year period, using a semantic differential instrument.

The overall finding was that Lortie's contention that the attitudes of American teachers are based on their own early experiences as pupils in school holds for Australian teachers also. While there was some change in student attitudes during the final university year, towards the ‘progressive’ orientations of the university course, this orientation did not persist far into the first year of teaching.     

STUDENT RIGHTS TO RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION AND THE SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SCHOOLS

In this essay Bryan Warnick explores how rights to religious expression should be understood for students in public schools. Warnick frames student religious rights as a debate between the conflicting values associated with the Free Exercise Clause and the values associated with the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. He then asks how the special characteristics of the school environment should guide us in prioritizing those values. The overall weight of the considerations, particularly concerns about civic education, leads to a two‐pronged approach to religious rights. The first prong involves a robust protection of student religious exercise; the second involves an equally robust regime of school disassociation from student religious exercises.     

EVALUATING THE RESEARCH PROBLEMS ARISING FROM ATTEMPTS TO MEASURE THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT WITHIN DIFFERENT MEDICAL SCHOOLS

A pilot study recently reported in this journal by Wakeford raised several important issues concerning the measurement and interpretation of students’ perpeption of the learning environment in five British medical schools. Some of those issues are developed in this paper as a result of similar, more comprehensive, research involving students in five Australian medical schools. One issue is the almost inevitable problem of methodology associated with large scale surveys of this kind. Another is the prospect for educational reform within an educational institution based heavily on students’ perceptions alone.     

COLORADO'S RESPONSE TO THE BEHAVIOUR CHALLENGE

The USA is facing difficulties similar to those of the UK in attempting to deal with the increasing number of students who display disturbing behaviours in schools. Such students are creating complex challenges for those professionals who are working to maintain them within mainstream education settings. To encourage proactive approaches to such behaviour problems, the Federal Government has introduced recent amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Based on these directives, the State of Colorado is currently focusing on meeting the needs of its most challenging students through the introduction of positive behaviour intervention plans and functional assessment of behaviour.     

COSMOPOLITANISM IN RELATION TO THE SELF AND THE OTHER: FROM MICHEL FOUCAULT TO STANLEY CAVELL

Educators, not to mention philosophers of education, find themselves in a difficult position nowadays. They are confronted with problems such as which kind of values one would want citizens to embrace, or to what extent social practices of a particular group may differ from what is generally held. In this essay, Paul Smeyers and Yusef Waghid focus on postmodern critiques, in particular on the position of Michel Foucault as it is relevant for the debate on cosmopolitanism. The authors argue that Foucault's analysis of the self in relation to the other is somewhat contentious, as it seems to invoke an independent ethical self other than a social self. Smeyers and Waghid claim that a more nuanced position regarding this relation can be found in the work of Stanley Cavell. They conclude that encounters with the other should not be seen as a new kind of universalism or Foucauldian subjectivism, but rather as an opening that creates opportunities both for attachment and detachments, that is, for acknowledgment and avoidance.     

INCREDIBLE HULKS: SHIP SCHOOLS AND THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT

This paper considers the history of ship schools for young offenders. In particular the paper focuses on two floating reformatories that were established on the River Mersey in the middle of the 19th century. Attention is drawn to the positive light in which Victorian penal reformers viewed these institutions. Important parallels are also observed between the concerns and ambitions of these reformers and current discussions about the treatment of children with emotional and behavioural difficulties when they are in trouble with the law.     

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。     

A PLACE FROM WHERE TO SPEAK: THE UNIVERSITY AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM

ABSTRACT:  the university is promoted as 'a place from where to speak'. Academic freedom is examined as a crucial value in an increasingly uncertain age which resonates with Barnett's concern to encourage students to overcome their 'fear of freedom'. My concern is that the putative university space of freedom and autonomy may well become constricted by those who would limit not just our freedom to speak but also our freedoms to be and to do. Without academic freedom students and teachers, who might be able to fly, will not be permitted to fly. I review issues of academic freedom and free speech raised especially by Berlin, Voltaire, von Humboldt, Mill, Milton and Rorty. I discuss problems raised when free speech is heard by others as harmful and offensive to their beliefs and values. I offer a set of suggestions to ensure that the university may envision itself as a space of freedom, pluralism and tolerance. Finally, I reflect that the university, of all democratic institutions, should be the one which best serves its society as 'a place from where to speak' .