Serials standards work: the next frontier

Serials, one of the more complicated areas of library technical endeavors, has lacked the benefit of standards for a long time. Even now, with standards beginning to be available, the majority of institutions are not working within standard serials formats. A survey to determine the use of serials standards in libraries was conducted in 1988 by the American Library Association, Resources and Technical Services Division, Serials Section, Committee to Study Serials Standards. In the spring of 1988 a survey was sent to a group encompassing the Association of Research Libraries members, CONSER participants, United States Newspaper Program participants, Microform Project libraries, and some vendors and librarians who attended the Committee meetings on a regular basis. The survey questionnaire assessed the current level of serials standards awareness of librarians and vendors. Topics included the type of serials systems used, standards relevant to serials control and union listing and whether or not they are implemented, types and levels of training staff received in the application of standards, benefits of the standards, and areas where standards are most needed.     

The international geophysical year in Antarctica: Uncommon collaborations, unprecedented results

When 1 July 1957 “dawned” in the dark of the south polar night, Americans at seven scientific stations scattered across Antarctica officially began systematic, synoptic observations of the air above and ice below. Joining scientists from 11 other countries on the polar continent, they were part of the International Geophysical Year, an 18-month worldwide effort to understand the earth and its environment. The Navy and other military services provided the transportation, construction, and maintenance to make life and work possible on the ice. The scientific success and value of the IGY inspired a mechanism—the Antarctic Treaty of 1959—for a peaceful future focused on the cooperative pursuit of scientific knowledge. While imperfect and fragile, the treaty is still in force and, with continuing military and civilian support, scientific research in Antarctica prospers. All this was achieved in a remarkably short time, by disparate, thinly acquainted, mutually wary cultures—military, scientific, and diplomatic. All the more astonishing is that it happened within the tense context of the Cold War, as statesmen and warriors were wise enough to allow “apolitical” scientists to lead where they could not.     

Gender Development in Transgender Preschool Children

An increasing number of transgender children—those who express a gender identity that is “opposite” their natal sex—are socially transitioning, or presenting as their gender identity in everyday life. This study asks whether these children differ from gender‐typical peers on basic gender development tasks. Three‐ to 5‐year‐old socially transitioned transgender children (n = 36) did not differ from controls matched on age and expressed gender (n = 36), or siblings of transgender and gender nonconforming children (n = 24) on gender preference, behavior, and belief measures. However, transgender children were less likely than both control groups to believe that their gender at birth matches their current gender, whereas both transgender children and siblings were less likely than controls to believe that other people's gender is stable.     

Visions for ICT, Ethics and the Practice of Teachers

The failure of educational computing is often attributed to deficiencies of practice: resisting teachers and lack of will, competence and sincerity on behalf of the teaching profession. But the complexity of school life and teachers work has been underestimated by the entrepreneurs of educational computing. Theoretically there is a need to approach this area from a different angle. We will suggest there is a need to reframe the issue of ICT in schools with educational policy and discourse with education, rather than with technology in mind. In order to reach that goal there is a need to inculcate technology as an ordinary part of teachers vocabulary about their own work and as a part of their professional ethos. Teachers need to examine the moral values inherent in their practices and use those values as bases for debate. Not taking up these issues and instead adopting defensive stances is dangerous to the profession. The danger is that defensiveness can be seen by others outside the school as rigidity and play into the hands of those who are impatient with teachers. It would serve teachers well if they had a more robust ability to communicate the nature of the difficulties they face and how they deal with them.     

The Inclusion of Informal Environments in Science Teacher Preparation

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Teacher influence in the classroom: A context for understanding curriculum translation

Innovative doctrines create dilemmas for teachers. These dilemmas arise because, when teachers decide to adopt new practices, they face new uncertainties about their role in the classroom, the effectiveness of their methods and the purposes of their instruction. The way teachers used the materials of a particular innovation, the Schools Council Integrated Science Project, is described and explained in terms of teacher control over the uncertainties of classroom life. The Project proposals, initially seen by teachers as increasing the diffuseness of their work, were modified by them so that it was clearer to them what was to be accomplished and how it was to be done. At the same time, a functional alignment of goals, techniques and social relationships was maintained through teacher influence in the classroom. The translation of the materials into more specific terms meant that important elements of the doctrine of the Project were either ignored or redefined in more traditional terms. Such redefinition of innovation in specific terms raises questions about the effectiveness, as instruments of change, of centralized curriculum projects remote from the practical problems of schools. Implications for curriculum policy and research into the dilemmas teachers face in teaching are discussed.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, Boston, Mass., April 1980.