White working-class male narratives of ‘loyalty to self’ in discourses of aspiration

This paper intends to show the processes and identity negotiations of white working-class boys surrounding their own learner-identity within a ‘raising aspirations’ rhetoric. The current dominant neoliberal discourse, which prioritizes a view of aspiration that is competitive, economic, and status-based, shapes the subjectivities of these young males. Focusing on the deeply engrained values of a group of 23 working-class boys from South London, ages 14–16, this research critically considers the conception of aspiration and persistent ‘educational underachievement’. White working-class boys in the United Kingdom are frequently labelled as having ‘low aspirations’ or, indeed, no aspirations at all. Through the use of habitus as a conceptual tool, the research intends to serve as an exploration of how the aspiration rhetoric influenced the boys’ conception of ‘loyalty to self’ and their sense of average-ness/ordinariness/’middling’. The boys’ habitus undergoes complex ‘identity work’ in order to reconcile competing and contrasting conceptions of aspiration.     

Success on the decks: working-class boys,education and turning the tables on perceptions of failure

Although working-class boys' disengagement with education continues to be a major public concern, the focus of educational research has been on anti-school, hyper-masculine so-called laddish masculinities and their salience within learner identities. What tend to be forgotten are the areas in which low-achieving boys actively engage and succeed in their learning and what these successes mean for their identity construction. This article shows how learning practices manifest themselves in extracurricular peer subcultures by presenting the findings of two related musical activities, DJ-ing and MC-ing. In this music-making, secondary school boys in the Northeast of England showed themselves to be capable of high levels of engagement, enthusiasm and success despite generally being considered low achieving and highly disaffected. This small case study based on semistructured interviews aimed to explore how boys aged 14–16 years enact their passion through creative agency and expressive cultural processes.     

A sociocultural analysis of mandated curriculum change: the implementation of a new senior physics curriculum in New Zealand schools

We analyse the implementation of a new New Zealand physics curriculum from a socio‐cultural perspective. We explore the development of the curriculum document and examine the obstacles to its implementation. Change was compromised by the lack of any intersubjective linkage between teachers and the curriculum designers. The teachers’ own community of practice was most influential in how implementation occurred.

Curriculum change processes and discourses must be made transparent so that teachers can have a framework for ‘dereification’ of a curriculum document into their classroom practices. Without planning for teachers’ participation in the negotiation of curriculum meanings, curriculum developers themselves become marginalized, and the cultural objects they have developed will be adopted in unanticipated ways.     

Conversation with a ghost

“SPEAK THAT I MAY SEE THEE!” THE RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE OF LANGUAGE, by Harold Stahmer. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968; pp. xi+304. $7.95.

PREACHING IN AMERICAN HISTORY. Edited by DeWitte Holland. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1969; pp. 436. $8.95.

A QUEST FOR REFORMATION IN PREACHING. By H. C. Brown, Jr. Waco, Texas: Word Books, Publishers, 1968; pp. 251. $5.95.

DWIGHT L. MOODY: AMERICAN EVANGELIST, 1837–1899. By James F. Findlay, Jr. Chicago: University of Chicao Press, 1969; pp. 440. $10.00.

THE RHETORIC OF CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM. Edited by Paul H. Boase. New York: Random House, 1969; pp. ix+173. $1.95, paper.     

Portfolios in First Grade: Four Teachers Learn to Use Alternative Assessment

Educational assessment is experiencing significant changes which affect classroom practices. This article describes an in-depth qualitative study of the implementation of portfolio assessment by four first grade teachers. Creative activities and valuable insights were given by these teachers which allow for successful implementation of portfolios in the classroom. These teachers found three major benefits of portfolios: (1) a means of communicating more effectively with families, (2) a tool to motivate, encourage, and instruct students in the skills of self-assessment, and (3) a mechanism to monitor and improve their own instruction in the classroom.     

Student performance in high-stakes examinations based on content area in senior secondary (VCE) physical education

Background: Senior secondary physical education courses for certification continue to evolve with curricula reform occurring to ensure content is contemporary, student learning outcomes are maximised and assessment practices are valid for determining certification of students. The content of examinable senior secondary physical education courses privilege theoretical concepts over student physical performance of motor skills and this is reflected in the use of written assessment of cognitive outcomes in many courses internationally.

Purpose: Student examination data were analysed from the year 12 (exit year) written examination of Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) Physical Education to determine if student performance varied by Area of Study (content). Additionally, it investigated whether there was a relationship between student performance in each of the four Areas of Study examined and overall examination performance and considered the alignment of curriculum, assessment and pedagogy and the implications the findings may have on the teaching of VCE Physical Education in the future.

Methods: A secondary data analysis of student results from the 2011 (n?=?9323; M?=?5212, F?=?4111) and 2012 (n?=?8781; M?=?5011, F?=?3770) VCE Physical Education (Victoria, Australia) examinations were conducted. Examination questions were categorised by content, and means and standard deviations (SD) for discrete and continuous data were calculated, and categorical variables were presented as percentages. Regression analysis was also performed to establish the relationship between student cohort size and examination scores. An independent sample t-test was used to explore the examination scores and each Area of Study scores across 2011 and 2012. A one-way ANOVA were performed to investigate the differences of each Area of Study scores between examination grades from UG to A+.

Results: The results showed a positive correlation between VCE Physical Education student cohort size in a school and examination score in 2011 and 2012. Student performance differed across both years (2011 and 2012) and across Areas of Study within each of the years analysed. Students performed significantly lower on questions relating to the ‘planning, implementing and evaluating a training program’ Area of Study in 8 of the 11 possible grades (2011) and 10 of the possible 11 grades (2012) than in each of the other Areas of Study.

Discussion and conclusions: This study reveals that student performance on the external VCE Physical Education examination is not consistent across all content areas (Areas of Study). This may suggest that student difficulties in answering questions based on content in ‘planning, implementing and evaluating a training program’ result from topic or content difficulty rather than process or question difficulty. From these findings, implications for teaching examinable physical education effectively include the use of experiential learning and practical experiences to provide students with experiences from which they can draw knowledge when completing written assessment tasks. Additionally, the importance of having the required content knowledge to teach examinable physical education confidently for pre-service and in-service teachers is discussed.     

Measuring cross-cultural adjustment: The problem of criteriaLa evaluación del ajuste transcultural: El problema de criteriosL'évaluation de l'adaptation inter-culturelle: Le problème des critères

The nature of the adjustment process for individuals crossing cultural boundaries has not been adequately described in past research, and this leads to difficulty in selection and training of personnel for overseas assignments. This article critically reviews research on criterion measures of overseas adaptation, and raises a series of theoretical issues to be considered in future research. In addition, methods for measurement of cross-cultural adjustment are proposed, and it is suggested that practitioners and researchers in this field could benefit from a careful definition of criteria.