Tidy minds,untidy solutions: University organization in Ontario

In the years 1957–1966 the universities of Canada, as a result of a vast injection of federal funds directly into higher education, appeared to be at the beginning of a long period of development, largely autonomous, and national in scope and outlook. By the late 1960s the provincial governments, motivated partly by what they perceived as an infringement of their constitutional rights, partly no doubt by a sense that they could make better use of the vast sums involved, persuaded the federal government to direct its grants to them. The more populous provinces then found it desirable to develop advisory bodies to counsel the governments on the broader problems of universities, especially fiscal ones. In Ontario the Ontario Council of University Affairs was created for this purpose. It was conceived of as a buffer body to stand between government and universities, serving both. In fact it had no statutory authority. Its advice to the government on the growing financial needs of universities was persistently rejected, while its advice to the universities themselves to develop methods of genuine cooperation and coordination for the sake of the whole system was largely ignored. The Council began to assume a measure of authority, but the Minister was not satisfied with the state of affairs, and in December 1983 she abruptly announced the appointment of a three-man commission to devise a plan for reshaping the university system, including clarifying the role of the Ontario Council on University Affairs. That role is now almost totally unclear.     

Effortful Control and Parents' Emotion Socialization Patterns Predict Children's Positive Social Behavior: A Person-Centered Approach

Research Findings: We examined relations of effortful control with parent emotion socialization practices and child social behavior using a person-centered approach in children ages 18 months to 5 years. A total of 76 parents (66 mothers, 10 fathers) completed questionnaires at screening and 6-month follow-up. There were no age differences in change in effortful control. K-means cluster analysis identified 2 clusters for parent emotion socialization: low-involvement parents (lower levels on emotion coaching/dismissing and positive/negative expressivity) and high-involvement parents (higher levels on all such practices). Parent socialization profile was indirectly associated with children's positive social behaviors through children's change in effortful control. These associations did not extend to aggressive behavior. Children with parents who actively engage in a variety of emotion socialization practices may increase more in regulatory capacities and engage in more positive social behavior. Practice or Policy: The present study suggests the importance of using a variety of socialization strategies with young children to foster adaptive regulatory and social behaviors.     

THE CONSULTANT'S CORNER: Terrorism,Terrorism Threat,and the School Consultant

Interventions for responding to terrorism and terrorism threat are described for 2 types of preventive interventions (primary and secondary) and for 3 levels (community, school and classroom). All the interventions aim to prevent mental illness and to promote mental health. This article is based on research and literature focused on: (a) responses to human-made and natural disasters, (b) psychological resilience, and (c) programs for dealing with acute and chronic stress and anxiety. While the focus of this article is on responding to terrorism and terrorism threat, it can be generalized to other human-made or natural disasters that impact a school.     

Unfinished business: education without necessity

In both its substance and form this paper speaks of the arid direction of education, particularly under the conditions of what some call ‘performativity’, such as the constraints of quality assurance and the demands of academic research. The paper tries to construct a counter or alternative discourse about educational practices. It speaks of them as unpredictable, not susceptible to closure or summary, and foregrounds the importance of relationships between students, and between them and their teacher. It speaks of learning as intellectual, but also as emotional and embodied. It asks questions, and offers one kind of suggestion, about just what kind of language is appropriate for writing about our lived experience as teachers and learners.     

Encouraging the development of higher-level study skills using an experiential learning framework

Teachers have only recently considered how study skills support in higher education (HE) can be delivered in a way that encourages experiential learning. This paper aims to substantiate, or otherwise, the idea that a carefully developed initiative can encourage the experiential learning of study skills. In addition, it considers whether such an approach might also allow student access to some of the higher-level study skills required for successful university study. Focus group data were used to evaluate a module delivered to sports students at a post-1992 university in the UK. This data suggested that the module facilitated learning in each stage of Kolb's experiential learning cycle. Moreover, there was evidence that the module encouraged students to undertake an ‘epistemological shift’ in which they moved from seeing knowledge as a set of uncontested facts to seeing it as something that they are expected to question and contribute to themselves.     

Supporting students with impairments in higher education: social inclusion or cold comfort?

This paper uses a discursive analysis to examine the experience of ‘inclusion’ from several stakeholder groups in one university. The research team included disability support staff at the institution, external disability consultants and academic researchers. A critical focus group investigation centred on four groups: students who were identified as having an impairment (SWIs), academic staff (teachers), administrators and students who did not identify as having an impairment (non‐SWIs). Interviews had facilitators with both research and disability expertise. Groups recounted different experiences of inclusion. SWIs, drawing on a rights discourse, emphasised a lack of resourcing and barriers created by the teaching staff. In contrast, teachers, administrators and (to a lesser extent) non‐SWIs emphasised the importance of social inclusion, reflecting discourses around needs and humanist notions of care and support, which largely seemed to miss the core of SWI concerns about recognition of their technical competence. For all groups, questions around disclosure of disability were of greater concern than tensions between needs and rights or the recent publication of a Code of Practice for the higher education sector. The findings challenged some of the researchers’ own assumptions, with unexpected implications for practice.     

The Development of Subject Knowledge in Secondary Initial Teacher Education: A case study of physical education student teachers and their subject mentors

This article presents a case study of student teachers of secondary school physical education (PE) and their subject mentors in subject knowledge development. Grenfell's (1996) application of Bourdieu's notions of 'field' and 'habitus' in relation to initial teacher education (ITE) is applied to interview data to argue that student teachers show varying dispositions to develop subject knowledge at the field sites of university and school. Furthermore, such dispositions are suggested to be enacted by student teachers through the development and exchange of subject knowledge as 'capital'. Thus a dynamic for subject knowledge development, which is neither specific to field site or difference between field sites is conceptualised. The article concludes that student dispositions to learn, in context, should be considered to assist understanding about the development of PE student teachers' subject knowledge. It calls for a redefinition of nationally prescribed subject knowledge in relation to learning how to teach.     

Special educational needs,disability and school accountability: an international perspective

Standards-based accountability approaches in education are increasingly being adopted in many industrialised countries. This tends to involve the scrutiny of student performance in national academic tests and then holding schools accountable for subsequent progress. International assessments such as Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) are not accountability measures in themselves, but are often utilised in a similar way and national policies are judged against performance in these tests. Drawing upon the examples of PISA and national assessments in the USA, this paper explores how students with special educational needs and disability (SEND) are included in, and served by, these assessment policies. The analysis suggests that while these approaches are inclusive in their intent (most obviously through efforts to include students with SEND in testing) they may poorly represent the progress of these students. It is argued that more equitable inclusion of students with SEND must find a balance between accountability measures which measure performance in traditional attainment-focused tests and other relevant assessments which are meaningful to the given student and/or SEND sub-group.