Book Reviews

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Tertiary pedagogy encounters the technological imperative

In one of the most challenging periods to confront tertiary education, we examine the impact that technology is having on the experience of one open and distance education university: Deakin University in Victoria, Australia. This paper considers how the espoused pedagogical views that were expressed by the academics interviewed, individually and collectively impacted on their attitudes to information technologies and to their reactions to exposure to and experience with various technologies. The first part of the paper explicitly considers the interview as a research method and situates the interviews we undertook within current scholarship. The focus of the interviews was to seek perceptions of what constituted good teaching as well as the relevance of technology for teaching: as each academic defined it; the discipline concerned and the mode of delivery (i.e. on and/or off‐campus). The research did not provide definitive answers but suggested themes and implications which are considered in the Conclusion. Although restricted to the perceptions of five academics at one university, the extent to which each of the ‘case studies' resonates with the reader's experience takes it beyond the experience of the one tertiary institution.     

Responding to the technological imperative: the experience of an open and distance education institution

This paper examines the key impact that technology is having on shaping and, indeed, fusing the worlds of work both outside and inside tertiary institutions. The transformation of organisations by technology creates key challenges for tertiary institutions which are identified. One tertiary institution's attempts to engage with these challenges is illuminated through case study research. The institution in question, Deakin University, is a major open and distance education organisation in Australia. In grappling with the technological imperative, issues of leadership, management and organisational change come to the fore. Leadership in dynamically evolving organisations committed to the use of educational technologies in a range of diverse teaching‐learning contexts is an enormously complex and difficult task. The complexities, ambiguities and difficulties of leadership in such an environment are illuminated in this paper through the presentation of a set of eight interconnected issues which reveal some of the experiences of people within the University who are attempting to manage educational change and technological innovation.     

Aid effectiveness in education: Why it matters

This article introduces the special issue of Prospects on “Aid effectiveness in education”. It brings together case studies of attempts in several very different contexts to improve the effectiveness of the use of aid in the education sector. By drawing on the historical evolution of the new paradigm over the last 20 years, the authors make the case for a closer focus on aid’s effectiveness in education, as well as the need to reform the aid effectiveness architecture. In particular, they identify two major obstacles that need to be overcome to improve aid’s effectiveness in education: the lack of sufficient institutional and staff incentives for coordinated and harmonized behaviour; and factors that lead to risk-aversion and discourage innovation in delivering aid effectively.     

Discovering democracy in Australia

Discovering Democracy is designed to give tomorrow’s Australian citizens the knowledge and skills they will need in order to know what values and institutions they can and must change and which should endure. They will know how their democratic system behaves. They will be confident in their ability to act within it as citizens. If it is successful, Australia will not need another public education campaign before Australians celebrate their next civic anniversary.     

Applying systems analysis to program failure in organizations

Certain systems analysis techniques can be applied to examinations of program failure in continuing education to locate weaknesses in planning and implementing stages. Since failures can be the result of human errors and environmental conditions (and frequently a combination of both), a systems design to determine causes must include techniques that can detect both individual and nonhuman factors. Questions to guide an analysis and various procedures are recommended. Unexamined failures may lead to tossing the baby out with the bathwater, when analysis, in fact, could be the initial step toward successful future implementation.     

Intervening with school problems: A family systems perspective

Viewing children's behavior from a systems perspective allows the school-based consultant an expanded perception of the contextual function of the behavior. The two key systems in a child's life, home and school, often overlap, and what occurs in one system can affect the child's behavior in the other system. By considering the relationships of the child to both home and school, a more holistic view of the child is obtained, and greater opportunity for family involvement is provided. This article explains the differences between systemic and linear approaches to behavior, and provides examples of how the school-based consultant can intervene from a systems perspective, using interviews, short-term family counseling, and teacher consultation. Issues and cautions about using a systemic approach are presented, and the need for data-based research is explored.     

Determinants of Prices for Contemporary Art in Dutch Galleries, 1992–1998

We analyse determinants of prices for contemporary art with the help of quantitative data. The focus is on gallery rather than auction prices in the Netherlands. We model the determinants of prices on three different levels: the work of art (size, material), the artist (age, sex, place of residence, institutional recognition), and the gallery (location, institutional affiliation, age). Our main findings are that the size and material of works of art, and the age and place of residence of the artist are strong predictors of price; that differences in size and materials partly ``mask' price differences between artists; and that the variance in prices across galleries is largely explained by characteristics of the artists they represent.     

Multiple victimization experiences of urban elementary school students: associations with psychosocial functioning and academic performance

OBJECTIVE: This study explored the victimization experiences of urban elementary school students to determine whether subsets of youth emerged with similar victimization profiles (e.g., no victimization, multiple types of victimization). It also evaluated whether multiple victimization was associated with greater psychological distress and lower academic performance. METHODS: Participants were 689 fifth grade students from an urban, ethnically diverse school district in the Northeast. Youth completed self-report measures in school about bullying victimization, victimization in the home and community, and psychosocial functioning. RESULTS: Cluster analysis suggested the existence of three distinct youth profiles: those with minimal victimization, those victimized primarily by their peers, and those with multiple types of victimizations. As hypothesized, youth with multiple victimizations experienced more psychological distress and earned lower grades than their peers. CONCLUSIONS: Findings highlight the heterogeneity of youth victimization experiences and their relations to functioning, and have implications for treatment planning among practitioners working with youth.