On the Rational Solution of Dominant Issues in Higher Education

As universities and colleges have changed, so has the role of faculty. Greater accountability is expected for faculty time and effort. This paper considers faculty roles by the institution preparing new faculty, the institution hiring new faculty, and the new faculty member themselves. All institutions are seeking faculty who are triple threats: integrate discovery, learning, and engagement; increase and maintain knowledge and technology; and involve students in their professional lives. Institutions preparing new faculty must develop models that stress not only quality research, but address the balance of faculty roles. Hiring institutions must select new faculty so that interest and balance match institutional goals. New faculty must understand what they want from academic life and seek appropriate institutions.     

National monitoring in social studies: the reliability of assessment interviews

The National Education Monitoring Project (NEMP) is responsible in New Zealand for the national assessment of primary school children's achievement in the essential learning areas, one of which is social studies. Individual interviews are one of the approaches used to assess students' understanding. The assessors are registered teachers, selected by NEMP, who attend a training week where they learn how to conduct the standardised assessment tasks and associated interviews. This study examines the reliability of the assessment interviews used in the 2005 round of social studies monitoring, in particular the variations between teacher administrators (TAs) in their use of prompts and probes. The extent of variation observed in the use of three kinds of prompt was sufficient to raise questions about the reliability of the assessment process. A surprising outcome was the consistent failure of TAs to clarify and elucidate students' social studies understandings through the judicious use of probes. The prompt-related variations between TAs and their failure fully to ‘tap into’ understandings assessed by interview-based tasks are serious threats to the validity of claims regarding students' achievement in social studies. This is particularly concerning as NEMP data are used as the basis for identifying and reporting national patterns and trends in educational performance and making recommendations to policy-makers, curriculum planners and educators.     

Arts enrichment and preschool emotions for low-income children at risk

No studies to date examine the impact of arts-integrated preschool programming on the emotional functioning of low-income children at risk for school problems. The present study examines observed emotion expression and teacher-rated emotion regulation for low-income children attending Settlement Music School's Kaleidoscope Preschool Arts Enrichment Program. At a level of p < .001, results indicate the following. First, within Kaleidoscope, children showed greater observed positive emotions such as interest, happiness, and pride, in music, dance, and visual arts classes, as compared to traditional early learning classes. Second, children at Kaleidoscope showed greater observed positive emotions than peers attending a comparison preschool that did not include full integration of the arts. Third, across the school year, children at Kaleidoscope showed greater growth in teacher-rated levels of positive and negative emotion regulation. The implication is that arts enrichment may promote social–emotional readiness to learn for low-income children at risk for school problems.     

Academics' perceptions of their professional development needs related to leadership and management: What can we learn?

Enquiries into the governance, structure and management of higher education institutions across the globe have stimulated changes to the legislative and policy frameworks within which universities operate and to their organizational structures and processes. These changes have subsequently brought into question the proper role of academics in relation to the leadership and management of their departments/institutions. While mainstream academic staff conceive of academic leadership as being strictly associated with teaching, research and community outreach, university administrators and policy makers conceptualize it more broadly. Their definitions often include the management of change, quality, information, finance, and physical and human resources - functions that many mainstream academics perceive as being the responsibility of departmental/institutional administrative or support staff. Such differences create major challenges for academic development units. What type of training should they provide? Should they embrace activities that support these new conceptions of leadership and management? These are among the central issues explored in this paper.     

Family and Sociodemographic Predictors of School Readiness Among African American Boys in Kindergarten

Research Findings: Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999, were used to examine the relation between parenting, sociodemographic characteristics, and school readiness among (N = 1,136) African American boys in kindergarten. Parenting was defined as parenting style (i.e., warmth and control), home learning stimulation, and culturally relevant parenting. Two child outcomes previously linked to school readiness were examined: kindergarten reading and approaches to learning. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed to address 2 research questions. First, does parenting predict kindergarten reading above and beyond the contribution of sociodemographic characteristics? Second, does parenting predict kindergarten approaches to learning above and beyond the contribution of sociodemographic characteristics? Practice or Policy: Children with parents who set consistent bedtimes, provided more books in their homes, and read to them more frequently had better kindergarten reading scores after socioeconomic status, environmental safety, and maternal education were controlled. Similarly, children with parents who provided more books in their home and read to their children more frequently had more positive teacher-rated approaches to learning scores in kindergarten. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Contextual Risk,Maternal Negative Emotionality,and the Negative Emotion Dysregulation of Preschool Children From Economically Disadvantaged Families

Research Findings: This study examined relations between contextual risk, maternal negative emotionality, and preschool teacher reports of the negative emotion dysregulation of children from economically disadvantaged families. Contextual risk was represented by cumulative indexes of family and neighborhood adversity. The results showed a direct pathway linking family adversity to child negative emotion dysregulation and indirect pathways for both family and neighborhood adversity through maternal negative emotionality. Practice or Policy: The results suggest the importance of conceptualizing distal and contextual aspects of the ecology of disadvantage as well as more proximal caregiving variables in interventions targeted for young children showing negative emotion dysregulation.     

Mentoring: Immigrant teachers bridging professional practices

New teachers who enter Australian educational systems must acquire suitable knowledge that enables them to function effectively as a teacher in this country. For immigrant professionals new to the system mere transfer of knowledge does not suffice and does not satisfy their professional perception of self. Teachers who are born and trained overseas lack culturally specific educational knowledge. These shortfalls can initiate unforseen dilemmas for their professional development and shifts in their definition of self. Acquiring new knowledge requires teachers to understand the social elements of learning and teaching in local contexts and to apply them appropriately. Mentoring relationships can be a means of bridging the gap between the newcomers' former ways of knowing and current practice, thereby mobilizing their capacity to operate effectively as a teacher in their new contexts and develop a positive professional identity. In this paper we draw on interview data from a study that involved immigrant teachers.     

Limitations of focussing on homophobic,biphobic and transphobic ‘bullying’ to understand and address LGBT young people's experiences within and beyond school

This paper presents new empirical data that highlight how a focus on ‘bullying’ is too limited and narrow when thinking about homophobia, biphobia and transphobia that young people may experience. The paper draws on two recent studies with young lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans participants, which each identified issues and experiences not readily captured within dominant bullying discourses and understandings. Findings are examined within three sections: beyond ‘bullying’, questioning inevitability, and (in)appropriate responses. In conclusion, I set out some implications and suggestions for the development of practice and future research concerning homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in youth settings.     

Foreign Film

George Perry's The Great British Picture Show from the 90s to the 70s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974---$12.50)

Mildred Constantine and Alan Fern's Revolutionary Soviet Film Posters (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1974---$12.95)

Michael Jon Stoil's Cinema Beyond the Danube: The Camera and Politics (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974---$6.00)

Antonin J. Liehn's Closely Watched Films: The Czechoslovak Experience (International Artistic Sciences Press, 901 North Broadway, White Plains, N.Y. 10603, 1974---$15.00)

Eleanor Beatty's A Handbook of Canadian Film (Toronto: Peter Martin Association with Take One, 1973---price not known, paper)

Kuleshov on Film: Writings by Lev Kuleschov (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974--- $10.00)

Susan Sontag's Brother Carl (New York: Noonday Press/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974---$10.95/4.95)