The Emergence of Football in Nineteenth-Century England: The Historiographic Debate

The work details the history of football that became established in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the view that social and economic changes resulted in football disappearing from the general community, only surviving in the various public schools, who played a codified game. It was these games that were transplanted to the general population, becoming the sports of rugby and soccer. This remained the established history of football until almost the twenty-first century, whence it was replaced by an increased acknowledgement that during the nineteenth century football did not die out. In fact, popularly played football during this period was conducted under strict rules. It is maintained that rugby and soccer were produced in the nineteenth century by a fusion of influences from both the public schools and wider communities.     

Occupational outcomes for Australian computing/information technology bachelor graduates and implications for the IT bachelor curriculum

ABSTRACT

In Australia, the IT workforce and employment outcomes for university IT bachelor graduates have a complex interrelationship. The likelihood of IT bachelor graduates to work in a professional IT role is infrequently discussed in the research literature. It has been suggested that “deficient” undergraduate IT curricula are one contributor to poor employment outcomes for graduates. Using the latest available Australian national census data, we present a detailed analysis of the occupational outcomes for graduates of undergraduate IT programmes, and the makeup of the IT workforce in Australia. This analysis presents important findings for those designing undergraduate IT curricula that seek to equip students to prepare for the best employment outcomes. The finding that, even immediately post-graduation, a significant proportion of Australian IT bachelor graduates do not work in IT roles, even though professional IT job roles outnumber IT bachelor graduates nearly two-to-one, has implications for undergraduate IT education.     

The Case of the Greeting-Card Cripple

Students in the United States need diversity skills that enable them to function in an increasingly interdependent and varied world. Internet technology provides an untapped resource for assisting children to understand and value diversity. In this article, the authors present three skills that are important to students as they interact in the global community. In addition, the authors recommend Internet technology-based resources that teachers may use to assist students in acquiring diversity skills.     

Investigating the Relationship Between Students' Multiple Conceptions of Action and Reaction in Cases of Static Equilibrium

Previous research has shown that students often have multiple conceptions within any particular topic area in science, and these conceptions are usually strongly linked to specific problem situations or contexts. The aim of the present study was to investigate the nature of any possible relationship between these conceptions. A stratified sample of 53 grade 10 students was obtained, and individual interviews were used to identify their conceptions about action and reaction forces in simple instances of static equilibrium. The majority of students had a mixture of scientifically acceptable conceptions and alternative conceptions. Their explanations indicated that they were using an 'if … then' type of reasoning which linked the two conceptions.     

E‐learning: you don't always get what you hope for

Despite substantial growth in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) throughout western societies, there is much evidence of technology‐led innovations within Higher Education (HE) failing to achieve the anticipated transformations in learning and teaching. This paper reviews evidence from research and evaluation studies relating not only to e‐learning, but also to wider HE practices. It argues that the use of ICT does not, in itself, result in improved educational outcomes and ways of working. It considers contextual factors that are of greater significance in determining how and why e‐learning is used in HE. Students' engagement with e‐learning relates to their expectations and conceptions of learning and to assessment demands. Academics need to re‐assess their own beliefs and practices concerning teaching and assessment and their impact on the experience of learners. Both teachers and learners need to understand why e‐learning activities are to be undertaken and the rewards expected to be derived.     

Protestant ethic endorsement,personality, and general intelligence

To learn if Protestant ethic endorsement predicted intelligence controlling for the big five personality factors, 364 college students from England and the United States completed a 65-item multifaceted work ethic endorsement measure, the 50-item Wonderlic Personnel Test, and a 60-item measure of the big five personality factors. A hierarchical multiple regression revealed that, after controlling for respondent's sex and the big five, work ethic facets accounted for 5.6% of the variability in Wonderlic scores. However, the direction of the relationship between PWE facets and Wonderlic scores depended on the PWE facet in question. Furthermore, the facets accounted for more variability than did a composite work ethic score. The discussion focuses on the multidimensional nature of PWE endorsement and future research with this construct.     

Towards a sociolinguistics of superdiversity

The notion of ‘superdiversity’ has engaged scholars beyond the field of sociolinguistics. In this paper we propose to shift the gaze to the linguistic, focusing on the ways in which the new diversity becomes the site of negotiations over linguistic resources, and to widen the scope of debate. The ways in which people negotiate access to resources in increasingly diverse societies are changing. Looking at these phenomena through a sociolinguistic lens is key to a developed understanding of superdiverse societies. García proposes the term ‘translanguaging’ to refer to the multiple discursive practices in which multilingual speakers engage in order to make sense of their worlds. Translanguaging goes beyond code-switching, but incorporates it. García points out that multilinguals translanguage to include and facilitate communication with others, but also to construct deeper understandings. Translanguaging includes but extends what others have called language use and language contact among multilinguals. Rather than focusing on the language itself, translanguaging makes it apparent that there are no clear-cut boundaries between the languages of bilinguals. This paper draws on sociolinguistic ethnographic research projects which investigate the linguistic practices of children and young people in and around complementary (community-language) schools, to argue that multilingual young people in English cities access a wide range of semiotic resources in ways which are not bounded as ‘languages’. In developing a sociolinguistics of superdiversity we should look closely at practices of translanguaging, and consider the histories, geographies, and discourses which shape them.     

The correspondence of public perceptions of graduates’ life chances and university departmental funding

Very little prior research has examined public perceptions of research funding and the life chances associated with various fields of study. In the present task, 315 members of the Austrian general public rated 34 higher-education courses in terms of funding cuts or increases, and the perceived life chances of graduates, respectively. The results showed a high degree of correspondence in the ratings of both questionnaires. Overall, professional and biological stream courses were rated the most favourably, whereas arts and humanities courses were rated the least favourably. Participants’ demographic variables had little influence on their decisions. The implications of these findings for the way higher education is managed and organised are discussed.