Cinderella in the Classroom. Children's Responses to Gender Roles in Fairy‐tales

The project described in this paper was designed to test the feminist hypothesis that the Cinderella‐style fairy‐tales promoted by Anglo‐American society harmfully reinforce restrictive images of girlhood and womanhood. The research was based on work with over 100 boys and girls aged 9‐11 in five Cornish primary schools. Responses came from the children through group discussion, drawing pictures and writing stories. Although the figure of the pretty princess predominated in the girls’ pictures, it was apparent through the children's discussion and stories that few girls identified with this image. The girls favoured ‘upside‐down’ fairy‐tale scenarios that gave their heroines independence, while the boys clung to the traditional image of the prince for the same reason. These results indicate that girls of this age are ‘resisting readers’, able to criticise and manipulate — as well as enjoy — the gender images presented to them in the dominant fairy‐tales of our culture.     

What makes students satisfied? A discussion and analysis of the UK’s national student survey

This paper analyses data from the National Students Survey, determining which groups of students expressed the greatest levels of satisfaction. We find students registered on clinical degrees and those studying humanities to be the most satisfied, with those in general engineering and media studies the least. We also find contentment to be higher among part-time students, and significantly higher among Russell group and post-1992 universities. We further investigate the sub-areas that drive overall student satisfaction, finding teaching and course organisation to be the most important aspects, with resources and assessment and feedback far less relevant. We then develop a multi-attribute measure of satisfaction which we argue produces a more accurate and more stable reflection of overall student satisfaction than that based on a single question.     

The development and application of affective assessment in an upper‐level cell biology course

This study exemplifies how faculty members can develop instruments to assess affective responses of students to the specific features of the courses they teach. Means for assessing three types of affective responses are demonstrated: (a) student attitudes towards courses with differing instructional objectives and methodologies, (b) student self‐efficacy (confidence) in completing tasks common to practicing experts, and (c) interests in subject‐specific topics and associated intellectual skills. The iterative processes used in refining the instruments and performing the statistical analyses of their effectiveness are detailed. An analysis of data obtained using these instruments is also included. Positive attitudes towards courses emphasizing analytical thinking increased significantly over the course of a 14‐week semester, as did the measures of self‐efficacy. Despite the rigorous analytical nature of the course experience, the initial strong interest in cell biology topics and higher order thinking skills remained unchanged. There were no significant differences based on gender in any of the affective measures. We discuss the apparent dichotomy, revealed in these assessments, between students' idealistic, academic attitudes towards the course's effectiveness and their opinions of its effects on them personally. We conclude by reporting how insights garnered both from these formal assessments and from anecdotal communications have prompted experimental modifications in the design and conduct of the course. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 1057–1087, 2007     

Just do it? impact of a science apprenticeship program on high school students' understandings of the nature of science and scientific inquiry

The purpose of this study was to explicate the impact of an 8‐week science apprenticeship program on a group of high‐ability secondary students' understandings of the nature of science and scientific inquiry. Ten volunteers (Grades 10–11) completed a modified version of the Views of Nature of Science, Form B both before and after their apprenticeship to assess their conceptions of key aspects of the nature of science and scientific inquiry. Semistructured exit interviews provided an opportunity for students to describe the nature of their apprenticeship experiences and elaborate on their written questionnaire responses. Semistructured exit interviews were also conducted with the scientists who served as mentors for each of the science apprentices. For the most part, students held conceptions about the nature of science and scientific inquiry that were inconsistent with those described in current reforms. Participating science mentors held strong convictions that their apprentices had learned much about the scientific enterprise in the course of doing the science in their apprenticeship. Although most students did appear to gain knowledge about the processes of scientific inquiry, their conceptions about key aspects of the nature of science remained virtually unchanged. Epistemic demand and reflection appeared to be crucial components in the single case where a participant experienced substantial gains in her understandings of the nature of science and inquiry. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 40: 487–509, 2003     

Women's Euro 2005 a ‘watershed’ for women's football in England and a new era for the game?

ABSTRACT

The UEFA Women's Euro 2005 Championship hosted in England can be seen as a significant event in the development of football for women, being the largest female, international tournament held in the UK up to that date. However, despite record crowds and unprecedented media attention, an increase in participation by women after the event was neither significant, nor sustained in the hosting region or nationally. As identified in Parliamentary committee evidence, grass roots women's football has continued to struggle, despite strategies investing heavily development and the ‘Superleague' to drive increased engagement in the game after 2005. Success in international events in 2012, 2015, and 2017 by England national teams showed spikes in media interest, audiences and progression on the field of play. However, an examination of national participation statistics demonstrates the difficulties of evidencing sport participation event legacy. The event in 2005 clearly contributed to changing public perceptions, stimulating a new strategic focus on women by the Football Association and therefore began the new era for the game, particularly in England. This research may provide some insight for planning for Euro 2021 – when football ‘comes home’ once again.     

Developing and acting upon one's conception of the nature of science: A follow‐up study

This study aimed to delineate the factors mediating the translation of preservice teachers' conceptions of the nature of science into instructional planning and classroom practice. Additionally, the study assessed the influence of temporally separating teaching preservice teachers about the nature of science and teaching them how to address it instructionally. This latter intervention was based on the results of a previous investigation. Prior to student teaching, the 13 participants responded to an open‐ended questionnaire designed to assess conceptions of the nature of science. Throughout student teaching, daily lesson plans, classroom videotapes, portfolios, and supervisors' weekly clinical observation notes were collected and searched for explicit instances of nature of science planning and/or instruction. Following student teaching, participants were interviewed to validate their responses to the open‐ended questionnaire, identify factors that mediate the translation of their conceptions of the nature of science into classroom teaching, and explicate their pedagogical preferences for teaching the nature of science. Participants possessed adequate understanding of several aspects of the nature of science and, contrary to the results of the earlier investigation, most did not conflate the nature of science with science processes. Furthermore, several participants explicitly addressed some aspects of the nature of science during classroom instruction. Participants, however, failed to include the nature of science among their instructional objectives and did not make a concerted effort to assess student understandings. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 563–581, 2000     

Using the Internet to Enhance Student Understanding of Science: The Knowledge Integration Environment

We have developed the Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE) to promote lifelong learning. We believe that science courses can promote lifelong learning by offering students science models that apply to problems they encounter in their everyday lives and by engaging students in personally relevant science projects where they connect science models to typical science resources such as those found on the Internet. Our instructional framework, Scaffolded Knowledge Integration (SKI), guides the design of the Knowledge Integration Environment. In this paper we describe the Knowledge Integration Environment and report results of “design experiments” carried out to guide improvement of Knowledge Integration Environment instruction as well as to help us improve our understanding of lifelong learning.     

Katsushika Hokusai and a Poetics of Nostalgia

Abstract

This article addresses the activation of aesthetics through the examination of an acute sensitivity to melancholy and time permeating the literary and pictorial arts of Japan. In medieval court circles, this sensitivity was activated through a pervasive sense of aware, a poignant reflection on the pathos of things. This sensibility became the motivating force for court verse, and through this medium, for the mature projects of the ukiyo-e ‘floating world picture’ artist Katsushika Hokusai. Hokusai reached back to aware sensibilities, subjects and conventions in celebrations of the poetic that sustained cultural memories resonating classical lyric and pastoral themes. This paper examines how this elegiac sensibility activated Hokusai’s preoccupations with poetic allusion in his late representations of scholar-poets and the unfinished series of Hyakunin isshu uba-ga etoki, ‘One hundred poems, by one hundred poets, explained by the nurse’. It examines four works to explain how their synthesis of the visual and poetic could sustain aware themes and tropes over time to maintain a distinctive sense of this aesthetic sensibility in Japan.     

SWIMMING PERFORMANCE IN A COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

This research note reports an investigation into the relationship between date of birth and early performance at school and especially into whether there were more ‘poor achievers’ born during the summer months than in other months. A sample of ‘poor achievers’ was compared with a number of ‘average’ pupils, all selected on the basis of teacher reports. Contrary to previous research evidence, there was not a significantly greater number of poor‐achieving children born between May and August. The influence of one starting date for school entrance is discussed and implications for other school systems are raised.