Keeping Up Appearances before the “Other”? Interculturality and Occidentalism in the Educational TV-Program “Happy Chinese”

“Happy Chinese” or kuaile hanyu is an educational melodrama produced by the Chinese TV channel CCTV in 2009. Aiming to improve foreign learners’ Chinese language skills, the plot revolves around Susan, an American, staying with her former Chinese classmate’s family. “Happy Chinese” proposes both language and cultural learning. In this paper, the authors are examining the first seven episodes marking Susan’s arrival in China for the Spring Festival. Basing the study on a postmodern and critical approach to the “intercultural,” as well as on a critical view towards Orientalism and Occidentalism, the authors are interested in how the programme constructs the arrival of the American and the way she is perceived and represented by the “locals.” The authors are also looking into what the Chinese family teaches Susan about being Chinese and, at the same time, the tensions that a certain tendency to “keep up appearances” and appear “real Chinese” before her trigger in the family, across generation and gender. The research tools used to analyze the data are derived from discursive pragmatics.     

影响矩作为测度单篇论著影响力的评价指标探讨

把评价视向由针对学术主体转向针对学术客体,提出着眼于单篇论著影响力评价的影响矩指标。影响矩M被定义为单篇论著影响学者力A及其影响跨度D的乘积,M越大,影响越大。通过对测算样本集和校验样本集的数据分析,显示影响矩M与总被引C及h指数的相关系数都在0.6以上,表明影响矩可以作为测评单篇论著影响力的独立指标。     

System performance and policymaking in west European education: Effectiveness,efficiency, responsiveness,and fidelity

One cannot gauge or understand the performance of an educational system by examining the output of that system alone. Only when output is examined in relation to goals, costs, demands, and societal needs, can system performance as well as the policies that facilitate it be evaluated and usefully analyzed. The authors present and discuss four constructs — effectiveness, efficiency, responsiveness, and fidelity — which relate the output of an educational system to the important educational, economic, political and social factors which influence the formulation of educational policy. Social indicators can, in principle, contribute to the estimation of the degree of effectiveness, efficiency, responsiveness, and fidelity a system has displayed; but, with several noted exceptions, available education statistics provide only indirect measures of system output and almost no basis for estimating such political and social factors as responsiveness and societal need. An argument is made that the best estimates of such factors currently available will come from policymakers and other specialists in positions to perceive how the system, or various aspects of it, is performing with respect to these constructs. Use of the four constructs is exemplified in a discussion of the current status of the educational system in England, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy and Sweden, as perceived by policymakers and specialists in these countries. Examples of hypotheses relating these four constructs to structural characteristics are presented.

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Zusammenfassung Man kann die Performanz eines Bildungssystems nicht allein am Output messen oder verstehen. Nur wenn der Output im Verhältnis zu Zielen, Kosten, Forderungen und gesellschaftlichen Bedürfnisse geprüft wird, können die Performanz eines Systems sowie die Politik, die diese möglich macht, bewertet und nützlich analysiert werden. Die Autoren präsentieren und diskutieren vier Konstrukte — Effektivität, Effizienz, Respondeität und Fideität — die den Output eines Bildungssystems mit den wichtigen pädagogischen, ökonomischen, politischen und sozialen Faktoren verbindet, die die Formulierung der Bildungspolitik beeinflussen. Soziale Indikatoren können prinzipiell zu einer Schätzung des Grades von Effektivität, Effizienz, Respondität und Fideität beitragen, den ein System zeigt; aber die pädagogische Statistik liefert — mit einigen bemerkenswerten Ausnahmen — nur einen indirekten Massstab des System, und beinahe keine Basis-für die Schätzung von sozialen Faktoren, wie Respondeität und gesellschaftliche Bedürfnisse. Es wird argumentiert, dass die besten im Moment vorhandenen Schätzungen solcher Faktoren von politischen Entscheidungsträgern und anderen Spezialisten in Positionen kommen werden, in denen es möglich ist, zu beobachten, wie sich das System im Hinblick auf solche Konstrukte verhält. Die Anwendung der vier Konstrukte wird aufgezeigt in einer Diskussion des gegenwärtigen Zustands der Bildungssysteme in England, der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien und Schweden, so wie er von politischen Entscheidungsträgern und Spezialisten in diesen Ländern gesehen wird. Es werden Beispiele von Hypothesen gegeben, die diese vier Konstrukte auf strukturelle Charakteristiken beziehen.

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Résumé On ne peut évaluer ni comprendre les réalisations d'un système éducatif en examinant uniquement l'output de ce système. C'est seulement lorsqu'on examine l'output par rapport aux buts, frais, revendications et besoins sociaux que les réalisations du système ainsi que les politiques qui les facilent, peuvent être évalués et analysés utilement. Les auteurs présentent et discutent quatre constructions — l'efficacité, le rendement, la flexibilité et la fidélité — qui lient l'output d'un système éducatif aux importants facteurs éducatifs, économiques, politiques et sociaux, influençant la formulation d'une politique éducative. Des indicateurs sociaux peuvent, en principe, contribuer à l'estimation du degré d'efficacité, de rendement, de flexibilité et de fidèlité qu'un système a manifesté; mais, compte tenu de plusieurs exceptions, les statistiques disponibles en éducation ne fournissent que des mesures indirectes de l'output du système, et presqu'aucune base pour estimer les facteurs politiques et sociaux, comme la flexibilité et le besoin social. On mentionne l'argument selon lequel les meilleures estimations de ces facteurs, dont on dispose actuellement, proviendront des planificateurs et autres experts capables de percevoir la façon dont le système, ou différents aspects de ce système, fonctionnent en rapport à ces constructions. On explique l'utilisation des quatre constructions en discutant comme example le statut actuel du système éducatif en Angleterre, République fédérale d'Allemagne, France, Italie et Suède, comme le perçoivent les planificateurs et les experts de ces pays. On mentionne des examples d'hypothèses liant ces quatre constructions à des caractéristiques structurelles.

     

Elementary Pre-Service Teacher Perceptions of the Greenhouse Effect

Environmental issues are an important topic both in national news, and in science education. Previous studies revealed that students hold many misconceptions relating to such issues as global warming, ozone depletion, and acid rain. This article expands on earlier work by Boyes et al. to examine pre-service teachers' views about these issues, especially global warming and the related term, the greenhouse effect, and the effect of their views on elementary student performance. Results support the findings of Boyes et al. that elementary education majors hold many misconceptions about these environmental issues, and these can effect their teaching of these topics in elementary classes.     

Clinically and theoretically derived WISC-R subtest regroupings: Predicting academic achievement in a referral population

Attention continues to be directed toward the WISC-R as a tool for understanding children's learning problems. The formulation of WISC-R subtest regroupings (apart from the traditional Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQs, and the empirically derived factor scores) may provide a basis for score interpretation and the generation of hypotheses regarding children's cognitive strengths and weaknesses. The present investigation analyzed the predicitive utility of several WISC-R subtest recategorizations with regard to academic to achievement as measured by the WRAT. The sample consisted of 105 children who had been referred for psychoeducational evaluation because of classroom learning problems. Stepwise regression analyses indicated that many of the regroupings were significant predictors of academic achievement. Generated regression equations are presented.     

Correlations between WISC-R subtests and verbal,performance, and full scale IQ scores for minority group children

The relationship between WISC-R subtest scores and Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQs was investigated for a sample comprised of rural Appalachian children. The sample was comprised of both white and black children who might be described as culturally different by virtue of low family income and residence in the mountainous areas of Virginia and North Carolina. Data analysis consisted of computing product-moment correlations (rs) between each of the ten subtests and the Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQs. Correlations between individual subtests and the FS IQ ranged from.49 through.63, but none of the differences between these rs were large enough to attain significance. Correlations between the verbal subtests and Verbal IQ ranged from.64 for Comprehension up to.78 for Vocabulary. For the performance subtest, the rs ranged from.54 between Coding and the Performance IQ up to.72 for Object Assembly.     

Discriminating between attitudes expressed by normal and disabled readers

The Survey of Reading Attitudes was administered to 84 normal and 116 disabled readers from the intermediate grades, and a discriminate function analysis was performed on their scores for the eight dimensions of reading attitudes measured by the Survey. The findings indicate that Expressed Reading Difficulty, Reading as Enjoyment, and Reading Group are the three variables that discriminate between these two groups. In comparison with normal readers, disabled readers are more likely to feel negatively about their reading group, less likely to see themselves as pursuing reading for its intrinsic value, and more likely to perceive of themselves as having difficulty with reading. However, the extent to which these findings can be generalized beyond the present sample of white Appalachian students must be established through future research.