The regulation of transnational higher education in Southeast Asia: Case studies of Hong Kong, Malaysia and Australia

The millennium round of the General Agreement on Tradein Services (GATS) underlines issues relating to the regulationof education as an internationally traded service. Transnationaleducation is a key component of such trade. Southeast Asia issomething of a laboratory in the development and regulation oftransnational education. The region combines high demand, keencompetition among providers, and host country regulatory regimesranging from relatively laissez faire to strongly interventionist.This paper examines the approaches of three Southeast Asiangovernments – Hong Kong, Malaysia and Australia – to theregulation of transnational education within their borders. Ineach case the authors provide background on the higher educationsystem, describe the regulatory approaches to transnationaleducation, and analyse the motivations behind regulation. Boththe neoliberal approach of the WTO to trade in educationalservices, and critiques of this approach, are outlined. Theauthors conclude that any attempts to promote global standards orquality principles for transnational education must address themyriad concerns of governments, including consumer protection,advancing national goals and protecting the local system.     

Stakeholders’ perceptions and recommendations of a high school leadership development programme for athletes in Singapore

ABSTRACT

This study examined the perceptions of key stakeholders of a high school athlete leadership development training programme. Participants included 36 athletes (males = 23, females = 13) from two team sports (rugby n = 11 and volleyball n = 6) and two individual sports (bowling n = 8 and table tennis n = 11), as well as four coaches representing each of these sports and four teachers. Individual interviews were conducted for coaches, teachers, and athlete leaders, while athletes took part in focus group interviews. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyse all data sets. Results showed that the athlete leadership programme developed qualities such as responsibility, role modelling, motivation, communication, perseverance, and team unity that would help athlete leaders perform their roles and responsibilities. The results also highlighted some limitations including earlier involvement from key stakeholders, tailored training for athlete leaders, and a more effective transfer of learning.     

Higher prevalence of childhood sexual abuse among Latino men who have sex with men than non-Latino men who have sex with men: data from the Urban Men's Health Study

OBJECTIVE: The prevalence of childhood sexual abuse among Latino adult men who have sex with men who live in the US was estimated because a history of childhood sexual abuse increases HIV sexual risk behaviors and other negative health outcomes in adulthood. METHOD: The Urban Men's Health Study is a random-digit telephone probability survey of 2881 adult men who have sex with men (MSM) aged 18 years or older residing in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Self-reported history of childhood sexual abuse was the main outcome measure gathered from 2692 MSM. RESULTS: A significantly higher proportion of Latino MSM reported sexual abuse before age 13 (22%) than did non-Latino MSM (11%). CONCLUSIONS: Latino MSM are twice as likely to report a history of childhood sexual abuse than are non-Latino MSM. Given the association between childhood sexual abuse and increased risk for HIV and other negative health outcomes, health providers must remain vigilant to the possibility of childhood sexual abuse histories among their Latino patients.     

Beyond Relative Autonomy Theories of the State in Education

This paper argues against C. Fritzell's claim that relative autonomy theory “has substantial potential within the sociology of education”. It is argued that the inconsistencies in both conception and application of this approach have led to the virtual omission of the sphere of the state from the neo‐Marxist sociology of education. This omission seriously limits research into the politics of education and leads to analyses that are over‐generalised or reductionist, and which tend to make untestable assertions about the relationship between state structures and state agents. The notions of ‘limits’ and ‘capacity’ are examined as being possible analytic tools to promote more adequate reconceptualisations of the state in education.     

Variations in the Availability and Quality of Early Childhood Education and Care by Socioeconomic Status of Neighborhoods

Research Findings: This article provides Australian evidence of the availability and quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services in low–socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods. There is less availability of ECEC in low-SES areas in Australia, and these programs provide a lower average quality of care than in more advantaged neighborhoods. Families tend to travel short distances to ECEC programs (Mdn = 2.9 km), and therefore families in low-SES areas are limited in the programs they can choose or are faced with higher transport costs than families in more advantaged neighborhoods. This study uses government licensing data from a population of 6,937 ECEC services together with a sample of 2,494 children enrolled in 421 ECEC classrooms. Practice or Policy: Established measures of the local ECEC market tend to overestimate its size and in turn the availability of ECEC. Measures of ECEC market density should be tested for sensitivity to reductions in size. SES gradients are observed within local ECEC markets, meaning that attempts to lift supply and quality in low-SES areas require specific and targeted policy intervention.     

Threats to student evaluative judgement and their management

ABSTRACT

Students’ capacity for making evaluative judgements of their own work is widely acknowledged as central to their learning within programmes as well as being vital to their subsequent professional practice. In higher education literature, the act of evaluative judgement is usually portrayed as a process of deliberative, analytical reasoning requiring student agency and objectivity, typically scaffolded by points of reference such as explicit criteria, rubrics or exemplars. This article challenges this common portrayal of judgement by drawing attention to research from outside higher education on the role of unconscious factors in judgement and decision-making. Drawing from the field of heuristics and bias studies, the article outlines six unconscious factors that have the potential to distort students’ analytical judgement of their work. A recent challenge to the heuristics and bias approach that radically repositions the place of reasoning in judgement is also considered. Since these unconscious factors have received scant attention in higher education literature, the purpose of this article is to draw attention to them, to identify the challenges they pose to current understandings of evaluative judgement, and to outline their implications for enhancing assessment practice.     

Difficulties in defining mobile learning: analysis,design characteristics,and implications

Educational technology research and development - Mobile learning, or m-learning, has become an umbrella term for the integration of mobile computing devices within teaching and learning. In the...     

How can we Teach History through Television?

This article contrasts the often ambivalent attitudes of teachers towards television and generalised research on teachers’ uses of television, with detailed empirical evidence from primary school history co‐ordinators describing their reactions to and expectations of the medium. The data describes a wide variety of reasons why television is educationally useful in the teaching and learning of history. The argument is articulated that teachers and children can be sophisticated viewers of televisual schools history, offering useful guidelines for programme makers; but that teacher conservatism and lack of advisory support for teachers’ deployment of the medium may be hindering its educational effectiveness.