Middle‐class struggle? Identity‐work and leisure among sixth formers in the United Kingdom

This paper explores the ways in which sixth‐form students in Milton Keynes negotiate their identities and the symbolic significance they attach to leisure activities in the process of doing this. The paper draws upon qualitative, young‐person‐centred interviews with sixth formers in state and private schools. We address the investments of sixth formers in constructing themselves as autonomous individuals and argue that they do so from a position of middle‐class subjects‐in‐the‐making. Through an inversion of Willis’ (1977 Willis, P. 1977. Learning to labour, Aldershot: Gower.  [Google Scholar]) (focus, our concern is to make explicit the implicitly middle‐class identities sixth formers were forging. We argue that the identity‐work of sixth formers plays a part in the reproduction of school‐based class inequalities by pathologising working‐class students while constructing themselves as bourgeois liberal individuals.     

Evaluating teaching effectiveness and teaching improvement: A language for institutional policies and academic development practices

Demands for institutional accountability in higher education have been increasing and have led to greater attention to the evaluation of teaching, the assumption being that improved teaching will result in enhanced learning. In our work as academic developers, we are increasingly helping academic managers make explicit teaching policies and practices that seem fair and equitable. To help us in this work, we have developed a framework for evaluating the practice of teaching. What is unique about this framework is the language it provides to differentiate aspects of teaching. For instance, it provides a basis for differentiating and linking criteria to standards, i.e. the level of achievement desired or expected. Standards are critical if the evaluation of teaching is to be seen as fair and equitable, yet they are often unexamined in other representations of the evaluation of teaching. Although the original intent of our efforts was to provide a framework for academic managers, we have come to find it useful in our own work as university teachers and as academic developers. Examples of all three uses are provided in the paper.     

Quality Control in Education: — The Span of Control Controversy ‐Some Practical Considerations

This article gives the background to the introduction of a statutory system of staff appraisal in schools in England. It explains and provides insights into the various stages of the appraisal process from a management perspective. It begins from the premise that a manager is responsible for the performance of staff which he or she manages. Finally, it discusses a number of issues which are problematic and which need to be resolved if a staff appraisal scheme is to be successful from both the individual's and the school's viewpoints.     

From school leader to educational leader

ABSTRACT

This study builds on research which contends that just as effective principals must lead across a broad purview of responsibilities in order to build successful schools, so too must middle leaders. Decentralisation of school management has resulted in an expansion of school principals’ responsibilities, contributing to a further distribution of leadership responsibility to middle leaders. This conception of middle leadership requires a shift in understanding of the nature of middle leaders’ work. There is vast potential for middle leaders to contribute to their schools beyond subject administration, yet the research base yields limited insight on such work and on how middle leaders can be supported to accomplish it. This research finds that middle leaders who expand their leadership responsibilities do so in contexts that utilise school mission, policy enactment and organisational design as platforms for enhanced middle leadership.     

Effective Dutch School Improvement Projects

This article describes 2 effective school improvement projects in primary education. In The Netherlands, there is a long history of failing innovations in education. The 2 programmes are selected because they are known to be effective. They have almost the same goals (strengthen the school's capacity for managing change, improving teachers' capacity to adapt instruction to student's needs, and prevent and reduce disadvantage, especially in reading and arithmetic) and theoretical background (a balanced mix of the school and class effectiveness knowledge and the concepts of school improvement). They use, however, partly different strategies for school improvement. The characteristics (aims, theory, design, implementation, improvement, outcomes) of both programmes are described. These data are used to discuss what lessons are learned for effective school improvement.     

Learning by starch potato growers: learning in small businesses with no employees

In small businesses with no employees, learning environments have a low learning readiness. Consequently, learners need to rely on their own agency to shape their learning experiences. Results from a study of agricultural entrepreneurs indicated that the components of motivation and self-regulated learning strategies shape learner's agency and explain learning environment configuration in small businesses with no employees. Configuration of the learning environment was found to be a weak determinant of the learning performance of these learners. However, results showed that prior performance of learners in small businesses with no employees dictates how their agency operates and what learning effect is achieved; higher prior performance results in higher learning effects. We conclude that mechanisms that underlie learning in traditional learning environments work similarly in learning environments in small businesses with no employees.     

邻家男孩已长大,乖乖“B宝”也变坏?

成长从来都不是件容易的事,特别是娱乐圈。这一次是"万人迷"——贾斯汀·比伯。自从将标志性的厚刘海换成一头凌乱短发开始,"B宝"便开始像脱缰的野马般"离经背道"起来:飙车、和狗仔队吵架、派对闻事、演唱会迟到、拒绝粉丝拥抱……种种顽劣行径,让媒体不禁揣测他是不是就要步小甜甜布兰妮和林赛罗翰后尘了。     

Microscopy and literature

This article draws attention to literary works which have been influenced by microscopy, or in which microscopy has played a significant role. The work of writers including Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, George Eliot, H. G. Wells and D. H. Lawrence is discussed. In many cases these authors had direct experience of operating microscopes and viewing the wonders of the microscopic world. However, with the increasing separation of the two cultures, recent examples of microscopy in literature are rare.