HIGHER EDUCATION AND CONFLICT OF INTEREST: CANADIAN PERSPECTIVES

Canadian university teachers have long recognized the importance of establishing procedures for dealing with conflict of interest. More recently, they have recognized the importance of dealing with cases of academic fraud; however, compared to occurrences in universities in the United States, there seem to be few examples in Canada. Canadian academics have taken the lead in this area, securing procedures for dealing fairly with conflict of interest in the context of the needs of academic freedom through collective bargaining by faculty associations and unions under the leadership of their national organization, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT).     

Feeding ecology and laboratory predatory behavior toward live and artificial moving prey in seven rodent species

The present research related the feeding ecology of seven rodent species to the reactions of laboratory-reared and prey-inexperienced members of each species both to live prey and to an artificial moving stimulus predicting food pellets. Feeding ecology was determined by the degree of carnivory, based on reported stomach contents and observations of feeding. Experiment 1 assessed predatory reactions to a live cricket placed in each animal’s home cage. Killing and latency of eating the cricket were directly related to the degree of reported carnivory on moderately fast-moving arthropods. Experiment 2 examined behavior toward a rolling ball bearing that predicted delivery of food. Average percentages of trials with approach or contact of the bearing, and the conditional probability of a mouth contact were all positively related to the degree of reported carnivory and to cricket predation in Experiment 1. In addition, the topography of ball bearing contact for a species often resembled its topography of cricket contact. We conclude that (1) rodent predatory behavior can be studied in the laboratory using appropriate artificial stimuli and prey-inexperienced subjects, and (2) the predatory behavior of a species is based on underlying appetitive organization related to carnivory, including differential sensitivity to stimulus movement, motor preorganization, and susceptibility to conditioning. This appetitive organization appears to influence responding to both live and artificial prey.     

The Effects of the Occupations of Working Mothers on the Educational Inequality

ABSTRACT

Working mothers with children of school age are a recent phenomenon in the Netherlands, but are more common in other European societies. The social and scientific significance of this work for life chances in general and for educational inequality in particular is still not clear and subject of heated debate. In this article the effects of paid work outside the home by the mother and of the level of her work on her child's educational attainment at the end of primary school are estimated with ANOVA and LISREL for the most recent nationally representative cohort of Dutch primary school‐leavers in the late 1980s (the VOCL‐'89 cohort), controlling for other characteristics of the mother, her household, husband and children. The study is a follow‐up of a comparable analysis of an older cohort of Dutch primary school‐leavers in the late 1970s. The results of this most recent analysis show that the dilemma between working outside the home and working as a housewife is a false one. The central question for the educational chances of a child is not whether its mother works or not, but the level of her work. Working in labouring jobs has a negative effect on children's educational attainment compared to working as a housewife; this in contrast to the positive effects of working as a shopkeeper, farmer or employee. This also holds after controlling for all other relevant characteristics. These effects are substantial and cannot be explained by other characteristics. However, the effects are not similar to the effects of the level of her husband's job on the educational attainment of their children. This means that the conventional as well as the radical view must be replaced by a more moderate one. This also means that in order to get an accurate estimation, the mother's job has to be included in any measurement of parental class of pupils. The effects of the level of the mother's job on the educational attainment of her children do not differ between boys and girls. These results neither confirm suggestions of the model‐function of working mothers for their daughters, nor suggestions of the need of boys to be controlled by a mother at home. The effects of the level of the mother's job also do not differ between ethnic groups. The last two results are contrary to some results from the USA. In this article the effects of the mother's job on her children's educational attainment in a nationally representative cohort of the late ‘70s (the SMVO cohort) are compared to those of this recent VOCL‐'89 cohort. Despite the growth in the percentage of working mothers during the ‘70s and ‘80s in the Netherlands (mostly part‐time jobs) the effect of the level of the mother's job did not change. A possible consequence of these results is that a general change of the tax and wages system from one based on households with one wage‐earner to one based on individuals might be detrimental to families of parents with a low educational level, who are limited to less qualified jobs.     

A biological basis for generative learning in technology-and-science Part II: Implications for technology-and-science education

Young pupils’ reactions to electricity are likely to have been formed more through social than school channels. In most cases these backgrounds will be approximately the same throughout the age‐group, although personal reflection and disposition will then be likely to diversify individual responses. This paper looks particularly to the differences produced and tries to identify influences which might be due to parental license, to age‐related factors, to cognitive growth, and verbal development. The paper concludes with some speculation on the interaction between these social and cognitive factors using new and broader categories of intelligence and work on the social development of children.