The hope of biography: the historical recovery of women educator activists

UNESCO formed the concept of fundamental education in hopes that the programme could end poverty, bring world peace and serve indigenous people. When UNESCO’s first pilot project appeared to fail, the organisation developed centres where fundamental education workers learned to use such techniques as libraries, museum displays, films and radio, instruction in vernacular languages, and literacy campaigns. Modelled on progressive education, these techniques shared four tendencies that contradicted the aims of fundamental education. First, the programmes seemed to impose a modern scientific culture on indigenous societies. Second, the fundamental education workers found themselves manipulating indigenous people to accept what the programmes offered. Third, when officials used words aimed at helping, they seemed to mask the cultural traits that the programmes implied. Fourth, the fundamental education workers tended to translate failure as an indication of the need for increased efforts rather than as events questioning the wisdom of the programmes.     

A Survey of Cataloging Education: Are Library Schools Listening?

ABSTRACT

In recent years a number of surveys of cataloging education have been conducted, and each of those surveys has suggested changes in library education. This survey reviews the current state of cataloging education by evaluating courses taught by 47 ALA accredited programs and compares the results to previous studies. This study examined the types of cataloging courses offered in LIS programs to determine if the type of course taught has changed over time. Additionally, this study examined course offering frequencies to determine if LIS programs are making the kind of courses needed to train cataloging librarians available to their students. It is concluded that although LIS programs are continuing to offer and require introductory courses in cataloging and bibliographic control, they are relying more heavily on these introductory courses to provide the bulk of cataloging education.     

Academic Libraries as Digital Gateways: Linking Students to the Burgeoning Wealth of Open Online Collections

ABSTRACT

Digital collections of full-text e-books are proliferating on the Web and provide a wealth of open content for students. To examine whether academic libraries are providing a digital gateway to these resources, ten e-book titles from open digital collections were searched in the online catalogs and Web pages of ten academic libraries serving distance learners. Only three of the digital collection e-books were available from any of the library catalogs, and none were found on library Web pages. Availability of the ten e-book titles through Google and other digital discovery tools also had mixed results. Continued projects for improved delivery of open online content are necessary. In order to fulfill their role as digital gateways for their academic communities, libraries must pursue metadata standards to support cross-searching, collaborative projects, and development of e-resource search software, which integrates with the library catalog.     

Communications Research

Thomas F. Gordon and Mary Ellen Verna Mass Communication Effects and Processes: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1950-1975 (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1978—$15.00),

Charles Winick, Deviance and Mass Media (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1979—$18.50/8.95),

Mail and Telephone Surveys: The Total Design Method by Don A. Dillman (New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1979—$19.95)

Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and Education by J.P. Guilford and Benjamin Fruchter (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979—$16.00)

Jane T. Bertrand Communications Pretesting (Chicago: University of Chicago Community and Family Study Center, 1978—$3.50, paper)

Gary Gumpert and Robert Cathcart, Inter/Media: Interpersonal Communication in a Media World ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1979—$S.95, paper)     

Boys Will Be Boys and Girls Better Be Prepared: An Analysis of the Rare Sexual Health Messages in Young Adolescents' Media

Despite concerns about high rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease in the United States, the mass media adolescents attend to most frequently include little accurate information about sexual health. In this study, a preliminary quantitative analysis of the sexual content in four media (television, magazines, music, and movies) popular among 3,261 Black and White adolescents (12–14 years old) found that less than one half of 1% of the content included information about or depictions of sexually healthy behavior. A qualitative analysis of the relatively rare instances of sexual health content revealed that across all four media the sexual health content was ambiguous and/or inaccurate, reinforced traditional gender stereotypes that males seek sex and females are responsible for protection against pregnancy, and presented puberty as funny and contraception as embarrassing or humiliating. These analyses suggest that significant changes in the media's presentations of sexuality would be required if the media are ever to be considered a healthy part of adolescents' sexual socialization.     

Teaching Reading: Lessons from the Experts

There have been several investigations into the effective teaching of reading, but very few into the qualities of teachers who are effective practitioners in this area. In this article, the authors report some of the findings of a project commissioned by the Teacher Training Agency to investigate the characteristics of effective teachers of literacy. The effective teachers studied had a number of features in common, including a coherent set of beliefs about the importance of meaning in literacy teaching and an ability to help their pupils to make connections between language at the text, sentence and word levels.