The things (we think) we (ought to) do: Ideological processes and practices in teaching

Ideologies of education and of teaching are complex and layered, and they contain macro-social, institutional as well as micro-ideological levels. Building on cases from the UK and South Africa, this paper argues that notions of ‘professionalism’ among teachers display such ideological layering, and that such notions are heavily invested with interests that transcend the operational or institutional scales. In the case of the UK, we discuss the way in which a teacher described her experience of taking a degree course, exposing a rift between individual, experiential knowledge and institutional, organisational knowledge, characteristic of the large-scale transformations of the educational field in the UK. In the South African case, we show how a white teacher instructing black township children deploys images of the disciplined body that derive from the Apartheid ‘old order’. In both cases we see that views of professionalism are infused with micro-ideological, practical beliefs as well as with macro-ideological social and political views. In terms of the implications of our line of argument for teacher education we conclude that student teachers should be taught explicitly about the discourses by which teaching is constructed so that they are able to reflect more critically on their professional practice.     

Working memory capacity and reading skill moderate the effectiveness of strategy training in learning from hypertext

Cognitive and metacognitive strategies are particularly important for learning with hypertext. The effectiveness of strategy training, however, depends on available working memory resources. Thus, especially learners high on working memory capacity can profit from strategy training, while learners low on working memory capacity might easily be overtaxed. In addition, efficient basic reading comprehension processes are important for strategy training to be successful: When both the newly acquired strategies and poorly routinized basic reading comprehension processes compete for working memory resources, navigation within the hypertext and learning might deteriorate rather than improve. In an experiment, 64 undergraduates learned with a comprehensive expository hypertext after receiving either a cognitive or a metacognitive or no strategy training. In line with the predictions, learners high on working memory capacity or reading skill could profit from learning strategy training in terms of learning outcomes and the quality of their navigational behavior. Learners low on working memory capacity or reading skill, in contrast, performed worse in both training conditions compared to the control condition. The improvement in learning outcomes for skilled learners as well as the impairment in learning outcomes for unskilled learners could be shown to be indirect effects mediated by the quality of navigational behavior.     

Direct regional economic impact of Germany’s 1. FC Kaiserslautern through participation in the 1. Bundesliga

In discussions about the use of public money for popular sports such as clubs in Germany’s 1. Bundesliga, it is often argued that the funds are well invested due to the cash flows generated by these organizations for their home regions. However, others claim the opposite. They argue that actually no positive impact is generated and, even worse, that money is leaving the region due to the clubs. The study presented here analyses the financial flows generated by the 1. FC Kaiserslautern for its home city (Kaiserslautern) and home state (Rhineland-Palatinate) during the 2010/11 season when the club participated in the 1. Bundesliga. Based on a 3-step model, the economic impact is calculated by considering spectator spending and cash flows generated by the business activities of the club. It turns out that additional cash flows of approximately €16.5 million and €25.8 million were generated for the state and the city, respectively.     

Across Fields and Boundaries: Finding One’s Way in International Sports History

Abstract

This article presents my personal experience as a European scholar at the turn of the twentieth century. In this period, sports historiography was characterized by a shift from political and social history to a broader cultural consideration of sport. In a time when the internet was developing and exchanges between researchers became easier, I experienced and contributed to the internationalization of the field. Nevertheless, this evolution did not erase national boundaries, which are still present and reveal the weight of historical traditions.     

Is syllable segmentation developmentally constrained by consonant sonority within syllable boundaries in silent reading? Evidence in French children

There is agreement that French typically reading children use syllable‐sized units to segment words. Although the statistical properties of the initial syllables or the clusters within syllable boundaries seem to be crucial for syllable segmentation, little is known about the role of consonant sonority in silent reading. In two experiments that used audio‐visual and visual pseudoword recognition tasks with 300 French typically developing children, we showed a progressive increase in the use of syllable segmentation from the first through fifth years of reading instruction. The children were influenced both by an optimal ‘sonorant coda–obstruent onset’ sonority profile and by the individual position‐dependent consonant sonority within syllable boundaries. Orthographic and phonological statistical properties did not clearly modulate the response patterns. We provide innovative data to help further understand the developmental course of the use of syllable segmentation as determined by sonority. We discuss our results in the light of linguistic principles.     

5. BOOKS AND LIBRARIES

THE HIGHWAYMEN: WARRIORS OF THE INFORMATION SUPER‐HIGHWAY by Ken Auletta (New York: Random House, 1997—$27.50, ISBN 0–679–45378–0, 346 pp., index)

THE BARRY DILLER STORY: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AMERICA'S GREATEST ENTERTAINMENT MOGUL by George Mair (New York: John Wiley, 1997—$24.95, ISBN 0–471–13082–6, 348 pp., notes, photos, index)

MONOPOLY TELEVISION: MTV'S QUEST TO CONTROL THE MUSIC by Jack Banks (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996—$22.00, ISBN 0–8133–1820–3, 291 pp., notes, references, index)

BE SEEING YOU ...DECODING THE PRISONER by Chris Gregory (Luton, England: John Libbey Media/University of Luton Press, 1997—$24.00, paper, ISBN 1–86020–521–6, 228 pp., bibliography and filmography, index)

GLOBAL SPOTLIGHTS ON LILLEHAMMER: HOW THE WORLD VIEWED NORWAY DURING THE 1994 WINTER OLYMPICS edited by Roel Puijk (Luton, England: John Libbey Media/ University of Luton Press, 1997— $40.00, ISBN 1–86020–520–8, 285 pp., appendix)

BROADCAST/CABLE PROGRAMMING: STRATEGIES AND PRACTICES by Susan Tyler Eastman and Douglas A. Ferguson (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1997 [5th ed.]— $58.95, ISBN 0–534–50744–1, 471 pp., abbreviations and acronyms, glossary, annotated bibliography, bookmarks for the world wide web, index to program titles, general index)

TV DRAMA IN TRANSITION: FORMS, VALUES AND CULTURAL CHANGE by Robin Nelson (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997—$55.00, ISBN 0–312–17276–1, 277 pp., notes, references, index)

GLUED TO THE SET: THE 60 TELEVISION SHOWS AND EVENTS THAT MADE US WHO WE ARE TODAY by Steven D. Stark (New York: Free Press, 1997—$17.50, ISBN 0–684–82817–0, 340 pp., appendix, bibliography, index)

GEN X TV: THE BRADY BUNCH TO MELROSE PLACE by Rob Owen (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997—$24.95, ISBN 0–8156–0443–2, 240 pp., photos, bibliography, index)