Comparisons of ‘Education Reform’ in Britain and the USA: a new era?

ABSTRACT

This paper compares and contrasts the origins, objectives and outcomes of the New Right education reform movements in Britain and the USA. It considers whether the education reforms will create a new era for schools, in terms of diversity of public and private provision and social, sexual and racial differentiation. This is despite the emphasis on quality or excellence in education as opposed to equality of educational opportunity. The origins of the reform movements are to be found in both the politics and economic developments of the ‘social democratic’ or ‘liberal’ bipartisan political consensus. The objectives of the reforms are to deal with declining international competitiveness and the raising of educational standards through consumer or parental choice. The outcomes are likely not to be a general raising of standards but rather a bifurcation in terms of a complex mix of class, race and gender.     

The symbiotic roles of empirical experimentation and thought experimentation in the learning of physics

This study was an attempt to identify the epistemological roots of knowledge when students carry out hands‐on experiments in physics. We found that, within the context of designing a solution to a stated problem, subjects constructed and ran thought experiments intertwined within the processes of conducting physical experiments. We show that the process of alternating between these two modes — empirically experimenting and experimenting in thought — leads towards a convergence on scientifically acceptable concepts. We call this process mutual projection. In the process of mutual projection, external representations were generated. Objects in the physical environment were represented in an imaginary world and these representations were associated with processes in the physical world. It is through this coupling that constituents of both the imaginary world and the physical world gain meaning. We further show that the external representations are rooted in sensory interaction and constitute a semi‐symbolic pictorial communication system, a sort of primitive ‘language’, which is developed as the practical work continues. The constituents of this pictorial communication system are used in the thought experiments taking place in association with the empirical experimentation. The results of this study provide a model of physics learning during hands‐on experimentation.     

Knowledge ambassadors in academic libraries in Kenya: Development,benefits, and challenges

The Knowledge Ambassadors Programme in Kenya was largely born out of a growing concern about the unsatisfactory use of electronic information resources in the universities. In an attempt to maximize their use, many academic libraries are engaging students in their promotional activities. The student partners are often referred to as knowledge ambassadors. This article looks at the development of knowledge ambassadors in selected university libraries in Kenya. A questionnaire designed using Google Forms was used to collect data. The link was e-mailed to universities known to have the program. The findings revealed the need for formalizing and mainstreaming the program.     

FROM KNOWLEDGE TO WISDOM: A NEW CHALLENGE TO THE EDUCATIONAL MILIEU WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

The epistemological paradigm, known as post-modernity, challenges some of the presuppositions of educational systems in general, and of religious education in particular. One of these presuppositions is the exaggerated primacy given to knowledge attained through reason. However, the paradigm shift invites us to make a transition from knowledge to wisdom—to the integration and transformation of knowledge into human experience. This transition helps us incorporate into the learning process those particular ways of learning that are preferred by many women, bringing us to a more holistic conception of religious education. It enables us to establish a new relationship between learners and educators in the model of a learning circle.     

Home,work, families and children: New labour,new directions and new dilemmas

This article considers the relationships between children, parents and the state in the context of changing global, social and family structures and policy developments, providing a case study of New Labour policies in Britain. It first considers the changing ideological discourses about families, parents, especially lone mothers, children, 'home' and 'work'. Secondly, it reviews the evidence about the changing socio-economic context and for what has been termed the fragmenting family. Thirdly, it provides an analysis of the New Labour government's approach to education, welfare and family policies, including the national child care strategy and supporting families consultation document. It sets this analysis in the context of changing political discourses and from a feminist perspective, arguing that the policies are not 'joined up' but fragmented and diverse, deriving from a variety of sources and targeted on a number of different groups. Thus it is difficult to argue that there is but one modernisation project or 'third way' being espoused by New Labour. However, the underlying theme of all the policy developments is economic and oriented to work. This involves a rebalancing of home and work and the involvement of parents, especially mothers, in work rather than education or child care. The measures taken to achieve this have been both coercive and controlling and involve new methods of surveillance and regulation through standards. Whilst New Labour has developed a new direction for families in balancing home and work, this is fragmented and diverse and covers a variety of policies from education - early childhood through to lifelong learning - and social services, to fiscal measures, to health and welfare and finally involving the Home Office in new parenting initiatives. The balancing of home and work has become the central business of government in its various and diverse activities.     

Personality Analysis in British Columbia Schools

World War II — A Survey of Recent Literature, Joseph S. Roucek

BIOGRAPHY: The Hero in America by Dixon Wetter. Illustrated. Charles Scribner's Sons. 530 pp. $3.50.

The Soong Sisters by Emily Hahn. Illustrated. Doubleday Doran. 349 pp. $3.00.

EDUCATION: Parental Income and College Opportunities by Helen Bertha Goetsch. Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City. 146 pp. $1.85.

And Still the Waters Run by Angie Debo. Princeton University Press. 402 pp. $4.00.

Planning the Community School by N. L. Engelhardt and N. L. Engelhardt, Jr. The American Book Company. 176 pp. $2.50.

The Nineteen Forty Mental Measurements Yearbook by Oscar Kreisen Buros, editor, The Mental Measurements Yearbook, Highland Park, New Jersey. 674 pp. $6.00.

The Junior College Movement by Carl E. Seashore. Henry Holt and Company- 156 pp. $1.75.

The Teaching and Administration of High School Music by Peter W. Dykema and Karl W. Gehrkens, C. C. Birchard &; Company, Boston. 614 pp. $4.00.

The Universities in Transformation by Adolf Löwe. The Macmillan Company. 62 pp. $40.

FICTION: Feast of Reason by Dorothy Walworth. Farrar and Rinehart. 320 pp. $2.50.

Northern Winter by Gösta af Geijerstam, E. P. Dutton and Company. 178 Pp. $2-50.

Spring Symphony by Eleanor Painter. Harper and Brothers. 362 pp. $2.50.

The Longbow Murder by Victor Luhrs, W. W. Norton. 304 pp. $2.00.

GENERAL LITERATURE: Garden Clubs and Spades by Laurence McKinney. Pictures by Helen E. Hokinson, E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc. 64 pp. $1.00.

The Gang's All Here by Harvey Smith. Princeton University Press. 325 pp. $2.50.

Their Finest Hour. Edited by Allan A. Michie and Walter Graebner. Illustrated. Harcourt, Brace and Company. 226 pp. + xiv. $2.50.

True Comics, published bi-monthly by the Parents Institute, 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York City, 64 pp. 10c a copy. 60c a year. Published by George J. Hecht, edited by David T. Marke, with an editorial board of junior advisors including Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney, and senior advisors including George H. Gallup, Gertrude Hartman, Arthur T. Jersild (Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University), David C. Knowlton (Professor of Education, Social Studies, New York University), Clara Savage Littledale (Editor of Parents' Magazine), David S. Muzzey (Emeritus Professor of History, Columbia University), and Hendrik Willem van Loon.

HISTORY:The Kaw: heart Of A Nation by Floyd Benjamin Streeter. Illustrated. Farrar and Rinehart. 371 pp. $2.50.

The Shaker Adventure: an Experiment in Contented Living by Marguerite Fellows Melcher. Princeton University Press. 319 pp. $3.00

Turkey by Emil Lengyel. Illustrated. Random House. 474 pp. $3.75.

SCIENCE: The Principles of Electrochemistry by Duncan A. MacInnes, Reinhold Publishing Corp., 478 pp. $6.00.

SOCIAL STUDIES: Faith for Living by Lewis Mumford. Harcourt, Brace and Company. 333 pp. $2.00.

Kabloona by Gontran de Poncins. Reynal and Hitchcock. Illustrated. In collaboration with Lewis Galantiere. 339 pp. $3.00.

We Have A Future by Norman Thomas. Princeton University Press. 236 pp. $2.50.

TRAVEL: Hawaii, A Profile, with 87 Pictures; Porto Rico, A Profile with 87 Pictures; The Virgin Isles, A Profile, with 92 Pictures. By Merle Colby, Duell, Sloane and Pearce, New York. $1.00 each.     

Revisiting curriculum inquiry: the role of visual representations

Curriculum materials and knowledge about curricular purposes and structures are valuable tools that teachers often draw upon to organize instruction and facilitate student learning. Careful analysis of teachers’ curriculum implementation and the decision-making that undergirds their curriculum use is critical for fully understanding enactment. This paper compares how integrity analyses of implementation of curriculum materials and actor-oriented analysis of teachers’ curriculum use can help researchers, teacher educators, and curriculum designers interpret teachers’ decisions about what aspects of new materials to use and how to use such materials. Drawing on evidence from teacher interviews and observations, we compare two teachers’ enactments of a new elementary-level environmental biology unit. Our analyses of integrity point to differences in teachers’ adaptations with respect to their consistency with the purposes and structures of curriculum materials as construed by designers. By contrast, our actor-oriented analysis explain how the teachers’ different approaches to interpreting the goals and structures of the curriculum unit partly account for patterns in their enactment in ways that can inform refinements to materials and the design of professional development supports for teachers. In so doing, we show how implementation integrity and actor-oriented analyses offer complementary perspectives to inform curriculum research and development.     

Involving Older Adults as Co-researchers in Social Work Education

This article examines the contribution of older adults as co-researchers to the evaluation of a gerontological social work course. The evaluation was conducted at an Israeli college as part of a collaborative project with a United Kingdom university. Here, we follow the older adults who are service users through their transition to the role of co-researchers and reflect on their experiences in the process. Insights gained by the different stakeholders from the co-researching experience are discussed, and the growing interest in service-user contributions to social work education in various fields such as aging and disabilities is recognized.     

In Support of Pair Programming in the Introductory Computer Science Course

A formal pair programming experiment was run at North Carolina to empirically assess the educational efficacy of the technique in a CS1 course. Results indicate that students who practice pair programming perform better on programming projects and are more likely to succeed by completing the class with a C or better. Student pairs are more self-sufficient which reduces their reliance on the teaching staff. Qualitatively, paired students demonstrate higher order thinking skills than students who work alone. These results are supportive of pair programming as a collaborative learning technique.     

Understanding pictorial information in biology: students’ cognitive activities and visual reading strategies

ABSTRACT

In classroom, scientific contents are increasingly communicated through visual forms of representations. Students’ learning outcomes rely on their ability to read and understand pictorial information. Understanding pictorial information in biology requires cognitive effort and can be challenging to students. Yet evidence-based knowledge about students’ visual reading strategies during the process of understanding pictorial information is pending. Therefore, 42 students at the age of 14–15 were asked to think aloud while trying to understand visual representations of the blood circulatory system and the patellar reflex. A category system was developed differentiating 16 categories of cognitive activities. A Principal Component Analysis revealed two underlying patterns of activities that can be interpreted as visual reading strategies: 1. Inferences predominated by using a problem-solving schema; 2. Inferences predominated by recall of prior content knowledge. Each pattern consists of a specific set of cognitive activities that reflect selection, organisation and integration of pictorial information as well as different levels of expertise. The results give detailed insights into cognitive activities of students who were required to understand the pictorial information of complex organ systems. They provide an evidence-based foundation to derive instructional aids that can promote students pictorial-information-based learning on different levels of expertise.