Commercial science, scientists’ values, and university biotechnology research agendas

Policies designed to promote the commercialization of university science have provoked concern that basic and publicly accessible research may be neglected. Commercialization policies have altered traditional institutional incentives and constraints, which raises new questions regarding the influence of scientists’ values on university research agendas. Our research builds on previous quantitative studies measuring changes in research outcomes and qualitative studies probing differentiation among scientists’ value orientations. We developed a nation-wide survey of 912 plant and animal biotechnology scientists at 60 research universities. Our analysis reveals that scientists’ value orientations on what we classify as “market” and “expert” science affect the amount of industry funding they receive, the proprietary nature of their discoveries, and the percentage of basic science research conducted in their laboratories. We also find that the percentage of industry funding is significantly associated with more applied research. Our findings provide insights for science and society theory and suggest that strong incentives for public-science research along with adequate public-research funds to preserve the university's vital role in conducting basic and non-proprietary research are needed to complement private-sector research investments at universities.     

The response to “roots”: A national survey

This study examines radio‐television columns in the newspapers to determine how columnists have responded to accelerating developments and issues in the electronic media. The indications are: show business as usual.     

Towards an Ethical Approach to Perspective-taking and the Teaching of Multicultural Texts: Getting Beyond Persuasion,Politeness and Political Correctness

This paper aims to problematize perspective-taking – an instructional practice widely thought to be useful in helping students develop the ability to better understand their own worlds and the worlds of others in multicultural texts. We provide examples that illustrate difficulties discovered in implementing a perspective-taking approach to teaching multicultural texts across three diverse classrooms. Specifically, these examples suggest that perspective-taking was perceived by students to be a rhetorical strategy that their teachers wanted them to acquire in the interests of persuasion, politeness, political correctness and uncritical tolerance. Through discussion of these examples this paper argues that in order for perspective-taking to be a valuable instructional strategy for teaching multicultural texts it must be grounded in a larger effort towards an ethical approach to response to multicultural texts – an effort by which teachers encourage ownership of initial responses, genuine and continual consideration of conflicting views, and a positioning of one's response in relation to those of others.     

CLASSROOM EXPERIENCES WITH NEW CURRICULUM MATERIALS DURING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PERFORMANCE STANDARDS IN MATHEMATICS: A CASE STUDY OF TEACHERS COPING WITH CHANGE

A qualitative case study was conducted to investigate the classroom experiences of three sixth-grade teachers and their mathematics coach as they worked with new instructional materials during the implementation of a new state-mandated curriculum based on performance standards in mathematics. Teachers' collective participation in the exploration of the new standards, selection of materials, participation in a summer professional development workshop specifically tied to the use of the new materials, and the creation of an in-school professional development program were catalysts in the teachers' perception of the need to change their practice. The intended state-level standards were implemented with some success; however, despite their desire to change their practice and in contrast to their belief that considerable change had occurred, the data suggest that the change in the teachers' instructional practice was minimal.