Probing Children's Prejudice‐‐a consideration of the ethical and methodological issues raised by research and curriculum development

Since the mid‐1980s many schools in predominantly white areas have taken active steps to counter racism and ethnocentrism and raise awareness of Britain's ethnic diversity through curriculum development. This paper is primarily concerned with the ethical issues raised by research into such initiatives at primary school level. We begin by alluding very briefly to the shortcomings of extant research into children's prejudice, noting that some studies can be criticised for the unwitting reinforcement of stereotypes. We move on to examine the ethical and methodological considerations which have underpinned our own work in this area, focusing on a recent investigation into children's understanding of Jewish culture and identity. The techniques employed to probe the children's beliefs and attitudes and challenge their taken‐for‐granted assumptions are described at length, together with the ethical dilemmas addressed during the course of the research. In the second part of the paper, we focus on issues raised by our own curriculum development work in anti‐racist and multicultural education in ‘all white’ schools. We draw extensively on a recent case‐study of 10 and 11 year‐olds’ responses to a teaching programme which aimed to counter stereotypical images both of developing countries and Islam.     

Chrysophiles versus chrysophobes: the white asbestos controversy, 1950s-2004

In the first half of the twentieth century, asbestos was a controversial mineral because of its association with asbestosis and asbestos-related lung cancer. It has proved no less so since the 1960s, when another asbestos cancer, mesothelioma, was identified. Mesothelioma appeared to be more strongly linked with blue asbestos (crocidolite) than with the other asbestos varieties, brown (amosite) and white (chrysotile). This finding triggered a fierce debate between "chrysophiles" (those who declared chrysotile innocuous) and "chrysophobes" (those who believed it was a mortal hazard). This essay attempts the first history of the chrysotile controversy, which shows that a scientific consensus on the safety of white asbestos was very slow to emerge. This was only partly due to the complexities of scientific research. Political, economic, and social factors have militated against a speedy resolution of the debate, facilitating the continued production and use of asbestos in the developing world.     

Low‐fee private schools in England and in less economically developed countries. What can be learnt from a comparison?

There has been a growing amount of research on low‐fee private schools in less economically developed countries, but much less on low‐fee private schools in developed countries. Yet, low‐fee private schools have also been a recent feature of the educational landscape in countries such as Canada, the USA, Australia and Great Britain. This paper draws together some of my previously published work on such schools in England and considers the similarities between low‐fee private schools in developed and less economically developed countries. In particular, it examines sponsors' motivations for starting such schools and the motivations of parents for using such schools for their children.     

¿Qué clases y profesores tendremos para la enseñanza de las matemáticas? Posibilidades y alternativas

La pregunta que se plantea el titular de este artículo no es sino una de entre las muchas que se plantean a lo largo del texto acerca de los protagonistas, los contextos y los recursos que pueden ponerse en marcha en un futuro ya presente, al menos en las sociedades avanzadas. Se pasa revista desde el modelo de aula que se avecina, a las nuevas tecnologías—el ordenador y su software, pero también los audiovisuales o el propio texto escrito—, hasta el modelo de profesor y de relación educativa que implican esos nuevos contextos.     

Development,Evaluation and Use of a Student Experience Survey in Undergraduate Science Laboratories: The Advancing Science by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory Student Laboratory Learning Experience Survey

Student experience surveys have become increasingly popular to probe various aspects of processes and outcomes in higher education, such as measuring student perceptions of the learning environment and identifying aspects that could be improved. This paper reports on a particular survey for evaluating individual experiments that has been developed over some 15 years as part of a large national Australian study pertaining to the area of undergraduate laboratories—Advancing Science by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory. This paper reports on the development of the survey instrument and the evaluation of the survey using student responses to experiments from different institutions in Australia, New Zealand and the USA. A total of 3153 student responses have been analysed using factor analysis. Three factors, motivation, assessment and resources, have been identified as contributing to improved student attitudes to laboratory activities. A central focus of the survey is to provide feedback to practitioners to iteratively improve experiments. Implications for practitioners and researchers are also discussed.     

The politics and context of calls for cross‐sectoral collaborative research

This paper focuses on the contemporary trend towards cross‐sectoral education research as a policy issue. It looks at the basis of the claims for collaborative research and questions the genesis of the press for these moves, the efficacy of some of the claims, and the largely unexamined source of what is becoming a fashionable tendency. The attempt is to try and get ‘inside’ the concept in the sense of understanding what it is that is driving calls for collaborative research as a broad policy issue, rather than ‘standing off and describing it.     

Stewart,O’Reilly,and The Rumble 2012: Alternative Political Debate in the Age of Hybridity

This study explores the internet-only political debate held in the run-up to the 2012 U.S. presidential election between political-entertainment personalities Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly. Independently produced and financed through a version of crowd-funding, the debate offers a window into the fundamentally hybrid nature of contemporary mediated political discourse. A novel form of hybrid celebrity politics afforded by emergent technological, economic, and cultural forces, the so-called “Rumble in the Air Conditioned Auditorium” interwove televisual celebrity, political advocacy, affective spectacle, and deliberative exchange. In so doing, it spoke to the increasingly complicated nature of representation, authenticity, and the possibilities of political speech in a hybrid media age.