What Is Right About Special Education

Abstract

Promoting self-determination has become an important aspect of the educational programs of students with disabilities. There is now a sufficient literature base to support some syntheses that enable researchers to judge their progress in this area to date and to provide direction for future research and practice. For this study, we conducted a literature review of studies that measured or examined global self-determination.     

Cultivating a sense of belonging in part-time students

This study investigated the sense of belonging of part-time students through interviews with 53 novice or experienced students enrolled in part-time programmes in Hong Kong. It was found that students were more easily able to affiliate with their class groups or teaching staff than with their department or university. Seven methods are suggested for promoting a sense of belonging. Class cohesiveness can be developed through learning activities and maintaining classes as a cohort. Relationships with teaching staff can be developed through encouraging interaction, providing good quality teaching and making a positive initial impression. There was also evidence that a sense of belonging was more likely to develop if enrolment was through departments and part-time students had access to resources and facilities. The data showed that promoting a sense of belonging contributed to better quality learning outcomes and increased the chances of students completing programmes.     

Education decentralization in Argentina: a ‘global-local conditions of possibility’ approach to state,market, and society change

This research examined the international origins, national intentions, and local interpretations and actions of the most recent education decentralization movement in Argentina. As a mixed-method, multi-level study, the research was framed with the understanding that current reforms like education decentralization must be approached as contemporaneously constituted policies but historically constructed processes. Using historical methods and archival analysis, this research traced the patterns and pressures of the international policy environment in which policies like privatization, deregulation and decentralization have gained much attention. It reviewed Argentina's recent current educational decentralization laws in light of these global trends as well as their national and subnational context. Employing technical, political, and narrative methods of policy analysis, this research examined the degree of correspondence between the laws' international origins and national intentions and the actors' local interpretations and actions of them. Drawing from the ‘analytic narratives’ that resulted from this study, the bulk of this article compares actors' interpretations, re-actions, and en-actions of education decentralization in three provinces of Argentina. By assessing the relationship between the provinces' political, economic, and cultural contexts and the actors' interpretations and actions of education decentralization, the research concludes that both material capacities and symbolic identities affect the outcomes of education decentralization.     

The information gulag: Rethinking openness in times of national danger

The founding fathers of the United States recognized that freely available information and an educated citizenry were essential to the functioning of a representative democracy. But almost as soon as the ink dried on the Constitution, political forces moved, and have continued to move, to restrict the flow of information from the government to the public, as well as among members of the public. This article examines whether information availability has become a victim of the war on terrorism – whether the nation has entered a time in which legal and policy initiatives are creating information gulags – secreting government information and restricting communications among members of the public, including the academic community. This article explores how policy is shaping the information relationship among the government, the public, academia, and the media and whether new models may be appropriate and more beneficial to society. In doing so, we examine in depth not only public access to government information but also the emerging and vital issue of government restrictions on scholarly exchange, as most recently presented by the legal dispute between the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), Department of Treasury, and subsequently the litigation brought by the Association of American University Presses (AAUP).     

Reclassification and documentation in talog cards and a computer stored record

A project to recatalog and reclassify the book collection of the Bowman Gray School of Medicine Library utilizing the Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typwriter system for simultaneous catalog card production and computer stored data acquisition marks the beginning of eventual computerization of all library operations. A keyboard optical display system will be added by late 1970. Major input operations requiring the creation of "hard copy" will continue via the MTST system. Updating, editing and retrieval operations as well as input without hard copy production will be done through the "on-line" keyboard optical display system. Once the library's first data bank, the book catalog, has been established the computer may be consulted directly for library holdings from any optical display terminal throughout the medical center. Three basic information retrieval operations may be carried out through "on-line" optical display terminals. Output options include the reproduction of part or all of a given document, or the generation of statistical data, which are derived from two Acquisition Code lines. The creation of a central bibliographic record of Bowman Gray Faculty publications patterned after the cataloging program is presently under way. The cataloging and computer storage of serial holdings records will begin after completion of the reclassification project. All acquisitions added to the collection since October 1967 are computer-stored and fully retrievable. Reclassification of older titles will be completed in early 1971.     

Achievement goals, perceived motivational climate, and students' self-reported mastery behaviors

Achievement goals and perceived motivational climate are two important constructs in achievement goal theory, and they play critical roles in student motivation and behavior Traditionally, these two constructs have been examined separately. The present study examined relationships between the two constructs and students' self-reported mastery behaviors as well as age-related differences. Three hundred eight students in 4th, 8th, and 11th grades completed questionnaires assessing their achievement goals, perceived motivational climate, and perceptions of their mastery behaviors. Results indicated that achievement goals and perceived motivational climate were related to students' self-reported mastery behaviors. However, the relations varied depending on the students' ages. The older students, compared to the younger ones, appeared to be inclined more toward ego orientation and the ego-involved climate. A multiple achievement goals perspective is recommended for future research on relationships among achievement goals, perceived motivational climate and achievement-related cognitions, and behaviors in physical education.