The Logics of Good Teaching in an Audit Culture: A Deleuzian analysis

This article examines the attempted reform of education within an emerging audit culture in Australia that has led to the implementation of a high-stakes testing regime known as NAPLAN. NAPLAN represents a machine of auditing, which creates and accounts for data that are used to measure, amongst other things, good teaching. In particular, we address the logics of a policy intervention that aims to improve the quality of education through returning ‘good teaching’. Using Deleuze’s concepts of series, events, copies and simulacra, we suggest that an attempt to return past commonsense logics of ‘good teaching’ as a result of NAPLAN is not possible. In an audit culture as exemplified by NAPLAN, ‘good teaching’ is being reconceptualized through those practices and becomes unrecognizable. Whilst policy claims to improved equity and quality are admirable, this article suggests that the simulacral change to logics of good teaching may actualize something very different.     

A Review of: “Forgiveness,Reconciliation, and Moral Courage: Motives and Designs for Ministry in a Troubled World”

Traise Yamamoto, a professor of English and a scholar of biographical studies, made the following remark in her book Masking Selves, Making Subjects (1999). She wrote, “Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) women's autobiographies are frustratingly un-autobiographical” (103). Yamamoto, who is a Japanese-American woman herself, saw the lack of personal disclosures and intimate self-reflections in many such works. This grounded-theory research on a group of elderly Nisei Christian women uncovered five oppressive influences from their life journeys, which may have discouraged the Nisei women from expressing and addressing human being's most basic concerns such as one's self worth and one's central philosophy of life.     

Sleep and the body mass index and overweight status of children and adolescents

Associations between sleep and the body mass index (BMI) and overweight status of children and adolescents were estimated using longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of 2,281 children aged 3–12 years at baseline. Controlling for baseline BMI, children who slept less, went to bed later, or got up earlier at the time of the first assessment had higher BMIs 5 years later and were more likely to be overweight. Child age moderated the relationship between bedtime and BMI. In addition, the study reports nationally representative data on the sleep habits of American children aged 3–18 years. This study underscores the likely importance of sleep on children's physical health and suggests that sleep is important for understanding childhood weight problems.     

6. GENERAL MEDIA

Robert D. Singer and Robert M. Kaplan, eds. &;ldquo;Television and Social Behavior,&;rdquo; The Journal of Social Issues 32:4 (Fall 1976, $4.00 per copy from Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Publication Office, Box 1248, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106)

Jon Baggaley and Steve Duck's Dynamics of Television (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books [D.C. Heath] , 1977—$15.00

Symposium on Television Violence(Ottawa: Printing and Publishing Supply and Services Canada, 1976—$5.00 in Canada; $6.00 to other countries, paper [also available in the U.S. from Unipub in New York—for $9.25, paper] )

Toward a National Endowment for Children's Broadcasting (Center for Action Research, 20 Nassau St. [Suite 211] , Princeton, N.J. 08540—apparently free on request)

Maureen Harmonay, ed. ACT's Guide to TV Programming for Children— Promise and Performance: Children with Special Needs (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing Co. [Lippincott] , 1977—$1230/6.95)

Scott H. Robb's Television/ Radio Age Communications Coursebook (Communications Research Institute, 25 Central Park West [Suite 1B] , New York, N.Y. 10023—$14.50, looseleaf format).

Claude and Barbara Hall's This Business of Radio Programming (Billboard Publications, 1515 Broadway, New York 10036—$15.95)

Frazier, Gross &; Clay Inc.'s Raio in 1985 (Washington: National Association of Broadcasters, 1977—$10.00 to non-members; $5.00 to members, paper)

Traveling F.M. Radio Guide (And/or Press, P.O. Box 2246, Berkeley, Calif. 94702— $2.95, paper     

Emotional and psychological well-being in children: the development and validation of the Stirling Children’s Well-being Scale

The Stirling Children’s Well-being Scale (SCWBS) was developed by the Stirling Council Educational Psychology Service (UK) as a holistic, positively worded measure of emotional and psychological well-being in children aged eight to 15 years. Drawing on current theories of well-being and Positive Psychology, the aim was to provide a means of measuring the effectiveness of interventions and projects designed to promote children’s well-being and emotional development.

A total of 18 schools and 1849 children participated in the construction and validation of the scale, which ultimately emerged as a short, robust measure comprising 12 items. The scale is offered for use by educational and health professionals interested in promoting and measuring the emotional development and well-being of children and the effectiveness of interventions.     

VOICES IN EDUCATION: ACCOUNTABILITY IN TEACHER EDUCATION AND THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER QUALITY

Abstract

This article explains several reasons why multicultural preservice teacher education is important and suggests some ways it can be better accomplished. The authors make a strong case for teacher education programs to be more deliberate about preparing European Americans to teach ethnically diverse students of color. They argue that this explicit professional preparation is needed because of the increasing racial, cultural, and linguistic divide between teachers (predominately European American) and K–12 students (increasingly from ethnic groups of color). Two other factors underscore the need for more multicultural teacher education: the fear of diversity and the resistance to dealing with race and racism frequently expressed by students enrolled in teacher education programs. To overcome these problems and better prepare preservice teachers to work effectively with ethnically diverse students the authors suggest a two‐part program of professional development.     

The importance of school culture in supporting student mental health in secondary schools. Insights from a qualitative study

Schools have the potential to provide a place of education and sanctuary for children and young people of all backgrounds. The rise in mental health problems in children and young people in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in relation to growing inequities, means that identifying ways in which schools can help respond to this growing mental health crisis demands urgent attention. This paper reports on case studies carried out in two London comprehensive schools, exploring how aspects of school culture impact (both positively and negatively) on student mental health. Methods comprised in-depth interviews with school staff and parents, focus groups with students and documentary analysis of relevant materials. Fieldwork was conducted during spring 2021 as schools were returning to face-to-face learning following national periods of lockdown. Our study shows how schools might attempt to drive positive mental health outcomes through aspects of school culture and uses a system framework to explore complexities around cause and effect in this area. Key findings include the considerable differences in school mental health provision, challenges in the identification of student mental health needs and the importance of recognising how the mental health of teachers must be considered alongside that of students. Overall, we highlight particular dilemmas of the post-lockdown era that our findings indicate for the education sector, and suggest there may be value in reframing the apparent conflict between ‘attainment gaps’ and personal development, moving towards an educational approach with greater complementarity of these aims.     

The Presidential Sound: From Orotund to Instructional Speech, 1892–1912

At the turn of the twentieth century, the sound of presidential address changed from an orotund style to an instructional style. The orotund style had featured the careful pronunciation of consonants, elongated vowels, trilled r's and repeated declamations. The instructional style, on the other hand, mimicked the conversational lectures of the professor. The shift from orotund to instructional was activated by the arrival of millions of foreign language–speaking immigrants, the increasing power of the working class, and concerns over the effects of sedentary employment on the men who had formerly dominated politics. These pressures culminated in a questioning of the manliness of the orotund style. Theodore Roosevelt, whose manliness had been questioned in the 1880s, responded by writing volumes about manliness and adopting the instructional style in his presidential oratory at the turn of the twentieth century.     

Reading Disabled Students’ Word Recognition Abilities: An Elementary and Secondary Perspective

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to describe and compare three word recognition abilities of reading disabled students. One hundred and fifty (150) reading disabled pupils, 75 elementary and 75 high school, were randomly selected to participate in this study. Correlated t‐test procedures were used to process the data. The dependent variables were the students’ analytical, phonics, and context analysis word recognition abilities as measured by the Wide Range Achievement Test, Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test, and 12 cloze passages. Results indicated that elementary and secondary reading disabled pupils have significant differences in their ability to use the three different word recognition abilities investigated. Implications for minimum competency testing in reading were discussed.     

Ethnic Differences in Children's Intelligence Test Scores: Role of Economic Deprivation, Home Environment, and Maternal Characteristics

We examine differences in intelligence test scores of black and white 5-year-olds. The Infant Health and Development Program data set includes 483 low birthweight premature children who were assessed with the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence. These children had been followed from birth, with data on neighborhood and family poverty, family structure, family resources, maternal characteristics, and home environment collected over the first 5 years of life. Black children's IQ scores were 1 SD lower than those of white children. Adjustments for ethnic differences in poverty reduced the ethnic differential by 52%. Adjustments for maternal education and whether the head of household was female did not reduce the ethnic difference further. However, differences in home environment reduced the ethnic differential by an additional 28%. Adjustments for economic and social differences in the lives of black and white children all but eliminate differences in the IQ scores between these two groups.