Professional Cultures in Schools With High and Low Rates of Bullying

Most research on bullying in schools has focussed on characteristics of bullies or victims, and their families. Relatively little has investigated the school's contribution to pupil bullying. Information was obtained from teachers in 22 Norwegian primary schools on bullying and 3 aspects of professional culture. The school highest in bullying had significantly worse scores on all professional culture variables than the school lowest on bullying. The results are discussed with reference to the possibility that improvement in professional culture may contribute to less bullying and overall improvement in behaviour. In turn, these may be prerequisites for improvement in academic standards.     

Management of Innovations from a Cultural-Individual Perspective

The history of education and schooling is characterised by not only the attainment of results but also ongoing critique of the existing situation in education and schooling. Developers and researchers are, as a result, constantly seeking new strategies and methods for the improved implementation of innovations in actual educational practice. The central question is which factors and which conditions facilitate the effects of innovations. In an attempt to answer this question, many educators will not so much be concerned with objective structural factors such as available funds, classmates, et cetera. They will be concerned, rather, with the questions of which socially constructed realities and which particular forms of involvement on the part of teachers, school administrators, and counsellors facilitate successful innovation. In our search for an answer to these questions, moreover, we will be guided by a cultural-individual perspective on innovation. Traditional innovative strategies – and, in particular, large scale strategies – seem not always suitable to deal with today's educational problems. Alternative scenario's for the management of innovations are considered.     

The challenge of continuation: Schools’ continuation of the Respect program

The Respect program is a whole school approach to prevent and reduce problem behavior. The purpose of this study was to investigate which conditions in schools helped them to continue the program successfully after the end of the 1-year implementation period. The study also looked at the actual continuation after the program end. Especially, we looked at which strategies and structures promoted change beyond the implementation phase. The project groups at four Norwegian schools implementing the program were interviewed at the end of the implementation period and again 2? years later. The main findings suggest that involvement in the Respect program enables schools to implement change. However, it is challenging for the schools to continue the work afterwards. The one school that successfully continued the work after the program was characterized by strong and supportive leadership, leadership at many levels, they made plans and saw them through, renewed activities and new members of staff were introduced to and included in the work according to the program principles. These elements were more or less lacking at the other three schools, at least after the active program period. A main finding is that a 1-year program period is not long enough for most schools to implement and continue an extensive whole school program like Respect.     

The construction of national identity through primary school history: the Irish case

Much recent sociological work on education makes reference to gender, sexual, ethnic, local and political ‘project’ identities, yet there remains a need to bring the nation, and the state, back in; to also question the way in which ‘national’ identities are constructed in a context of globalisation and localisation. Through an analysis of Irish primary history curriculum statements from 1971 and 1999, I identify some key features of the state’s response to identity construction in a globalised context. They include a focus on pupils becoming skilled in reflexively producing identity, and a focus on a ‘boundless’ globalised identity. These changes are not unproblematic.

You will know all too well that Ireland is a country at war with its past—or, at least, with conflicting versions of its several pasts. But we are each of us in a struggle with those … on a much more deeply personal level than we sometimes know. (The character ‘Sr. Mary Rose Kennedy’ in Joseph O’Connor’s novel Inishowen) (O’Connor, 2000 O’Connor, J. 2000. Inishowen, London: Secker & Warburg.  [Google Scholar], p. 42)     

Comparison of step-by-step kinematics of resisted,assisted and unloaded 20-m sprint runs

This investigation examined step-by-step kinematics of sprint running acceleration. Using a randomised counterbalanced approach, 37 female team handball players (age 17.8 ± 1.6 years, body mass 69.6 ± 9.1 kg, height 1.74 ± 0.06 m) performed resisted, assisted and unloaded 20-m sprints within a single session. 20-m sprint times and step velocity, as well as step length, step frequency, contact and flight times of each step were evaluated for each condition with a laser gun and an infrared mat. Almost all measured parameters were altered for each step under the resisted and assisted sprint conditions (η² ≥ 0.28). The exception was step frequency, which did not differ between assisted and normal sprints. Contact time, flight time and step frequency at almost each step were different between ‘fast’ vs. ‘slow’ sub-groups (η² ≥ 0.22). Nevertheless overall both groups responded similarly to the respective sprint conditions. No significant differences in step length were observed between groups for the respective condition. It is possible that continued exposure to assisted sprinting might allow the female team-sports players studied to adapt their coordination to the ‘over-speed’ condition and increase step frequency. It is notable that step-by-step kinematics in these sprints were easy to obtain using relatively inexpensive equipment with possibilities of direct feedback.