Partnership Programs in U.S. Schools: Their Development and Relationship to Family Involvement Outcomes

This study examined data from over 300 U.S. schools on their efforts to develop high quality programs of school, family, and community partnerships. Analyses show that elementary schools, schools with greater support from parents, teachers, and the community; and schools that evaluated progress reported higher quality partnership programs over time. Higher quality programs were associated with wider implementation of parent-child interactive homework, higher levels of parent volunteering, and more parents on school decision-making committees. Results identify factors that could help schools develop quality partnership programs and suggest that these programs translate into higher levels of family involvement in students’ learning.     

Braided composite materials for the production of lightweight, high rigidity golf shafts

Braiding is not currently used in the production of golf shafts. The objective of this work was to develop, through a modelling process consisting of altering lamina sequence, a golf shaft, using braided laminas, which would have mass, stiffness and torque comparable to commercially available composite and steel shafts. A 2D conical braided composite model was previously developed and validated to predict elastic constants of braided closed meshed structures. Energy methods were used to calculate the stiffness and torque of shafts using prescribed industry approaches. Shaft mass was calculated based on geometry and density of constitutent materials. Modelled shafts had both braided and unidirectional layers and compared favourably with or were better than commercially available composite and steel shafts in terms of deflection force and twist angle; they had the same weight as composite shafts but were much lighter than steel shafts. If these findings are verified, braided composites would be a viable and effective approach to the design of future golf shafts.     

YY英语求助站（1）

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Funding,reputation and targets: the discursive logics of high-stakes testing

This paper provides insights into teacher and school-based administrators’ responses to policy demands for improved outcomes on high-stakes, standardised literacy and numeracy tests in Australia. Specifically, the research reveals the effects of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), and associated policies, in the state of Queensland. Drawing suggestively across Michel Foucault’s notions of disciplinary power and subjectivity, and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of social fields, the research utilises interviews with teachers and school-based administrators to reveal how high-stakes, standardised testing practices served to discursively constitute performative teacher subjectivities around issues of funding, teacher and school reputation and target-setting within what is described as the ‘field of schooling practices’. The paper argues that the contestation evident within this field is also reflective and constitutive of more educative schooling discourses and practices, even as performative logics dominate.