Researching elite education: affectively inferred belongings,desires and exclusions

This paper reflects on key moments occurring during the course of a three-year study of elite girls’ education, with a focus on the power relations that emerged between researchers and elites within the context in which the study was conducted. Central to our analysis is a focus on the affective dimensions of interaction between the researcher and study participants. Our experience gaining access to elite schools in the study illustrates how productive relationships may be fostered by a demonstrated alignment of interests; the desire for intellectual dialogue; and factors linked to the dynamics of the local education market. In our interviews with elite young women, we found that experiences of affinity, foreignness or awe within the interview process triggered different systems of affect. These moments are significant in shaping understandings of the social projects pursued by elite subjects.     

“I Managed It Pretty Good”: Birth Narratives of Adolescent Mothers

The aim of this study was to understand adolescent mothers’ childbirth experiences. Semistructured interviews were conducted with participants recruited from a community-based program for adolescent mothers. Fourteen mothers described their birth experiences. Using a narrative analytic approach, responses were reconstructed into birth stories. Stories, condensed into poetic form, were compared and contrasted. Four unique categories emerged: connected births, surreal births, disconnected births, and disempowered births. Categories differed by agency, support, and emotional tone. Positive support was found in stories that portrayed high agency and positive affect, whereas problematic support was apparent in stories that conveyed passivity, frustration, and disappointment. This study has implications for tailoring childbirth education for adolescent mothers and can inform health-care professionals working with this population.     

Predictors of developmentally appropriate classroom practices in kindergarten through third grade

This study was designed to (a) test the psychometric properties of a new observation measure of developmentally appropriate classroom practices in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms, and (b) determine how well classroom and teacher characteristics predict developmentally appropriate classroom practices. Teacher-reported and observational data from 69 classrooms provided support for construct validity, internal consistency, and interrater agreement of the Assessment of Practices in Early Elementary Classrooms (APEEC) measure. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that classroom characteristics (grade, class size, number of children with disabilities), teacher characteristics (education level, years of experience) and teacher beliefs (developmentally appropriate beliefs and developmentally inappropriate beliefs) accounted for 42% of the variance in observed classroom practices. With all variables in the model, teacher education, grade, and beliefs in developmentally appropriate and inappropriate practice accounted for most of the variance in observed classroom practices.     

A COMPARISON OF FACTORS INFLUENCING ISSUE DIVERSITY IN THE U.S. AND TAIWAN

The study extends agenda-setting research by examining issuediversity as a consequence of media exposure. Results from twosurveys—one conducted in the United States, the otherin Taiwan—illustrate differences in the cultures of thetwo samples. In general, older individuals who find low utilityin advertising information but who read a variety of newspapersand feel a strong civic duty to keep informed believe thereare many important issues facing the United States. Younger,highly educated individuals who have a high interest in politicalnews and who read a variety of newspapers believe there aremany important issues facing Taiwan.     

Games children play: How they increase the intellect?

This paper contends that games are powerful promoters of intellectual ability and are too little used in educational curricula. It offers nine propositions in support of this thesis. It explores the possibilities of classifying games in categories which relate to their uses and suggests a digital code for indicating both category and status within a category. Finally, the findings of some preliminary and rudimentary research are presented to suggest that the systematic use of games may be as influential as systematic instruction in altering scores on IQ tests.     

Three decades of bilateral copyright negotiations: Mainland China and the United States

The study analyzes the dynamics of intellectual property (IP) negotiations between mainland China and the United States from the late 1970s to 2007. As China has industrialized, it has faced significant pressure from its international trading partners led by the United States to improve protection for intellectual property rights (IPR). Analysis of the progress of IP protection in China provides an opportunity to test and modify a model of IP policy development in developing countries, and the impact of U.S. actions on internal IP politics and cultural development.     

Assessment in higher education in the professions: action research as an authentic assessment task

The argument of this article is that assessment in higher education in the professions can benefit from quality assessment tasks linked to professional practice. Such an assessment task would need to be authentic requiring considerable intellectual skill as well as attending to the realities of professional demands. The idea of authentic assessment is developed by using five of Boud et al.'s propositions in higher educational assessment. This idea is illustrated by the use of action research in a teaching internship, that is, data driven learning in the workplace which also serves as an assessment task in the final year of a professional Bachelor degree. Some difficulties and some illustrative, positive student reactions are presented.     

The unfinished nature of rights-informed HIV- and AIDS-related education: an analysis of three school-based initiatives

Over the past 25 years, there has been growing investment in concepts of rights in the areas of HIV prevention, care and treatment, including HIV- and AIDS-related education delivered in schools. Despite this increasing commitment to the notion of rights, few efforts appear to have been made to understand the varying conceptions of rights that underpin different kinds of initiatives. Engaging with a multi-disciplinary body of literature on the issue of rights, and through a focus on three rights-informed HIV- and AIDS-related initiatives, this paper seeks to address this gap in the current literature. In so doing, it also examines a central tension within human rights discourse, namely between the construal of rights as shared and universally applicable to all human beings, while being created in and limited by the location in which they were elaborated, as well as by the language used to formulate them. More explicit engagement with the diversity of approaches made possible through a commitment to human rights may facilitate forms of HIV- and AIDS-related education that are more meaningful to young people.