Visual materials on local television news programs

When sight was added to sound, the problems of presenting the news of the day multiplied, as did the cost of such coverage. Nevertheless, few news directors are satisfied with the strict “man‐on‐camera” approach; they prefer to use the additional information channel for a certain amount of visual augmentation of the audio channel's content. Beacuse television stations in a given market rarely have a chance to examine the output of stations in other markets, the survey reported in the following article was made'. Both the sources of visual news materials and their uses are studied in a sample of midwestern stations. It is interesting to examine this report after a review of William Hazard's study for the Radio‐Television News Directors Association, “Adequacy of Coverage by Still Picture and Film Services” published in the Journal of Broadcasting, Vol. IV, No. 1, pp. 64–76, Winter, 1959–60.     

Dangerous learning in edgy contexts: creativity and innovation in the South African arts domain

In this paper, we outline a pilot project aimed at exploring the role of contextual factors in the facilitation of creativity and innovation within a range of South African art forms. Interviews with 11 people who have rich experience of the South African art domain delivered an insightful perspective on the contextual factors driving lifelong creativity and its continuous realization in innovative outcomes within these art forms.     

No Light at the End of Tunnel Vision: Steps for Improving Lesson Plans

The authors of this article believe that the current structure of lesson plans impede differentiation, individualization, and innovation and offer little in assessing the quality of teaching and learning. Concrete steps will be offered for planning to better respond to student diversity in meeting lesson objectives.     

Questions of (re)production and legitimation: A second screening of three films on teacher-student relations

This study considers three Hollywood films that take, as their subject, a teacher-hero confronted with a 'problem' group of students and, as their narrative, the rehabilitation of these students and the resolution of their problems. Employing a Bourdieuian analysis, we attempt a second screening of these films on two levels: first, by stepping inside these celluloid classrooms, so to speak, and narrating a different text, one that is spoken from the position of students and which challenges each film's portrayal of good people achieving fine things; and secondly, by screening for gaps in their accounts of schooling, exposing their limited frames of reference and their legitimacy to speak on behalf of authentic classrooms. The first of these projects is undertaken as a way of challenging teachers and interested others to be wary of uncritical readings of popular images of teaching, whereas the second provides a beginning from which to consider how teachers' pedagogy and school curricula can be informed by a radical democratic view of education - how teachers might embrace the foreign.     

The learner experience of Curriculum 2000: implications for the reform of 14–19 education in England

In September 2000, new qualifications for 16–19 year olds, known as Curriculum 2000, were introduced in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland with the aim of broadening the advanced level curriculum. It was left to schools, colleges, and their learners, however, to decide how these new qualifications would be used to build learner programmes of study. In this voluntarist context, the views and actions of learners have been an important factor in determining the course of the reforms. This article, which is based primarily on a study of 42 learners in a school/college consortium in the south west of England, provides a chronological account of learner experiences of these reforms during their first 2 years of implementation. The consortium discussed here offered a high‐volume study programme similar in size and content to those being proposed by the Tomlinson Working Group on 14–19 curriculum and qualifications reform in England. Learners found their expanded programmes onerous, due in part to the nature of the new qualifications and in part to the context of their implementation. The article concludes by identifying a number of policy lessons for 14–19 reform arising from this research.     

New Labour's cultural turn: some tensions in contemporary educational and cultural policy

The election of a Labour government in Britain, after 18 years of Conservative rule, has seen the emergence of a new educational discourse, based on a distinctive combination of cultural, economic and social themes. In this article, we identify the components of the discourse, and explore how it is currently deployed in arguments for educational change. Specifically, our focus is on two recent documents: All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (NACCCE 1999), produced by an Advisory Committee appointed by the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS); and Making Movies Matter (FEWG 1999) by the Film Education Working Group, set up by the British Film Institute at the request of the DCMS. Embodying in separate ways the features of the emergent discourse, these texts also position themselves very differently in relation to current educational policy. Through a critique of the reports, we identify some of the broader difficulties of the ‘cultural turn’ in education, and the possibility of a more productive alternative.     

Middle years and middle schools: an analysis of national policy

The terms ‘primary education’ and ‘primary schools’ were in use long before 1945. However, it was not until 1 April 1945 that primary education became the first of three statutory stages of the English education system. At that time, primary education faced an uncertain future because of the enormous problems it had inherited from the elementary school tradition. This article charts the early challenges that were faced during the years of World War II and immediate post-war period.     

From course assessment to redesign: a hybrid-vehicle course as a case illustration

Assessment has become a central aspect of engineering education for evaluating student learning, attaining accreditation, and ensuring accountability. However, the final step of the assessment process, which requires assessment results be used to redesign courses and programmes, is appreciably underdeveloped in the literature. As such, this work suggests a process, based on the engineering problem-solving method, to analyse and act on problems and successes identified in the assessment results. The process is illustrated through an application to Colorado State University's new programme for Hybrid-Electric Vehicle Engineering, for which the redesign process was originally created. Readers will benefit by simplifying and systematising the essential aspect of the assessment process – application to course redesign – for use in both research and practice applications.     

Towards a broader understanding of authority in student–teacher relationships

In this paper we problematise the notion of authority as it appears in discourse relating to school discipline. The account of authority that dominates is narrow and restricted, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for control. This prohibits full consideration of the range of relationships in which authority manifests itself. We draw on sociological and philosophical literature, and argue that a multi-dimensional concept of authority may offer a more nuanced framework for theorising student–teacher relationships in schools. We consider how each of the forms of authority outlined by Wrong (2002 Wrong, D. H. 2002. Power: its forms bases and uses, 3rd edn., London: Transaction Publishers.  [Google Scholar])—coercive, legitimate, competent, personal and authority by inducement—may have some application to the classroom setting. In particular we explore the concept of ‘personal authority' and its potential to enhance understanding of the contested and under-theorised concept of authority. We begin by exploring ways in which the current policy context presents challenges to particular forms of authority.