The privatization and marketization of US schooling

This paper describes the trend towards the privatization and marketization of US schooling across three domains. We begin by describing the trend in recent pro-market policy reforms — proposed or enacted — to US schooling. This reform trend can be explained in terms of the growing importance of economic theory and economic evidence in social and political discourse. Briefly, we review mainstream economic theory and evidence to see what general lessons can be drawn, with a focus on productive efficiency. In the main section of the paper, we look at the direct evidence for US schooling not only in terms of the productive efficiency of schools, but also equity in schools, freedom of choice for parents and students, and the social cohesion produced by schools. Our review reaches a number of conclusions which suggest that the trend toward privatization and marketization may generate greater productive efficiency. Although the economic analysis is deficient in several ways and may have limited pertinence for social goods such as education, it highlights the need for strong and effective systems of accountability. Regardless of whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, however, it may be difficult to prevent further steps toward marketization.     

A View of War and Soldiering in the Carey Novels of Ronald Welch

Ronald Welch’s novels featuring the military adventures of the young men of the Carey family were first published between 1954 and 1976 and have recently been reissued. They were uniquely representative of historical military adventure for children in the Britain of this period; and were the last example of a vigorous century-old genre in respectable children’s publishing, particularly intended for boy readers, which honoured warrior virtues and regarded war as a crucible of male character. Children’s fiction since then has generally shied away from depicting soldiering. Where it has done it has focused mainly on the First World War and shown soldiers largely as victims. Welch’s work melds a model of heroic military adventure, inherited from the previous century, with a perception of the horrors of twentieth-century war derived from two world wars and his own experience of professional soldiering. While significantly amending the notion of war and soldiering as a heroic adventure, which he inherited from his predecessors, his work nevertheless retains the idea of combat as a character-forming male experience and implicitly offers military virtues as a model of manhood. While the attitudes expressed in his work were rejected by his publishers towards the end of his career, his views were perhaps an expression of more widely held beliefs at the time. And, for some of his original readers, the republication of his books is seen as a welcome re-affirmation of old values.     

Perpetrating disaffection: schooling as an international problem

This paper argues that, despite evidence of widespread disaffection, school is often regarded as the default position for educational provision, a given good. If there is disaffection with, and resistance to, schooling, then it is pupils and parents that are the problem, not school itself. Yet there is considerable evidence that schooling does not necessarily or automatically benefit either society as a whole or the individuals who attend and that, as a result, it creates disaffection with itself. Rejection of schooling is therefore very far from being an irrational or ill‐considered act. The paper reviews evidence supporting this argument including both the failure of schools to protect young people from danger and violence and also their direct role in actively perpetrating violence and threatening the safety of those they are there to protect. The paper ends by arguing that disaffection with schooling stems from its fundamental nature and purposes which have been shaped by its historical origins. While schooling remains as it is, disaffection and resistance will continue to be an inbuilt and often logical response.     

Domain knowledge and individual interest: The effects of academic level and specialization in statistics and psychology

Numerous research studies have highlighted the significant impact of domain knowledge and individual interest on learning. However, much of this prior research has neglected several important issues regarding the dynamic interplay of domain knowledge and individual interest both within and between domains as well as across developmental stages of learners. Situated within the Model of Domain Learning, this investigation seeks to respond to those issues. We studied the scores of 267 undergraduate and graduate students representing a variety of majors and programs. Results indicate that domain knowledge and individual interest are related differently for the domains of statistics and psychology. Further, findings indicate that when examining multiple domains of learning (e.g., statistics and psychology), the relationship between domain knowledge and interest changes as an artifact of both students’ academic level of preparation in undergraduate and graduate programs and their academic specialization. Based on these results, we offer implications for future research.     

The influence of breed and environmental factors on social and solitary play in dogs (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis lupus familiaris</Emphasis>)

The domestic dog is an ideal model species in which to study the genetic and environmental factors that influence play behavior. Dogs exist in a wide variety of breeds and frequently engage in multiple forms of play. In the present study, we investigated whether the levels of solitary and social play differed between dogs of three breed types with distinct predatory motor pattern sequences (herding dogs, retrievers, and livestock guarding dogs [LGDs]). Furthermore, we investigated how environmental factors (social and nonsocial contexts) influenced play in dogs of these breed types. Groups of breed-matched dyads with working experience and of equivalent age, sex, and neuter status ratios were exposed to four experimental test conditions and two control conditions in randomized orders. With respect to solitary play, environmental context did have a significant effect, with toys reliably producing the highest levels of solitary play across all breed types. Retrievers engaged in significantly higher levels of solitary play overall than LGDs, and there was a trend in comparison to herding dogs. In contrast, neither environmental context nor breed had a significant effect on social play levels; however, neuter status of the dyads did have a significant effect on social play, with mixed-status dyads engaging in significantly higher levels of social play than same-status dyads. Our findings provide experimental evidence for identifying proximate, environmental stimuli that reliably facilitate social and solitary play and discuss possible genetic (i.e., breed type) and lifetime influences on the form of play in domestic dogs.