Sexual Harassment of College Students by Lecturers in Zimbabwe

Sexual harassment of female students by their lecturers has become a serious social problem in schools and institutions of higher education in Zimbabwe. The current study is an in-depth follow-up to Zindi's study (1994) and sought to investigate and establish whether or not inappropriate relationships between male lecturers and female students exist; whether female lecturers sexually harass male students; and whether there is a relationship between sexual harassment and students' performance in their studies. There may be a relationship between sexual harassment and the performance of female students in examinations. The results of a questionnaire completed by 83 students in one higher education institution in Zimbabwe revealed the widespread sexual harassment of female students by male lecturers and the different perceptions of such harassment held by male and female students. Possible implications of these findings to education are discussed and recommendations made.     

Liminal spaces constructed by primary schools in predominantly white working-class areas in England

ABSTRACT

Despite successive policy interventions, students’ socio-economic status continues to strongly predict educational outcomes. Many schools aspire to ‘close’ this ‘gap’. This paper presents an ethnographic study of a group of Primary schools in predominantly white working-class areas in the Midlands of England. Generating ethnographic data through time-recurrent, multi-sited fieldwork including observation, informal conversations, semi-structured interviews, photography and documentary analysis, findings were constructed through critical dialogue between the group of six researchers. A concept of liminal spaces is used to analyse the schools’ work in seeking to move individuals, families, and communities beyond that which they previously knew, foregrounding norms, practices, and discourses constructed on the ‘inside’, and highlighting aspects in tension with the imagined ‘outside’. These schools’ conceptualisations of poverty are shown to be complex and multifaceted, and suggestions are made to employ liminality for articulating and critically exploring the spaces and transformations that schools seek to construct.     

Quality assurance in distance education: The challenges to be addressed

Integration of technology in all forms ofeducation has narrowed down the gap between theon- and off-campus students and has resulted inthe use of the more broad-based term`distributed learning'. Consequently, distancelearning is seen as a subset of distributedlearning, focusing on students who may beseparated in time and space from their peersand the instructor. The new forms and meaningsit is acquiring, its convergence withtraditional learning and its global impact poseseveral challenges. It has caused a seriousconcern to the governments and the qualityassurance agencies all over the world about thesafety of the national systems, legitimacy ofthe providers, protecting the public from fakeproviders, quality of the offerings etc. thecommon element being `concern for quality'.Many quality assurance agencies have respondedto this need and there is considerable dialogueabout ensuring quality in distance education.Some think that quality assurance practices fordistance education are essentially the same asthose used for traditional education. Othersargue that distance education testsconventional assumptions and hence the presentmechanisms of quality assurance are notadequate to ensure the quality of distanceeducation. This paper highlights the aspects ofdistance education that deviate so markedlyfrom what has been practiced for hundreds ofyears and argues that quality assurance ofdistance education has to be approacheddifferently.     

War and education in the United States: racial ideology and inequality in three historical episodes

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of war on African-American education. This question is considered in three different periods: the eras of the American Revolution, the Civil War and the Second World War. Large-scale conflict, such as these instances of total war, can afford historical moments when oppressed groups are able take steps to improve their social status, challenging the forms of domination that have subjugated them in the past and demanding rights and liberties long denied them. This is an especially noteworthy case because of the highly developed system of racial oppression that African Americans became subjected to historically. In each of these cases, disruptions of existing patterns of social and political inequity provided openings for African Americans to realise new opportunities for education and social advancement. Implications of these historical patterns are discussed in the conclusion.     

Transforming the school workforce: perspectives on school reform in England

This paper describes the experience of change management observed as part of an evaluation of the Transforming School Workforce Pathfinder Project commissioned by the UK Government for the English education system. The 32 Pilot Schools made interventions in organisational practice in ways that required them to think differently about work. Changes in the number, type and deployment of the school workforce combined with thinking about the nature of work have challenged existing practices. In particular, a focus on change management teams drawn from the whole school workforce, supported by an external school workforce advisor, has required schools to examine the nature of decision-making and participation. We intend to draw on evidence from eight case study schools and through this examine the implications for how change is understood and practiced. We critically engage with the government’s preference for a particular model of change to bring about organisational improvement, and we reveal a pluralistic and dynamic field both within practice and theorising.

Optimism as a Candidate Health Asset: Exploring Its Links With Adolescent Quality of Life in Sweden

This study aims to understand the role that optimism could play in the context of a health asset approach to promote adolescent health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Adolescents (n = 948), between 11 and 16 years old from a medium-sized rural town in Sweden, answered questionnaires measuring optimism, pessimism, and HRQOL. The findings indicate a significant decrease in optimism and a significant increase in pessimism between early and midadolescence. The study has allowed us to present associational evidence of the links between optimism and HRQOL. This infers the potential of an optimistic orientation about the future to function as a health asset during adolescence and by implication may provide additional intervention tool in the planning of health promotion strategies.