“A Prostitution Alike of Matter and Spirit”: Anti-War Discourses in Children’s Literature and Childhood Culture Before and During World War I

Histories of the First World War have regularly implicated children’s literature in boys’ eagerness to enlist in the first two years of that conflict. While undoubtedly the majority of children’s books, comics and magazines did espouse nationalistic, jingoistic and martial attitudes, there were alternative stories and environments. Looking at the publications, organisations and educational establishments that opposed the war and resisted the Germanophobia that began to dominate public discourse at the start of the twentieth century casts new light on some of the challenges and dilemmas facing a proportion of boys as they decided whether or not to join up. Additionally, the fact that there were alternative discourses is a reminder that not all readers would have responded in the same way to the same texts. Three areas are considered: children’s stories and pamphlets produced by Quakers and peace societies; left-wing publications, especially those associated with Socialist Sunday Schools; and two of the first progressive schools in Britain.     

Remedial education for high-risk university freshmen – the case of a university of technology in Taiwan

Potential high-risk freshmen for three core courses (BasicMath, Calculus, and Computing) in the university were identified based on the “College Students’ Adjustment Check List (CSACL)” data available with the Student Development Centre in the Office of Students’ Affairs of the university. The study demonstrates that to ameliorate the problem of unpreparedness of freshmen, to check failure rates, and efficient use of limited resources, an effective remedial system could be developed by the combined inputs from the Office of Students’ Affairs, Computer Centre, Academic Affairs, and the Institutional Research. Our study corroborates the findings of other researchers that gender, teacher, department, high school performance, enrolment channel, and loads during remedial course influence the learning outcome. Also, it was found that the use of multi-evaluation approaches in different enrolment channels can attain higher retention rates.     

The celluloid ceiling: women academics,social expectations,and narrative in 1940s American film

This paper examines the portrayal of women university academics in American films from the 1940s. It applies analytical tools from a critical methodology to access the socio‐cultural ideas and values attributed to the female professoriate during what is a period of great change for women in American society. This analysis reveals that the values associated with the professors are aligned with the themes of chastity, sanctuary, and sacrifice in ways which portray them as other in the profession and society. Not only does this analysis illustrate the consequences and conditions of being a woman professor during the 1940s, but it also highlights the implications of these values for today’s female professoriate.     

The Pathic Model of Disability: Identity,Moral Force and the Politics of Pain

Critics of the ‘strong social model’ of disability developed in the U.K. commonly claim that it focuses too one-sidedly on social oppression, thereby neglecting the role of individual impairment. In this theoretical article, we contrast that model with what we call the ‘pathic model’ of disability, which we characterise through the case of people living with chronic pain in the U.S.A. We argue that the difference between these two models is due to differing socio-political contexts and national policies concerning welfare and addiction as well as normative assumptions regarding the moral force of focusing on individual pain. We conclude that the political goals of proponents of the ‘pathic model’ present a challenge to the presumption that the ‘strong social model’ is the most or only politically effective way to rectify disability-related social oppression.     

Black-white IQ discrepancies may be related to differences in hemisphericity

WPPSI and McCarthy Scales subtests were ranked by members of the National Academy of Neuropsychology according to relative reliance on left-cerebral-hemisphere function. Pairs of blacks and whites matched for a variety of demographic variables were administered the WPPSI (132 pairs) and the McCarthy Scales (148 pairs). Difference scores were calculated, in standard score units, for each WPPSI and McCarthy subtest. A pattern of positive correlation occurred between the size of black-white differences and the judged degree of left-hemisphere involvement in the task, suggesting that black-white IQ discrepancies may be partially explained by differences in hemisphericity.     

The naturalistic method of educational and social research — A Marxist critique

Conclusion Viewed from a Marxist scientific perspective, any assessment of the naturalistic perspective associated with the work of CARE and the new sociology of education must be highly critical. In the focus of its work, the naturalistic perspective is concerned mostly with the micro world of the school and within-classroom interaction, neglecting to focus on the possible material determination of this phenomenological world. Naturalism accords to the social scientist the role of passive reporter of events and member accounts rather than interpreter of the world that Marxist analysis wishes the intellectual to adopt. Naturalism, as exemplified within the contemporary sociology of education, does not appear to be concerned with the validation and objectification of the knowledge that is produced. Lastly, little concern is shown for the need to use empirical insight to generate adequate theoretical constructs of the inter-relationships between different bodies of knowledge.The naturalistic perspective upon social and educational matters seems to reflect a temporary disillusionment with such conventional modes of scholastic enquiry as positivism. Yet there is no evidence that our understanding of social and educational matters has been dramatically increased by this new, unscientific, idealist, and micro-sociological paradigm. Genuine advances in our understanding of the social world are, I believe, more likely to occur if social research adopts the methodological apparatus of scientific Marxism, an apparatus that has brought considerable increments of understanding to those social science disciplines that have utilised it.     

Further evidence for the efficacy of an evidence-based,small group,literacy intervention program for young struggling readers

Abstract

An earlier series of pilot studies and small-scale experimental studies had previously provided some evidence for the efficacy of a small group early literacy intervention program for young struggling readers. The present paper provides further evidence for efficacy based on a much larger sample of young, socially disadvantaged, at-risk readers. The participants comprised 14 successive intakes of Year 1 and Year 2 students into small group remedial literacy intervention programs hosted by two charitably run tutorial centres. In each semester, over the years 2005–2011, eight students (on average) attended each centre for one hour, for four days per week, for 15 weeks. Pre- and post-test assessment data on eight measures of early literacy performance were available on up to 194 students who completed the program. Substantial and statistically significant gains were evident on all literacy measures with large effect sizes. These results provide further evidence for the efficacy of the small group literacy intervention program.     

A Partisan Evaluation‐‐John Elliott on school effectiveness

This paper is a response to ‘School effectiveness research and its critics; alternative visions of schooling’ by John Elliott (Cambridge Journal of Education, 1996, 26, pp. 199‐223). It is argued that Elliott knows little of the knowledge base, misinterprets what he knows and fails to support his criticisms with evidence. It is concluded that educational advance and improvement can be furthered by school effectiveness research.     

A review of interventions for adolescents with insomnia and the role of the educational and child psychologist: when sleep does not come easily

The role of an educational and child psychologist involves the promotion of mental health and wellbeing. While adolescents who have insomnia are usually referred to Primary Healthcare services, it might be argued that insomnia can be seen as a barometer of psychological wellbeing and should warrant a psychological intervention. A search of PSYCHINFO and Medline revealed that interventions carried out thus far with adolescents who have difficulty initiating and/or maintaining quality sleep include Sleep Hygiene and Sleep Education, Cognitive Behavioural and Multi Component interventions. In this review it will be posited that using multi-modal approaches which are tailored to specific needs may have the most positive outcomes in the treatment of insomnia, by helping adolescents to develop a sense of self-efficacy and emotional regulation in the context of family and peer support. Educational and child psychologists are ideally placed to offer this type of input to adolescents with insomnia.