Changing from a special school to an inclusion service

Members of the Somerset Inclusion Project and Gary Thomas (professor and reader in education at the University of the West of England, Bristol) discuss the need for schools to become more inclusive in response to the Government's recent Green Paper (DfEE, 1997), which emphasises that special schools need to work in different ways and to provide services to local mainstream schools. The notion that inclusion is right and segregation is wrong led the staff to convert the Princess Margaret School (PMS) in Taunton, Somerset to an inclusion service.     

Private higher education: challenges for Australia and beyond

Among the chief characteristics of the post‐industrial society are ambiguity and paradox. In Australian higher education, as in other sectors of Australian Society, these have found expression in individualism, private initiative and entrepreneuship.

The ‘privatization’ of higher education now includes the imposition on enrolment charges, the re‐introduction of ‘full cost’ fees, especially for private overseas students, moves towards the deregulation of salaries and conditions of employment of academic staff and the establishment of new ‘self‐contained’ and ‘hybrid’ private higher education institutions.

In response to these developments, debate has tended to centre upon a number of mythologies which inter alia assert that private higher education is new to Australia, that it is foreign to the Western academic tradition and that such education avoids the employment of public funds. Moreover, it is claimed that while private higher education is ipso facto elitist, it will, through competition, result in a more effective and efficient public sector.

The above mythologies are examined in the light of past, present and proposed developments in Australian higher education, with particular note being taken of the establishment of the Bond University in Queensland.     

Empirical Research on Ethnic Minority Students: 1995–2009

Ethnic minority disproportionality has been a topic of extensive discussion and research for many years. In 1997, Artiles, Trent, and Kuan conducted a seminal review of the special education research literature to identify how often researchers report and disaggregate data in ways that would support conclusions about specific ethnic minority groups. These authors found alarmingly low rates of publication on identifiable minority groups. The purpose of this review is to replicate the work of Artiles et al. and extend this literature analysis to the subsequent 15‐year period (1995–2009). We found increases in the proportion of articles reporting ethnic minority information 15 years following the Artiles et al. publication. Discussion focuses on the gap in our knowledge of evidence‐based practices for ethnic minority students in special education.     

Numeracy Abilities of Children in Grades 4 to 6 with Mild Intellectual Disability in Singapore

Mathematics is an important aspect of daily life. Basic numeracy skills are needed to accomplish everyday tasks. However, research regarding the relationship between cognitive ability, mental age, and basic numeracy skills for children with intellectual disability (ID) is scarce. This research study investigated the correlation between intellectual ability and the development of number sense and arithmetic abilities in individuals with ID. Thirty-two students from a special school for individuals with ID in Singapore participated in this research study. Based on the results, basic numeracy is more closely correlated to the mental ages of the students than their intelligence quotient. This finding will be discussed and suggestions for future research will be provided.     

Becoming an academic: the role of doctoral capital in the field of education

This paper draws on Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capital and habitus to examine the learning and enculturation of alumni of a Canadian PhD programme in the discipline of Education. We introduce the concept of doctoral capital to help explain how and why some PhD graduates go on to secure faculty positions and others do not. Our research suggests that certain existing and acquired academic practices, attributes, dispositions and behaviours collectively form a type of doctoral capital that alumni can then use in the academic marketplace.     

Redesigning a curriculum for inquiry: an ecology case study

This article reports on an interdisciplinary ecology degree that was redesigned to provide more research activity for undergraduates. A case study approach explored how the teaching team constructed a curriculum that used inquiry activities. The development of an inquiry curriculum was enabled by a University audit focusing on the links between teaching and research, a Programme Review that signalled a need for change, and a Programme Director and group of academics committed to change. In addition, curriculum planning discussions were facilitated by an academic staff developer, who developed a shared vision for an inquiry approach during extended conversations amongst the planning group. Consequently, the new programme progressively develops inquiry skills in four out of five core courses (papers/modules). At stages 1 and 2, structured, guided and open inquiry activities lead to an open inquiry capstone course at stage 3.