Beyond a transmission model of communication

Elbers grapples with two persistent issues in psychology: (a) the role of the adult and the child in development, and (b) depictions of competence as context specific or generalized. Elbers' entrenchment in a transmission model of meaning undermines his portrayal of the child as an active participant in development. Furthermore, his characterization of competence as something in the head of the individual hinders his attempts to contextualize competence. We outline a framework informed by Vygotsky, Bakhtin, and others, which depicts both the formation and the functioning of mental processes (or competence) as fundamentally interactive. Mental functions arise in social interactions in which all participants accommodate each other, thus obviating the question of who is active or passive in the interaction. Furthermore, the social interactive origins of mental functioning impose a social context on all competencies. Such a framework facilitates movement away from the dilemmas which Elbers cogently raises.     

Management education and the challenge of action learning

The phenomenal growth of management education in the last two decades has been accompanied by much controversy. Critics consider that business schools tend to concentrate on theory and on quantitative analysis, while neglecting interpersonal relationships and qualitative thinking. It is often stated that management education should be experience-based, active, problem oriented and modified by feedback. The extent to which Action Learning meets these criteria is discussed in this paper. The difference between Action Learning and other types of management education is stressed.Attention is drawn to Action Learning programmes that have been conducted in Belgium, in the United Kingdom and in Australia.Various difficulties that may be encountered in introducing Action Learning to management schools are described and some strategies for overcoming these difficulties are suggested.The paper mentions problems connected with evaluating Action Learning programmes and suggests that Action Learning may be useful in management education.     

Disabled and successful: education in the life stories of disabled high achievers

There has been much debate concerning the pros and cons of special and mainstream education for young people with a disability. This paper adds data to this debate by reporting the educational experiences of 20 high-achievers with congenital disabilities who live in the United Kingdom and were born between 1950 and 1970. It presents personal accounts of the high-achievers' perceptions of how their education, which was either purely in special schools, in mainstream schools or a combination of both, had influenced their transition to adulthood. While those who attended special school considered it to provide a supportive environment that permitted the cultivation of their personalities without the constraints of non-disabled barriers, many others thought it prevented them as disabled children from interacting with non-disabled peers, thus inhibiting social integration between the disabled and non-disabled world. This was the main perceived advantage of mainstream education although problems of physical access meant that some choices were out of reach. The findings highlight how both special and mainstream education can be compatible with career success of individual disabled people. The paper implies that a combination of the two systems may be needed to facilitate disabled students to develop psychologically, socially and cognitively at the rate of their non-disabled peers, and proposes that link schools and partial integration could contribute to the achievement of such goals.     

An Aboriginal way towards curriculum reconciliation

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces the context and design of an institutional educational development grants program, Jindaola, which reflects an Aboriginal way towards reconciling Indigenous and non-Indigenous Knowledges in the Australian higher education curriculum. The program is unique in two ways: it foregrounds the voice of Aboriginal local Knowledge Holders in the design and implementation of the program; and, rather than focussing on embedding predefined ‘packages’ of Indigenous Knowledges and pedagogies into curricula, the approach adheres to Aboriginal methods for conducting business and maintaining knowledge integrity, by taking interdisciplinary teams of academics on a journey towards what we are calling ‘curriculum reconciliation’.     

The Development of Implicit Memory From Infancy to Childhood: On Average Performance Levels and Interindividual Differences

The present multimethod longitudinal study aimed at investigating development and stability of implicit memory during infancy and early childhood. A total of 134 children were followed longitudinally from 3 months to 3 years of life assessing different age‐appropriate measures of implicit memory. Results from structural equation modeling give further evidence that implicit memory is stable from 9 months of life on, with earlier performance predicting later performance. Second, it was found that implicit memory is present from early on, and no age‐related improvements are found from 3 months on. Results are discussed with respect to the basic brain structures implicit memory builds on, as well as methodological issues.     

Faculty women in the American university: Up the down staircase

This paper compares the status of academic women in the United States, particularly at the most prestigious institutions of higher education, to that of faculty men. Inequalities in rank, prestige, rewards, work environment, and social expectations are discovered. The paper next traces the organization of women within academia professional organizations in the late sixties and ties these developments to the larger women's movement nationally. Finally, the impact of these organizations on government policy and on university personnel practices is assessed. The future status of academic women in a country with a declining birthrate, a sluggish economy, and diminishing financial support for higher education is considered.     

Learner‐centered leadership: a mentoring model for the professional development of school administrators

The Learner‐Centered Leadership program is a new initiative that provides professional development opportunities to school administrators through a mentoring model. The focus on learner‐centered leadership reflects renewed attention to the primary role of teaching and learning in the development of school leadership expertise. With a focus on learning, the need to create collaborative structures where trust, respect and communication are promoted among the participants has been critical. In its first year, the project goal has been to develop the capacity for mentoring across districts. To create this capacity, the project has focused on building relationships among participants using a threefold process: formal workshops that introduce the districts and participants; informal gatherings that break down barriers and establish opportunities for networking; and a series of problem‐solving initiatives called a team challenge that require participants work together, communicate and cooperate to solve the challenging activities.     

Spectacle,spectatorship, and gender anxiety in television news coverage of the 1970 women's strike for equality

This essay examines television news coverage of the August 2 6, 19 70 Women's Strike for Equality, the first major media event of the second wave offeminism in the U.S. It explores three levels on which the news reports on the three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), rely on notions of women and visual pleasure: first, in their positioning of the Strike as sheer spectacle; second, in their verbal and visual framing of the Strike as absurdist entertainment rather than reasoned protest, and third, in their emphasis on the issue of femininity under attack, an emphasis in which femininity is largely represented by women's bodies. I conclude with a discussion of the ways in which the framing of the events functions both to assert and to assuage a profound sense of gender anxiety on the part of the assumed male spectator for the coverage.     

Students' “Write” to Their Own Language: Teaching the African American Verbal Tradition as a Rhetorically Effective Writing Skill

The 1974 Conference on College Composition and Communication's (CCCC) resolution declaring “Students' Right to Their Own Language” (SRTOL) defends the rights of students and all other writers to use different varieties of English (see Committee on CCCC Language Statement, 1974). In addition, the 1988 CCCC adoption of the National Language Policy (NLP), which was a response to the English-Only Movement, boldly asserts that English-Only is educationally unsound. However progressive these policies may be, there still remains a request from teachers on how to identify and develop effective pedagogies that advance language diversity in the classroom. The present research study responds to this problem by introducing a social justice approach to writing instruction that recognizes African and African American contributions to standardized American written communication structures. Using culturally relevant pedagogy and culturally sustaining pedagogy as theoretical frames, I explore the effects of a “comparative approach” to African American Language and Literacy instruction, which makes clear that African American Verbal Tradition (AVT) may be incorporated into expected conventions for academic writing. This case study takes place in two first-year writing courses at a major Midwestern university in which students are introduced to AVT. AVT is a broad linguistic tradition; therefore I have selected five features of AVT to investigate: (1) repetition, (2) signifyin[g] and indirection, (3) call response, (4) narrativizing, and (5) sounding. My project uses social justice as a framework that I developed through my own teaching practices, which highlights the linguistic abilities AAL speakers bring with them to the classroom and how these complex and intellectual writing skills can be expanded.