Bounded decision-making,teachers’ reflection and organisational learning: How research can inform teachers and teaching

Despite numerous efforts to align educational practice more closely with findings from educational research, there is little clarity about how educational practitioners can, in principle, use research. We propose a conceptualisation based on how research can contribute to practitioners’ thinking: specifically, our framework proposes that research can inform bounded decision-making, teachers’ reflection and organisational learning. Practitioners can also use research without being aware that they are doing so. We argue that this conceptualisation of research use has potential to inform researchers and practitioners.     

Pedagogies of food and ethical personhood: TV cooking shows in postwar Taiwan

Taking one of the most representative subgenres of lifestyle TV, the cooking show, as a case study, in this article, we examine the history and changing cultural meanings of this televisual genre in the context of Taiwan's postwar social history and TV industry. We conduct textual analyses of Taiwanese cooking shows across three different historical stages: Fu Pei Mei's shows (the 1960s–1980s), Chen Hong's shows (the 1990s), and Metrosexual Uber-Chef with Master Ah-Ji (the 2000s), in order to advance a critical exploration of the complex relationships between these popular media texts and their social and industrial contexts. We argue that, in line with the ongoing transformations in Taiwan's society and television industry over the postwar era, the cooking show essentially shifted from educational-cultural to entertainment programming. However, at the same time, the pedagogical function of teaching both cooking skills and life ethics was maintained throughout the different stages, albeit represented very differently in each of the three periods, corresponding with the social and industrial contexts pertaining in each.     

少数民族与语言:一个经济视角

本文介绍了财政联邦制的主要原则及其财政分权的主要模式,然后从语言经济学的视角讨论了少数民族治理及其语言多样性的管理,考察了针对少数民族语言的相关语言政策选择、设计和实施中的最优方案。本文侧重于概念和方法论问题,提供了一组工具,并考察它们如何更好地帮助决策,而非停留在"政府应该做什么"的价值判断上。本文还讨论了政府提供少数民族语言服务的融资问题,以及政策评估和监测工具的使用问题。     

The Opposition between Two Models of Labour Market Adjustment: The Case of Audiovisual and Performing Arts Activities in France and Great Britain over a Ten Year Period

The growth of employment in audiovisual andperforming arts activities during a ten year period(1981–1992) in France and in Great Britain was theresult of a double tendency: An increasing number ofindividuals with cultural occupations working incultural industries and structural changes in thelabour market (more flexible workforce, increasingfragmentation of work opportunities). Qualitativedifferences emerged between both countries, leading totwo different forms of flexibility. Full timeemployment decreased in France, while it increased inGreat Britain with, during the same period, aconsiderable growth of self-employment.This paper explores different hypotheses forexplaining such a divergence. It concedes that thestrategies of organisations, and especially the risingnumber of adhocracies (according to Mintzberg'stypology) rather the choices of workers trying tooptimise their earnings were responsible. Publicpolicies played also a central role. In Great Britainthe Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and in France, thespecific Social Security benefit for artistscontributed to the increase in self employment in thefirst case, and in temporary employment in the othercase.     

Changes in swimming technique during time to exhaustion at freely chosen and controlled stroke rates

The aim of this study was to assess technical changes during constrained swimming in time-to-exhaustion tests. Ten swimmers of national standard performed a maximal 400-m front crawl and two sets of exhaustion tests at 95%, 100%, and 110% of mean 400-m speed. In the first set (free), swimmers had to maintain their speeds until exhaustion and mean stroke rate was recorded for each test. In the second set (controlled), the same speed and individual corresponding stroke rate were imposed. The durations of the exhaustion tests, relative durations of the stroke phases, and arm coordination were analysed. For each speed in the "controlled" set, the exhaustion tests were shorter. Moreover, variables were consistent, suggesting a stabilization of stroke technique. Under the free condition, stroke rate increased to compensate for the decrease in stroke length. At the same time, swimmers reduced the relative duration of their non-propulsive phases in favour of the propulsive phases. Thus, swimmers changed their arm coordination, which came close to an opposition mode. These two constraints enable swimmers both to maintain their stroking characteristics and develop compensatory mechanisms to maintain speed. Moreover, stroke rate can be seen as a useful tool for controlling arm technique during paced exercise.     

Take care of a child, one work like any other?

This article has its roots in the basic contradictions, which go back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, between the self-interest and the care of others, exemplified by the delegation of responsibility for the care of children and other vulnerable persons. This splitting of human life-supporting activities has sealed women's dependence on men by setting off the lucrative area from the private, non-lucrative sphere of activities. These contradictions become paradoxical as soon as we consider the delegation of responsibility for the care of a child to someone not related to the child. This article addresses the question of how the child's developmental needs can be met without damage to his/her sensitivity, and his/her perception of others or of the cooperation involved. As soon as it is born, the child, a thoroughly interactive being, discerns the relationships it entertains with those who are in charge of him/her. The persons - mostly women - who take care of the child are not interchangeable, since they bring their own subjectivity into their dealings with the child and this is reciprocal. The women's skills, frequently thought to be “undefinable”, but which many women, whether related or not to the child, have developed or should develop, are brought into play and are either transmitted or acquired in the course of their care of the child; these skills are not by nature “feminine skills”, but they require a great deal of reactivity and sensitivity and therefore, many child professionals, mothers' aids and children's care-takers in the home are hurt and insulted by the low esteem in which they are held. These skills and human qualities, which are the result of feelings more than of formalised knowledge, techniques or theories - albeit these are also necessary - make child care and child rearing an art. These skills seem to be in total contradiction with those that are current in the world of labour, where the tempo of work, flexibility of working hours, the evaluation criteria and anxiety are conditioned by economic considerations and rest on purely monetary factors. Finally, a recognition of these sensitive qualities - when it is given - must of necessity be inter-subjective but also be societal. The latter requires a new, different organisation of the labour world, one which recognises the diversity of human activities, where each can find a sense of social usefulness by contributing to the satisfaction of others' social needs and having one's own needs satisfied by others - by many others. This would presuppose reversing the meaning of the division of labour and of life-maintaining activities by placing greater emphasis on “interest in others”.     

Politics in an Indian canyon? Some thoughts on the implications of ethnomathematics

Working with Navajo Indian informants in Arizona, USA we became aware of the capabilities of children and adults to find their way in vast and clearly “chaotic” canyons. One thing we did was describe what people actually did and said about their ways to find the way back home in such contexts. A second one was to use these data in order to build a curriculum book for a bicultural school on the Navajo reservation. We start from this example to ask what the political choices are, which we confront when working with such material: how much mathematics (or is it Mathematics) is needed in daily life? And what mathematics should we promote or develop, without becoming colonialist again? In Section 2, we discuss the meaning and the status of ethnomathematics, proposing that it would be the generic category which allows for a more systematic and comparative study of the whole domain of mathematical practices. In Section 3, we introduce the concept of multimathemacy (after multiliteracy) to discuss the political agenda of ethnomathematics. We argue that multimathemacy should be the basis of the curriculum in order to guarantee optimal survival value for every learner.