Extreme Literacies and Contemporary Readers

Literate behaviours are changing with new technological and commercial reworkings of popular fictions. Today's young people are acquiring new skills and strategies to deal with the enormous onslaught of secondary texts associated with many major fictions. This article discusses such developments in the context of three stories: Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and The Simpsons. It investigates the potential for new approaches to literacy as displayed by particular young readers.     

Trust: the power that binds in team supervision of doctoral students

Team supervision of doctoral students adds new dimensions and complexities to relationships within the teams that impact functionality of the team. Trust emerged as a significant theme in recent qualitative research into the quality of team supervision of doctoral students. Trust was cited as a key component in successful team collaborations, and the missing component in dysfunctional teams. Definitions refer to trust as the belief of truthfulness, reliability or faith in another person’s abilities. My hypothesis is that trust operates as a form of power in team supervision. It is a form of power that enables voice, resilience and creativity in teams. This article concludes that placing trust in others in supervisory teams is a deliberate decision by candidates and supervisors. It is a decision to engage in a team context despite known risks and may be understood as a gamble on the reliability of others in the expectation of reciprocity. By conceptualising trust as a form of power, strategies that engender and maintain trust may be utilised more intentionally.     

‘The more things change…?’: the Thatcher years and educational reform in Scotland

The period of the Thatcher Government continues to have special significance for politics and governance in Scotland. In the 11 years of the Thatcher Government, landmark legislation and reforms affected key areas of the Scottish society and economy. Education featured prominently in the Thatcherite agenda in Scotland. In Scotland, the education system’s association with national identity had particular implications for educational policy making and implementation in Scotland under the Thatcher Government. The distinctiveness of the Scottish education system presented particular problems for a government intent on challenging the social democratic consensus. Opposition to the Thatcher Government, especially its perceived attack on the social democratic underpinnings of the welfare state which included the state schooling system, re‐ignited the home rule campaign in Scotland in the late 1980s. The article examines both key legislation, namely the Education (Scotland) Act 1981, the School Board (Scotland) Act 1988 and the Self‐Governing Schools etc. (Scotland) Act 1989, and also key non‐legislative reforms to curriculum and assessment under the Thatcher Government in the area of public (state) schooling. The article argues that these reforms continue to influence the educational policy debates in Scotland today.