A Preferred Approach to Management Education has a Learner‐Centred and Problem‐based Emphasis

It will be argued that the education of Australian managers needs to emphasise a Learner‐centred/Problem‐based (LC/PB) approach rather than a Teacher‐centred/Discipline‐based one. In the current study management students reported that they preferred such an emphasis. The results indicated that the courses had insufficient Leamer‐centred and Problem‐based elements and that the students would prefer to see more of these features in the curriculum.     

Sex and Risk: Parental Messages and Associated Safety/Risk Behavior of Adult Children

The importance of both parent–child conversations about sex and general family communication climates has been emphasized in numerous studies. This study compared general family communication via family communication patterns (FCP) to specific parental communication about sex in understanding young adults’ sexual communication/risk (avoidance, threat, and risk behavior). Results suggest that FCP were stronger predictors of adult children’s perceptions of sexual communication as threatening and overall avoidance of sexual communication with their partners compared to the frequency of and overall quality of parent–child conversations about sex. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are also discussed.     

Neural Processing of Eye Gaze and Threat‐Related Emotional Facial Expressions in Infancy

Combined with emotional expressions, eye gaze can provide essential information to indicate threat in the environment. The current study assessed the effects of eye gaze direction on infants’ neural processing of fearful and angry faces. Event‐related potentials were recorded from thirteen 7‐month‐old infants. Two face‐sensitive posterior components, the N290 and P400, as well as a frontocentral negative component (Nc), indicating attentional arousal, were sensitive to eye gaze direction and emotion. A larger Nc was observed for angry faces with direct compared to averted eye gaze. Fearful faces elicited a larger N290 than angry faces, whereas angry faces elicited a more prominent P400 regardless of eye gaze direction. The findings are discussed in terms of early social cognitive and neural development.     

On Two Critiques of the Marxist Sociology of Education

Marxist sociology of education has been criticised in recent papers by Hickox and Hargreaves. It is argued that these writers largely misunderstand and misrepresent the work they criticise. Hickox attributes a position to Marxist sociologists of education which few, if any, now hold. Hargreaves makes a more powerful case, but is insufficiently familiar with Marxist scholarship to grasp the nature of the Marxist project.     

Numbers and Narratives: Further reflections in the sociology of education

A realist framework, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods, is advocated for the sociology of education. The case for a 'numbers and narratives' approach is supported by an analysis of several fundamental problems. Realist forms of sociological explanation require specification of properties at the three distinct levels of social structure, individual disposition, and action within social practice. It is argued that the quantification of these properties is most satisfactorily achieved within a materialist theory of measurement. Many of the problems that arise with quantitative work are shown to have their origin in an inadequate theory of measurement and to be sustained by an unsound concept of 'statistical explanation'. It is concluded that the most satisfactory response to these problems, however, lies not in the celebration of qualitative work, situated in a relationship of opposition, but in the development of an integrated structure-disposition-practice explanatory scheme for the sociology of education.     

Authoring “Race”: Writing Truth and Fiction after School

This article examines the process a diverse group of eighth grade students go through when charged with writing about the ways in which race might matter at their desegregated school. Students' articulations are bounded by a school culture of silence around race. The regulatory aspect of this school culture was enacted when students first make racism visible through exaggerated writing in a fictional play about school life, only to later censor themselves in an effort to more accurately portray the implicit nature of racialized relations at the school. As the students talked and wrote about their understandings of race and racism at their school, we listened carefully to what they said and also to their silences, paying attention to the erasures. The article concludes that such findings invite us to think about the value of alternative spaces for students to talk and write as well as a consideration of how the school sphere itself might be made more accepting of diverse perspectives on race outside of the dominant colorblind discourse. In addition, we suggest the power of fiction for eliciting conversation among youth. Katherine Schultz is an Associate Professor of Education, Foundations and Practices of Education Division, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Patricia Buck is an Assistant Professor of Education, Department of Education, Bates College and Tricia Niesz is an Assistant Professor of Qualitative Research in Education, Department of Educational Foundations and Special Services, Kent State University. All these authors have received their Ph.D from University of Pennsylvannia.