A personal reflection on educating for meaning

Teachers are gifted with the responsibility of helping their students, their colleagues, and themselves find meaning in their lives. Robert Nash offers his gift of reflection on how best to accomplish this most important work.     

Aligning Assessment to Organizational Performance in Distance Education Service Delivery

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to provide an understanding of the issues in and possible steps of aligning the library's assessment processes to distance education service delivery. Through a review of the literature and current practices, the researcher sought to identify the need and value of aligned performance assessment processes for libraries, the primary contributing alignment factors affecting the library assessment process, and potential benefits of improved alignment of the assessment process for libraries in aligning assessment to the distance education services provided to customers. The results of the review suggest that libraries can improve the reporting and value of their assessment processes by improving the alignment of their assessment processes to distance education service delivery in 2 ways: internally through the use of consistent and innovative processes, metrics, and culture within the library and externally by embracing the alignment factors and available technologies of the library's service environment. The library must progressively elevate the alignment of the library's assessment processes from the traditional internal nonalignment of assessment to the total internally–externally integrated aligned assessment. This article concludes with a conceptual model of aligning library performance assessment to distance education service delivery for the effective reporting of library value and performance to stakeholders.     

Publishing 2020

The article examines historical and recent trends in the consumer publishing industry in order to make predictions about the structure of that industry in 2020. The author anticipates the demise of the largest players in the industry, in both the publishing and retail sectors. Their decline he attributes to a focus on supply chain management and a lack of attention to innovation on the demand-side of the book business. In this respect he pays particular attention to studies of supply–demand matching in the DVD business.     

Bourdieu, 'Habitus', and Educational Research: Is it all worth the candle?

A recent critique of educational research published by the Office of Standards in Education has declared, largely on the basis of research reported in this journal, that Bourdieu- and particularly the concept of habitus- appears to have little to offer educational research. This proposition is considered in a critical evaluation of the origin of habitus in Bourdieu's work and its ability to fulfil its theoretical functions. It is concluded that there is no serious alternative but for those whose task it is to provide scientific accounts of social processes to engage with the concepts of disciplined thought - including that of Bourdieu.     

Cultivating Our “Musical Bumps” while Fighting the “Progress of Popery”: The Rise of Art and Music Education in the Mid-Nineteenth Century United States

This article seeks to understand the social and cultural factors that led to the introduction of music and art education in public schools, a process that began in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Based on archival material, including institutional catalogues, school board reports, magazine articles, and tracts, I demonstrate that music and art held varied meanings in this period, one of the most important of which was denominational competition. One major element in a nationwide promotion of the arts in the mid-nineteenth century was the revitalized Protestant contest for religious adherents in the wake of Catholic immigration. A second important, and often overlooked, aspect of music and art education was its vocational implications. Although some historians have relegated women's study of music and art to the reproduction of elite status, a significant aspect of these studies was vocational. In a world in which limited occupations were open to women, skill in music and art expanded women's options and, for some, made financial independence possible. In addition, although many of the factors involved in the rise of music and art education—such as nationalism, refinement, and health—were nongendered and applied to both women and men, the repercussions of these programs were quite gendered and may add to our understanding of the process by which the teaching force was feminized.     

The Attitudes of English Majors to Literary Study

In an Introduction to Literary Studies course for English majors, students begin the semester with an essay about their experiences of reading and studying literature. An examination of a group of these essays indicates that success in the course was significantly influenced by students' attitudes and histories. Those who never had serious difficulties with assigned reading or literary study—or who overcame their difficulties before the course began—fared measurably better than those who reported at the beginning of the course that they still had such problems. Students in all categories mention inhibitions about speaking up in their literature classes, and doubt about ‘hidden meaning’ is common. A significant number resist analytical thinking because of the loss of reading pleasure that they believe such thinking entails.     

Positioning Mentoring as a Coach Development Tool: Recommendations for Future Practice and Research

Current thinking in coach education advocates mentoring as a development tool to connect theory and practice. However, little empirical evidence exists to evaluate the effectiveness of mentoring as a coach development tool. Business, education, and nursing precede the coaching industry in their mentoring practice, and research findings offered in these domains could be drawn upon to position mentoring as sports coaching development tool. Given the remote basis of some of mentor–coach relationships in sports coaching, additional learning can be drawn from mentoring conducted by virtual or electronic mediums. This article concludes with a series of reflective questions arising from research findings in other domains, designed to engage the potential coaching organization with the mentoring process.     

Educational psychologists and children in care: practices and issues

The aims of this study were to examine the extent and nature of educational psychologist (EP) work related to children in care in five local authority educational psychology services in the south‐west region. The study involved an initial internet‐based questionnaire for the 107 EPs in these services (86% response rate), followed up by in‐depth semi‐structured interviews with four EPs in each service. This paper reports some of the findings from this study that show the range of EP work and their roles in regard to children in care. It also examines the kinds of issues and tensions experienced by EPs in their multi‐agency work with regards to children in care. The paper concludes with a brief summary of relevant recommendations arising from the findings.