Teacher Identity and Curriculum Change: A comparative case-study analysis of small schools in England and Finland

The findings reported in this article form part of a wider comparative research project investigating the processes of curriculum change in primary schools in England and Finland. This comparison has a special interest because in many respects the current policies of the two countries are moving in opposite directions, with Finland dismantling its long-standing subject-based national curriculum and encouraging school-based curricula incorporating integrated topic work. Data are presented from qualitative research case studies of four schools-two in each country-in relation to three themes: teachers' values, curriculum and classroom organisation and curriculum planning. It is argued that teachers' self-identities are powerful mediators in terms of their interpretations of and responses to imposed changes and that the ethos of very small schools enables teachers to preserve their prior value systems more easily than their colleagues in other schools.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CEQ RATINGS AND INSTRUCTOR'S RANK, CLASS SIZE, AND COURSE LEVEL

A study was conducted to determine if the tendency for faculty members of higher rank to receive the highest ratings on the Illinois Course Evaluation Questionnaire (CEQ) remained when variables such as class size and course level were taken into account. The relationship between CEQ ratings and instructor's rank, class size, and level of course was examined by means of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Dependent variables were the six subscales of the CEQ. As hypothesized there were no significant differences in ratings assigned by students in small (1-20 students), medium (21-40 students), and large (over 40 students) classes, or received by teaching assistants, instructors, and assistant, associate, and full professors. Highly significant differences, however, were found in ratings assigned by students in freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and graduate level courses. In addition, significant size by level and size by rank interaction effects were found. Discriminant functions computed for effects found to be significant yielded information concerning the extent and direction of these significant differences.     

Standardized testing and the construction of governable persons

While debates over standardized testing are ubiquitous, there has been relatively little consideration of how today's standardized testing practices have arisen. The current study provides a chronology of standardized testing within Alberta, Canada. Starting from prior work by Foucault and others on ‘governmentality’, we propose that the movement to standardized testing be viewed as part of a larger societal movement toward techniques of government that operate indirectly and at a distance. These techniques of government seek to ‘manage’ populations through the use of measurement tools and numerical calculations. We suggest that, although these techniques are directed toward populations, they also have specific effects on individual students, parents, teachers, and other participants in the education system. In particular, we contend that standardized testing programmes, by rendering the participants visible and subjecting them to public scrutiny, contribute to the construction of governable persons.     

In Memory of Michael Pressley: A Role Model for 21st-Century Educational Psychologists

This article honors the contributions of Michael Pressley and examines 5 roles that were critical to his work as an educational psychologist: teacher, scholar, critic, builder, and mentor. We draw on Michael's life to illustrate how he carried out each of these roles and propose that educational psychologists in higher education in the new millennium should assume all 5 of these roles throughout the majority of their careers.