Boys’ Underachievement: issues,challenges and possible ways forward

This article considers the issue of boys’ perceived lack of achievement at 16 and the context within which this issue has developed. In addition to conducting a review of relevant literature concerned with boys’ achievement, case study research was carried out in three comprehensive schools in the Midlands, taking the form of interviews with one senior member of staff from each school with a specific responsibility for boys’ achievement. The purpose of the interviews was to consider how different schools perceived the issue of boys’ underachievement and to examine the strategies employed by each to combat it. The discussion of the research indicates some significant factors affecting the ways in which boys identify themselves as being ‘male’ and which may influence their behaviour and attitudes towards school and towards their peers. The authors attempt to place the issue of boys’ underachievement into a wider social context and consider other factors which may have a bearing on the issue. The authors then attempt to relate the experiences of these three schools, and their other research, to the national picture and suggest ways in which teachers nationally may take steps to address the issue of boys’ underachievement within their own schools.     

Experiences and perceptions of physical education

This research has studied how children and young people, who are deemed by their school to have social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD), experience the National Curriculum of Physical Education (PE) in England. Research has previously highlighted the physical, social, affective and cognitive benefits of participation in PE. Furthermore, practical, physical and expressive creative experiences in education have been cited as being an important constituent when educating children with SEBD. However, research has yet to address the experiences of the child with SEBD alongside the ideological benefits of their participation in physical education. After a period of sensitisation to the field in a number of pilot schools, 24 weeks in total were spent immersed in the cultures of two mainstream schools in the west of England. After six weeks of local familiarisation, during which field notes and research diaries were kept, weekly interviews with each of six case study participants commenced. In this research, a PE environment afforded opportunities to spend time and build trust through co-participation in the negotiation of socially constructed roles in the subject. The six case study participants, whose experiences were explored, make reference to, amongst others: their affinity towards the physical nature of PE, and the perception of it being a subject allowing for freedoms not found elsewhere in the curriculum as well as one which cemented both the positive and negative social systems in relation to their relationships with peers. Inductive processes of analysis utilising constant comparison methods between data sources have generated data which show signs of both the idiosyncratic nature of multiple truths and some common ground in their experiences.     

Coping with writing apprehension

Students with high writing apprehension (WA) were exposed or not exposed to visualization (a procedure designed to encourage positive thinking). Those exposed to visualization reported enjoying writing more than those who were not trained to visualize, both immediately and over time. The paper ends with a discussion of these and other results.     

Music video as persuasive form: The case of the pseudo‐reflexive strategy

This essay examines music video as a media form designed to persuade television viewers to purchase musical recordings. By associating performers and their songs with strategically selected visual images, video makers hope to evoke impressions which might lead viewers to desire the recordings produced by the performers featured in video clips. One specific production strategy, “pseudo‐reflexivity,” involves employing imagery that demystifies some, but not all, of the aspects of the video making process in order to both draw audience attention away from the promotional motives underlying video production and enhance the anti‐commercial stance typically adopted by hard rock musicians.