Working out Intimacy: Young people and friendship in an age of reflexivity

Drawing upon a longitudinal, interview-based study of Australian secondary school students, this article explores young people's friendship experiences and attitudes to intimacy and the interpersonal. The discussion develops in relation to the work of Anthony Giddens on detraditionalisation and reflexivity, and Nikolas Rose on modernity and the self. First, I argue that feminism and psychotherapeutic ways of constituting and knowing the self are reconfiguring the cultural meanings of intimacy. Second, I suggest that this reworking of intimacy has differential and uneven effects and has particular consequences for the production of gendered subjectivities. Third, I raise some critical questions about the extent to which either Giddens's or Rose's account can properly capture the gendered and situated experiences of intimacy. I offer examples in which gender is being rearticulated in new yet familiar ways and note some persistent tensions in desires for connection and community versus autonomy and freedom. Carol Gilligan's work on gender differences in orientations to autonomy and connection is briefly revisited. Overall, it is argued that we need to take more account of how class, location and schooling differences influence dispositions to friendship and the interpersonal, and this is elaborated through a discussion of the 'relationship orientations' of two white Australian young men.     

Postmodern principles for responsive reading assessment

This paper reviews the concept of high‐stakes assessment against a background of postmodernism, and argues that the inaccessibility of cognitive processes is only one part of the problem of reading assessment: even greater challenges are posed by a postmodern analysis, in which an ‘incredulity toward metanarratives’ leads to a series of six theoretical positions, from each of which is derived a practical imperative that might guide us in establishing postmodern principles of assessment. These six imperatives are then explored in relation to two practical contexts, one in the area of portfolio or evidence‐based assessment, the other in the area of computer‐based assessment of reading. In both cases, it is argued that, working from first principles, the case for using such approaches can be established. Second, it is argued that while both these approaches to assessment offer empirical and methodological challenges that have yet to be met, they also offer opportunities for valuing the individual subject and diminishing the authority of the author and the text in ways that are in harmony with a postmodern position.     

Public school teachers’ perceptions of what promotes or hinders their use of outdoor learning spaces

Learning Environments Research - The creation of outdoor learning spaces (OLS) such as school gardens is increasing in frequency in elementary and secondary schools in Canada. Previous research has...     

Marking time,making methods: temporality and untimely dilemmas in the sociology of youth and educational change

Abstract

This article explores how temporality and temporal regimes might be engaged in qualitative research in the sociology of education, proposing that such questions matter in relation to how research is done, not only to the topics and themes researched. The article shows how temporality enters into research designs, practices and imaginaries, arguing that research methodologies mobilise intersecting temporalities. Debates in the philosophy of history regarding the collision of temporalities are canvassed, and approaches are outlined for conceptualising temporality in reference to qualitative studies. To illustrate these arguments, an account is offered of theoretical and methodological approaches framing a new qualitative longitudinal study of young people and secondary schooling in Australia; to highlight the historicity of methodologies, comparisons are also drawn between this study and an earlier related longitudinal study undertaken in the 1990s. The article concludes by inviting a re-consideration of the possibilities for a renewal of historical sociology of education.     

Profile of Australian preschool children with speech sound disorders at risk for literacy difficulties

Abstract

Speech sound disorders are a common communication difficulty in preschool children. Teachers indicate difficulty identifying and supporting these children. The aim of this research was to describe speech and language characteristics of children identified by their parents and/or teachers as having possible communication concerns. 275 Australian 4- to 5-year-old children from 45 preschools whose parents and teachers were concerned about their talking participated in speech-language pathology assessments to examine speech, language, literacy, non-verbal intelligence, oromotor skills and hearing. The majority (71.3%) of children demonstrated lower consonant accuracy than expected for their age, 63.9% did not pass the language-screening task, 65.5% had not been assessed and 72.4% had not received intervention from a speech-language pathologist. The 132 children who were identified with speech sound disorder (phonological impairment) were more likely to be male (62.9%) who were unintelligible to unfamiliar listeners, and had poor emergent literacy and phonological processing skills, despite having typical hearing, oral structures, and intelligence. Children identified by parents and teachers with concerns may have a range of speech, language and communication needs requiring professional support.     

Educational research, policy and practice in an era of globalisation

Globalisation includes not only the changes brought about by the opening up of markets and communication technology, but also those set in motion by shifts in policy relating to the responsibilities of government and the role of research and innovation in development. This paper examines the impact of globalisation on education research, policy and practice, and the ways in which reforms and priorities in the education systems of the Asia-Pacific region are being shaped by the interaction between the global and the local. It is argued that educational reforms should not be left to global forces or powerful global organizations to decide for us, but should stem from deliberate and considered choices based on the best-available research. Closing the gaps between research, policy and practice demands that we rethink our research priorities and practices, as well as the ways in which we develop and implement policy. The paper examines some of the rethinking underway, and how organizations like APERA, UNESCO and Eidos promote the sharing of knowledge and experience and collaboration between educational researchers, policy makers and practioners in the Asia-Pacific region.     

The CourseMarker CBA System: Improvements over Ceilidh

This document reports on the results of re-designing and re-implementing the Ceilidh courseware system. It highlights the limitations identified in the thirteen years of Ceilidh's use at the University of Nottingham. It also illustrates how most of these limitations have been resolved by re-designing Ceilidh's architecture and improving various aspects of the marking and administrating processes. The new system, entitled CourseMarker, offers enhanced functionality by adding useful features that have long been needed by Ceilidh's community. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the changes and a brief report on the experience of CourseMarker's use over the last three years. Finally, recent developments and future directions are discussed.     

下一代汽车将实现无须人工干预的自主驾驶

Stanley背后的团队还在干个不停,该汽车刚刚赢得“美国国防研究项目机构”主办的2005年自主驾驶车辆穿越132英里内华达沙漠大赛的胜利.到2008年,斯坦福大学队将操纵他们的自主驾驶汽车做州际旅行.     

Sex differences in object location memory: Some further methodological considerations

Previously it has been reported that female performance on the recall of objects and their locations in a spatial array is superior to that of males. This may reflect underlying information-processing biases whereby males organize information in a self-referential manner while females adopt a more comprehensive approach. The known female advantage in verbal memory may, however, account for this sex difference. In an initial experiment we found no overall sex differences in object or object-location memory. The inclusion of a verbal distracter task revealed gender-congruent biases in performance. A final study examined some methodological issues associated with the design of item arrays. After controlling for differences in item distinctiveness, performance on object-location was found to be substantially influenced by the distance that items were displaced in the array. These findings demonstrate that certain methodological factors can significantly affect the attentional and mnemonic processes that operate when performing tasks of this nature and can negate underlying sex differences in performance.