Beyond records and representations: inbetween writing in educational ethnography

Ethnographers are particularly interested in writing. They have paid particular attention to the practices of making field notes and to the ways in which their public texts represent those that they have encountered and studied. To date there has been less attention paid to the kinds of writing that used to make sense of experiences in the field. We call this inbetween writing. By examining our own processes of inbetween writing, and drawing on the work of James Clifford, we have produced a nine-part heuristic of inbetween writing. We argue that the heuristic could be used in research methods education to highlight the importance of writing to ethnographic sense-making and knowledge production.     

Down Syndrome Temperament: The Stereotype at Middle Childhood and Adolescence

MOTHERS AND TEACHERS of 94 children (53 boys) with Down syndrome, between 8 and 14 years of age, rated the children on a temperament scale and provided an overall impression as to whether the child was difficult in comparison with other children. Maternal ratings on the Middle Childhood Questionnaire showed significant differences from standardization scores. Children with Down syndrome were given ratings as less active, more predictable, of more positive mood, less persistent, and more distractible. Some of these dimensions favour the amiable personality stereotype for the syndrome but low persistence was associated with maternal impressions of difficulty. There was little agreement between mothers and teachers regarding the individual children who were rated as being significantly easier or more difficult than other children. Results with a subgroup (n = 32) showed that externalizing behaviours were significantly related to both mother and teacher impressions of difficulty and that mothers also found intense, active, distractible behaviour difficult.     

Uneasy alliances: University,workplace, industry and profession in the education doctorate

The phenomenon of Professional Doctorates in Australia has come at a time of great change in the higher education sector. Such change includes an intensified imperative for universities to establish ‘partnerships’ with industry and the professions. The Professional Doctorate is, in part, a consequence of such changes and is also helping to effect them. However, in its examination of the Education Doctorate, this paper problematises the notion of partnerships and indeed the various policy constructions of the parties involved. Through fictionalised accounts of standpoints of a higher education policy maker, an EdD student, an academic in an EdD program and a member of the education industry, it identifies some of the tensions involved within and between such categories. In so doing it suggests some matters that require research and pedagogical attention.     

The Relations of Regualation and Emotionality to Resiliency and Competent Social Functioning in Elementary School Children

The relations of regulation and emotionality to elementary school children's social functioning were examined. Teachers and peer reproted on children's social functioning; I parent and teacher rated children on various measures of regulation, resiliency, and emotionality; and a behavioural index of regulation was obtained. The effects of individual differences in attentional regulation on social status and socially appropriate behavior were mediated by resiliency, and dispositional negative emotionality moderated the positive relation between attentional control and resiliency (with this path being stronger for children high in negative emotinality). The effects of behavioural regulation were not mediated by resiliency; however, the relation of behavioral regulation to socilaly appropriate behaviour (but not social status) was moderated by negative emotionality, with effects being significant and higher for children high in negative emotionality.     

Dyslexia as a limitation in the ability to process information

In an earlier paper (Miles and Wheeler 1975) it was reported that dyslexic subjects, aged over 13, were less able than suitably matched non-dyslexic subjects to respond correctly to arrays of tachistoscopically presented digits. A further experiment is now reported involving a younger age-group: 15 dyslexic subjects, average age twelve and one-half, were matched for spelling age with 15 non-dyslexic subjects, average age eight and one-half; and since the dyslexic subjects were appreciably less successful it is argued that “maturational lag” does not, on its own, fully account for the difference in performance between the two groups. A similar procedure was repeated with 41 dyslexic and 41 non-dyslexic subjects, all aged between 10.4 and 14.4, both with and without the introduction of a visual masking stimulus immediately after the test stimulus. Twenty undergraduate “fast-readers,” 20 undergraduate “slow-readers,” and four undergraduate dyslexic subjects were also compared both on their responses to tachistoscopically presented digits and on their performance in a visual search task. The results, taken in conjunction, suggest that dyslexia can be regarded as some kind of limitation in the ability to process information, perhaps affecting in particular the “visual code store” postulated by Posner et al. (1969). This paper was prepared for deliveryin absentia at the 27th Annual Conference of The Orton Society, in New York City, November 1976.     

North West Cross Institutional Action Learning developing women's leadership

ABSTRACT

Human resource development professionals in Higher Education are continually striving to develop efficient interventions to increase the capabilities of their leaders. As a result of evaluating feedback from an action learning (AL) programme designed and delivered in North West Higher Education Institutions in the UK for women in senior academic and professional service roles, we are able to share how AL can be utilised to transcend and supplement traditional leadership training. The article discusses the approach taken to support participants to develop vital leadership behaviours through the acquisition of critical questioning and reflective habits whilst developing strong supportive cross-institutional relationships with other higher education leaders.     

On discarding affirmative action: An address to the regents of the University of California

Editor's Note: On 20 July 1995 the Board of Regents of the University of California voted to end the use of race, gender, and ethnicity in student admissions and in faculty and staff hiring. Before the vote, thirty-one “elected and other public figures” were scheduled to address the Regents briefly on the subject of affirmation action. Governor Pete Wilson (ex officio president of the Board) was allocated several of the thirty-one slots. Among those he invited to speak was NAS member John M. Ellis. We present Professor Ellis’s remarks below.     

Testing Teachers: Perspectives on a pilot numeracy skills test in England

From May 2001 all teachers qualifying in England must be successful in computer-based skills tests in numeracy and literacy. The first test to be developed was the QTS Skills Test in Numeracy, which was a paper and pencil test taken on 1 June 2000 by approximately 22,000 trainee teachers. In this article I argue that the pilot test signals an unjustified departure from performance-based assessment, provides an example of inconsistency between national imperatives and teacher certification and was not robust. A small study of trainee teachers of secondary English was undertaken to explore perceptions of professional numeracy in relation to their experience in training, what was tested in the skills test and what is known about testing mathematics through questions set in pseudo-real contexts. I conclude that theoretically it would be difficult to devise an appropriate examination type test of professional numeracy and that in the event the pilot test was not successful.