'The Kids are Doing All Right': Differences in parental satisfaction,expectation and attribution in St Petersburg,Sunderland and

Comparative studies of attitudes in different countries have resulted in the claim that parents in the USA and England tend to have unrealistically positive views of their children's schools and academic performance. Low expectations, together with a belief in the importance of natural ability, it has been argued, lead to low standards and reduce striving to succeed. The present study builds upon earlier investigations of children's attitudes, beliefs and behaviours in Sunderland, Eastern Kentucky and St Petersburg by surveying parental perspectives. Findings from these three regions reinforce earlier findings about English and American complacency and the more demanding nature of the Russian context. In line with our earlier studies, and contrary to the suggestion of a number of writers, an emphasis upon effort, rather than ability, was a strong feature of the English and American responses, although it is pointed out that such beliefs may not actually result in high work rates. The paper concludes by suggesting that the important role of parents in instilling important attitudes and behaviours in their children is undermined by the current emphasis upon schools as fundamentally responsible for ensuring high levels of achievement.     

Measuring students’ transition into university and its association with learning outcomes

Previously we showed how we measured pedagogy and revealed its association with learning outcomes of sixth‐form college mathematics students. In this project we followed a similar approach to the study of university transition. We particularly sought to identify the students’ perceptions of the transitional experience, and measure the association with learning outcomes. We drew on longitudinal surveys of students entering different programmes in five universities. Following them into their first year or so, allowed us to track their ‘disposition to complete the course’ and their ‘disposition to study more mathematics’, inter alia. We developed and validated two ‘fit‐for‐purpose’ measures of students’ perception of their transition, one we call ‘perception of the transitional gap/jump’ and one we call ‘degree of positive feeling about the transition’. We report some statistically and educationally significant associations between these and the students’ developing dispositions, and discuss the prospects for this approach to studying transition.     

Use and exchange value in mathematics education: contemporary CHAT meets Bourdieu’s sociology

Empirical work has shown how mathematics education exhibits certain tensions between its value as being practically useful to production and consumption on the one hand and in offering access to scarce resources on the other hand. These tensions can be ultimately traced to the contradictions in the way mathematical knowledge enhances the use value and exchange value of labour power, respectively. To understand this as a social psychological phenomenon, I look to two well-known theoretical perspectives on education, first that of the Marxist psychology of Vygotsky and activity theory (and contemporary cultural–historical activity theory) which I find tends to marginalise ‘exchange value’. Second, I look to Bourdieu’s sociology of education that tends to marginalise the use value. I then bring together these two perspectives in a joint theory of education as both development and re-production of labour power, in which use and exchange value both have their place (in commodity production). This helps explain where mathematics education might be critical.     

Making abstract mathematics concrete in and out of school

We adopt a neo-Vygotskian view that a fully concrete scientific concept can only emerge from engaging in practice with systems of theoretical concepts, such as when mathematics is used to make sense of outside school or vocational practices. From this perspective, the literature on mathematics outside school tends to dichotomise in- and out-of-school practice and glamorises the latter as more authentic and situated than academic mathematics. We then examine case study ethnographies of mathematics in which this picture seemed to break down in moments of mathematical problem solving and modelling in practice: (1) when amateur or professional players decided to investigate the mathematics of darts scoring to develop their “outing” strategies and (2) when a prevocational mathematics course task challenged would-be mathematics teachers’ concept of fractions. These examples are used to develop the Vygotskian framework in relation to vocational and workplace mathematics. Finally, we propose that a unified view of mathematics, outside and inside school, on the basis of Vygotsky’s approach to everyday and scientific thought, can usefully orientate further research in vocational mathematics education.     

Communication Research and General Media

William B. Fairley and Frederick Mosteller, eds. Statistics and Public Policy (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1977— price not given)

Julian L. Simon's Basic. Research Methods in Social Sciences: The Art of Empirical Investigation (New York: Random House, 1978—$14.95)

Delbert C. Miller's Handbook of Research Design and Social Measurement (New York: McKay, 1978—$14.95, with a paperback edition available)

James Monaco, ed. Media Culture and Celebrity: The Media as Image Makers (New York: Delta Books (Dell), 1978—$4.95 each, paper)     

Re-presenting the ‘forgotten estate’: participatory theatre,place and community identity

In this article, we discuss the work undertaken in the first phase of a participatory theatre project which took place on a council housing estate in the Midlands of England, in which residents were invited to share their memories for a production which would present the history of the estate. This community is often characterised as deficient, ageing, welfare-oriented, low in educational attainment and aspiration. Interviews and field notes suggest that there was not a great amount of hope within the community for the success of a participatory arts project such as this. However, the performance attracted a large number of participants who performed to full houses over five nights. Using a place-based approach, we argue that a model of open participation led to the presentation of alternative, more positive, narratives of this community as a place to live.