The role of external experts’ intervention in higher education institutions for radical change

This paper focuses on the way lecturers observe, feel restrained by and cope with quality management systems that have been implemented in the higher education systems of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. As two sides of the same coin, quality enhancement and quality control are of increased significance in European Higher Educaction Institutions (HEIs), particularly through the Bologna Process. We are interested in the way that both enhancement and control blend into the current systems, and we are concerned for too much dominance of control, as has been suggested in recent managerial literature. Analysis of 40 interviews in both countries among researchers and lecturers in traditional and universities of applied sciences showed many similarities. It is not so much the general idea of quality management that is being turned down by the respondents. They see the benefits quite clearly. Still, the general belief is that quality management in its current shape and character does not fit with the work of the individual academic, neither their teaching nor their research. The respondents worry for and resent the consequences of increased emphasis on quality assurance and control. The developments concerning the quality management of their HEIs are perceived in terms of quality assurance by the UK respondents. Instead, the Dutch are more occupied with finding ways to “how to deal with” such developments.     

Preservice Teachers’ Connections of Pedagogical Knowledge to Mentoring At-Risk Adolescents: Benefits and Challenges

Providing authentic encounters with secondary students may be a way to provide a realistic image of students’ academic challenges, and enhance preservice teachers’ skills, knowledge, and dispositions to better address the needs of their future academically, linguistically, socially, and culturally unique students. The purpose of our study was to examine preservice teachers’ experiences in mentoring at-risk high school adolescents. Specifically, we sought to identify the connections to pedagogy associated with their mentoring experience. Major findings generated five themes: (a) relationship building, (b) academic immediacy, (c) embracing a professional lens, (d) a student-centered pedagogical philosophy, and (e) self-efficacy.     

Evaluating knowledge,attitudinal, and behavioral change effects from a multinational HIV/AIDS education program for youth

This project tracked the mid-term evaluation processes, practices, and products of a multinational program to reduce at-risk behaviors for HIV/AIDS among children in Kenya, Tanzania, and Haiti. It focused on participant and community perceptions; program effectiveness in promoting abstinence and monogamy decisions; and factors supporting ongoing resistance, decision persistence, and program sustainability. Instrumentation included focus groups and interviews with 731 participant youth, parents, community stakeholders, and staff; program documents; and expert on-site observations. Program efforts are effective in influencing informational, attitudinal, and behavioral changes across stakeholder groups. Data underscore process effects of specific program tools and features, through participant attributions. Critical relationships between internal and external factors, and collective local practices grown from program knowledge and skills, support risk reduction awareness and behaviors. Systematic evaluation, including design features, can inform similar efforts across national and cultural boundaries. Effective strategies are highlighted and linked to community perceptions and program outcomes.     

Flexibility of Suckler Cattle Farms in the Face of Uncertainty within the Beef Industry: A Proposed Definition and an Illustration

Abstract

The aim of this study, carried out in association with beef cattle producers, was to explore the capacity of farms to adapt, from a techno-conomic point of view, to both structural changes in consumer demand for beef products and market disruptions (sudden drop in beef consumption due partly to media coverage of bovine spongiform encephalopathy [BSE] and foot-and-mouth disease in the winter 2000/2001). The aim is to help farmers and advisors to find solutions to fit farmers’ management choices with their strategic objectives. The flexibility concept was adopted in order to examine how farms reacted to the winter 2000/2001 crisis, and was based on several technical, economic and sociological surveys. A series of variables was proposed and several hypotheses were formulated regarding their impact on farm flexibility. Four types of farm strategy were identified using different combinations of the degree of importance of these variables, with technical, economic and marketing flexibilities specific to each type. The results revealed the different combinations of flexibility-types possible (technical, economic, marketing) and explain why cattle farmers reacted as they did. Analysis of farm flexibility also revealed situations where these technical, economic and marketing flexibilities were either complementary or incompatible. For traditional livestock farmers, high flexibility (technical and economic) allowed them to minimize the impact of the crisis on their systems. In other cases, low flexibility either resulted in inertia, or led farmers to react by seeking solutions outside the cattle farming system. Development groups should take into account these parameters when interacting with farmers. We propose a framework to qualify the use of information resources by farmers, relative to their flexibility.     

Educational reform as a dynamic system of problems and solutions: Towards an analytic instrument

Large-scale educational reforms are difficult to realize and often fail. In the literature, the course of reform and problems associated with this are frequently discussed. The explanations and recommendations then provided are so diverse that it is difficult to gain a comprehensive overview of what factors are at play and how to take them into consideration. In this article, a model to provide a comprehensive framework for the analysis of educational reforms is presented. Education is conceptualized as a social system and educational reform thus as the manner in which this social system adapts to a changing context. The upper secondary education reforms undertaken in the 1990s in the Netherlands are adopted as a test case to evaluate the utility of the model. The results of the study paint a picture of educational reform as a loosely organized system of problems and solutions. The possibilities and potential limitations of the model are discussed in closing.     

普通话态度语音的感知实验研究

在言语交际中,说话人的情绪(emotions)属于不自主控制的潜在的心理状态,而说话人表达的态度(attitudes)或者称社会情感(social affects)则是说话人自主控制的。本文通过听辨实验,研究了中国人对普通话19类态度语音的感知特性。实验采用条件受控的语音语料,考察了态度类别、话语长度、听辨人性别这三个因素对态度辨识率的影响,以及不同态度类别在听感上的混淆模式与聚类关系。实验结果表明,普通话态度语音的辨识率总体上高于机遇水平,其中"陈述"和"失望"的辨识率最高,"自信"的辨识率最低。态度类别的主效应、态度类别与话语长度的交互效应,是影响态度辨识率的主要因素。基于听辨混淆模式进一步做层次聚类分析后发现,19种态度从语音感知上可大体聚类为7组,同组内的态度在认知上表现出一定的关联性。     

Identifying individual- and family-level coping strategies as sources of resilience and thriving for undocumented youth of Mexican origin

Drawing from resilience theory, we explored the strategies that Mexican immigrant youth used to cope with stressors from being undocumented. On the basis of semi-structured interviews with 30 high school students who emigrated from Mexico to the United States, we identified several stressors from being undocumented, including having limited opportunities, fear of deportation, and exposure to negative reminders of their undocumented status. To manage such stressors, students utilized individual coping strategies (e.g. diversion, reframing, normalizing). In addition, the families of undocumented youth employed various coping strategies to help buffer their children against stressors from being undocumented (e.g. protecting the family unit, positive future, emotional support, limited communication). From our findings, we developed a preliminary model that describes the stress and coping of the undocumented youth in this study, which can extend past theorizing on resilience and thriving, as well as inform the design of community-based programs and policies for undocumented youth and their family.     

Perishing Papers,Vanishing Witnesses? The Future Fate of Hungarian Diaspora Collections

The article is based on a recent grant proposal written for a Hungarian agency, and it is also written as a public appeal to all archives collecting sources of the Hungarian Western diaspora, both home and abroad. It provides an overview of émigré document sources stored by Hungarian archives, as well as those that can be found in the United States, much scattered and often endangered, unknown, or forgotten. The author, a founding member of the Consulting Committee for Exploring and Rescuing Hungarian Documents in the West, organized in January 2013 by the Hungarian National Archives, calls for broad national and international efforts to explore and save the written heritage of the Hungarian Western diaspora. In his conclusions he outlines the most demanding tasks of a program based on long- and short-term cooperation of all potential partners.