Medical library services in Switzerland: catching up with EBM

The feature is a part of the series about medical library services in various countries. It gives an overview of medical library services to support research, education and clinical practice in Switzerland. Data were collected by means of an online survey and set in the wider context of the Swiss healthcare system. Key findings are that library services, including support by academic librarians, are provided to health care staff in hospitals – both university and others, while there is no information service infrastructure to serve the large number of GPs and specialists who mostly run their own practice. The authors recommend that – if the health authorities take EBM seriously – information services should be introduced for these small practices. J.M.     

From the Editor Emerita

Since 1997, Zahava D. Doering has contributed to Curator: The Museum Journal. This is her last issue as Curator editor. The article highlights the key issues for which the journal has provided a platform to its global readership during her editorship. Issues include psychological and physical access, social roles and responsibility, health, museums without walls, crowdsourcing, environmental sustainability, and human rights and diversity. It also extends gratitude to the editorial staff (named), editorial board members, peer reviewers, and authors she has had the honor to have as colleagues in supporting new dialogues for museums and other cultural venues.     

教育是否能够改变社会――专访美国威斯康辛大学麦迪逊校区课程与教学系Michael W.Apple教授

李晓军:在美国,有相当部分人认为,美国的基础教育之所以落后,是因为缺乏"共同文化"基础上的统一课程标准,然而当前美国推行的以"标准化测试"为特征的教育改革,也受到反对者的批评。"标准化测试"的利弊得失在美国国内成为争论的焦点。那么在您看来,当前美国正在实施的国家课程与标准化测验政策,社会的反响如何?教育的成功与否真的能通过标准化测试进行测量吗?     

Preparing a CPT Submission Package

The candidate chooses projects for his or her ability to establish credentials as a performance technologist. The clearer the links between actions and improved performance for the client, the stronger the case each example makes. Candidates will need to show this linkage between contribution and outcome for each project used in preparing the submission package.     

Family Income Dynamics,Early Childhood Education and Care,and Early Child Behavior Problems in Norway

The sociopolitical context of Norway includes low poverty rates and universal access to subsidized and regulated Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). In this context, the association between family income dynamics and changes in early child behavior problems was investigated, as well as whether high‐quality ECEC buffers children from the effects of income dynamics. In a population‐based sample (N = 75,296), within‐family changes in income‐to‐needs predicted changes in externalizing and internalizing problems (from ages 18 to 36 months), particularly for lower income children. For internalizing problems, ECEC buffered the effect of income‐to‐needs changes. These findings lend further support to the potential benefits of ECEC for children from lower income families.     

A contested profession: employability,performativity and professionalism in Irish further education

Further education typically represents the vocational, technical and practice-based forms of education, but this is now being repositioned in a neo-liberal era that is driving a performance-based and market-orientated vision of education in the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere. The implacable drive of neo-liberal economics in everyday practice is evident in the current economic and training discourses of further education, which aim to upgrade the employability of low-skilled and marginalised sectors of the population. The article provides an overview of shifts in educational policy and practices that align Irish further education with what has occurred in the UK and elsewhere through processes of professionalisation and performativity. Analysis of the potential impact on notions of professional identity in the sector helps to articulate the principles, pedagogies and philosophies that will be vital when contesting the performance cultures of New Managerialism that seem likely to ensue. We explore the implications in terms of the policy discourses, organisational structure and professional practices of further education. We contend that changes in these areas have profound impacts on the learning and knowledge base of further education, constraining its social justice and transformative capacity for the learners at the heart of further education.     

Child and Adolescent Predictors of Personality in Early Adulthood

This study investigated development of the Big Five personality traits from early childhood into adulthood. An initial group of 137 Swedish children were assessed eight times between ages 2 and 29 years. Initial decreases in extraversion leveled off in early adulthood; agreeableness and conscientiousness increased from ages 2 to 29; neuroticism initially increased, leveled off in later childhood and adolescence, and decreased throughout early adulthood; while openness to experience showed an initial increase, then decreased and leveled off in early adulthood. Individual developmental trajectories varied significantly, particularly in relation to gender. Personality traits became increasingly stable, and the fact that childhood scores predicted scores in adulthood indicated that personalities are fairly stable across this portion of the life span.