International Communication

U.S. TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES IN EUROPEAN MARKETS (Washington: Office of Technology Assessment, August 1993—$14.00, paper, S/N 052–003–01334–7, 220 pp.)

MEDIA INDUSTRY IN EUROPE edited by Antonio Pilati (London: John Libbey, 1993—$48.00, paper, ISBN 0–86196–398–9, 246 pp.)

BEYOND NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY: INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN THE 1990s edited by Kaarle Nordenstreng and Herbert I. Schiller (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1993—price not provided, paper, ISBN 0–89391–960–8, 483 pp.)     

Learning support assistants can deliver effective reading interventions for ‘at-risk’ children

Evidence suggests that phonic interventions delivered by trained researchers improve early reading and spelling. This study sought to explore whether school Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) can also improve performance using these methods. Four groups (each of n?=?27) of the poorest reading 6-year-old children in nine schools were screened and selected for this study. LSAs were briefly trained to administer phonic programmes as small group interventions for nine weeks. Rhyme- and phoneme-based programmes were also contrasted with controls receiving the National Literacy Strategy. At post-test, all intervention group children were better decoders, and had better phonological awareness and letter?–?sound knowledge than controls. The phoneme-based group had better letter?–?sound knowledge than the other intervention groups. It is concluded that trained Learning Support Assistants can deliver effective early preventive programmes for literacy difficulties.     

Peer mentoring: engaging pre‐service teachers in mentoring one another

This article discusses a peer mentoring teacher education initiative that aims at developing pre‐service teachers’ capacities to participate successfully in learning communities, both during their initial teacher education and throughout their teaching careers. Peer mentoring utilizes the latest conceptualization of mentoring, that of co‐mentoring by Bona et al. or that proposed by Hargreaves and Fullan, where all teachers give and receive support. Such a conceptualization challenges the traditional assumption that the mentor knows best and is consistent with the latest approaches to teacher professional development, where teachers are encouraged to participate in learning communities. A peer mentoring teacher education initiative is described and three essential elements are highlighted.     

Life Narratives and Personal Identity: The End of Linear Social Mobility?

ABSTRACT

This paper uses visualisations of life trajectories drawn from the 1958 National Child Development Survey to show how this generation refused linear narratives of mobility in favour of jags and turning points. We argue that these visualisations demonstrate the limitations of conventional class-based interpretations of social mobility. . We show how these jags represent moments of switching between public and private lives, demonstrating the interruptions which this generation display. We argue that these visualisations are consistent with the distinctive historical conditions ofthis generation, especially its female members, We conclude that more studiesof popular identities of social mobility are needed.     

Change of plans: an evaluation of the effectiveness and underlying mechanisms of successful talent transfer

Abstract

Talent transfer (TT) is a recently formalised process used to identify and develop talented athletes by selecting individuals who have already succeeded in one sport and transferring them to another. Despite the increasing popularity of TT amongst national organisations and sport governing body professionals, however, there is little empirical evidence as to its efficacy or how it may be most efficiently employed. Accordingly, this investigation was designed to gain a deeper understanding of the effectiveness and underlying mechanisms of TT, achieved through a two-part study. Stage 1 provided a quantitative analysis of the incidence and distribution or, in this respect, epidemiology of TT, finding the most popular transfer to be sprinting to bobsleigh, with an average transfer age of 19 years. Stage 2 scrutinised the TT process and explored the specific cases revealed in stage 1 by examining the perceptions of four sport science support specialists who had worked in TT settings, finding several emergent themes which, they felt, could explain the TT processes. The most prominent theme was the psychosocial mechanism of TT, an aspect currently missing from TT initiatives, suggesting that current TT systems are poorly structured and should redress their approach to develop a more integrated scheme that encompasses all potential mechanisms of transfer.     

A randomised efficacy study of Web‐based synthetic and analytic programmes among disadvantaged urban Kindergarten children

This study explores whether two computer‐based literacy interventions – a ‘synthetic phonics’ and an ‘analytic phonics’ approach produce qualitatively distinct effects on the early phonological abilities and reading skills of disadvantaged urban Kindergarten (Reception) children. Participants (n=53) were assigned by random allocation to one of the two interventions. Each intervention was generally delivered three times per week for 13 weeks as part of a reading centre approach in Kindergarten classrooms with small groups of children. In the synthetic programme children showed, as predicted, significant (p<.05) improvement in CV and VC word blending and the articulation of final consonants. The children in the analytic phonics programme showed, as predicted, significant (p<.05) improvements in articulating shared rimes in words. These results suggest that synthetic and analytic programmes have qualitatively different effects on children's phonological development. These phonological differences are not however immediately reflected in any qualitative differences in the way children undertook word reading or nonword decoding.     

Building resilience in pre-service teachers

This article examines the role that professional experiences (practicum) can play in building resilience in pre-service teachers. In particular it focuses on a learning communities model of professional experience with its emphasis on relationships and its attention to the complex and dynamic interactions between individuals and their ‘student teaching’ contexts. This article draws on a number of studies including evaluations of two cohorts of graduate Bachelor of Education (primary) students and a self-study based on the work of two university academics. Jordan's [2006. Relational resilience in girls. In S. Goldstein, & R. Brooks, (Eds.), Handbook of resilience in children. New York: Springer] model of relational resilience – with its characteristics of mutuality, empowerment and the development of courage – is used as a conceptual framework for illuminating some of the emerging insights from our work with the Learning Communities model.     

Different for girls? Feminism,health information and librarianship*

This paper focuses on the provision and organization of health information materials in women's health centres in UK and Ireland in the late 20th century Such centres sprung from the work of feminist activists and health workers from the late 1960s onwards, promoting health information and other interventions to counteract women's devalued status within society, and the stereotypes perpetuated by health care and other systems. Centres that developed were (and still are) typically within the voluntary sector, have a strong feminist perspective and are run by lay workers. This paper will draw on research into information provision in these centres, its scope, organization and who provides it. It will argue that this work is of interest to mainstream librarianship, but there are minimal linkages as feminist thinking within librarianship has been unable overall to make common cause with the work of these, and other such agencies, which has inhibited potential developments of mutual benefit. This paper draws on ongoing research into feminism and librarianship, and findings that have been presented in a number of settings.     

Discrete analogues of Green's identities through the graph—theoretic field model

In this paper, we derive discrete versions of Green's identities (which appear in the study of potential field theory) as direct consequences of applying Tellegen's Theorem to the Graph—Theoretic Field Model (GTFM) of a field. The procedure herein is in marked contrast to the existing procedures where Green's Identities are derived from the Divergence Theorem by using some strictly mathematical operations. In particular, Green's third identity, which is the starting point formulation for the Boundary Integral Method, is singled out for special attention in terms of its discrete counterpart in the Graph—Theoretic Field Model. The first discrete identity is used to establish certain properties of solutions for the GTFM and a limiting process is applied to the three discrete identities to derive the traditional vector-calculus forms of Green's identities.