General Motion Pictures

Eileen Sheahan's Moving Pictures: An Annotated Guide to Selected Film Literature With Suggestions for the Study of Film (South Brunswick: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1979 – $9.95 hardcover)

Anthony Slide, Films on Film History (Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1979 – $12.00 hardcover)

Hannah Elsas Miller, Films in the Classroom: A Practical Guide (Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1979 – $12.50)

Roy Pickard, Hollywood Gold: The Award Winning Movies (New York: Taplinger, 1979 – $1 4 .95/$9.95)

Legal and Business Problems of Financing Motion Pictures 1979 (Practising Law Institute, 810 Seventh Ave., New York, N.Y. 10019—$20, paper)

Nancy Allen's Film Study Collections: A Guide to Their Development and Use (New York: Frederik Ungar, 1979—$14.00)

David McNicoll, eds. A Guide to Film and Television Courses in Canada (Canadian Film Institute, 75 Albert Street, Suite 1105, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5E7 – $6.95)

Film Periodicals: A new journal, Discourse: Berkeley Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture (P.O. Box 4667, Berkeley, California 94704 – $9.00 for three issues for individuals, $12.00 for institutions, and $18.00 foreign)

Don Allen, ed. The World of Film and Filmmakers: A Visual History (New York: Crown, 1979—$19.95)

Raymond Fielding, comp. A Bibliography of Theses and Dissertations on the Subject of Film: 1916-1979 (Houston, Tx.: University Film Association Monograph No. 3, 1979—$6.50, paper)     

Can't We All Just Get Along? Pan-Domain Collaboration Through an Innovative Collections Review Project at the Royal College of Surgeons of England

ABSTRACT

Although libraries, archives and museums were historically linked as ‘cabinets of curiosity,’ professionalization within the domains in the 19th century seems to have divided these collections. The creation of different working practices and standards built up barriers between these cultural or ‘information’ objects. However, in recent years there has been a well-developed trend towards pan-domain collaborative work which is slowly re-uniting collections and re-establishing links between the specialists that care for them. This article outlines how a project in the Royal College of Surgeons of England brought the library, archive and museum staff together to create a more collaborative environment which has served to benefit the collections, their users, and the staff themselves.     

Physical Activity as a Natural Antioxidant Booster and its Effect on a Healthy Life Span

Abstract

The recent Surgeon General's report (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1996) promotes regular physical activity to enhance health. A possible mechanism by which physical activity contributes to a healthy life span is via enhanced antioxidant status. The purpose of this paper is to summarize findings from human studies on life span, health, antioxidants, and the effectiveness of physical activity as a natural antioxidant booster. Epidemiological studies concur that some antioxidants are inversely related to mortality. A single bout of exercise elevates some antioxidant enzyme and coenzyme activities. Regular physical activity enhances some antioxidants; however, strenuous exercise may diminish others. Results generally show that antioxidants play a mediating role in the way in which physical activity positively affects a healthy life span.     

The Aims of Science Laboratory Courses: a Survey of Students,Graduates and Practising Scientists

Summaries

English

This paper describes the results of a survey of practising scientists, recent graduates and undergraduates about their perceptions of undergraduate laboratory programmes in biology, chemistry and physics. The two groups in employment were requested to rate, in terms of degree of importance, each of 22 aims. The undergraduates were also requested to rate each aim, but in terms of their observed importance in their course as well as their preferred importance. The aims were then arranged in rank order. A high degree of concordance was found between practising scientists (which included staff in academic institutions) and recent graduates, who regard laboratory experiences in pragmatic terms which stress the acquisition of practical skills, equipment familiarity, observational skills, interpretation of data and a critical approach to experimentation. Undergraduate students, however, have some different perceptions of laboratory aims, and rate highly those activities associated with educational processes, for example the links which they observe to exist between theoretical material and laboratory work.

The implications of these results to the course designer are discussed.     

The quest for higher education by the Chinese middle class: retrenching social mobility?

This article examines how and why the Chinese second-generation middle class, who are unable to obtain admission in China’s premier universities, turn their back on other public universities and instead attend private universities in their country. It finds that their parents capitalize on their privileged guanxi (connections) to send their children to private universities and then study abroad to secure a generational reproduction of their class status and mobility. The Chinese new middle class families look upon joint-partnership private universities as the stepping stone for overseas study. In addition, this article examines how extant Western class theories, including Weberian, Neo-Weberian, and Bourdieuian theories, cannot provide an adequate account of class formation and the generational stratification in present-day China. To explain this reproduction of class in contemporary China, this paper explores how and why the Maoist social institutions of danwei (work unit) and hukou (household registration) still matter in post-reform China in determining middle class’s life chance. Seen in this light, the progenies of cadres and skilled professionals are the main beneficiaries of economic reform.     

Tertiary teachers and student evaluations: never the twain shall meet?

Internationally, centralised systems of student evaluation have become normative practice in higher education institutions, providing data for monitoring teaching quality and for teacher professional development. While extensive research has been done on student evaluations, there is less research-based evidence about teachers’ perceptions of and engagement with student evaluations, the focus of the research reported in this paper. An interpretive approach framed the study in which data were gathered through questionnaire and interview responses from teaching staff at three New Zealand tertiary institutions. Results highlighted the general acceptance of the notion of student evaluations, recurring ideas about the limitations of evaluations and significant gaps in the way academics engage with student evaluation feedback. Recommendations for enhancing teacher engagement with student evaluation are made to optimise the potential for student evaluations to inform teaching development and to improve students’ learning experiences.     

Conventional wisdom,course choice and student progress in science courses

Shelagh Ross, Staff Tutor in Science in the Open University's East Anglian Region, and Eileen Scanlon, Lecturer in the Open University's Institute of Educational Technology, have conducted a study of course choice for Science Faculty students. They asked the question as to whether Science Foundation course students select fairly traditional degree profiles of an ‘all Science’ tendency, or whether they range more freely across a range of subjects, and secondly, what role taking one or two Foundation courses played in contributing to success.     

Curriculum continuity in the social studies

Class size continues to rise in primary schools with many more children now being taught in large classes. Even so, the relationship between class size and children's access to the range of appropriate curriculum activities has been given sparse consideration. Given this neglect, this study was designed to assess teachers' perceptions of the effects of larger classes on children's opportunities to experience the full breadth of the national curriculum.     

Organisation in the nursery

The importance of continuing professional development (CPD) is increasingly recognised as an important contributor to school improvement. Successful CPD involves gaining the commitment of teachers to the process, and to sustaining and supporting their involvement in activities that are beneficial to both their professional growth and the development of their school and the children. This article describes a whole school improvement initiative that sought to do just that: a partnership, in which Hampshire inspection and advisory service; University College, Winchester; and the teachers at Lee-on-the Solent Junior School, worked together to enable practitioner research to become both a reality, and a powerful contributor to both personal development and school improvement.