Engaging disaffected learners in Key Stage 4 through work-related learning in England

Work-Related Learning (WRL) has been enthusiastically embraced by UK governments since the 1990s as a means of reengaging learners in the final years of compulsory schooling. However, recent years have seen a policy shift away from WRL towards a more academic curriculum for all young people. Drawing on a qualitative study commissioned by the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, this article explores good practice in using WRL to motivate 14- to 16-year-old learners. The article aimed to refocus discussion on the beneficial effects of WRL for disengaged young people. It argues that WRL can be a powerful engagement tool as part of a holistic approach to support learners to engage or reengage in learning. It also highlights that any appraisal of the merits of WRL for disaffected learners should also consider the indirect benefits such as increased confidence and motivation to participate, which can potentially lead to hard outcomes of success.     

Integrated schools and intergroup relations in Northern Ireland: the importance of parents

Background: Integrated schools were established in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s. With an explicit intention to build better relations between Catholics and Protestants, it has an intuitive appeal in a society which has long experienced sectarian division. Whilst the sector has attracted considerable research, less is understood about how parents’ perceive the approach adopted by schools to build intergroup relations.

Purpose: The present article seeks to address the gap in the literature by exploring parents’ views of integrated education. Drawing on theories of intergroup contact, the paper seeks specifically to explore how parents and head teachers perceive and negotiate the approach that the schools adopt to build intergroup relations.

Method: In an attempt to probe the deeper meanings that participants attach to integrated education, a qualitative research approach was adopted; semi-structured interviews were carried out with 17 parents and 2 head teachers in two integrated primary schools.

Findings: Through the data analyses, three main aspects were evident. Firstly, the study reveals something of the relational dynamic between head teachers and parents and the significance of this relationship for determining how intergroup relations are pursued in integrated schools. Secondly, it highlights the nebulous nature of identity salience and the practical challenges of making identity salient within mixed identity contexts. Finally, the study suggests the value of qualitative approaches for exploring intergroup contact initiatives.

Conclusions: Overall, the paper demonstrates the inherent challenges of establishing an integrated school where good relations will be developed when multiple interpretations of what constitutes an appropriate response to difference and diversity prevails.     

Analysis of a load application point in spline coupling teeth

The objective of this paper is to investigate the position of the resultant force in involute spline coupling teeth due to the contact pressure distribution for both ideal and misaligned conditions. In general, spline coupling teeth are in contact all along the involute profile and the load is far from uniform along the contact line. Theoretical models available in publications consider the resultant contact force as it is applied at the pitch diameter, and this study aims to evaluate the error introduced within the confines of a common approximation environment. This analysis is carried out through using finite element method （FEM） models, considering spline couplings in both ideal and misaligned conditions. Results show that the differences between the load application diameter and pitch diameter are not very obvious in both ideal and misaligned conditions; however, this ap- proximation becomes more important for the calculation of the tooth stiffness.     

Troubling identities: teacher education students' constructions of class and ethnicity

Working with diverse student populations productively depends on teachers and teacher educators recognizing and valuing difference. Too often, in teacher education programs, when markers of identity such as gender, ethnicity, ‘race’, or social class are examined, the focus is on developing student teachers' understandings of how these discourses shape learner identities and rarely on how these also shape teachers' identities. This article reports on a research project that explored how student teachers understand ethnicity and socio‐economic status. In a preliminary stage of the research, we asked eight Year 3 teacher education students who had attended mainly Anglo‐Australian, middle class schools as students and as student teachers, to explore their own ethnic and classed identities. The complexities of identity are foregrounded in both the assumptions we made in selecting particular students for the project and in the ways they constructed their own identities around ethnicity and social class. In this article we draw on these findings to interrogate how categories of identity are fluid, shifting and ongoing processes of negotiation, troubling and complex. We also consider the implications for teacher education.     

Rats do show primacy and recency effects in memory for lists of spatial locations: A reply to Gaffan

It has been demonstrated that rats display both primacy and recency effects in list-learning experiments for both item- and order-recognition memory for spatial location information. Contrary to a suggestion made by Gaffan (1992) that previous demonstrations of primacy effects in rats are not valid due to statistical and methodological problems, we show that (1) it is not likely that our results are due to experimenter bias and/or nonindependence of trials, (2) primacy and recency effects are obtained whether or not one uses a training criterion, and (3) when many of the published reports from our laboratory are combined, the number of subjects and trials are sufficient to evaluate the validity of primacy and recency effects in list-learning experiments.     

Research collaboration and productivity: is there correlation?

The incidence of extramural collaboration in academic research activities is increasing as a result of various factors. These factors include policy measures aimed at fostering partnership and networking among the various components of the research system, policies which are in turn justified by the idea that knowledge sharing could increase the effectiveness of the system. Over the last two decades, the scientific community has also stepped up activities to assess the actual impact of collaboration intensity on the performance of research systems. This study draws on a number of empirical analyses, with the intention of measuring the effects of extramural collaboration on research performance and, indirectly, verifying the legitimacy of policies that support this type of collaboration. The analysis focuses on the Italian academic research system. The aim of the work is to assess the level of correlation, at institutional level, between scientific productivity and collaboration intensity as a whole, both internationally and with private organizations. This will be carried out using a bibliometric type of approach, which equates collaboration with the co-authorship of scientific publications.