Solomon ben Joseph ha-Kohen on Fāṭimid Victory: A Hebrew Ode to al-Mustanṣir Billāh and Badr al-Jamālī Reconsidered

Abstract

This article presents a vocalised edition (on the basis of MS T.-S. Misc. 36.174, Cambridge University Library) and a revised translation of a Hebrew ode written on the occasion of the Fā?imid victory over the invading Saljūq army in Cairo in 469/1077. Elaborating on earlier research on the Cairo Genizah treasures starting with Julius H. Greenstone's 1906 paper, the article first of all aims to present whatever historical data can be obtained about the poet, Solomon ben Joseph ha-Kohen, and about the time period and the circumstances in which he must have written his poem, which is addressed to the Fā?imid caliph al-Mustan?ir Billāh and his vizier Badr al-Jamālī. Other major objectives of the article are the identification of other historical persons and events alluded to in the praise poem, a literary analysis of the ode within the conceptual framework of “martial poetry”, and an examination of its laudatory or propagandistic aspects.     

Erfassung und Struktur berufswahlrelevanter Faktoren für die Lehrerausbildung und den Lehrerberuf in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz

The career choice motivations of potential teachers, their interests and other factors relevant to their choice of career are studied in order to achieve the best possible recruitment of new entrants to the teaching profession. However, the research and findings which are already available in this field are inadequate. The article is the first study which aims to analyse the structure and applicability of the internationally accessible FIT-Choice instrument to detect the relevant factors for teaching as a career choice in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the basis of representative samples (n = 6,601) in order to create a data basis which will enable the previously unconnected research initiatives in German-speaking countries to be combined. In addition, teaching experience is taken into account and used to check how valid the career choice motives stated by the students are. The overall objective is to explore the extent to which measurements of career choice motives and teaching experience and analysis of two areas can be generalised across different institutions and countries and can go beyond the limited significance of the previously available findings, and eventually to formulate generalisable assumptions about the ideas which influence teaching as a career choice, and especially the motivation which leads to this career choice.     

Sind Modelle der Item-Response-Theorie (IRT) das „Mittel der Wahl“ für die Modellierung von Kompetenzen?

Item response theory (IRT) models can be subsumed under the larger class of statistical models with latent variables. IRT models are increasingly used for the scaling of the responses derived from standardized assessments of competencies. The paper summarizes the strengths of IRT in contrast to more traditional techniques as well as in contrast to alternative models with latent variables (e. g. structural equation modeling). Subsequently, specific limitations of IRT and cases where other methods might be preferable are lined out.     

FIRST COMES THE THEORY, THEN THE PRACTICE? ON THE ACQUISITION OF GENERAL PEDAGOGICAL KNOWLEDGE DURING INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION

Teacher education systems worldwide are confronted with the essential question of how to foster both future teachers’ theoretical and practical knowledge and to adequately enable future teachers to connect their theoretical and practical knowledge for teaching. This article investigates how future teachers acquire general pedagogical knowledge (GPK) as a central component of teacher knowledge during initial teacher education, exemplified by pre-service teachers in Germany, where initial teacher education is divided into a first phase with a heavy focus on theoretical, academic study, and a second phase where future teachers learn how to apply their theoretical knowledge in the classroom. Data from teacher knowledge studies Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics and Längsschnittliche Erhebung pädagogischer Kompetenzen von Lehramtsstudierenden/Longitudinal Survey of Student Teachers’ Pedagogical Competencies are used to compare future teachers’ GPK at different teacher education stages (the beginning, after 2 years, and end of training). Findings show the more advanced future teachers are in the course of their initial teacher education, the better they perform in the test measuring GPK. When analyzing subscales of the test measuring cognitive dimensions of GPK, as would be expected declarative-conceptual knowledge (measured by cognitive dimensions “recall” and “understand/analyze”) was gained predominantly during the theoretical study (first phase), whereas future teachers who had additionally passed through the practical second phase performed much better on the practical knowledge test subscale (measured by the cognitive dimension “generate”). Research findings are discussed with regard to the development of teacher expertise during initial teacher education, and recommendations for future policy directions with respect to teacher education are given.     

Learning from Errors at Work: A Replication Study in Elder Care Nursing

Learning from errors is an important way of learning at work. In this article, we analyse conditions under which elder care nurses use errors as a starting point for the engagement in social learning activities (ESLA) in the form of joint reflection with colleagues on potential causes of errors and ways to prevent them in future. The goal of our study was to investigate whether exploratory findings from an earlier study on hospital nurses’ ESLA (Bauer and Mulder Learning in Health and Social Care 6:121–133, 2011) replicate and generalise to the domain of elder care nursing. For this purpose, we surveyed a sample of N?=?180 elder care nurses using vignette-based questionnaires. With these data, we tested a mediation model of nurses’ ESLA suggested by the earlier study. We firstly found a statistically significant indirect effect of error strain on ESLA that is completely mediated by the estimation of an error as relevant for learning (β?=?.16). Secondly, the perception of a safe social team climate at work has a statistically significant indirect effect on ESLA that is completely mediated by nurses’ tendency to cover up errors (β?=?.31). These results entirely cross-validate the exploratory findings of Bauer and Mulder (Learning in Health and Social Care 6:121–133, 2011) on hospital nurses’ ESLA and show that they generalise to the domain of elder care nursing.     

Knowledge production from an African perspective: International information flows and intellectual property⋆

This paper investigates current trends in knowledge production and the impact that they have on the international flow of information. Three directions of information flow (North–South, South–North and South–South) are investigated from an African perspective. A moral rather than a legal view is taken of intellectual property. The authors’ concern is that the balance between the public good and private interests has been disturbed. It is premised that there are general moral principles that can serve as a basis for decisions on North–South, South–North and South–South information flows. Three ethical pillars serve as a basis for reflection on current information flows. These are: social justice, human rights, and the concept of the common good. Current developments in scholarly publishing and intellectual property rights that affect the North–South information flow are examined, and responses to the growing imbalance between rights holders and authors, such as the open access movement, are considered. These developments also affect South–North information flows, where both exploitation and neglect of Africa's knowledge resources need to be countered. Lastly, South–South information flows between African countries are considered.