JUVENILE DELINQUENCY: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF RESEARCH AND THEORY

Methods books which have been marketed for student teachers during the past hundred years are remarkably consistent in their treatment of teaching skills. The psychological or theoretical rationales which are invoked to justify practices have changed, there have been a few alterations in terminology, the style has become less didactic and presentation is more attractive. Nevertheless, the information which a student teacher would have acquired from his methods text in the 1880s is compatible with that available to the contemporary student. I will take examples from methods texts and illustrate this theme with reference to the teacher's questioning skills. I will then ask why this pattern has endured and finally suggest that it is both necessary and possible to break out of this tradition.     

The international branch campus as transnational strategy in higher education

The international branch campus is a phenomenon on the rise, but we still have limited knowledge of the strategic choices underlying the start of these ventures. The objective of this paper is to shed light on the motivations and decisions of universities to engage (or not) with the establishment of international branch campuses. As a point of departure, institutional theory has been selected to frame the potential motives for starting an international branch campus. Secondary literature, including professional journals and university reports and websites, has been analysed to obtain information that alludes to the motivations of universities for adopting particular strategies. It was found that university managements’ considerations can be explained by the concepts of legitimacy, status, institutional distance, risk-taking, risk-avoidance and the desire to secure new sources of revenue. We argue that universities should avoid decisions that are based largely on a single dimension, such as legitimacy, but rather consider a broad spectrum of motivations and considerations.     

Biological Essentialism and the Tidal Change of Natural Kinds

The vision of natural kinds that is most common in the modern philosophy of biology, particularly with respect to the question whether species and other taxa are natural kinds, is based on a revision of the notion by Mill in A System of Logic. However, there was another conception that Whewell had previously captured well, which taxonomists have always employed, of kinds as being types that need not have necessary and sufficient characters and properties, or essences. These competing views employ different approaches to scientific methodologies: Mill’s class-kinds are not formed by induction but by deduction, while Whewell’s type-kinds are inductive. More recently, phylogenetic kinds (clades, or monophyletic-kinds) are inductively projectible, and escape Mill’s strictures. Mill’s version represents a shift in the notions of kinds from the biological to the physical sciences.     

Reference Desks in Public Libraries: What Happens and What To Know

With staffing and funding shortages and rapidly changing expectations from patrons, what is actually happening at the reference desk in today’s libraries? Understanding the needs today’s reference librarians face can be useful in developing ways to support those needs. Asking them to make some predictions on the future of public library reference work gives Library and Information Science (LIS) students, and libraries preparing for the future, a valuable look at the expertise provided by experience. This understanding will help make some realistic decisions about reference staffing and service needs and provide some guidance for those aspiring to careers in public library reference.     

The impact of the National Curriculum on teaching methods at a secondary school

This study sought to explore the extent to which the introduction of six National Curriculum subjects (English, Mathematics, Science, Technology, History and Geography) has had an impact on teaching methods. A case study was conducted at one secondary school, which comprised interviews, questionnaires and lesson observations (including video taping for stimulated recall). Particular attention was paid to the National Curriculum Council's guidance concerning the teaching methods to be used in teaching these subjects. The data indicate that most teachers felt their general approach to teaching was based on using a variety of teaching methods and adopting a more active and investigatory approach. They felt this approach had generally been supported by the National Curriculum. However, there was a concern that the content and method of national assessment tests may make it difficult to sustain this emphasis in their approach in future.     

Professionalizing school governance: the disciplinary effects of school autonomy and inspection on the changing role of school governors

Since the 1980s, state schools in England have been required to ensure transparency and accountability through the use of indicators and templates derived from the private sector and, more recently, globally circulating discourses of ‘good governance’ (an appeal to professional standards, technical expertise, and performance evaluation as mechanisms for improving public service delivery). The rise of academies and free schools (‘state-funded independent schools’) has increased demand for good governance, notably as a means by which to discipline schools, in particular school governors – those tasked with the legal responsibility of holding senior leadership to account for the financial and educational performance of schools. A condition and effect of school autonomy, therefore, is increased monitoring and surveillance of all school governing bodies. In this paper, I demonstrate how these twin processes combine to produce a new modality of state power and intervention; a dominant or organizing principle by which government steer the performance of governors through disciplinary tools of professionalization and inspection, with the aim of achieving the ‘control of control’. To explain these trends, I explore how various established and emerging school governing bodies are (re)constituting themselves to meet demands for good governance.