Gramsci's challenge to the politics of the left in ‘Our Times’

This article offers a detailed discussion of the writings of Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party. Gramsci's writings, and secondary source accounts of these, have had a profound influence in many areas of ‘radical’ adult and community education in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The article attempts, by returning to Gramsci's original texts and by interpreting them within his own ‘leitmotiv’, to challenge many of the current applications of his thought within radical education and ‘left’ political practice. The former types of applications are normally filtered through the political and academic writings of the latter; therefore the challenge offered, on behalf of Gramsci, is directed primarily at these.     

Core Competencies to the Rescue: Taking Stock and Protecting Institutional Knowledge

What happens when the only staff member who knows how to do a particular task is no longer available? Using NASIG’s Core Competencies for Electronic Resources Librarians, the Electronic Resources and Serials Department of Auburn University set out to tackle the problem of the indispensable staff person, and discovered that expertise is never fully achieved, and competence is always a work in progress.     

Empowerment or impediment? School governance in the school-based management era in Hong Kong

Following the international trend in education towards democracy and decentralization, the Hong Kong government introduced a school-based management (SBM) system about two decades ago. It is widely recognized in the literature that decentralization, empowering school level management and marginalizing the influence of the intermediate level of governance, can result in better deployment of school resources and better meet the demands of various stakeholders. However, in the unique historical and cultural context of Hong Kong, the advantages of decentralization claimed in the literature have yet to be fully realized. This paper discusses the contextual factors affecting the implementation of SBM in Hong Kong, and examines their impact on four major stakeholders, namely the government, the principals, the teachers, and the parents in the wake of reform.     

A Critical Discourse Analysis of No Promo Homo Policies in US Schools

This article presents a critical discourse analysis of no promo homo policies and their effects in US schools. No promo homo—short for “no promotion of homosexuality” (Eskridge, 2000 Eskridge, W.N. (2000). No promo homo: The sedimentation of antigay discourse and the channeling effect of judicial review. New York Law Review, 75, 1327–1411.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 1329)—polices have been adopted across nine states and several local school districts in the United States. They direct teachers and school officials to take a neutral position on the subject of sexual orientation and identity and often restrict or prohibit any school-based instruction, counseling, discussion, or activity that could be construed as being positive about or promoting homosexuality (Bonauto, n.d.; Cahill &; Cianciotto, 2004 Cahill, S., &; Cianciotto, J. (2004). US policy interventions that can make schools safer. Journal of Gay &; Lesbian Issues in Education, 2, 3–17.[Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]; Eskridge 2000 Eskridge, W.N. (2000). No promo homo: The sedimentation of antigay discourse and the channeling effect of judicial review. New York Law Review, 75, 1327–1411.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Our analysis suggests that, despite their claim to neutrality, no promo homo policies are actively harmful both to students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) as well as to the broader school community. In an effort to ultimately promote healthier, more equitable school environments and experiences for all students, this article aims to raise awareness about the problematic effects of no promo homo policy language and the assumptions that often underlie it.     

Analysis and design for continuous-time string-connected Takagi–Sugeno systems

Distributed systems consist of interconnected, lower-dimensional subsystems. For such systems, distributed analysis and design present several advantages, such as modularity, easier analysis and design, and reduced computational complexity. A special case of distributed systems is when the subsystems are connected in a string. Applications include distributed process control, traffic and communication networks, irrigation systems, hydropower valleys, etc. By exploiting such a structure, in this paper, we propose conditions for the distributed stability analysis of Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy systems connected in a string. These conditions are also extended to observer and controller design and illustrated on numerical examples.     

Bernstein in the urban classroom: a case study

Despite a long-standing concern within the sociology of education for ameliorating educational inequality, the challenge of improving educational opportunities for disadvantaged students remains deeply entrenched. While ‘macro’ issues such as segregation and systemic inequalities in school funding and access to qualified teachers must be addressed as matters of social and educational justice, Basil Bernstein's novel focus on ‘relations within’ education as the site of pedagogic discourse offers teachers and those working inside school systems a particularly powerful vision for promoting more equitable outcomes for students. This paper examines this assertion through a case study of the ‘mixed’ pedagogical practice of a successful teacher in a fifth-grade urban classroom in the United States.