Debating Affirmative Action: Politics,Media, and Equal Opportunity in a “Postracial” America

This article explores how race-conscious education policy is interpreted in the political landscape of a “postracial” America. Based on a qualitative media analysis of the press coverage surrounding Amendment 46, an antiaffirmative action initiative, we examine language, statistics, and messages leveraged by advocates and critics of the ballot measure. We argue that despite using some of the same data sources, terms, and concepts, proponents and opponents of Amendment 46 proposed divergent policies. We analyzed this phenomenon vis-à-vis the framework of conflicting racial projects (Omi &; Winant, 1994 Omi, M. and Winant, H. 1994. Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s, New York, NY: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]), moral paradigms of race (Loury, 2002 Loury, G. 2002. The anatomy of racial inequality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  [Google Scholar]), and interpretations of equality of educational opportunity (Howe, 1997 Howe, K. 1997. Understanding equal educational opportunity: Social justice, democracy and schooling, New York, NY: Teachers College Press.  [Google Scholar]). Arguably, the public's understanding of race-conscious education policies relies in part on opportunities for researchers, journalists, and the public to deliberate about issues related to race. We conclude with some recommendations for fostering more communication and understanding based in deliberative democratic theory (Gutmann &; Thompson, 1996 Gutmann, A. and Thompson, D. 1996. Democracy and disagreement, Cambridge, MA: Belknap.  [Google Scholar], 2004).     

Teachers' and Administrators' Use of Evidence of Student Learning to Take Action: Conclusions Drawn from a Special Issue on Formative Assessment

In common-item equating the anchor block is generally built to represent a miniature form of the total test in terms of content and statistical specifications. The statistical properties frequently reflect equal mean and spread of item difficulty. Sinharay and Holland (2007) suggested that the requirement for equal spread of difficulty may be too restrictive. They suggested that an anchor test with representative content coverage and equal mean item difficulty but a smaller spread of item difficulty (miditest) may provide the same or better results for equating while decreasing the pressure to find very hard and very easy items to include in the anchor. Analyses to date have concentrated on the results of equating the scores from one form to another with findings that are supportive of the Sinharay and Holland concept (Sinharay &; Holland, 2006a, 2006b, 2007; Liu, Sinharay, Holland, Feigenbaum, &; Curley, 2009). These studies do not address longer chains of equating. It is important to monitor the possibility of scale drift over forms. The current research begins to address this issue.     

What Account of Science Shall We Give? A Case Study of Scientists Teaching First-year University Subjects

This article presents a case study of four academic scientists. These academics teach in the first year of a Bachelor of Science degree at a large research-focused Australian university that has demanded and supported a greater focus on undergraduate learning. Taken as a whole, the accounts of science that the first-year academics in this case study gave, and which they are presenting to their students, challenge the images of science and scientists typically presented in school science curricula. Using Roberts' heuristic of Vision 1 and Vision 2 for the broad purposes of learning science, we consider various accounts given of science by these academic scientists and consider how science might appear to a student who takes all four of their subjects.     

Categorizing pupils' written answers to a mathematics test question: 'I know but I can't explain'

In the literature on school bullying, it is often stated that there is an age decline in the frequency of students victimized by their peers. The empirical studies showing this downward trend are, however, typically based on self-report data. The aim of the present study was to examine the grade-level differences in frequencies of victims bullied at school in cross-sectional data gathered from multiple informants: students themselves, their peers and their teachers. The participantswere 1,220 elementary school children (600 girls and 620 boys) from 48 school classes from the fourth, fifth and sixth grades (i.e. 9-12 years). The often reported age-related decrease in self-reported victimization was found but it was not confirmed by either peer or teacher reports. What actually decreased as a function of age was the frequency of self-identified victims (also labelled as 'paranoids' or 'sensitives' in the previous literature), i.e. students who themselves reported victimization but who did not have the reputational status of being victims among their peers.     

Being a teacher educator: professional identities and conceptions of professional education

Background:?In the context of Cyprus’ accession to the European Union (2004) and a noteworthy increase in immigration towards Cyprus, the Cypriot state was called upon to build more complete and coherent policies addressing culturally diverse educational settings. Cypriot education has historically enforced the nation-building project. However, since its accession negotiations to the EU, Cyprus received calls for harmonising its intercultural education to European standards.

Purpose:?This study aims to examine the content of intercultural policies in Cyprus, which have been initiated and/or developed by the national state and particularly the Ministry of Education and Culture. Furthermore, it explores the ways in which Cypriot policies are shaped by European influences, and the implications of this process for national constructs of intercultural education.

Sources of evidence:?We collected a purposive selection of thirty policy documents regarding intercultural education that were produced by the Ministry of Education and Culture in Cyprus. In addition, six Cypriot policy-makers working in the MEC's departments were interviewee participants. They were selected purposively according to the level of their involvement in the development of Cypriot intercultural policy.

Design and methods:?Data were coded to identify groups of concepts, issues, perceptions and behaviours and interrelationships within a theoretical model. Data triangulation contributed to the development of thematic categories that emerged from the data.

Results:?The analysis of the documentary evidence in this study suggests that the language of European policy has imbued the Cypriot socio-political environment with inclusive discourses enhancing intercultural education. Analysis in this study identifies that the Cypriot Ministry of Education and Culture maintains an assimilationist orientation in its broader educational goals, despite adopting such (inclusive) discourses.

Conclusions:?This study argues on the basis of this evidence that Cypriot intercultural policy appears symbolic, indicating ‘simulated’ development and implementation processes. Arguably, there remains a high degree of ambivalence towards the process of transformation needed to Europeanise intercultural policy in Cyprus.     

The 1991 C. H. McCloy Research Lecture: Unraveling the Mystery of the Response Complexity Effect in Skilled Movements

Abstract

From the records in three track-and-field events (standing broad jump, softball throw, and six-second run), the ages, the heights, and the weights were obtained from 882 boys and 900 girls ranging in ages from 9 to 17 years. The relationship between ability in athletics (as measured by the records in the three track-and-field events) and the variables of age, height, and weight was, for the boys and for the girls, found to be nonlinear.