Managerialism and equalities: tensions within widening access policy and practice for disabled students in UK universities

This paper draws on a four-year longitudinal ESRC funded project examining learning experiences of disabled students in higher education in four universities. The focus here is on institutional responses to the demands of audit culture and legislation in relation to making reasonable adjustments for students with impairments. The data comes from institutional documents and face-to-face interviews with key informants within the institutions. The findings indicate that quality assurance regimes and legislation have had some positive effect on improving access for disabled students; however, local factors and type of institution also have a major impact on the way that national policies are expressed in particular contexts.     

A study of race and gender bias in the punishment of handicapped school children

There is scant research concerned about punishment of handicapped, minority students in public schools. The purpose of this study was to investigate race and gender, types of rules violations, types of punishments, referral rates, referral frequencies, and follow-up activities to determine differences in treatment by race, sex, and handicapping condition. The sample consisted of 4,391 discipline files representing records from 9 schools in a district (K-12). All data were analyzed using the Chi Square statistic. It was demonstrated that racial bias existed in the administration of punishment, and that Black, male handicapped students were punished more severely than others for commission of the same offenses.     

Open-field behavior of wild and domestic Norway rats

The open-field behavior of wild and domestic Norway rats was compared in 15-min tests administered over 5 successive days. Wild rats exhibited more ambulation, jumping, grooming, and time inactive than domestic rats and spent more time along the arena wall. Within- and between-trial changes in behavior were generally greater for wild rats. Factor analyses revealed major loadings on factors identified as “locomotor behavior” and “grooming.” Support was obtained for the hypothesis that domestication has raised the threshold for avoidance-escape behavior in response to a novel environment.     

Social working memory: Memory for another rat's spatial choices can increase or decrease choice tendencies

In two experiments using a radial-arm maze, pairs of rats made choices among eight maze locations, each containing a large quantity of one of two food types. The choices made by 1 rat affected the choices made by the other rat. Under most conditions, visits by 1 rat increased the tendency of the other rat to subsequently choose that maze location. However, the effect depended on the quality of the food available in a particular location. When it was possible for the rats to observe each other on the maze arms and a rat had experienced that a location contained the less preferred food type, a previous visit to that location by the foraging partner decreased the tendency to visit that location. These effects are attributed to working memory for the spatial choices of another rat, and they indicate that memory produced by a rat’s own visit to a maze location is integrated with memory for the behavior of another rat to determine spatial choice     

Designing a college web-based course using a modified personalized system of instruction (PSI) model

Conclusion With proper planning and attention to instructional design, Web-based courses can provide a convenient and instructionally sound method of course delivery. The PSI model is a proven model that can be applied to many Webbased courses     

Examining the role of school psychologists as providers of mental and behavioral health services

The school setting represents the most common setting by which youth receive mental and behavioral health (MBH) services (Farmer et al., 2003, Psychiatr Serv, 54, 60–66). Nevertheless, many school psychologists are not providing MBH services despite the high prevalence of need. Additional research is needed to understand factors leading to these deficits, as well as potential solutions to ameliorate these concerns. The current study surveyed 341 school psychologists across seven states and found current ratios are one school psychologist for every 1,500–2,000 students. Study results suggest school psychologists are providing a half to full day of universal, prevention-oriented MBH services each week whereas more targeted, direct services (e.g., individual or small group counseling) are offered 1–4 hr each week. The school psychologist-to-student ratios also demonstrated a statistically significant and inverse association with the provision of targeted MBH services, with higher ratios resulting in fewer MBH services. Respondents provided potential solutions for how to expand the delivery of MBH services within schools, including increased awareness and support among school and district administrators, as well as access to training and professional development related to MBH services.     

The natural sciences,the social sciences and politics

Conclusion The social sciences stand at a strange crossroads. There is a greater need for disciplined inquiry into the issues of policy facing the United States. Yet the incentives in the political system, and in the professional guilds of those performing social research, discourage a close involvement of many prominent social scientists with policy. The political system, fearing an elite imposing its values on society, welcomes the natural scientist who seems to conform to the model of the politically neutral expert who solves problems and addresses facts. This model also fits the higher ranks of the civil service, made up of specialists rather than generalist administrators, and the outside advisers serving officials concerned with high policy. Likewise, to protect themselves from changes of partisanship, leading academic social scientists forsake policy concerns for topics within the analytic traditions of Weberian Wertfreiheit. Just as Weber sought to avoid censorship by value neutral scholarship, the modern social scientist disdains the normative concerns of policy in favour of more tractable, morally neutral issues defined as the core of the discipline.The country needs to draw some of the best analytical talent in the social science community into the policy process and advisory roles. Disciplined inquiry cannot be left only to technicians whose professional interests are far removed from political, economic, social and other human sciences. To promote better policy and better social science, we should encourage serious, professionally grounded inquiry into social values, the directions of policy, and the role and proper limits of state power. In the clamour of American politics, there is little danger that policy will be monopolised by an elite group, but considerable danger that debate on policy will be impoverished by the absence of those most knowledgeable about social and economic reality.A revised and expanded version of the first Dael L. Wolfle Lecture given on 6 October, 1987, at the Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Washington, Seattle. Don K. Price was dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and is the author ofGovernment and Science (1954),The Scientific Estate (1965) andAmerica's Unwritten Constitution (1983). He has held senior posts in the United States Bureau of the Budget, the Defense Research and Development Board, and the Ford Foundation, and was an adviser to Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson.     

How do we rate? An evaluation of online student evaluations

This paper analyses the popular RateMyProfessors (RMP) website where students evaluate instructors in higher education. A study was designed to measure (1) the awareness and utilisation of the RMP website, (2) the internal and external validity of the RMP ratings in measuring teaching effectiveness, and (3) variation in the above across disciplines. It is concluded that the category of ratings, created by the website, establishes an anti‐intellectual tone that manifests itself in comments about instructors’ personality, easiness of workload and entertainment value rather than knowledge attained.