The governing of international schools: the implications of ownership and profit motive

There are in excess of 5000 English-medium international schools worldwide. This article reports a study of the governing of such schools that explored in particular the implications of ownership and profit motive. The research entailed a questionnaire-based survey of international school head teachers and interviews with representatives of accrediting organisations, owners and head teachers of international schools. Governors in all settings found maintaining a strategic as opposed to an operational role difficult. The distinction between privately owned for-profit and not-for-profit categories of international schools could be unclear. It could change over time and private owners may gain financially personally in not-for-profit institutional settings. Head teachers in privately owned schools, even those schools operated for financial profit, viewed the governing arrangements positively, perhaps because they often had considerable autonomy over educational matters even though they may be excluded from the governing of financial/resource matters. This arrangement has implications for the governing model. Governing bodies of community-owned schools, which in the sample were all not-for-profit, were typically fully elected or self-perpetuating or a hybrid of the two. Fully elected boards, especially fully elected parent boards, and fully self-perpetuating boards can be problematic and the hybrid model has distinct advantages.     

Children’s colour use to portray themselves and others with happy,sad and mixed emotion

The present study investigated children’s colour use in drawing tasks specifying single and mixed emotions. One hundred and eighty children (90 girls and 90 boys) between 4?years 11?months and 8?years 1?month (X?=?6?years 6?month) participated. All children completed two test sessions in counterbalanced order. Session A measured emotional understanding and colour use in relation to a brief story. Children’s colour preferences were measured in Session B. Children used colours differentially across the drawing types and varied colour use in relation to depictions of other people and themselves using red and blue when depicting a protagonist with mixed emotions and red when depicting their own experiences of mixed emotion. The findings are discussed in terms of the need for caution when interpreting multiple and singular colour–affect associations in children’s drawings and the need to further investigate children’s understanding and non-verbal expression of mixed emotion.     

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION NEEDS ASSESSMENT OF OLDER AMERICANS: METHODOLOGY AND SOME FINDINGS

This study reports on the interest of a sample of senior citizens (55 years and over) in enrolling in different types of vocational courses and their overall educational needs in relation to sex, race, educational attainment, and preference for course location. Vocational training and placement opportunities for older persons can mean outreach services, support services, and accessible institutional and community‐based programs. The research findings could lead, not only to the development of an approach to providing vocational education opportunities, but also to ways of encouraging greater use of older adults as teacher aides and resource persons in the classroom.