Accelerating knowledge production on educational leadership and management in East Asia: a strategic analysis

This paper discusses a strategy for accelerating the development of a regionally grounded knowledge base on educational leadership and management in East Asia. The study reviews data on patterns of knowledge production in East Asia, and employs the findings in the development of a strategy for increasing knowledge production. The study concludes that a suitable coordination strategy for the region should incorporate formal and informal strategies, be intermediate in scale and organised around a common research agenda. The authors propose that the substantive findings and the method of strategy analysis may also be relevant for academic leaders in other developing regions of the world.     

The Influence of Career Beliefs and Socio-Economic Status on the Career Decision-Making of High School Students in India

This paper responds to current discussions in career psychology that emphasise the importance of understanding how socio-economic backgrounds and social-cognitive environments influence career development. Located in India, this study examines the interaction between career beliefs and socio-economic status within a sample of Indian high school students. Significant socio-economic status differences were observed, with the lower SES groups showing higher levels of negative career beliefs. The relevance of these findings to career psychologists who work in multi cultural contexts is discussed within the framework of the Social Cognitive Theories of Career Decision Making. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Educational Studies and the Domestication of Utopia

This paper offers a critique of educational real utopias. Real Utopias are experimental forms of thought and practice intended to harness the transgressive force of traditional utopianism while avoiding its associated dangers. The concept has been embraced by the field of educational studies and applied to the study of various educational settings, institutions and processes. This paper does four things. Firstly, it outlines the concept of utopian realism and highlights those aspects that are said to differentiate it from the utopia that supposedly played a role in the human catastrophes of the twentieth century. It then evaluates a selection of educational real utopias to assess whether they can, in fact, be said to have succeeded in the task of harnessing the intellectual force while overcoming the dangers of traditional utopianism. Thirdly, the paper offers a critique of utopian realism, arguing that the concept of utopia has become thoroughly domesticated. Finally, the paper defends the expansive and holistic concept of utopia that utopian realism rejects. The argument here is that only when utopia is understood as a holistic system is it able to produce its most potent pedagogical effects.     

Physical activity and situational motivation in physical education: influence of the motivational climate and perceived ability

The influence of perceptions of the motivational climate and perceived ability on situational motivation and the physical activity behavior of 213 male and 229 female adolescent physical education students (M age = 12.56 years; SD = 0.96) was examined over a 3-day period. A significant age by gender interaction emerged, with physical activity declining from the sixth to eighth grade. The decline was more pronounced among female than male students. Perceptions of a mastery climate were strongly related to more self-determined forms of situational motivation. In contrast, perceptions of a performance climate were strongly related to less self-determined forms of situational motivation. Results of a hierarchical regression analysis revealed gender, perceived ability, and perceptions of a mastery climate to explain a significant amount of variance in physical activity. These findings suggest that promoting a mastery oriented motivational climate in physical education will foster self-determined situational motivation and physical activity.     

Differences in the distribution of high school achievement: The role of class-size and time-in-term

This paper adopts the technique of [DiNardo, Fortin and Lemieux (1996). Labour market institutions and the distribution of wages 1973–1992: A semiparametric approach. Econometrica, 64(5), 1001–1044.] to decompose differences in the distribution of PISA reading scores in Canada, and assesses the relative contribution of differences in the distribution of “class size” and time-in-term, other school factors and student background factors. Class size and time-in-term are both important school choice variables and we examine how provincial achievement differences would change if the Alberta distribution of class size and time-in-term prevailed in the other provinces. Results differ by province, and for provinces where mean achievement gaps would be lower, not all students would benefit.