New books

The Literacy Test for Immigrants: A Debate. University of Chicago, Chapter of Delta Sigma Rho, Chicago, 1916. Paper, pp. 62, $1.00.

The Brief‐Maker's Notebook. By WARREN CHOATE SHAW. New York: Ginn & Co., 1916. Cloth, $1.00.

The Elements of Public Speaking. BY HARRY GARFIELD HOUGH‐TON. New York: Ginn and Co., 1916. Cloth, $1.50.

Thinking as a Science. By HENRY HAZLITT. New York: E. P. Button & Co., 1916. Cloth, pp. 251. $1.00.

Universities Debaters’ Annual. Edited by EDWARD C. MABIE. White Plains, N. Y. The H. W. Wilson Company, 1916. Cloth, pp. 294. $1.80.

American Merchant Marine. Edited by E. M. PHELPS. White Plains, New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1916. Cloth, pp. xxviii+2180 $1.00.

Debaters’ Manual. Edited by E. M. PHELPS. White Plains, New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1916. Cloth, pp. x+181. $1.00.

Lessons in Public Speaking and Oral Reading for Class and Private Drill. By JOHN R. PELSMA. Austin, Texas, 1916. Published by the author. Cloth, pp. 58. $0.40.

Community Drama and Pageantry. By MARY PORTER BEEGLE and JACK RANDALL CRAWFORD. New Haven, Conn. Yale University Press, 1916. Cloth and boards, pp. 370. $2.50.     

Researching the rhetoric of lifelong learning

In the analysis of polices for lifelong learning, the gap between the rhetoric and reality has become the focus for much debate and concern. Reality is compared with rhetoric and both are found wanting. In this paper, we argue that such critiques misconceive the significance of rhetoric and we outline the form a rhetorical analysis of lifelong learning policy could take. Using the UK government's 1998 Green Paper and 1999 White Paper on lifelong learning as illustrations, we suggest that rhetorical analysis helps to point to the politics of discourse that is at play in policy-making processes. This is a politics - often dismissed as spin-doctoring - with which we need to engage if our own attempts to develop lifelong learning are to be persuasive.     

Migrating metaphors: the globalization of flexibility in policy

Trends towards greater flexibility are to be found in the reform of post-school education and training around the globe. They are part of a wider profile of changes to workplaces and labour relations within which greater flexibility is pursued. This paper charts our journey, through which we have sought to locate flexibility as a globalizing and globalized policy metaphor. Drawing on recent policy texts, we illustrate the multiple meanings of flexibility. The latter is explored within the growing debates about the globalization of education policies and the metaphors which have been deployed to frame these practices. Finally, we outline the role that metaphors have in policy texts and the readings to which they are subject. We argue for metaphorical readings of the texts of flexibility and globalization as a way of countering attempts to inscribe certain meanings and in order to sustain policy openings.     

A Modern Arsenal for Mental Assessment

The all purpose intelligence test ought to be a thing of the past. Psychology does not need another battery of tests; rather, it needs an armory of tests, each suited for a different purpose. The armory should contain tests based on three different views of intelligence: (a) intelligence as a general reasoning ability, (b) intelligence as a collection of domain-specific skills (with emphasis on verbal and visual-spatial domains), and (c) intelligence as an information-processing concept. Measurement procedures derived from each of these views are discussed. Comments are made about the kinds of research required to further the concept of an armory of tests, rather than a battery of tests.     

Work and Leisure in an Academic Environment: Relationships between Selected Meanings

The purpose of this study was to examine selected meanings of work and leisure as they were perceived by workers comprising three different occupational classifications at the University of Georgia. Subjects were chosen by the process of systematic random sampling of occupational classifications. The sample included 48 teaching faculty, 46 office workers, and 39 physical plant employees. A pilot investigation was conducted to develop a valid and reliable semantic differential instrument. The final instrument, the Work-Leisure Attitude Inventory, asked the subjects to use 11 evaluative bipolar adjective scales to rate 13 concepts identified in the pilot investigation as important aspects of both the work and leisure domains. Significant positive correlations were found in each of the three occupational classifications (nine among teaching faculty, four among office workers, and five among physical plant employees), indicating that workers satisfied with a concept in their work were also satisfied with that concept in their leisure. All three occupational classifications perceived their opportunities to experience a majority of the concepts as being more favorable during leisure rather than during work.