Changing Conceptions in the Relative Sequence of Major Topics in General Science Textbooks (1911-1934)

The authors examined the relationship between fifth-grade students' verbal ability level and the adaptive nature of the questions that these students asked in attempting to find a correct synonym for vocabulary items. Questions were divided into necessary questions (questions posed after a wrong provisional answer) and unnecessary questions (questions posed after a right provisional answer). Another division of questions was into helpful questions (questions that led to a correction of a wrong provisional answer) and harmful questions (questions that led to a shift from a right to a wrong answer). Also examined were discontinued inquiries (instances in which a student decided to break off an inquiry in favor of inferring the right alternative). The results showed that students with high verbal ability asked more necessary questions and stepped up the number of unnecessary questions for difficult items, signaling that these questions were asked to increase confidence in knowing. Students' verbal ability did not affect the frequency of discontinued inquiries, but a significant effect was found for the helpfulness of these inquiries. A detailed account of the various processes and stages involved in students' questioning is presented.     

The New Right and the national curriculum: State control or market forces? 1

This paper takes as its starting point an apparent tension within the Education Reform Act between its imposition of a national curriculum and its stress elsewhere on parental choice and market forces in determining the shape of the school system. The paper then explores differences within the New Right over the issue of the school curriculum, but also points to ways in which neo‐liberal and neo‐conservative positions may ultimately be reconcilable. However, it also suggests that neither position may prove entirely attractive to the government's industrial sponsors who wish the curriculum to be more responsive to the needs of industry. The paper then draws on the findings of a recent research project on school choice to consider some possible consequences of allowing market forces to determine the nature of the curriculum. In conclusion, it stresses the importance of seeing the national curriculum within its broader structural context and notes that there are important lessons to be drawn from the approaches taken by both the tendencies identified within New Right thinking about the curriculum.

     

Mathematics and science inequalities in the United Kingdom: when elitism,sexism and culture collide

An examination of gender, social class and ethnicity performance and participation patterns in different UK countries shows that inequities occur in relation to gender, class and ethnicity but that the patterns of inequity look quite different in the three domains. Achievement is equal for different genders but many more males take mathematics forward to advanced levels; social class differences persist in both achievement and participation; and ethnicity shows a varied pattern with some groups performing and participating at particularly high levels and some particularly low. This paper identifies some critical issues that we face in making mathematics and science equitable and begins to analyse some of the barriers that stand in the way of students who are female, and from some ethnic and social groups.     

CONTACT QUALITY AND ATTITUDES TOWARD THE ELDERLY

The contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) states that cooperative contact with individual members of an out-group can lead to a general more positive attitude toward the out-group as a whole. The research reported in this article investigated the validity of the contact hypothesis within the context of interage interactions. Specifically, the study examined the relationship between young adults' contact with older adults and their attitudes toward the elderly in general. Previous research has emphasized that various factors related to contact quality strongly influence the formation of positive attitudes. In accordance with this assertion, we hypothesized that a single factor, participants' self-reported quality of contact with older individuals, would be related to their attitudes toward the elderly as measured by an implicit attitude scale. Participants' self-reported frequency of contact with older adults was expected to have no effect on their attitudes. College-aged participants were given a single questionnaire that assessed (a) the frequency and quality of their contact with elderly men and women and (b) their implicit attitudes toward the elderly. The results confirmed that self-reported favorable quality, but not frequency, of contact was significantly related to more positive attitudes toward the elderly.     

Publisher,be damned! From price gouging to the open road

All four authors are members of the Leicester school of critical management and have previously written together on academic publishing. David Harvie lectures in finance and is interested in ethical issues related to this and other matters. He is a member of The Free Association writing collective. Geoff Lightfoot lectures in entrepreneurship and has particular interests in the ideology of markets and critical accounting. Simon Lilley works on information aspects of organisation and is currently head of the School of Management at Leicester University. Kenneth Weir is interested in accounting practices, especially critical and social accounting.     

Move over Nelly: lessons from 30 years of employment-based initial teacher education in England

Recruiting, preparing and retaining high-quality teachers are recurrent themes of local, national and international education agendas. Traditional university-led forms of teacher education continue to be challenged, and defended, as nations strive to secure a teaching force equipped to achieve high-quality learning outcomes for all students. One commonly adopted policy solution has been the diversification of teacher preparation routes: the alternative certification agenda. In this article, we examine the entire history of one alternative route in place in England from 1997 to 2012, the Graduate Teacher Programme. Using one example of an employment-based programme, we argue that opportunities to engineer innovative and creative spaces in the face of the current teacher preparation reform agenda need to be seized. This case study, which is contextualised in both the international debates about alternative teacher certification routes and the current policy agenda in England, demonstrates the extent to which successive administrations have failed to learn from the lessons of the past in the rush to recycle policies and claim them as their own.