Book reviews

There are signs that teams are becoming more popular in ethnographic research. New technology and, in the UK, the Research Assessment Exercise have facilitated the establishment and continuance of teams. In this paper, the authors discuss their experiences in one particular research team in recent years. Securing adequate funding has been the essential structural prerequisite. The authors distinguish among project, federated, and whole teams, depending on function and level of analysis. They consider team structure, approach, business, and processes, and the relationship between individual and team. Teamwork has enabled a wider and deeper coverage of work, a broader comparative base, and multiple researcher triangulation. The team provides a forum for the discussion of ethical issues, an immediate supportive reference group. It has opened up horizons, and promoted individual change and development. It has aided analysis and writing, and promoted clearer and more robust arguments. The article concludes with some caveats.     

Biodeterioration of Incralac used for the protection of bronze monuments

Outdoor bronze sculptures are highly susceptible to corrosion in many environments and organic coatings are widely used for their protection. The purpose of this study was to determine the susceptibility of the commonly used coating Incralac to biodeterioration by microorganisms. A yeast was isolated from a bronze statue treated with Incralac and its ability to degrade Incralac was determined using growth curves, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The organism grew slowly on Incralac in liquid culture, but SEM images demonstrated its ability to adhere to Incralac coated metal. Additionally, the yeast caused a rapid drop in the low frequency impedance of Incralac coated metal that was not observed under sterile conditions, indicating that the organism accelerated deterioration of the coating. The potential for microbial growth to accelerate deterioration of Incralac should be considered when developing a maintenance strategy for the protection of outdoor metal monuments.     

Counting and comparing school performance: an analysis of media coverage of PISA in Australia, 2000–2014

This paper empirically documents media portrayals of Australia’s performance on the Program for the International Student Assessment (PISA), 2000–2014. We analyse newspaper articles from two national and eight metropolitan newspapers. This analysis demonstrates increased media coverage of PISA over the period in question. Our research data were analysed using ‘framing theory’, documenting how the media frames stories about Australia’s performance on PISA. Three frames were identified: counts and comparisons; criticisms; and contexts. Most of the media coverage (41%) was concerned with the first frame, counts and comparisons, which analysed PISA data to provide ‘evidence’ that was then used to comparatively position Australia against other countries, reference societies, which do better, with particular emphasis on Finland and also Shanghai after the 2009 PISA. The other two frames dealt with criticisms and contextual issues. This paper only focuses on the first frame. The analysis demonstrates the ways in which media coverage of Australia’s PISA performance has had policy impact.     

Students’ perceptions of career conversations with their teachers

Internationally, schools acknowledge their responsibility in guiding students not only in their academic growth, but also in their lifelong career development. In relation to this development, vocational schools in the Netherlands are implementing integral career guidance in which teachers receive a new task in guiding students in developing their own learning and career paths. A questionnaire was developed to investigate students’ perceptions of career guidance by teachers during career conversations, and data involving 28 teachers were collected from 579 students. The study identified four different teacher guidance profiles. Remarkable is that teachers spoke very little about career issues, and school issues were mostly on the agenda. The results indicate that teachers struggle with the transition towards becoming a career guide of students, and aspects influencing the transition into this new role need to be considered.     

Policy as numbers: ac/counting for educational research

This paper provides an account and a critique of the rise of the contemporary policy as numbers phenomenon and considers its effects on policy and for educational research. Policy as numbers is located within the literatures on numbers in politics and the statistics/state relationship and, while recognising the longevity of the latter relationship, it is argued that the governance turn and neo-liberalism have strengthened the role of numbers in contemporary education policy. This phenomenon is situated in the contemporary ‘structure of feeling’, which sees politics reduced to managing the everyday and the evisceration of a progressive imaginary. The paper then documents the impact within education, focusing both on the emergent global education policy field and on the national agenda in Australian schooling and the related rise of ‘gap talk’, both globally and nationally. The paper concludes by drawing out some implications for educational research, suggesting that we as educational researchers are also being positioned by policy as numbers.     

Drivers of illicit drug use regulation in Australian sport

Most Australian sport stakeholders not only believe that government regulation is a good thing, but also assume that intervention in the drug-use problem will improve sport's social outcomes and operational integrity. In this paper we examine the regulation of illicit drug use in Australian sport through an interrogation of two cases: the Australian Football League and the National Rugby League. Using Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual frames of social field, capital, and habitus, we aim to secure a clearer understanding of the drivers of Australian sport's illicit drug regulations by (1) identifying those stakeholders who set the drug regulation agenda, (2) revealing the values and dispositions that underpin these regulations, and (3) explaining how dominant stakeholders go about sustaining their position and marginalising those stakeholders with opposing drug regulation claims. Our results show that Australian sport's drug-use regulations are driven by a set of values and dispositions that views sport as an instrument for shaping the character of its participants, and drugs as a threat to sport's moral fabric and good standing. The dominant stakeholders, comprising the Commonwealth Government, its sport agencies, and the major governing bodies for sport, imposed these values and dispositions on peripheral stakeholders by designing a drugs-in-sport social field that yielded capital and power to only those participants who endorsed these values and dispositions. Peripheral stakeholders – including players, their agents, and drug-treatment professionals – who mostly shared different values and dispositions, were sidelined, and denied the opportunity of adding to their already limited supplies of capital, power, and policy making influence.     

Chinese teachers’ perceptions of an online teacher course and its results

Learning Environments Research - We investigated teachers’ perceptions of an online inservice teacher course in China and its outcomes, as well as connections between these two types of...     

Connecting with connexions: the role of the personal adviser with young people with special educational and support needs

The Connexions service has particular responsibility for coordinating transition planning for students with learning difficulties. In this study Bob Grove and Alison Giraud–Saunders report on the development of the personal adviser (PA) role in two special schools and an FE college as part of the Lewisham Connexions pilot. This article is based on the evaluation report of the Connecting with Connexions project, which is available in full from the authors.