Children's Gender-Based Reasoning about Toys

The goal of these studies was to investigate how preschool children use gender-based reasoning in making judgments about toy preferences for themselves and for others. In Studies 1 and 2, children ( n = 22, n = 71) were shown unfamiliar, non-sex-typed toys and asked to rate how much they, other girls, and other boys would like each toy. As expected, children made gender-based inferences: "What I like, children of my sex will also like, and children of the other sex will not like." Study 3 was designed to assess how children use gender-based reasoning to make decisions about attractive and unattractive toys when they are given gender labels. Children ( n = 91) were shown unfamiliar toys varying in attractiveness that were given explicit gender labels (e.g., "this is a toy girls really like") or no label. With a different experimenter (to avoid demand characteristics), children rated their own and others' liking of the toys. Children used gender labels to guide their own preferences and their expectations for others. Even with very attractive toys, children liked toys less if they were labeled as being for the other sex, and expected other girls and boys to do the same. The role of gender-based reasoning in cognitive theories of gender and on children's play preferences is discussed.     

’Technical Culture’ and Technical Education in France: a consideration of the work of Claude Grignon and its relevance to British further education curricula

This paper examines Claude Grignon's empirical study of lower levels of vocational education in France. The concepts of technical culture and the morality of technical processes are explored. Grignon argues that the hidden curriculum of the Lycee for vocational education (Lycee d'Enseignement Professionel) socialises students into a worldview in which social relations are conflated with technical relations, and take on the appearance of the certainly of technical processes. Social control is exerted by excluding the possibility of ambiguity and change from this deterministic frame of reference. In the second part of the paper we seek to show that some of Grignon's analytic concepts may offer useful perspectives for analysing British Further Education curricula, by applying the concepts of technical and ‘technicised’ culture to some recent developments in British Further Education curricula.     

Schools of the Future

The speaker, Dr. Anna Hyer, considered that it was hardly surprising that developments in education are currently the subject of so much attention, since such changes are at the root of any social development, and opinion in the United States has never looked so frankly at the problems of society.     

Stakeholder analysis is key to client-supplier relationships of global outsourcing project success

Outsourcing as a logical consequence of globalization has caused a shift towards the integration of labour forces where communications play a significant role in the success of outsourcing partnerships. Utilizing the lens of an outsourced telecommunications case study we examine how a problematic client-supplier relationship across global loci was transformed by implementing a stakeholder analysis. We discuss how ineffectual project communications caused confusion, disinterest and apathy of client stakeholders challenging the outsourcing partnership. Our insight evidences not only the necessity to transparently address cultural challenges but emphasizes a crucial need to explicitly validate the different audiences. From the increased clarity and purpose provided it proved possible to instigate solutions such that real benefits to the project were realised. We suggest a number of key learning points as ‘lessons learnt’ to enlighten current and future practice of outsourcing relationships across global projects.     

What future for initial teacher education? New curriculum and new directions

This article analyses aspects of the implementation of the National Curriculum for initial teacher training (ITT). It focuses on the impact of the standards upon course design and structure and particularly the emphasis on the development of subject knowledge. The assessment of students in terms of subject knowledge and the standards for qualified teacher status (QTS) are explored alongside the development of partnership schools and mentoring programmes. The impact of external agencies such as OFSTED and the TTA is included in the discussion. Future implications for primary and secondary ITT programmes are considered.     

Complexities and compromises: The new era at Parkview School

This paper deals with the managing of externally imposed curriculum change from the teacher's perspective in a UK state-maintained school. When I delivered this paper at the AERA conference in Boston in 1990, it appeared that the substance of the paper was recognized as being as relevant to American educators as to their British counterparts. British teachers are now being required to teach to national specifications. These were legislated in the Educational Reform Act of 1988, with national curriculum and national prescribed assessment tasks for pupils at the ages of seven, eleven, fourteen, and sixteen. At the age of sixteen, pupils take a national examination called the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). The GCSE was introduced in September 1986, and for the first time in the history of English examinations, teachers had to teach from syllabuses that adhered to nationally prescribed criteria in all the major subjects of the curriculum. They were also obliged to assess the subject in the way specified. With the passing of the Educational Reform Act of 1988, the GCSE became the nationally prescribed assessment for all sixteen-year-olds.The American educational context has, for a long time, had to deal with decisions being made about curriculum and assessment outside the school. Mary Futrell (1986) states: Between 1983 and 1985, state legislations enacted more than 700 statutes stipulating what should be taught, how it should be taught, and by whom it should be taught (p. 1). This is now the situation in Britain, and so it would appear that much can be gained from an exchange of ideas between the UK and the United States about the impact that externally imposed curriculum change has on the organizational structure of schooling. I could quite easily have begun my paper with a quote by Ernest Boyer (1985), President of the Carnegie Foundation. This quote could refer to British as well as American teachers: Teachers feel that they have more responsibilities and less authority, less recognition, less empowerment to do their work (p. 1).The Parkview School is situated in a town in the southwest of England that has a variety of manufacturing and service industries. The school copes with problems familiar to schools in larger urban conurbations. The town has a center that suffers from urban decay and that over recent years has been demolished and rebuilt. The pupil population is composed of the full range of academic ability, pupils' families being in the middle- to low-income bracket. There is evidence of poverty and deprivation among the pupil population, and the more wealthy members of the population send their children to private independent schools. As is true of the majority of state schools in Britain, the Parkview School is underresourced, and education takes place in old, poorly maintained buildings. All schools in Britain are funded in a similar way regardless of the geographic area in which they are located. The schools share common organizational structures, have teachers on a national pay scale, and suffer from poor administrative backup.The issues, concerns, stresses, and tensions described in this paper will, I am sure, be familiar to educators on both sides of the Atlantic.     

Choosing Technologies for Education

The aim of this paper is to help towards the development of national policies for the use of communication technology in education. It suggests that policy should be shaped by answering five questions: what technology is convenient for the learner; what are the national constraints on technology choice; what makes curricular sense; what are the costs; what works for small states?.