Book Reviews

Perceptions of the role and efficacy of written feedback in teaching and learning among teaching staff in British higher education institutions have not been extensively researched. In the present study 48 lecturers in one university and from a cross-section of disciplinary backgrounds were interviewed with respect to their lived experiences with writing assessment feedback. Like most universities, theirs has a stated commitment to academic excellence by, among other things, ensuring timely and useful feedback on assignments. The findings suggest, however, that institutional policies and departmental practices related to formative assessment in this respect are not having the intended effect. Teachers have varied perceptions and beliefs about the purposes of written feedback, and are uncertain about what it achieves and what use students make of it. Far from enhancing written feedback, innovative practices and procedures have created new problems for teachers. There is a clear need for continuing research in this area.     

Well-founded social fictions: a defence of the concepts of institutional and familial habitus

This article engages with Atkinson’s recent criticisms of concepts of collective habitus, such as ‘institutional’ and ‘familial’ habitus, in order to defend their conceptual utility and theoretical coherence. In so doing we promote a flexible understanding of habitus as both an individual and a collective concept. By retaining this flexibility (which we argue is in keeping with the spirit of Bourdieuian philosophy) we allow for a consideration of the ways in which the individual habitus relates to the collective. We argue that, through recognition of the complexity of the interrelated habitus of individuals, collective notions go beyond individualist accounts that perceive only the relational aspects of the individual with the social field. Our approach allows us to consider social actors in relation to each other and as constitutive of fields rather than as mere individuals plotted in social space. These arguments will be woven through our responses to what Atkinson calls the three fatal flaws of institutional and familial habitus: namely, homogenisation, anthropomorphism, and substantialism.     

Book Reviews

Handwrought Ancestors. By Marion Nicholl Rawson. Illustrated by the author. E. P. Dutton and Company. 366 pp. $5.00.

Brookings. By Hermann Hagedorn. Illustrated. The Macmillan Co. 334 pp. $3.50.

Death Valley Prospectors. By Dane Coolidge. Illustrated. E. P. Dutton and Co. 178 pp. $2.50.

Her Name Was Wallis Warfield. By Edwina H. Wilson. Illustrated. E. P. Dutton and Co. 117 pp. $1.50.

Pascal. By Morris Bishop. Illustrated. Reynal and Hitchcock. 398 pp. $3.50.

The Lives of Talleyrand. By Crane Brinton. Illustrated. W. W. Norton. 316 pp. $3.00.

The Man Who Built San Francisco. By Julian Dana. The Macmillan Company. 397 pp. $3.50.

A Student's History of Education. Revised Edition. By Frank P. Graves. The Macmillan Co. 567 pp. $2.50.

Bibliographies and Summaries in Education to July, 1935. By Walter S. Monroe and Louis Shores. The H. W. Wilson Company. 470 pp. $4.50.

Educational Psychology. Edited by Charles E. Skinner. Prentice Hall. 754 pp. $3.50.

Educational Statistics. By M. E. Broom. American Book Company. 318 pp.

Foundations of Curriculum Building. By John K. Norton and Margaret Alltucker Norton. Ginn and Company. 599 pp. $3.00

Remedial and Corrective Instruction in Reading. By James Maurice McCallister. D. Appleton-Century. 300 pp.

Schools for a Growing Democracy. By James S. Tippett, in Collaboration with the Committee of the Parker School District, Greenville, South Carolina. Ginn and Company. 338 pp. $2.00.

The Foundations of Modern Education. By Elmer Harrison Wilds. Farrar and Rinehart, Inc. 634 pp. $2.75.

The Ideal School. By B. B. Bogoslovsky. The Macmillan Company. 525 pp. $2.50.

The Marks of Examiners. By Sir Philip Harteg, E. C. Rhodes, and Cyril Burt. Macmillan and Company, Ltd. 344 pp. 8s 6d.

The Young Child in the Home. By John E. Anderson. D. Appleton-Century Company. 415 pp. $3.00.

Honourable Estate. By Vera Brittain. The Macmillan Company. 601 pp. $2.50.

Gaily the Troubadour. By Arthur Guiterman. E. P. Dutton and Company. 224 pp. $2.00.

Pamela's Daughters. By Robert Palfrey Utter and Gwendolyn Bridges Needham. The Macmillan Co. 479 pp. $3.50

A History of England. By C. E. Carrington and J. Hampden Jackson. The Macmillan Company. 803 pp. $2.40.

A New American History. By W. E. Woodward. Farrar and Reinhart. 900 pp. $4.00.

From Alley Pond to Rockefeller Center. By Henry Collins Brown. Illustrated. E. P. Dutton and Company. 299 pp. $3.50.

The Philosophy of Santayana. Selections from the Complete Works. Edited by Irwin Edman. Charles Scribner's Sons. 587 pp. $2.50.

Mexican Interlude. By Joseph Henry Jackson. Illustrated. The Macmillan Co. 232 pp. $2.50.

London. By Sidney Dark. Illustrated by Joseph Pennell. The Macmillan Company. 176 pp. $1.39.

Paris. By Sidney Dark. Illustrated by Henry Rushbury. The Macmillan Company. 139 pp. $1.39.

News from Tartary. By Peter Fleming. Illustrated. Charles Scribner's Sons. 381 pp. $3.00.     

Book Reviews

Increased awareness and improved tests have contributed to the identification of rising numbers of dyslexic students entering higher education in the United Kingdom. Nearly half of these students are not diagnosed until they start their HE courses. Studies of experiences of dyslexic students diagnosed as children exist; however, there is little comparable information on dyslexic students diagnosed as adults.

This qualitative study explores the experiences of six students diagnosed with dyslexia after starting their Masters degrees. Their personal accounts were analysed using thematic analysis. The major themes identified were: ? Distress

? Self-doubt

? Embarrassment

? Frustration

? Relief

? Confidence

? Motivation

The findings revealed that being diagnosed with dyslexia as an adult can be cathartic or devastating depending on the individual’s current emotional status and personality. However, as they develop a deeper understanding of what dyslexia means and how it affects them as individuals, the diagnosis becomes a liberating revelation. Once the label is accepted, the individual can embrace the change in lifestyle that the diagnosis necessitates. This study provides a deeper understanding of the consequences of a late diagnosis and highlights the need for management approaches to be individually tailored to specific needs.     

Is the enhancement of student experience a strategic priority in Australian universities?

Universities in many countries are developing strategies to enhance the student experience. This focus has never been so important since the development of rankings and the use of student experience measures in institutional performance assessment. Australian government policies to link student experience measures to performance funding were a key driver to increase the prominence of the student voice between 2004 and 2008. This paper analyses the strategic plans of 33 Australian universities with the aim of outlining the extent to which the enhancement of student experience is embedded as one of their key priorities. This review comes at a time when universities in Australia and elsewhere are realigning their future strategies and directions to achieve government aspirations for tertiary education with the introduction of various policy instruments including the possibility of rewarding universities on the basis of student experience measures. The paper also provides a comparative analysis of government policies in Australia and the UK on the measurement and enhancement of the student experience.     

The international student safety debate: moving beyond denial

In 2009 international student safety became an issue of immediate concern to Australian international education exporters following a series of demonstrations by Indian students and interventions by concerned foreign governments. With these developments the ‘industry’ became fixated on how best to secure Australia’s share of the international education market in a context in which it was impossible to deny international student safety is a systemic problem. This paper contextualizes this development by utilizing a stigma management framework to review the unfolding debate on international students and safety in the USA, the UK, New Zealand and Australia. We argue that in all four cases it took an exogenous shock to convince education exporters to acknowledge student safety as an issue that needs to be openly debated. We also suggest that Australian officials were slow to make this acknowledgement because they mistakenly believed the industry was shielded by its link to the immigration program.     

Managing successful universities

Institutional Research (IR), as a concept, has been gaining traction in the UK and across the world, as evidenced by the growing number of European, African, Australasian and North American associations, communities, conferences and publications. This paper stresses the need for high-quality (Institutional) research behaviours, aligned with and embedded in quality assurance (QA) and enhancement approaches as part of the ‘systematic’ functions required by the QA Agency. Terenzini's ‘three tiers of organisational intelligence’ are offered as a benchmark for framing IR as a highly credible, efficacious, pursuit. It is argued that when IR has the expected features of academic research, it is more likely to be supported and have positive impact on practices and policy development.     

From sociological fictions to social fictions: some Bourdieusian reflections on the concepts of ‘institutional habitus’ and ‘family habitus’

This paper expresses serious reservations regarding the increasingly popular Bourdieu‐inspired notions of ‘institutional habitus’ and ‘family habitus’ in education research. Although sympathetic to the overall theoretical approach and persuaded of the veracity and importance of the empirical findings they are used to illuminate, it argues that, from a Bourdieusian point of view, they actually present several difficulties that threaten not only to overstretch and reduce the explanatory power of the French thinker’s concepts but to stifle analysis of the kinds of struggles and complexities that both he and, somewhat contradictorily, the researchers in question spotlight. Bourdieu had his own ways of making sense of the themes raised, and although there is indeed a need to push him further than he went, to say what he did not and to emphasise what he would not, this has to be guided by consistent logic and not simply pragmatic empiricism.     

Expectations and experiences of off-campus PhD students in Australia

This study describes research examining the expectations and experiences of PhD students undertaking a PhD in off-campus research institutes and hospitals that are affiliated with an Australian research-intensive university. Much of our knowledge of the expectations and experiences of PhD students in Australia stem from those that undertake research training in the classical university structure and that progress towards research training directly from their undergraduate studies. However, increasing numbers of research higher degree students are based in off-campus research institutions, which are becoming increasingly fertile training grounds for research higher degree students in the sector. While participants’ experiences and expectations were largely consistent with our current understanding of the Australian PhD experience, many reported a perceived lack of support programmes. Workload and time commitments, pressure to produce results and their off-campus location potentially conspire to reduce access to on-campus support services offered by the university. Opportunities therefore exist for student advisors, service providers and university leaders to increase accessibility to academic development programmes and pastoral care, including both online and off-campus provision as appropriate, to enhance the PhD experience for this growing cohort of students.     

Invisible perceptions: understanding the perceptions of university tutors towards trainee teachers with parental responsibilities

In recent decades, Higher Education has undoubtedly changed giving rise to an increasingly diverse student population. However, there has been only limited research on students with parental responsibilities. When they are considered, this is often in a somewhat pejorative way. The challenges faced by such trainees are often invisible. This paper is focused on the contextual understandings and perspectives of university based staff involved in training pre-service teachers with parental responsibilities. The theoretical framework of this paper is based on the concept of institutional habitus, and questions whether the actions of individuals and practices within the often rigid structures of universities make teacher training more difficult for some groups than others.     

Mobile Chinese students navigating between fields: (Trans)forming habitus in transnational articulation programmes?

Abstract

Transnational articulation programmes are one way China is attempting to advance its higher education (HE) system. We report a study of twelve Chinese students’ experiences in two China-Australia 2?+?2 articulation programmes. In our analysis of semi-structured interviews, we use Bourdieu’s concepts of field and habitus to understand the impact on the habitus of the students. We report the experiences of the Chinese students in the HE sub-field in Australia. Students were like fish in water with the logics of practice of Chinese HE. In the new sub-field of HE in Australia, their habitus was out of place. This field/habitus mismatch created a field-habitus dissonance that can be productive of change to the habitus. Some in the study strategised to overcome this field-habitus mismatch and to adjust to the logics of the new field. We designate this emergent habitus as an in-between, diasporic cosmopolitan habitus, while others were able to ‘compartmentalise’ the demands of the new field, indicating durability of habitus.     

Student Expectations of Tertiary Institutions: A case study of the Fiji National University (FNU)

Education is a human right and Fiji’s tertiary education board recently declared that all tertiary institutions in Fiji must abide by the framework in order to meet student–customers’ needs. The Fiji National University’s (FNU’s) destiny to be Fiji’s leading higher education provider could be a reality if students and staff’s expectations are considered in all decision-making processes and at all levels of management. Preliminary research was conducted on a newly proclaimed government university: the FNU. The results revealed negative quality gaps whereupon there is a high intensity of student dissatisfaction with the services provided by the FNU. FNU as a community of social and education providers needs an atmosphere to provide social and educational development at all levels to meet the social and education needs of every staff and student in order to protect the basic human rights of its staff and students, and to qualify as an education provider that is internationally acceptable.     

Working-class students,habitus, and the development of student roles: a Canadian case study

As their numbers at university grow, we need to gain a better understanding of the different ways in which working-class students negotiate their potential outsider status in what is often considered an essential middle-class institution. Based on data from a four-year longitudinal, qualitative study of working-class students at a Canadian university, I argue that their acceptance of the ends and means of both the academic and social demands of university contributes to the development of different student roles, which in turn affects their likelihood to succeed academically. Drawing on works by Bourdieu and Bernstein, I present four case studies of students who lived through university committed, alienated or in transition toward either commitment or alienation. I show that despite similar working-class backgrounds, study participants’ reaction to university was anything but predictable. Instead, prior socialization, clear and realistic career goals, and chance encounters at university played an important role in their approach to university life.     

More than just a brain: emotions and the doctoral experience

While the epistemological and ontological challenges faced by doctoral candidates are well documented, the same cannot be said of the emotional dimensions of the journey. This paper draws on Activity Theory in exploring the role of emotion in the longitudinal doctoral learning experiences of six international PhD candidates studying in Australia. Analysis reveals that writing and supervision practices are common sites of tension but that the prevailing culture of silence militates against systemic change.     

Understanding international students’ in-class learning experiences in Chinese higher education institutions

Despite the dramatic rise in international student enrolment in Chinese higher education institutions, the classroom learning experiences of these students are not adequately reflected in the international literature. The present qualitative study explores the learning experiences of 33 international students in different types of classroom arrangements at Chinese universities. The findings show that the international students’ perceptions of teaching and learning approaches, their language difficulties, the type of classroom arrangement, the origin of the international students in the class, the more relaxed academic requirements for international students and the international students’ learning motivation all shaped their in-class experiences. Furthermore, the findings reveal that the international students’ personal traits and cross-cultural environment interacted with their psychological mechanisms to produce and influence their learning experiences. The article highlights the need to make sense of these complexities in order to understand international students’ in-class learning experiences. The implications of improving these experiences are discussed.     

Exploring the contribution of professional staff to student outcomes: a comparative study of Australian and UK case studies

This paper reports on the second stage of a comparative study between two higher education institutions: one in Australia and the other in the United Kingdom, which explored the contributions of professional staff to student outcomes. The first stage acted as a scoping exercise to ascertain how the contributions of professional staff to student outcomes could be investigated. The second stage of the study aimed to undertake a more in-depth exploration of self-reported behaviours in a range of professional staff roles, within the two case studies. The main finding of the comparative study is the broad similarities between the case studies, in self-reported behaviours that contribute to successful student outcomes. Four key factors were identified, which enable or inhibit the contributions of professional staff to successful outcomes. Three of the four factors were found to be the same in both case studies, whereas technology was more important in the Australian case study.     

双重制度逻辑视阈下中小学生职业体验中心建设的问题与策略

职业体验活动是实施职业启蒙教育的有效途径,而职业体验中心则是进行职业体验活动必要且高效的平台。当前,中小学生职业体验中心建设主要存在定位模糊、项目单一、课程匮乏、师资薄弱等问题。造成这些问题的主要原因是体验中心建设路径较为模糊、体验项目及课程的开发团队有待组建、体验教育师资队伍还不成熟。依据教育组织理论,可以从职业体验中心的行政系统和专业系统两方面,联合社会上其他力量建立健全相关机制,聚焦项目式体验课程开发,提高教师职业体验教育胜任力,打造体验中心核心特色。     

Coping with the Contradictions of Reflecting on Praxis: a Spanish case

Abstract

This paper offers some aspects and conclusions which form a part of a more extensive 2‐year case study carried out by a group of 11 teachers participating in an action‐research project at the University of Oviedo, Spain. The purpose is to analyse the professionalizing potential of action‐research in Higher Education. Professional development and growth are understood to be a pedagogical process through which teachers may increase, and enhance their ability for coping with the dilemmas and contradictions they face up to at work. In considering this conception, the objective is to analyse the specific contradictions of action‐research, as well as its possibilities, as a strategy for professional development of University teachers.     

Book Reviews

This article is concerned with understanding continuity and stability in teaching, and their significance. It looks particularly at the work of Anthony Giddens on structure and agency, that of Martin Heidegger on the limits of discursive and theoretical analysis, and the communitarian strand within ethics. It applies this discussion to understandings of teachers’ work in the context especially of policy and agendas for change, arguing that continuity and the notion of a community of practitioners is critical to maintaining the distinctive ethical quality of teaching.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Richard Edwards and Robin Usher, Globalisation and Pedagogy: Space, place and identity
Jackie Brine, Educating Women: Globalizing Inequality
David Carr, Professionalism and Ethics
Andrew Pollard and Ann Filer, The Social World of Pupil Career: Strategic Biographies through Primary School
Bernard Crick, Essays on Citizenship
Mike Bottery and Nigel Wright, Teachers and the State: Towards a Directed Profession
Stephen Heathorn, For Home, Country and Race: Constructing Gender, Class and Englishness in the Elementary School 1880-1914
Jane M. Page, Reframing the Early Childhood Curriculum: Educational Imperatives for the Future
Leslie P. Steffe and Patrick W. Thompson (eds), Radical Constructivism in Action
Patricia Broadfoot, Marilyn Osborne, Clare Planel and Keith Sharpe, Promoting Quality in Learning – Does England have the Answer?
Claire Cameron, Peter Moss and Charlie Owen, Men in the Nursery: Gender and Caring Work
Mike Cole (ed), Education, Equality and Human Rights
R. Alexander, P. Broadfoot and D. Phillips, Learning from Comparing: New Directions in Comparative Educational Research , Volume 1 Contexts, Classrooms and Outcomes
OECD, Learning to Bridge the Digital Divide