Tax incentives for R&D: a critical evaluation

A number of policy proposals have recently been presented that seek to address the problem of declining productivity growth. Many of these are aimed at encouraging private R&D spending through tax incentives. This paper first reviews some of these proposals, then evaluates tax incentives per se as a policy tool for encouraging R&D growth, and finally offers suggestions for redesigning R&D related tax incentive policies.     

Building Better Bridges: Toward a Transdisciplinary Science Communication

ABSTRACT

In this article the authors envision a more durable and portable model of scholarship on public engagement with science through partnerships between rhetoricians of science and quantitative social scientists. The authors consider a number of barriers and limitations that make such partnerships difficult, with an eye toward discovering ways that researchers may overcome them. The authors conclude by articulating guidelines for reciprocal transdisciplinary work as well as specific recommended practices for such collaborations.     

The Discourses of Social Justice in Education

What the existing organization of schooling presupposes...is that in consumption terms, the world consists of equally powerful individual actors. Such, of course, is not the case in a hierarchically ordered capitalist system, where labour and capital, and indeed different forms of both, have differential access to resources enabling them to consume. By largely intervening only in provisional relations, the state fails to recognize the central dynamic of education ‐‐ that provision and consumption are not coterminous. In essence, state intervention does not go far enough. (Lynch, 1989, p.127)     

“Back to the Backlash?” Primary Practitioner Discourses of Resistance to Gender-inclusive Policies

In this article I discuss how observed discourses of resistance indicate the exclusion of the standpoint of primary school practitioners from feminist theorization, as well as the exclusion of feminist perspectives from primary school practice. I do so from a feminist position which sees the modernist policy framework of the gender-inclusive curriculum as still having transformative potential in the postmodern era, whilst also perceiving the need for much more specific analysis of the varied discourses of resistance. The data is selected from a wider longitudinal case study that investigated the conceptualization and enactment of a gender-inclusive curriculum policy in the state of Victoria in Australia since 1975. I focus this discussion on interviewed “exemplars” who observed primary practitioner resistance to gender inclusive curriculum policy. I conclude that this case study empirically demonstrates the failure of “backlash” in accounting for the significant specificities of primary practitioner discourses of resistance.     

An examination of alternate assessment durations when assessing multiple‐skill computational fluency: The generalizability and dependability of curriculum‐based outcomes within the context of educational decisions

The current study extended previous research on curriculum‐based measurement in mathematics (M‐CBM) assessments. The purpose was to examine the generalizability and dependability of multiple‐skill M‐CBM computation assessments across various assessment durations (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 minutes). Results of generalizability and dependability studies (N = 104 students) suggest that relative interindividual decisions can rely on the results from 1‐minute administrations for low‐stakes decisions and the results of 4‐minute administrations for high‐stakes decisions. Moreover, absolute intraindividual decisions can rely on the results from 4‐minute administrations for low‐stakes decisions and 13‐minute administrations for high‐stakes decisions. The implications and limitations of these results are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 615–622, 2005.     

Food sharing in albino rat pups: Does familiarity breed contempt?

The present experiment investigated the effects of kinship and familiarity upon food sharing in pairs of albino rat pups. Five pairs of rats from each of the following groups were tested: (1) familiar siblings, (2) nonfamiliar siblings, (3) familiar nonsiblings, and (4) nonfamiliar non-siblings. A small food portion was used, necessitating not only close physical contact, but also cooperation in the sense that both pups were required to remain relatively immobile in order for both to feed simultaneously. Results indicated more frequent sharing among unfamiliar pups, whether related or not. Results also indicated that food sharing increased in frequency among all four groups over the 5-day testing period, suggesting that cooperation in the form of food sharing can develop, or increase in frequency, over time in albino rat pups.