Body Donation after Medically Assisted Death: An Emerging Consideration for Donor Programs

Around the world, the recent introduction of assisted death laws has meant that undertaking medical assistance in dying (MAID) is now an option for some persons wishing to end their life. Some of these people donate their bodies to medical science, and by doing so have created a new route from which donor programs can now receive bodies. Such donations have also illuminated a myriad of novel ethical questions. This article considers the emotive and controversial topic of MAID in relation to body donation, describing the experiences of McMaster University, Canada, where several MAID body donors have been received by the anatomical donor program. It provides background on the development and implementation of MAID in Canada, and describes the experience of staff and students at McMaster to MAID donations. It also explores the relevance of MAID to body donation programs, and discusses several of the ethical challenges facing body donation programs who may encounter MAID body donors. These include the appropriateness of accepting MAID donors, issues with informed consent, the effect of personal engagement with MAID donors, information sharing around MAID donations, governance issues, and negative historical parallels between MAID and euthanasia. Suggestions on how to manage MAID body donation focus on how issues affecting institutions, faculty, and students may be approached utilizing appropriate transparency and communication, some of which may facilitate student professional development around the topic of MAID. It is also suggested that the development of ethically appropriate guidelines on MAID body donations may positively guide the anatomical community.     

Interpersonal behaviour styles of primary education teachers during science lessons

This study reports the first development in Australia of primary science teacher typologies of teacher–student interpersonal behaviour, which was measured by students’ perceptions using the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI). Earlier work with the QTI in The Netherlands has revealed eight different interpersonal styles, which were later confirmed with an American sample of secondary-school teachers and which were similar to types found with Australian secondary-school science teachers. The present study investigated the extent to which typologies found in earlier studies also apply to primary teachers. A cluster analysis was used to determine Australian typologies and to compare these with earlier findings. Prior typologies could only be partially confirmed, and the found typology of six styles was able to explain variance in both student outcomes and perceptions of cultural elements of the learning environment.     

Individual and campus characteristics associated with student loan default

This research addresses the question of whether student loan repayment and default behaviors are more highly related to the characteristics of the college attended or to the characteristics of the individual student aid recipient. Our model development and variable selection is guided by theories of human capital and public subsidy, ability to pay perspectives, organizational structural/functional approaches, and student-institution fit models. To conduct the study, three national databases were merged: the NPSAS study of individual recipients of federal financial aid, IPEDS data containing campus financial and enrollment characteristics, and a third containing College Board Survey data. Our findings erode the basis for current national policies and proposed SPRE legislation that hold institutions accountable for the loan defaults of former students. Loan repayment and default behavior can be substantially predicted by the precollege, college, and postcollege characteristics of individual borrowers. Majoring in a scientific or technological discipline, earning good grades, persisting to degree completion, getting and staying married, and not having dependent children are all actions that substantially increase the likelihood of repayment and lower the likelihood of default. In both populations (all borrowers and nonproprietary), we find virtually no evidence of a direct link between default behavior and type of institution or highest degree offered.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, New Orleans, Louisiana. May 1994.     

Cognitive Theory and the Use of Computers in the Primary Classroom

Research investigating the role of computers in the primary classroom is closely linked to the body of knowledge concerned with theories of learning and child development. Research is presented as an attempt to provide scientifically supportable reasons why computers are effective in education. Having established a theoretical base for computer use in primary classrooms, this paper then examines the educational application of cognitive theory to classroom instruction.     

Does the gender of the teacher really matter? Seven‐ to eight‐year‐olds’ accounts of their interactions with their teachers

In recent years, policy‐makers in England, Australia and other countries have called for measures to increase male recruitment to the teaching profession, particularly to the primary sector. This policy of targeted recruitment is predicated upon a number of unexamined assumptions about the benefits of matching teachers and pupils by gender. For example, it is held that the dearth of male ‘role models’ in schools continues to have an adverse effect on boys’ academic motivation and engagement. Utilizing data from interviews with more than 300 7‐ to 8‐year‐olds attending primary schools in the north‐east and south‐east of England, the paper sets out to scrutinize these claims. The findings revealed that the gender of teachers had little apparent effect on the academic motivation and engagement of either boys or girls. For the majority of the children, the gender of the teacher was largely immaterial. They valued teachers, whether men or women, who were consistent and even‐handed and supportive of them as learners.     

Heterogeneous Effects of Charter Schools: Unpacking Family Selection and Achievement Growth in Los Angeles

Disparate findings on whether students attending charter schools outperform peers in traditional public schools (TPS) may stem from mixing differing types of charters or inadequately accounting for pupil background. To gauge prior family selection and heterogeneous effects, we distinguish between conversion and start-up charter schools, along with a third site-run model operating in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). We find that TPS campuses converting to charter status (conversions) attracted more experienced and consistently credentialed teachers, and served relatively advantaged families, compared with newly created charter schools (start-ups), after tracking 66,000 students over 4 years, 2007–2011. Charters overall attracted pupils achieving at higher levels as they began a grade cycle (at baseline), relative to TPS peers, most pronounced among conversions that remained affiliated with the district. After matching students on their propensities to enter a charter school, we find that pupils attending charters outperformed TPS peers over the 4-year period. These benefits are most consistent and moderate in magnitude for middle school students. We observed significant though small effects in English language arts for pupils attending charter high schools. Latino students, mostly attending start-ups, enjoyed consistent benefits from attending a charter school.     

Probing Children's Prejudice‐‐a consideration of the ethical and methodological issues raised by research and curriculum development

Since the mid‐1980s many schools in predominantly white areas have taken active steps to counter racism and ethnocentrism and raise awareness of Britain's ethnic diversity through curriculum development. This paper is primarily concerned with the ethical issues raised by research into such initiatives at primary school level. We begin by alluding very briefly to the shortcomings of extant research into children's prejudice, noting that some studies can be criticised for the unwitting reinforcement of stereotypes. We move on to examine the ethical and methodological considerations which have underpinned our own work in this area, focusing on a recent investigation into children's understanding of Jewish culture and identity. The techniques employed to probe the children's beliefs and attitudes and challenge their taken‐for‐granted assumptions are described at length, together with the ethical dilemmas addressed during the course of the research. In the second part of the paper, we focus on issues raised by our own curriculum development work in anti‐racist and multicultural education in ‘all white’ schools. We draw extensively on a recent case‐study of 10 and 11 year‐olds’ responses to a teaching programme which aimed to counter stereotypical images both of developing countries and Islam.     

Investigating agentive urban learning: an assembly of situated experiences for sustainable futures

ABSTRACT

In this article we explore the dynamic between the pedagogical and the urban, attending to ‘agentive urban learning’. By this we mean processes by which young people build agency in the urban context, in using the resources of the city to develop their own agency, and of developing agency to act within the city. By agency, we refer to the capacity to imagine and act to create individual and collective futures. Our interest is how young people develop such agentive urban learning themselves and how it might be enhanced pedagogically at school and university. Three case studies explore different facets—the first how young people themselves develop this agency in situated settings and the tools that they use to reflect upon the future; the second how digital tools might be used to enhance students’ understanding of the city as a site of change, in this instance, climate change; and the third how such agency might be developed collectively in partnership with other city dwellers. We conclude that a diversity of students’ engagement in urban contexts of learning offers ways from which to further investigate how identity, setting, and stakeholder relationships matter as part of potentially sustainable agentive learning futures.     

Access to higher education: the hope for democratic schooling in America

The American aspiration for higher education as a road to a better life for everyone is threatened. As the economic and social gap between the upper third of the population and the bottom third widens, so access to better education, especially to higher education, becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. The traditional role of hope in the American Democratic Dream of a just and fair society is being eroded, as increasing numbers of Americans are marginalized, jailed, recruited into military service, and consigned to jobs with minimal salaries. But low‐paying jobs are not new in American history; what is new is that the hope for higher education and improvement in one's economic and social status is slipping away. The lower expectations result from federal cuts in support of education and for scholarships for higher education. This article reviews the conditions that are undermining the traditional visions of democratic schooling in America.