Archetypal narratives in career counselling: a chaos theory application

This paper seeks to extend previous work on narrative career counselling by considering the role of plot within clients’ narratives. Seven archetypal narratives derived from the work of Booker (2004) are introduced that represent systems of meaning to provide insight into how individuals interpret their experience. These plots can be understood within the Chaos Theory of Careers (CTC) in terms of the attractors contained within the client narratives. Identifying the plots provides new insights into the nature of career development difficulties and how client stories may be reformulated.     

Exploring the Use of Cases and Case Methods in Influencing Elementary Preservice Science Teachers' Self-Efficacy Beliefs

In this study, we hypothesize that cases demonstrating exemplary practice in the science classroom can be used as a source for learning content and pedagogical skills that will improve teachers' self-efficacy beliefs. Twelve preservice elementary science teachers are followed as they participate in a case and case method activity illustrating the Grade 7 topic of robotics and fluids. While there was little evidence to show improvements in content knowledge, results indicate that the case acted as a boundary object for brokering between individual experiences and those found in the science teaching community by scaffolding for multiple points of entry, bridging the theory practice gap and offering beginning teachers more immediate access to the community of already practicing teachers.

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Which future,university or bureaucracy?

This article is critical of major institutions of higher education because they often establish criteria for rewarding professors and organizational processes that have little to do with developing a real university. The author argues for the reconstruction of universities based on values of freedom and responsibility. A model based on such values, a creative university is developed and contrasted with educational bureaucracies. Arguments are given to favor the creative university as our best hope for the future.     

Teachers’ Perceptions of Factors Influencing the Curriculum

This paper describes a two‐part investigation into how teachers perceive the curriculum. In the primary stage, teachers were asked to assess how much freedom they felt they should have to determine the content of what they taught in their own classrooms, and how much freedom they fell they actually had, in this respect. A sample of 196 teachers, from varied schools and teaching backgrounds, took part. It was found that there was a very definite tendency to take a ‘middle way’ between total freedom and total constraint, in both cases. By and large, these teachers seemed to feel that they should have some freedom to determine what they taught in their own classrooms, but that there should be restraints as well. The general lack of discrepancy between what the teachers wanted, and what they felt they had, seemed to indicate that the great majority of the teachers were happy with the situation as they perceived it.

The same sample of 196 teachers was then asked to assess thirty varied potential influences, in terms of their power to shape the content of what they themselves taught in their own classroom. These potential influences included LEA advisers, parents, school governors, national educational associations etc. A factor analysis of the ratings made by the respondents showed that they regarded EXTERNAL‐PROFESSIONAL influences as the most important of all. This category included such influences as local colleges, and universities, national reports (such as the Warnock Report), professional journals and articles, local teachers’ centres, LEA advisory personnel, H.M. Inspectorate, etc. Four other types of influence were seen as important, but the EXTERNAL‐PROFESSIONAL category was seen as the most important by far. It was concluded that teachers’ perceptions of the influences which they felt shaped their curricula were positive and optimistic.     

Sex differences in the etiology of aggressive and nonaggressive antisocial behavior: results from two twin studies

Recent theory and results from twin and adoption studies of children and adolescents suggest greater genetic influence on aggressive as compared to nonaggressive antisocial behavior. In addition, quantitative or qualitative differences in the etiology of these behaviors in males and females have been indicated in the literature. The Child Behavior Checklist was completed by the parents of 1022 Swedish twin pairs aged 7-9 years and of 501 British twin pairs aged 8-16 years. Genetic factors influenced aggressive antisocial behavior to a far greater extent than nonaggressive antisocial behavior, which was also significantly influenced by the shared environment. There was a significant sex difference in the etiology of nonaggressive antisocial behavior. Bivariate analyses supported the conclusion that the etiologies of aggressive and nonaggressive antisocial behavior differ for males and females.     

Sustaining education for sustainability in turbulent times

A study of two schools in northern Australia demonstrated the impact on Education for Sustainability (EfS) initiatives of a disruptive policy environment set in motion by neoliberal reforms focused on standards, accountability, and international competitiveness. In one of the schools, a culture characterized by trust and an emphasis on cultivating teacher and student strengths and interests contributed to the resilience of these initiatives in the face of outside pressures. In the other, administrators preoccupied with the need to implement state mandates with fidelity failed to nurture and develop a collection of remarkable EfS projects and activities.     

The 1989 Research Selectivity Exercise: A Statistical Analysis of Differences in Research Rating between Universities at the Cost Centre Level

This paper reviews the outcomes of the 1988/9 UFC research selectivity exercise and uses these as a basis for recommendations to those undertaking the 1992/3 exercise. Attention is drawn to disparities between subjects which may result in inefficient allocations at institutional level. Of eight factors incorporated into a statistical model only size of cost centre is consistently associated with research selectively score. The only other variable that influences an individual cost centre's score in the majority of subject areas is that institution's score in other subjects - thus suggesting a 'halo' effect. Surprisingly, research expenditure per member of staff is not strongly associated with reseach selectively rating.