Making sense of the glass ceiling in schools: an exploration of women teachers’ discourses

There is extensive evidence of a ‘glass ceiling’ for women across the labour market. Though schools have widely been described as ‘feminized’ work environments, the under‐representation of women at school management level is well established. Based on a study of women teachers’ careers and promotion in the English school sector (in early years, primary and secondary schools), this paper draws on a critical discourse analysis of 44 individual interviews conducted with women teachers to explore their views of the ‘glass ceiling’. Despite significant evidence of the barriers to management positions faced by women teachers, interpretative frameworks drawing on discourses of individualization and personal choice are most prominent among these to make sense of the low proportion of women in school management. However, the paper also identifies the existence of alternative discourses recognizing the existence of gender inequalities.     

The Neuroscience of Art: A Research Program for the Next Decade?

Works of art can be viewed as elements of a human‐specific nonverbal communication system, distinct from language. First, the cognitive abilities and skills required for art creation and perception are built from a cascade of events driven by a “genetic envelope”. Essential for the understanding of artistic creation is its epigenetic variability. Second, artistic contemplation and creation may be tentatively viewed as a discrete and singular conscious synthesis taking place within the personal global neuronal workspace of external perceptions, internal memories and stored emotions. Third, there is a need for rules that constrain and restrict in a top‐down manner the selection of representations generated by the artist's brain. Finally, artistic creation is a part of the personal history of the artist and stems from an anterior historical evolution.     

Gymnastics

The 16 highest‐scored Roche vaults (G1) performed during the 2000 Olympic Games were compared with those receiving the 16 lowest‐scores (G2). A 16‐mm motion picture camera operating at 100 Hz recorded the vaults during the competition. The results of t tests (p < .05) indicated G1, compared to G2, had (a) shorter time of board support, greater normalised average upward vertical force and backward horizontal force exerted by the board, greater change in the vertical velocity while on the board, and greater vertical velocity at board take‐off, (b) comparable linear and angular motions in pre‐flight, (c) smaller backward horizontal impulse exerted by the horse, smaller loss of the horizontal velocity while on the horse, and greater horizontal and vertical velocities at horse take‐off, (d) greater height and larger horizontal distance of post‐flight, (e) higher body mass centre at knee release, and (f) higher mass centre, greater normalised moment of inertia, and smaller vertical velocity at mat touchdown. Therefore, gymnasts and coaches should focus on sprinting the approach; blocking and pushing‐off the take‐off board rapidly and vigorously; departing the board with a large vertical velocity; exerting large downward vertical force and small forward horizontal force from the handstand position while on the horse; departing the horse with large horizontal and vertical velocities; and completing the majority of the double salto forward near the peak of trajectory and releasing the knees above the top of the horse to prepare for a controlled landing.     

Bubble entrainment, spray and splashing at hydraulic jumps

INTRODUCTION A hydraulic jump is the sudden transition from a high-velocity, supercritical open channel flow into a slow-moving, sub-critical flow (Belanger, 1840; Bakhmeteff, 1932; Henderson, 1966; Chanson, 2004a). It is characterised by a sudden rise of the free-surface, with some strong energy dissipation and mixing, large-scale turbulence, air entrainment, waves and spray (Fig.1). Early experimental studies of air bubble entrainment were conducted in terms of the quantity of entrain…     

From Practice to Theory and back to Practice: Reflexivity in Measurement and Evaluation for Evidence-based Policy Making in the Information Society

This article presents a comprehensive review of literature and practice on the measurement and evaluation of ICT impact in general and of selected public eServices (eGovernment, eHealth, and eInclusion), within the context of the Information Society paradigm. It calls for a sustained meta-level analysis, in which it is important to have a self-reflexive layer where we evaluate and measure how we evaluate and measure, and what the implications and the trade-offs are. The analysis justifies the call for reflexivity as a necessary step towards advancing our understanding of the impact of ICT within the Information Society domains observed. The article concludes presenting some possible ways of re-coupling the conceptual and technical dimensions of the measurement process and linking the production of measurement data more closely with impact evaluation causal models and hypotheses. It suggests that this could be achieved by refocusing on the micro level and stimulating a gradual micro-macro link through an intermediate (meso) level, which effects need to be described using different measurements and evaluation paradigms. In order to do so it is required to refine and test our theories and models to find out where it would be most feasible to scale up to the global (macro) level and to shape and inform the production of more valid measurement indicators for better informing evidence-based policy making in the Information Society.     

Report of Committee on Criteria for Evaluation of Articles Submitted for Publication in the Research Quarterly April 1950

The aim of this study was to determine what visual information expert soccer players encode when they are asked to make a decision. We used a repetition-priming paradigm to test the hypothesis that experts encode a soccer pattern's structure independently of the players' physical characteristics (i.e., posture and morphology). The participants were given either realistic (digital photos) or abstract (three-dimensional schematic representations) soccer game patterns. The results showed that the experts benefited from priming effects regardless of how abstract the stimuli were. This suggests that an abstract representation of a realistic pattern (i.e., one that does not include visual information related to the players' physical characteristics) is sufficient to activate experts' specific knowledge during decision making. These results seem to show that expert soccer players encode and store abstract representations of visual patterns in memory.     

GENERAL LITERATURE

Campus U.S.A. by David Boroff. New York: Harper &; Brothers. 204 pp. $4.50.

Curriculum Planning for the Gifted edited by Louis A. Fliegler, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1961, 414 pp.

Disziplin in der Schule, Wiktor Gmurman, Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag, Berlin, 1960, 228 pp., DM 4.00. (Translated by Hans Hoffman)

Learning and Human Abilities: Educational Psychology by Herbert J. Klausmeier, New York, Harper &; Brothers, 1961, xii + 256 pp. $7.50.

New Horizons for the Teaching Profession edited by Margaret Lindsey, Washington, D.C. National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards. 1961. 243 pp. $3.00 cloth, $2.00 paper.

Perspective on Teaching, by Lawrence G. Thomas, Lucien B. Kinney, Arthur P. Coladarci and Helen A. Fielstra. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1961, XVI and 432 pp. $6.75 (text edition), $9.00 (trade edition)

Religion, Government, and Education, William W. Brickman and Stanley Lehrer. School and Society (1834 Broadway, New York 23, New York) 1961. 292 pp. $5.25.