Deweyan Tools for Inquiry and the Epistemological Context of Critical Pedagogy

This article develops the notion of resistance as articulated in the literature of critical pedagogy as being both culturally sponsored and cognitively manifested. To do so, the authors draw upon John Dewey's conception of tools for inquiry. Dewey provides a way to conceptualize student resistance not as a form of willful disputation, but instead as a function of socialization into cultural models of thought that actively truncate inquiry. In other words, resistance can be construed as the cognitive and emotive dimensions of the ongoing failure of institutions to provide ideas that help individuals both recognize social problems and imagine possible solutions. Focusing on Dewey's epistemological framework, specifically tools for inquiry, provides a way to grasp this problem. It also affords some innovative solutions; for instance, it helps conceive of possible links between the regular curriculum and the study of specific social justice issues, a relationship that is often under-examined. The aims of critical pedagogy depend upon students developing dexterity with the conceptual tools they use to make meaning of the evidence they confront; these are background skills that the regular curriculum can be made to serve even outside social justice-focused curricula. Furthermore, the article concludes that because such inquiry involves the exploration and potential revision of students' world-ordering beliefs, developing flexibility in how one thinks may be better achieved within academic subjects and topics that are not so intimately connected to students' current social lives, especially where students may be directly implicated.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Mathematical sophistication</Emphasis> among preservice elementary teachers

This study explores the ways in which eleven preservice elementary teachers used a web-based teacher resource to apply a mathematical definition, to correct a procedural error in arithmetic, and to make sense of a story requiring the multiplication of fractions. In our analysis we propose a framework to compare the behaviors and values expressed by our participants with the values and norms of the mathematical community. This analysis suggests that many preservice elementary teachers are profoundly mathematically unsophisticated. In other words, they displayed a set of values and avenues for doing mathematics so different from that of the mathematical community, and so impoverished, that they found it difficult to create fundamental mathematical understandings.     

Using volunteers in Ontario hospital libraries: views of library managers.

BACKGROUND: Volunteers have been a resource for all types of libraries for many years. Little research has been done to describe the attitudes librarians have toward library volunteers. More specifically, the attitudes of hospital librarians toward volunteers have never been studied. OBJECTIVE: The objective was to explore and describe the extent of volunteer use and to determine library managers' attitudes toward volunteers. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: An anonymous, self-report 38-item questionnaire was mailed to the target population of 89 hospital library managers in Ontario. Seventy-nine useable questionnaires were analyzed from an adjusted sample of 86 eligible respondents, resulting in a response rate of 92%. SPSS 11.5 was used to analyze the data. FINDINGS: The data revealed the attitudes of managers using volunteers did not differ significantly from the attitudes of managers not using volunteers. The findings showed that a majority of managers did not believe their libraries were adequately staffed with paid employees. Sufficient evidence was found of an association between a manager's belief in the adequacy of staffing in the library and the use of volunteers in the library (chi2(1, N=76)=4.11, P=0.043). Specifically, volunteers were more likely to be used by managers who did not believe their libraries were adequately staffed. The presence of a union in the library and the use of volunteers were also associated (chi2(1, N=77)=4.77, P=0.029). When unions were present in the library, volunteers were less likely to be used. IMPLICATIONS: This research has implications for hospital library managers in the management of volunteers. Volunteers should not be viewed as a quick fix or as a long-term solution for a library's understaffing problem.     

Cultural and Sport Economics: Conceptual Twins?

Is there a role for sports economics in arts research? Despite references to similarities between the arts and sports (especially community impacts, demand interdependencies, and the presence of superstars), the two burgeoning literatures operate in near isolation from one another. This parochialism is not justified by legitimate distinctions; arts labor analysis, in particular, could benefit from sports research. This paper demonstrates this proposition with a focus on: team production functions and income dispersion; unions and rent distribution; managerial and director productivity; earnings functions and changing talent distributions related to competing superstar theories; and career development, screening and human capital theory.     

Competition and the Non-Profit Arts: The Lost Industrial Organization Agenda

The recent industrial organization focus on transaction costs and vertical contracting within the cultural industries (Caves, R.E. 2000, Creative Industries: Contracts between Arts and Commerce. Harvard University Press, Cambridge) stands in contrast to the near abandonment of an earlier literature on horizontal firm interaction and competitive conditions within the performing arts (e.g., Throsby, C.D. and Withers, G.A. 1979, The Economics of the Performing Arts. Edward Arnold, London.; Gapinski, J.H. 1986, J.H. American Economic Review 76(2): 20–25). That incomplete but promising agenda was overwhelmed by the emphasis on non-profit arts firms acting as near natural monopolies, as reflected by Throsby himself (Throsby, D., 1994, Journal of Economic Literature 32: 1–29) and Blaug's survey (Blaug, M., 2001, Journal of Economic Surveys 15: 123–143). This paper resuscitates these earlier inter-firm hypotheses, identifies surprising contrasts with Caves' less frequent horizontal observations, and encourages a revival of interest in studying the effects of competition in the non-profit arts.     

A Guide for Studying the Personality of a Young Child

Five methods for analyzing data arising from research involving pretests and posttests are considered. These methods include: (1) posttest analysis only; (2) analysis of raw gain scores (posttest minus pretest); (3) analysis of the data with a pretest-posttest factor included in the statistical model; (4) analysis of posttest data with pretests as a covariate, and (5) analysis of gain scores with pretests as a covariate. The characteristics of each are discussed, with a conclusion that the fifth method is superior to the others when the assumptions underlying covariance analysis are met.