To preserve or enhance precious memories: a segmented market analysis of the history museum in Singapore

This study examines the value placed on museums by patrons and non-patrons and investigates the factors that affect this valuation with a view to boost visitorship. The total economic value of Singapore’s History Museum is at least US$57 million, and this is high relative to other countries, a fact which can be used to justify increased government funding towards museums as cultural capital. Females and high income people are the target groups for increased visitation, while among the non-patrons, the ethnic majority is another potential clientele. Somewhat surprising is the finding that neither patrons nor non-patrons see the museum as having significant tourist value, and contrary to prospect theory, there is a preference for enhancing the museum’s services over keeping the museum. These findings provide some direction for the management of the museum to improve its visitor appeal.     

Experiences of teacher evaluation systems on high school physical education programs

Primary objective: Teacher evaluation is being revamped by policy-makers. The marginalized status of physical education has protected this subject area from reform for many decades, but in our current era of system-wide, data-based decision-making, physical education is no longer immune. Standardized and local testing, together with structured observation measures, are swiftly being mandated in the USA as required elements of teacher evaluation systems in an effort to improve school programs and student achievement. The purpose of this investigation was to document how this reform was initiated and the experiences of teachers, students and administrators, from three high school physical education programs, during initiation of this reform. Documenting how physical education programs respond to such reforms develops our understanding of top-down reform efforts and helps to identify conditions under which such reforms have the intended effect on physical education teachers and student learning in physical education.

Theoretical framework: Fullan’s three phases of school change has been used to analyze and guide school change efforts in several subject areas including physical education. The phases are initiation, implementation and institutionalization. This study is situated primarily within the first phase of school change, the initiation phase.

Methods and procedures: This study took place over a 21-month period in 3 suburban school districts in a northeast metropolitan area of the USA. Interviews with district physical education administrators, high school physical education teachers and students were conducted. Field notes of physical education classes, informal interviews and related artifacts including pre- and post-physical education assessments were collected. To ensure trustworthiness, several steps were taken including member checks, triangulation and peer review. The data were analyzed to find common themes and patterns using the constant comparative method.

Results: Several themes emerged: (1) changes in curriculum and assessment; (2) effect on administrators; (3) stakeholder apathy and (4) department collaboration.

Conclusion: Changes, although minor, did take place in the wake of this top-down teacher reform; however, additional research needs to be completed to determine whether or not these changes are meaningful or long lasting.     

‘Second death’, or revival of the ‘third world’ in the context of neo‐liberal globalization

Abstract

This paper tries to analyze the historical change in the Third World in its emergent stage, in the authoritarian stage and in the current democratic stage and, thereafter, find a way to revive the Bandung spirit in the current globalization context. I define the Bandung spirit as one of a ‘non‐aligned self‐helped “organization against” the dominant powerful countries’; that is, spirit of ‘anti‐predominance’. This spirit has emerged on the base of such domestic orientation and realities as economic self‐reliance, nationally integrated political regime, convergence of the state and civil society around anti‐colonialism. However, according to intensification of the Cold War confrontation on the international level and its centrifugal influence, the early Third World changed to a ‘new’ authoritarian Third World. The Third World in this stage could be characterized by an exclusive authoritarian political regime, dependent‐developmentalist economic orientation and coercively repressed and mobilized, in the top‐down way, civil society. This authoritarian Third World began to be confronted with a strong struggle from the bottom for democratization. In order for democratization of the Third World to become its true revival in the context of globalization, the following tasks should be considered. First, the democratic Third World should be a great driving force for the institutionalization of the transnational public regulatory mechanism. Second, the democratic Third World countries try to go over a kind of ‘transformed’ dependent development strategy. Third, democratization should go along with recovery of political inclusiveness and openness of the state to civil society’s demands. Thereafter, I tried to construct globalist re‐interpretation of the Bandung, by way of conceptualizing the current globalization as imperial globalization, unlike the imperialist globalization which the historical Bandung wanted to confront. I argue that the Bandung spirit of collective self‐help organizations against the newly emerging dominant order should be revived in this worse imperial globalization context. In addition, I argue that a nationalist resistance is also one component of the multiple resistances in the current imperial globalization.     

Modernising gender,civilising sex: perverse imaginary in the state feminist politics of Liu Yu‐hsiu

Abstract

The gender sexual politics of Liu Yu‐hsiu has been pivotal in the hegemonic ascendancy of Taiwan state feminism in recent years. Through an examination of Liu’s psychoanalytically mediated essays of cultural criticism, this article traces the contour of Liu’s sexual imaginary within the context of 1990s feminist and queer politics. Liu’s modernising project of gender equality, I argue, upholds heterosexual monogamy as a feminist ideal that seeks to purge all the masculine ills, including perversion and promiscuity. Meanwhile, queers and prostitutes come to be figured as the very negativity that must be repressed. Yet, like the Lacanian Real, they impinge on the symbolic order that Liu ordains as they thwart her desire to civilise sex.     

Toward an Expanded Understanding of Two-Way Bilingual Immersion Education: Constructing Identity through a Critical,Additive Bilingual/Bicultural Pedagogy

This literature review will take a focused look at the three currently accepted theoretical foundations upon which two-way bilingual immersion programs are based. Through an examination of research on identity construction in childhood and adolescence, particularly as seen through a critical pedagogical lens, it proposes that there exists a fourth and relatively unexamined component: identity construction. Further, it postulates that identity construction is of particular relevance to linguistic minority students.     

Texts

Made in America: Immigrant Students in Our Public Schools. Laurie Olsen, New York: The New Press, 1997, 276 pages, $25.00 (hardcover), ISBN 1–5658–4400–9, and $14.95 (softcover), ISBN 1–5658–4471–8.

The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America From a Small School in Harlem. Deborah Meier, Boston: Beacon Press, 1995, 190 pages, $12.00 (softcover). ISBN 0–8070–3111–9.

Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow: Meeting the Challenge of Our Multicultural America & Beyond. Paul D. Christiansen and Michelle Young, San Francisco: Gaddo Gap Press, 1996, 376 pages, $29.95 (softcover). ISBN 1–8801–9218–7.