Reviews

Vivienne Gross, Hackney Child and Family Consultation Service, Child Abuse and the School's Response: A Workshop for Professionals Involved with Ghildren/Young People from Nursery to Further Education by Eve Brock. Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1992. 22pp. ISBN 0 58210060 7, £25.00

Louise O'Connor, Roehampton Institute, Social Education and Personal Development Studies in Primary Education by Delwyn and Eva Tattum. London: David Fulton, 1992. 194pp. pb ISBN 185346 110 5, £12.99

Sue Smedley, Froebel Institute College, Stress in Teaching by Jack Dunham. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. 200pp. hb ISBN 0 415 06634 4, £35, pb ISBN 0 415 06635 2, £12.99

David Thomas, Department of Education University of Liverpool, Learning Support for Young People in Transition: Leaving School for Further Education and Work by Jean McGinfy and John Fish. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. 116pp. pb ISBN 0 335 09765 0, n.p.     

A Comprehensive Approach to Handling Sensitive Issues in Schools,with Special Reference to Loss and Grief

The School Watch initiative is centred in South Wales and involves police liaison officers, primary schools and their pupils. In each interested school, the scheme is explained and the pupils then decide if they want to take part. A pupils' committee is elected which is given support and guidance by the liaison officer. A key element of the scheme is the involvement of the pupils themselves and the way the pupils' committee plays a major part in the choice and running of activities. The scheme benefits pupils both in terms of their personal and social development and in their attitudes to the police. The paper ends with a number of examples of the type of work that schools have undertaken within this scheme.     

Subjected to review: engendering quality and power in higher education

Both feminism and quality assurance movements have attempted to deconstruct and reconstruct the academy. Both have called for more transparency in procedures, accountability from elite professional groups and the privileging of the student experience. Both are globalized systems calling for transformation. However, it is questionable as to whether these two forces for change can form strategic alliances, or whether indeed they are in oppositional relationship. As a dominant regime of power in the UK academy today, quality assurance both exposes the micropolitics of gendered power in organizations and creates its own structures and systems of power. Quality assurance is part of the modernization process of the public services. However, gender equity is not a performance indicator in UK quality audits. In this paper, I interrogate the gendered implications of quality assurance, with particular reference to the assessment of teaching and learning in the UK (the Quality Assurance Agency's Subject Review). Drawing on empirical data and conceptual critiques, I will argue that quality assurance, as a regime of power, is gendered in its conception and practice.     

Change and Equity in Higher Education

In this article, I explore the dynamic relationship between political and organizational change in higher education. Change is interrogated in relation to policies and discourses of New Right reform, mass expansion, new managerialism, equity and post‐modernist theories of power, with questions raised about the interconnection of demographic changes, consumer entitlement and equality of opportunity. I consider the extent to which economic, intellectual and socio‐cultural changes intersect. Equity is examined in relation to the democratic rhetoric of enhanced access and connections are made between equality and quality by questioning the changing nature of the product being accessed by new student populations.     

Use of the meeting street school screening test and the myklebust pupil rating scale with first-grade black urban children

This study hypothesized that: (a) the MSSST would identify the same proportion (15%) of high-risk children in a group (N = 580) of first-grade urban black children as estimated for the general population; (b) the Myklebust would discriminate between high-risk (N = 22) and low-risk (N = 21) children within the minority group using the MSSST as the criterion variable; and (c) Myklebust ratings for the high-risk and low-risk young minority children would approximate ratings reported elsewhere for older white suburban samples of high-risk and low-risk children. All three hypotheses were confirmed. The MSSST may be appropriate for minority group children. The small number of teachers (N = 6) participating in the Myklebust ratings makes generalization about it hazardous without further replication.     

Conductive education: appraising the evidence

Conductive education (CE) is widely reported as having a range of benefits. In the last two decades, it has expanded internationally. Educational psychologists may well encounter parents requesting this specialist intervention which is not normally offered within Local Authority special needs provision, for children with cerebral palsy and other motor difficulties. This paper reviews the empirical research to investigate the specific claims that CE improves motor skills, thinking skills and independence and the counter claim that it may cause harm. Implications for practice are discussed.     

Seeing one another as “other”

In this paper, the authors discuss two complementary life history research projects investigating prospective teachers' identities in relation to their race and social class. Drawing on the experiences of one student from each study, they show how both whites and students of color primarily thought about one another as “others”—people who fundamentally differed from one another and whom they understood through preconceived ideas about a group. The authors draw on a Bakhtinian notion of how a “surplus of sight” enables one to develop understandings of an “other” and also of oneself.     

Dietary nitrate supplementation does not improve cycling time-trial performance in the heat

This investigation examined the effect of beetroot juice (BR) supplementation, a source of dietary nitrate (NO₃^?), on cycling time-trial (TT) performance and thermoregulation in the heat. In a double-blind, repeated-measures design, 12 male cyclists (age 26.6 ± 4.4 years, VO_2peak 65.8 ± 5.5 mL.kg^?1.min^?1) completed four cycling TTs (14 kJ.kg^?1) in hot (35°C, 48% relative humidity) and euthermic (21°C, 52%) conditions, following 3 days supplementation with BR (6.5 mmol NO₃^? for 2 days and 13 mmol NO₃^? on the final day), or NO₃^–depleted placebo (PLA). Salivary NO₃^? and nitrite, core (T_c) and mean skin temperature (T_sk) were measured. Salivary NO₃^? and nitrite increased significantly post-BR supplementation (p < 0.001). Average TT completion time (mm:ss) in hot conditions was 56:50 ± 05:08 with BR, compared with 58:30 ± 04:48 with PLA (p = 0.178). In euthermic conditions, average completion time was 53:09 ± 04:35 with BR, compared with 54:01 ± 04:05 with PLA (p = 0.380). The TT performance decreased (p < 0.001), and T_c (p < 0.001) and T_sk (p < 0.001) were higher in hot compared with euthermic conditions. In summary, BR supplementation has no significant effect on cycling TT performance in the heat.     

Dimensions of coping and anxiety symptoms in a community sample of young children

Coping style plays an important role in children’s wellbeing. This paper describes the patterns of associations between children’s self-reported coping styles and symptoms of anxiety in order to determine whether particular dimensions are associated with better adjustment. Participants were 2566 children (1268 girls, 1298 boys) aged 7–11 years attending 15 schools in the South East of England. Results showed that aspects of coping were differentially associated with children’s self-reported anxiety. Patterns of association also varied by age and gender. Dimensions of coping were shown to form distinct adaptive and maladaptive coping styles which were also differentially associated with anxiety. Analysis of these styles indicated that it is the absence of maladaptive coping strategies, rather than the presence of adaptive strategies, that is significant in emotional wellbeing. These findings suggest that interventions designed to reduce or extinguish maladaptive coping styles may be of particular benefit in facilitating emotional wellbeing.