Beliefs of experienced and student teachers about the nature and purpose of social studies education in New Zealand elementary schools

This paper reports on an investigation carried out in New Zealand into experienced elementary and student teachers’ beliefs about the nature and purpose of social studies education. Since its inclusion in New Zealand's curriculum, social studies has been organized around the notion of citizenship education with curricula and programmes of work influenced by four overarching “traditions” – social studies as: citizenship transmission; social science; reflective inquiry; and personal, social and ethical empowerment. A 20-item scale based on these traditions was administered to 228 student teachers and 64 experienced teachers. A factor analysis indicated that participants' perceptions of the dimensions of social studies education were, with one exception, reasonably close to the four traditions. Despite the contested nature of social studies, the student and experienced teachers held similar positions on the relative importance of the traditions and dimensions. It is argued that this agreement arises, wholly or in part, from their common “apprenticeship of experience” in classrooms, the broader socio-historical context in which their beliefs were developed, the widespread influence of a prevalent educational discourse, and a shared lack of experience in formal knowledge associated with specific social science disciplines. It was concluded that the uncomfortable generational encounters often reported in the literature between novice and experienced teachers are unlikely to occur in relation to the teaching of elementary social studies in New Zealand.     

Running for Freedom: The Politics of Long-Distance Running in Modern Fiction

This essay analyses the uses of running in contemporary fiction. It addresses the question of the literariness of running, and the ways in which literature enables us to articulate aspects of the sport such as its heroism or its relationship to the nation. It looks at a number of fictional texts, and focuses largely on two important works, ‘The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner’, Sillitoe's celebrated novella of 1958, and Jean Echenoz's novel, Running, published 50 years later. This essay examines the quality of running defined in literature, then looks at its traditional function of celebration of heroes, before closing on the freedom associated with running in such works.     

Death anxiety among nursing home residents: a comparison of the young-old and the old-old

The purpose of this research was (a) to determine whether there is a comparative difference in the level of conscious death anxiety between young-old and the old-old nursing home residents and (b) to assess the predictive value of educational attainment, gender, subjective health, functional ability, social support, and length of stay on the conscious death anxiety of the persons in the two age groups. A discriminant analysis of 228 residents from three nursing homes revealed that among the 103 young-old subjects poor subjective health, poor functional ability, poor social support, and extended stays in the facilities were indicative of high death anxiety. Among the 125 old-old subjects, high death anxiety was associated with poor subjective health, poor functional ability, and higher educational attainment. Further, it was found that age was an important variable. A significantly greater proportion of the older residents compared to the younger residents had higher conscious death anxiety. The results may direct practitioners and planners in program development for the elderly nursing home patient.     

Transfer paths and academic performance: The primary school merger program in china

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, China's Ministry of Education embarked on an ambitious program of primary school mergers by shutting down small village schools and opening up larger centralized schools in towns and county seats. The goal of the program was to improve the teacher and building resources in an attempt to raise the human capital of students in poor rural areas, although it was recognized that students would lose the opportunity to learn in the settings of their own familiar villages. Because of the increased distances to the new centralized schools, the merger program also entailed building boarding facilities and encouraging or mandating that students live at school during the week away from their family. Given the magnitude of the program and the obvious mix of benefits and costs that such a program entails there has been surprisingly little effort to evaluate the impact of creating a new system that transfers students from school to school during their primary school period of education and, in some cases, making student live in boarding facilities at school. In this paper, our overall goal is to examine the impact of the Rural Primary School Merger Program on academic performance of students using a dataset from a survey that we designed to reflect transfer paths and boarding statuses of students. We use OLS and Propensity Score Matching approaches and demonstrate that there is a large “resource effect” (that is, an effect that appears to be associated with the better facilities and higher quality of teachers in the town and county schools) that appears to be associated with the transfers of students from less centralized schools (such as village schools) to more centralized schools. Boarding, however, is shown to have negative impacts on academic performance. However, students who transfer to county school benefit from the transfer no matter where they start and whether they board or not.     

The Willed Body Donor Interview project: Medical student and donor expectations

The Anatomical Donations Program at the University of Michigan Medical School (UMMS) has begun a multiphase project wherein interviews of donors will be recorded and later shown to medical students who participate in the anatomical dissection course. The first phase of this project included surveys of both current UMMS medical students and donors concerning their perceptions of such a program. A five‐question survey administered via Qualtrics software was electronically mailed to all current medical students at UMMS, and a survey was mailed to registered and potential donors requesting information from the UMMS on anatomical donations. A total of 224 medical student responses (response rate 33%) and 54 donor responses (response rate 27%) were received. Seventy‐four percent of students and 81% of donors reported they would participate in this program if it existed. Students and donors supported the implementation of this program for varying reasons, though many felt strongly they would not want to participate in a donor interview program. These qualitative results support those of previous studies that show a majority of students desire a closer personal relationship with the donor, and these are the first results to be reported on donor perceptions of a donor interview program. Although many students and donors are in favor of instituting this program, others feel strongly that such an experience could be traumatic. The causes of these differing reactions need to be further explored, and the opinions of those who object to this study will be respected by maintaining voluntary participation in future phases of this study. Anat Sci Educ 6: 90–100. © 2012 American Association of Anatomists.     

Coco Solo: From the party for the sun to the marble mason

These stories are part of a collection in progress to be entitled It Happened in the Neighborhood. They deal with events that occurred in Coco Solo, a small marginalized neighborhood of Havana. The characters are real; the events are mostly real. Many situations that appear surreal certainly happened. Popular imagination, tales transmitted from one generation toanother, or the author's imagination are also present, but the stories are always based on what happened in the neighborhood.     

A survey of video game players in a public,urban research university

A survey was conducted in a public, research university located in a large and diverse metropolitan area in the southeastern part of the USA. The purpose of the survey was to determine both the positive and negative personal, educational, social, and work related consequences of playing video games. Nearly two‐thirds of the 203 participants in this study were of Hispanic heritage. A majority of the sample of participants was derived using a school intercept, as opposed to mall intercept, strategy. The remaining participants were obtained using snowball, and convenience sampling techniques. Statistically significant differences between males and females were found in the areas of communication, decision making in daily lives, leadership skills, collaborating, functioning in a team, and giving directions to others. These differences were favorable to males.     

Project Outcome results in action

ABSTRACT

The Public Library Association’s performance measurement initiative, Project Outcome, is a free online toolkit designed to help public libraries understand and share the impact of essential library programs and services by providing simple surveys and an easy-to-use process for measuring and analyzing outcomes. Interviews of participating libraries and community stakeholders were conducted in 2017 to create five success case studies. What PLA learned is that libraries using Project Outcome surveys can leverage their outcome data into actionable results—tracking their impact across time, improving and expanding programs and services, supporting new and deepening existing partnerships, and increasing library championship.