The new books on our shelves

Safeguarding the School Board's Purchase of Architects' Working Drawings. By Arthur Marcus Proctor. New York: Columbia University, 1931. Pp. iii + 138.

The Platoon School in America. By Roscoe David Case. Stanford University: Stanford University Press, 1931. Pp. vii + 283.

Business Management in School Systems of Different Sizes. By M. B. Brunstetter. New York: Columbia University, 1931. Pp. v + 135.

Vegetable Growing. By James Edward Knott. Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger, 1930. Pp. xvi + 352.

Educational Finance Studies. By Carter Alexander. New York: Bureau of Publications, Columbia University, 1931. Pp. vi + 92.

Reserve Funds in Public School Finance. By Frank C. Ketler. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, 1931. Pp. vii + 77.

Students' Guide to Modern Languages. By Wilson. New York: Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1930.

Air Travel. By James E. Mooney. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930. Pp. xvi + 311.

The Art of Learning. By Walter B. Pitkin. New York: McGraw‐Hill Book Company, 1931. Pp. v + 409.

A Study of the Ohio Compulsory Education and Child Labor Law. By Arch O. Heck. Columbus: Ohio State University, 1931. Pp. v + 210.

My Educational Guidebook. By Robert H. Rodgers and Harry S. Belman. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1930. Pp. 24.     

Beyond Positivism: Research,Practice, and Undergraduate Professional Education

Undergraduate professional education programs are supposed to mediate the relationship between research and practice. The positivist conception of the curriculum and the research-practice relationship remain dominant today. Unfortunately, this positivist conception carries flawed views of the undergraduate curriculum and its mediating role. Research is inevitably incomplete and “silent” on aspects of practice. The positivist view ignores the necessity for problem-setting and the uncertainty, complexity, and diversity that are embedded in work practices. This view also brings unfounded assumptions about the effectiveness of courses and programs, the language of practice, the work epistemologies of practitioners, and practitioners' work organizations. An alternative conception is founded upon the realities and demands of practice. Rather than assuming that research can and should drive both undergraduate curricula and work practices, practice should serve as the source of coherence for both. Practitioners' work epistemologies, together with practice's uncertainty, complexity, and variability, require changes in research and undergraduate programs. Examples of these changes are explored, together with selected challenges for higher education in the 1990s.     

Paths Toward Professionalization

Recent research on children's sport participation motives is examined to provide insight about potential sources of stress in organized youth sports. It is concluded that affiliation, skill development, success and status, excitement, and fitness represent the most important general motive factors for young athletes. A four-stage model of stress is outlined, extant empirical literature on stress in youth sports is briefly reviewed within this framework, and implications of these findings with regard to the stressfulness of athletic competition for children are discussed. It is proposed that future stress research in youth sports examine coach-player and parent-player interactions, the antecedents of competitive trait anxiety, other sources of stress in addition to performance-and success-related demands, and the role of participation motivation as a moderator variable in players' responses to various stressors. The need for research with younger children and participants in individual sports also is addressed.     

Specialization and Fragmentation Among Faculty as Endemic Features of Academic Life

Proposals promising integration have been offered as solutions to problems of faculty specialization and fragmentation. Despite their merits, these proposals may be premature or even misguided. A prior need is to analyze the roots and processes of specialization and fragmentation. One kind of analysis begins with the relationship among professionalization, problem setting, and paradigmatic communities. In addition to emphasizing the import of institutional and societal contexts, this analytical frame of reference calls attention to issues of power, authority, resources, and prestige in higher education. Specialization and fragmentation are endemic in higher education, and proposals aimed at integration must accommodate both.     

School Reform,Families, and Health in the Emergent National Agenda for Economic and Social Improvement: Implications

The school reform movement is under way. Like previous reform movements, this one has competing constituencies and goals. There is, however, growing consensus among powerful constituencies about the roles of schools in an emergent national agenda. This agenda emphasizes economic and social improvement via school reform. It also prioritizes the relationship among schools, familes, family agencies, and health organizations; it invites changes in schools and their relationships with home environments and cornmunitybased, family, and health agencies. Schools, in varying degrees, are being “reinvented.” The question is not whether physical education will be impacted, but how. After all, reinvented schools imply reinvented subjects and subject-matter relationships, including the relationship between physical education and health education. There are attendant implications for the preparation of teachers and teacher educators. These and other implications invite proactive planning and decision making.     

Toward a Socioecological Conception of Health

Several academic fields in colleges and universities have claimed jurisdiction over research and practice regarding human health or specialized facets of it. Occasionally cooperating, but more frequently competing among themselves, these fields have been driven by underlying assumptions about a free-market, economic approach to health delivery systems and a still-dominant idea that health is merely a personal quality or state of being. With societal interest in health at an unprecedented high level, it is appropriate to examine critically this dominant conception of health and the market-oriented, competitive relationship that exists among these academic fields. The ensuing analysis begins with such a critique and then presents an alternative conception of health. This socioecological conception retains an emphasis upon individuals but expands the definition of health to include societal and environmental phenomena. Such a broad conception of health appears timely, and some of its implications are identified to support this observation.     

Capacity-Related Innovations Resulting From the Implementation of a Community Collaboration Model for School Improvement

A new genus of district and school improvement models entails partnerships with other organizations and new working relationships with families, community leaders, and youths. The Ohio Community Collaboration Model for School Improvement (OCCMSI) is one such model. It enables partners to leverage family and community resources for learning, healthy development, and overall success in school. This study presents qualitative research findings about the key capacities developed by 6 schools and 6 districts piloting the OCCMSI. Process and product innovations, as well as facilitators and barriers, were tracked as these sites progressed with their implementation efforts. Implications are drawn in relation to how these new and expanded capacities might be prioritized by district and school leaders, consultants, and other professionals involved in partnership-centered models of school improvement.