Communication and helping behavior: The effects of information,reinforcement, and sex on helping responses

While the phenomenon of helping behavior is usually preceded by some kind of communicative interaction, the communicative interaction has not been studied as extensively as other factors. In this study, information and reinforcement were varied, along with requester and receiver sex. In a field study, individuals were selected randomly from the telephone directory and were asked to help the caller by placing another telephone call (to a confederate). Of all the possible interactions, only the receiver‐sex‐information‐helping, and the helping‐caller sex‐receiver sex were significant. In general, the effects of information were much stronger than those of reinforcement, and male receivers tended to help female callers more than male callers, while females helped indiscriminately. The results are discussed from the point of view of exchange theories.     

Gendering corporal punishment: beyond the discourse of human rights

In the last few years the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children has been gathering momentum, with a submission to The United Nations Secretary General’s study on violence against children the most recent addition to the cause. Nevertheless, corporal punishment in schools is still condoned in many countries and its practice persists even where it is now illegal. However, it is usually discussed within a gender‐‘neutral’ human rights framework rather than being more usefully considered as a gendered practice, pivotal in sustaining the gender regimes of schools. Drawing primarily on an ethnographic study in four junior secondary schools in Botswana, in conjunction with other related studies in Sub‐Saharan Africa, it is argued that corporal punishment is gendered at the level of both policy and practice. Female and male students and teachers understand and experience the ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’ of corporal punishment differently as gender interacts with, and often takes precedence over, age and authority relations. Understanding corporal punishment as a gendered practice has important implications for how its persistence in schools might be more successfully addressed as part of the current drive to achieve the Millennium Development and Education for All Goals in relation to universal primary education and gender equality.     

Theory,Practice and Performance in Teaching: Professionalism,intuition, and jazz

Accounts of the so-called 'crisis in professionalism' in teaching and teacher education in recent years have turned on the epistemological undermining of professional knowledge and the problems surrounding the synthesis of theory and practice which underpins teacher performance. It is argued that the concentration on performance in teaching and professional development is to be welcomed, provided that 'performance' is not defined in purely technicist or instrumental terms. In response to the trend towards evidence-informed policy and practice and mechanistic outcome-based educational effectiveness in contemporary educational debate, we conclude - drawing on the 'teaching as artistry' tradition and using arguments drawn from jazz music and insights gained from the jazz metaphor - that teacher professionalism can be enhanced through attention to the intuitive, improvisatory and existentialist spontaneity of teaching as artistic performance.