CONSIDERATIONS OF DEMOCRATIZATION AND ELITISM IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

The year, 1992, has been one of bewildering change in British higher education caused primarily by government planning and intervention which has as its motor a complex political agenda. In this article, the authors concern themselves with one of these changes: the apparent move towards the democratization of higher education. The likely effect of this change is then assessed for all sectors of the British population and in particular for the linguistic and ethnic minority groups constituted by recent immigration into the country.     

Supporting student learning: the use of computer–based formative assessment modules

This paper describes the development of a variety of computer–based assessment opportunities, both formative and summative, that are available to a large first year biology class at The University of Sydney. These materials include: weekly quizzes; a mock exam; quiz sections in tutorials; and special self–assessment modules (SAMs). The weekly quiz is password protected and secure but the remaining materials are available on–line from a Virtual Learning Environment (http://FYBio.bio.usyd.edu.au/VLE/L1/). Evaluations over a number of years of the use and usefulness of the formative assessment materials indicate that the student population is making significant use of materials and that these materials are helping students in their learning     

全球化进程中国家主权让渡的现实分析

国家主权对于一个国家而言具有十分重要的意义。然而,当今的全球化趋势给传统的国家主权带来了新的冲击和挑战。在全球化进程中,国家间的依存和合作更加紧密,而且还面临许多需要共同解决的问题。各主权国家为了共享全球化的成果,就要让渡部分主权。为了国家的整体利益,在自愿的、独立决策的前提下,让渡部分国家主权无疑是合理的、可行的。让渡部分国家主权是历史发展的必然,对国家主权不会造成损害和削弱。国家主权的让渡已经成为全球化和地区合作进程的一种趋势。主权让渡并不意味着主权的丧失,而是各国对主权的分享。对主权让渡的正确认识,有助于我们在全球化时代维护和扩展国家利益。     

‘Look Janet’, ‘No you look John’: constructions of gender in early school reader illustrations across 50 years

Children’s reading materials are a widely available cultural resource that children may draw on to make sense of gender. Much of the research on gender and reading materials has used content analysis and has focused on children’s literature. The research we present in this article detours from these approaches, using a feminist post‐structuralist analysis to examine constructions of gender in a randomly selected sample of 100 early school readers used in New Zealand schools over the last 50 years. Methodologically, our work contributes to the relatively small number of studies that analyze illustrations as texts of meanings. Analysis of the illustrations incorporates exploring the connotations of illustrations, identifying gender discourses, defining positions available within the discourses and illuminating similar discourses in other texts. Our analysis suggests relatively little change across 50 years in the availability of diverse representations of men, women and children in early school readers.     

Meanings of success and successful leadership in Ontario,Canada, in neo-liberal times

The provincial government of Ontario, Canada, has committed itself to raising student achievement, closing achievement gaps, and increasing the public's confidence in public education. It has introduced many policies, including the Ontario Leadership Strategy (OLS), to support these goals. Our study examined how teachers, administrators, support staff, and parents in three elementary schools in Ontario understand and enact school success and successful school leadership within this (neo-liberal) context. Findings of a comparative analysis of Ontario policy texts and data from interviews with administrators, teachers, support staff, and parents in the schools demonstrate that the school-based participants defined success as academic learning, a positive school climate, and students' well-being. This definition differs from the definition prioritised by Ontario's government: high scores on standardised provincial and international tests. However, principals in the schools enacted leadership practices advocated by OLS to support locally defined notions of success.     

加强青年传统美德教育，构建和谐文明社会

我国优秀的传统美德源远流长,是对青年思想品德教育的重要资源。在现代化建设、构建和谐社会、向现代文明推进的过程中,在青年传统美德淡漠、滑坡的形势下,继承中华民族的优秀文化,弘扬民族的优秀传统美德,加强青年的思想道德教育,显得尤为迫切和需要。积极探索青年传统美德教育的特点规律,在理论与现实中都有重要意义。     

‘You're not just learning it,you're living it!’ Constructing the ‘good life’ in Australian university online promotional videos

Online promotional videos on Australian university websites are a form of institutional branding and marketing that construct university experience in a variety of ways. Here we consider how these multimedia texts represent student lifestyles, identities and aspirations in terms of the ‘good life’. We consider how the ‘promise of happiness’ is deployed to appeal to perceived consumer desires within the local student market, as well as within the highly competitive global knowledge economy. These texts position university students as youthful, attractive, active and fun, and depict student life as being about leisure and pleasure. Such representations promote cultural and social entitlement to the ‘good life’ as if synonymous with choice, participation and success in higher education. Learning and scholarship are depicted as secondary activities. We also contend that claims to cosmopolitanism and consumerism are framed by racialised entitlements where Whiteness remains both a commodity and norm.     

Gudaga goes to school study: methods used in understanding school transitions and early education experiences of an urban Aboriginal cohort

The Gudaga Goes to School Study described the transition to school and early education experiences of 117 urban Aboriginal children and their families. This paper outlines the methods and design of the study. A life course approach, employing multidimensional and multi-theoretical frameworks was used to capture the complexity of issues surrounding the transition and early school experiences with multi-methods used to collect data from children, parents and teachers. Quantitative data included questionnaires, checklists and educational assessments to track children’s academic progress, school attendance, and social/emotional/behavioural development. Qualitative data consisted of semi-structured interviews and focus groups to gain the perspective of stakeholders. Children also participated using photography and drawing mediums. The community controlled study was conceived, designed and conducted in close consultation with the local Aboriginal community.     

The representation of the management of behavioural difficulties in EP practice

Behavioural difficulties, whether externalising or internalising, concern educational policy makers, practitioners and educational psychologists (EPs). The present configurative systematic literature review (SLR) aims to explore EPs’ representations of their behaviour management practices and application of psychology within behaviour work, in peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2017. Four research databases, Google Scholar and a University Online Library were systematically searched. A total of 29 papers were found, 12 of which met the study inclusion criteria and were deemed to be of at least medium methodological quality and relevance. A synthesis of the studies’ accounts and outcomes revealed a range of EP practices at individual, group and organisational levels, exemplifying the core functions of the role. EPs draw upon single or multiple integrated psychological paradigms and commonly adopt a social constructionist and relational approach to their work, which can be seen to empirically validate existing models of EP professional practice. Links to EP practice and implications for further research are considered.     

Imitative Learning of Actions on Objects by Children, Chimpanzees, and Enculturated Chimpanzees

In this study we compared the abilities of chimpanzees and human children to imitatively learn novel actions on objects. Of particular interest were possible differences between chimpanzees raised mostly with conspecifics (mother-reared) and chimpanzees raised in a human-like cultural environment (enculturated). Subjects were thus 3 enculturated and 3 mother-reared chimpanzees, along with 8 18-month-old and 8 30-month-old human children. Each subject was tested over a 2-day period with 16 novel objects. The introduction of each object was preceded by a baseline period in which the subjects natural proclivities toward the object were determined. For 12 objects, a human experimenter demonstrated first a simple and then a complex novel action, instructing the subject in each case to "Do what I do" (chimpanzees were prepared for the task behaviorally as well). For the other 4 objects, demonstration of a single action took place on the first day and the subjects opportunity to imitate was delayed until the second day, 48 hours later. Actions that a subject produced in baseline were excluded from further analysis. For each analyzed action, the subject's behavior was scored as to whether it successfully reproduced (1) the end result of the demonstrated action, and (2) the behavioral means used by the demonstrator. Results showed that in immediate imitation the mother-reared chimpanzees were much poorer imitators than the enculturated chimpanzees and the human children, who did not differ from one another. Surprisingly, on the delay trials, the enculturated chimpanzees significantly outperformed the other 3 groups. We conclude from these results that a human-like sociocultural environment is an essential component in the development of human-like social-cognitive and imitative learning skills for chimpanzees, and perhaps for human beings as well.