Educational attainment in the short and long term: was there an advantage to attending faith,private, and selective schools for pupils in the 1980s?

ABSTRACT

This paper asks whether private, selective, and faith schools in England and Wales in the 1980s provided an academic advantage to their pupils, both in the short and longer term. Using longitudinal data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, we examine academic outcomes in compulsory schooling and further education, and the highest qualification gained by age 42. School sector differences are substantially attenuated by controlling for prior pupil characteristics. Nevertheless, a residual effect of private, grammar, and secondary modern schooling remains, both in the short and long term, controlling for both pupil and school characteristics. In the case of faith schools, however, the apparent advantage is restricted to the short term once pupil characteristics are controlled. A unique feature of our analysis is that we control for the individual’s faith of upbringing, which is important in reducing what could otherwise be seen as a distinctive Catholic school advantage.     

Gerontological Education in Undergraduate Nursing Programs: An Australian Perspective

Literature reveals difficulties in preparing nurses to care for older people. This article reports a study that aimed to facilitate positive changes in gerontological education in an undergraduate nursing program by identifying barriers and effective actions. A critical research approach was applied to the study. Data were mainly collected through focus groups. A total of five barriers were identified in gerontological education in an undergraduate nursing program. Actions which may address these barriers were explored. Critical reflection on educational practice based on partnerships between education and service sectors has the potential of leading an educational reform in gerontological nursing.     

‘It is certainly strange…’: attacks on ethnic studies and whiteness as property

In 2010, Arizona passed legislation that attacked ethnic studies in k-12 (kindergarten to 12th grade). Specifically, Mexican American/Raza Studies (MARS) was targeted by the state Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), and, in effect, would be eliminated by the Prohibited Courses; Discipline; Schools Law (Prohibited Courses Law). This study utilizes document and content analysis to examine both a letter written by the SPI calling for the elimination of MARS, and the text of the Prohibited Courses Law. Framing the work within critical race theory, these two documents work together to normalize and make property of whiteness in Arizona’s public schools, and re-create a hegemonic status quo. In addition, this study analyzes how MARS acts as a site of counter-hegemonic activity by scrutinizing customary discourses as presented in schools and curricula.     

Values education for gifted adolescents

Teaching values should have an important place in the curriculum of gifted adolescents     

Lifelong learning and the Labour governments 1997–2004

Lifelong learning has been a key theme of New Labour’s education policy agenda since 1997, but is a broad and often amorphous concept. This article analyses New Labour’s ideological perspective in this context, outlines the main developments and difficulties, and evaluates the record over the seven years in office.

New Labour’s policy on lifelong learning can be divorced neither from its general education policy nor from its broader human capital approach to education, within an ideology of ‘marketised welfarism’. The article discusses these characteristics and notes both the continuities and differences between New Labour and traditional Labourism.     

The place of diversity within history and the challenge of policy and curriculum

This article is a position paper which examines the political and public discourse around the areas of diversity and social cohesion, and history teaching. It examines the nature of these discourses and shows how they are in tension. Although discourse around diversity often has a focus on mutual understanding and finding areas of commonality, the discourse around history often focuses on the need to provide a sense of identity through a national story. By focusing on a discussion about the purposes of history, rather than merely on debates about content, it is suggested that these discourses can be brought more closely into line and produce a more productive line of policy debate.     

Gender-segregated schooling and gender stereotyping

Concern has been raised that segregation of girls and boys into separate classes leads to increased gender stereotyping. We tested this in a sample of 365 seventh-grade students attending a junior high school that offers both gender-segregated (GS) and co-educational classes. It was found that for both boys and girls, the more GS classes they took in the fall, the more gender stereotyped they were in their responding in the spring (controlling for initial levels of gender stereotyping). We concluded that GS likely heightens the salience of gender in the classroom thereby reinforcing and increasing gender stereotypes. As such, we argue that GS is a misguided approach to addressing any educational difficulties girls and boys might be having.     

AGING EDUCATION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

From kindergarten to college, as today's students learn to see the world as a global village, they can also learn that aging is part of the human condition, that older people do exist, and that the increasing numbers of older people is both a national resource and a national problem. Students can develop an awareness of the interdependence not only of cultures and countries but also of generations. Still scarce, though increasingly available, are curricular materials and programs that help young people explore how we and other cultures deal with aging and the elderly.     

Self-generated drawings for supporting comprehension of a complex animation

The perceptual and cognitive processing demands involved in comprehending complex animations can pose considerable challenges to learners. There is a tendency for learners to extract information that is highly perceptually salient but neglect less conspicuous information of crucial relevance to the building of a quality mental model. This study investigated the effectiveness of self-generated drawing for learning from an animation illustrating a scientific phenomenon, the so-called “Newton’s Cradle.” Participants were 199 students in grade seven, randomly assigned to three experimental conditions: self-generated drawing, traced/copied drawing, and no drawing. All participants were asked to produce an explanation of the animation for both immediate and delayed posttests. The results revealed the superiority of self-generated drawing in supporting animation comprehension at both testing times compared to the other two conditions, which did not differ from each other. In addition, comprehension of the animation was related to the quality of self-generated drawings. Specifically, the depiction of information characterized by low perceptual salience but high conceptual relevance to the phenomenon predicted comprehension and retention over time.