The ‘Naturals’ and Victorian Cambridge: reflections on the anatomy of an elite, 1851‐1914

Abstract

abstract There is plenty of evidence that Britain has underinvested in education and now has a smaller base of educated manpower than many industrial competitors. While much debate has centred on what the government can do about it, the government itself now places much hope on the private sector. Yet much government and business policy is at odds with this objective which seems to owe more to romanticism about capitalism than to hard‐headed appreciation of where the market really can deliver the educational goods by creating appropriate private incentives.

     

110 in the School

This two part article covers the use of 110 photographic equipment by a group of 11 year old children in a Middle School in West Sussex, England. The first part of the article deals with initial impressions of the 110 system after trials using simple automatic cameras to produce sequential slide photoplays. The second part of the article considers the wider scope of 110 picture taking using a more advanced camera offered with a number of lens attachments. The camera was used in the school after the initial trials.     

The experiment of Michelson and Morley

Light was assumed to propagate in a medium called ether which was all pervading and stationary. Earth’s motion through ether was expected to have an effect on the velocity of light in the direction of the relative motion by the law of addition of velocities. Michelson–Morley experiment used an interferometric technique to detect this effect and got a null result, which was the first strong evidence against existence of ether and eventually had a natural explanation in special theory of relativity.     

Story of superconductivity

Electricity is carried through metallic wires, called conductors. In the process, electrons move through metallic conductors that offer resistance (the value depends on the particular metal used), to the passage of electrons. This leads to the production of heat and loss of energy. This heating process is utilised in many electrical devices. However, for transmission of electrical energy from the power plants to the user and in many other applications, it would be a great boon if no energy was lost to resistance. The discovery of superconductivity by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1911 at Leiden, offered a glimmer of hope to make this dream possible. It was a discovery totally unexpected at that time, and we owe this discovery to the painstaking and methodical investigations of Onnes–first to produce very low temperatures, and then measure properties of materials at these freezing temperatures.     

Children’s stereotypes of older adults: Evaluating contributions of cognitive development and social learning

Past research has investigated the development of stereotypes surrounding race and gender in children; however, there is a lack of literature examining the development of children’s stereotypes of older adults. In this study, 163 children from four grades: first (n = 44), fourth (n = 49), fifth (n = 35), and eighth (n = 35) completed a new trait-rating questionnaire assessing their stereotypes of older adults. Children’s stereotypes of older adults were largely positive. Younger children described older adults in more positive, but more stereotyped, ways than older children. Older children’s views shared a stronger relationship with those of their parents and peers compared to younger children. Together, these results support both cognitive development and social influences as contributing factors to the formation of children’s stereotypes of older adults.     

South African Deaf education and the Deaf community

In a special section of the american Annals of the Deaf, Deaf education and the Deaf community in South Africa are discussed. The special section is organized into 7 segments: a historical overview to establish context, the educational context, educators and learners, postgraduate education and employment, perspectives of Deaf children and their parents, sport and the arts, and spiritual lives and mental health. Throughout the entire section, however, the central focus is on the overall foundation (or lack thereof) of education for Deaf learners in South Africa.     

Towards a schools funding policy to ameliorate poverty and disadvantage

As a society we now have the means to identify regional areas of disadvantage, and the knowledge of what needs to be done to ameliorate intergenerational transfer of poverty. The missing ingredient is the political will² and commitment, and the capacity to convince all Australians that an increasingly divided society is to everyone’s disadvantage.