Development of an instrument for assessing the psychosocial environment of science laboratory classes

Conclusion This paper attempts to stimulate and facilitate future research and practical applications involving the psychosocial environment of science laboratory classrooms by describing the development of a new instrument, the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI), which assesses eight dimensions of the actual and preferred environment of science laboratory classes at the upper secondary school and higher education levels. Comprehensive validation information reported here in tentatively attests to the internal consistency reliability and discriminant validity of the actual and preferred forms of the SLEI for use in Australian or American classrooms. As well, further analyses supported the ability of the actual form of the SLEI to differentiate between the perceptions of students in different classrooms. It is hoped that science teachers and other researchers will make use of the SLEI to pursue several research and practical applications analogous to those completed successfully in prior work in non-laboratory classrooms.     

The Construction of a Curriculum Area: science in society

In 1981 a new curriculum development project, Science in Society, was published by the Association for Science Education. It has been widely praised and a growing number of teachers are using the material in their teaching. There have been, however, a number of criticisms about the restricted definition of the topic area and about bias in the curriculum material available.

This article briefly describes the project and the context in which the project was developed. It is argued that many of the aspects of the course that have been criticised can be understood through an examination of the largely unquestioned assumptions prevalent in school science teaching at the time of the inception of the project.     

No discrimination on the basis of irrelevant qualifications

This paper argues that social justice demands that discrimination on the basis of irrelevant qualifications be made illegal. Just as historically it was seen as ‘natural’ for discrimination in employment and education to be made on the basis of class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability and age, so (at present) most people see discrimination on the basis of irrelevant qualifications as ‘natural’. That ‘naturalness’ is challenged in this paper and proposals are put forward to rectify this injustice.     

Adolescent Discourse on National Identity‐‐voices of care and justice?

In her highly publicised polemic, All Must Have Prizes (1996), Melanie Phillips launches a scathing attack upon the British educational establishment and various facets of policy and practice during the past three decades. She is especially critical of progressivism and approaches to teaching and learning supposedly predicated upon relativist principles (e.g. multicultural education). Our own research on primary‐school children's constructions of British identity (Carrington, B. & Short, G. (1995): What makes a person British? Children's conceptions of their national culture and identity, Educational Studies, 21, pp. 217‐238) is singled‐out for criticism.

We begin this paper with a rejoinder to Phillips. Among other things, we take issue with her defence of an assimilationist approach to the curriculum. In the second part of the paper, we present the findings of a recently completed case‐study of 12‐ and 13‐year‐olds’ constructions of their national identity, which replicates the earlier work (criticised by Phillips) with 8‐ to 11‐year‐olds. We show that the young adolescents, in common with their counterparts in primary schools, tended to adopt a pluralist viewpoint. Once again, there was an almost complete dearth of comments that were racist or nationalistic. We conclude by briefly exploring the policy implications of the findings.

     

The context for reinforcement: Modulation of the response-reinforcer relation by concurrently available extraneous reinforcement

Learning & Behavior - Right-lever presses by hooded rats in three groups produced reinforcers at variable-intervals that differed over five conditions. The groups differed by virtue of the...     

‘The lady is not returning!’: educational precarity and a social haunting in the UK coalfields

Drawing on research in de-industrialised coal-mining communities in the north of England, this article focuses on how experiences of some young people might be approached through a notion of precarity linked to the idea of a ‘social haunting’ of the coalfields. Concentrating on data gathered in the period after the 2010 change of UK government, the article considers how localities suffering under the impact of ‘austerity’ measures have also witnessed moments of vivid, carnivalesque resurgence linked to celebrations of the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in April 2013 and of the thirtieth anniversary of the 1984–1985 UK miners’ strike during 2014–2015. These celebrations mark a watershed in the cultural and affective life of the communities, one aspect of which relates to how young people with very different educational trajectories have become involved alongside each other in those events as a result of their different experiences of precarity.     

Launching the Unified National System: What happened in South Australia

The focus of this article ison the processes by which five tertiaryinstitutions in South Australia were integratedinto the Unified National System in 1991. Incontrast with what occurred in some otherStates, the South Australian institutions wereallowed unusual scope for self-determinationwithin the broad national policy framework. Inpractice, this apparent freedom of choiceproved a mixed blessing. Institutionalambitions no less than individual aspirationsand self-interest tended to modify and delaydecision-making processes. However, the longdrawn-out wrangling and debate eventually ledthe key participants from conflict tocooperation and an acceptable compromise.     

Endowment spending rates, intergenerational equity and the sources of capital gains

This paper analyzes how James Tobin’s widely cited concept of “intergenerational equity” for university endowments relates to the economic concepts of intertemporal substitutability and risk aversion. I show that Tobin’s concept of intergenerational equity is a very special case of intertemporal substitutability; a special case that implies very low tolerance for risk. Using the more general case, I show that the observed reduction in university spending rates during the 1990s can be viewed as a reasonable response to a period of non-recurring capital gains.     

Context specificity of conditioning in flavor-aversion learning: Extinction and blocking tests

In three experiments using rats as subjects, we investigated the degree to which a conditioned flavor aversion transfers from one context to another. Experiment 1, using a one-trial conditioning procedure, found no effect of a change of context on a conditioned aversion. Experiment 2 employed a multitrial procedure and demonstrated that a conditioned aversion was extinguished more rapidly after a change of context. Experiment 3 showed that context change decreased the effectiveness with which a conditioned flavor could block acquisition of an aversion by a second flavor. It is argued that these data cannot be explained in associative terms, and that they constitute evidence of conditionality in a simple aversive conditioning procedure.