Benefits and risks: their assessment in relation to human needs

Safety officers, managers, and designers face a constant dilemma. Some accidents are unlikely to occur, and are unlikely to kill or injure anyone if they do occur. Nevertheless, they might happen, and so they feel they must do something about them lest they be partly responsible for someone's death or injury. But to remove every possible risk, however slight, is impossible. How do we decide which risks should be dealt with first, and which can be left, at least for the time being? In short, how do we allocate our resources?     

Strengthening and sustaining professional learning in the second year of teaching

The data discussed in this paper derive from post‐lesson and end‐of‐year interviews with 17 teachers in their second year of teaching. They form part of a longitudinal study which first tracked these teachers through their initial postgraduate teacher education programme and induction year. In the light of earlier analysis, which had highlighted both the enduring importance of individuals’ dispositions towards their own learning and the profound sense of professional isolation that some teachers experience once the support of their induction year is withdrawn, this paper focuses specifically on the interplay between teachers’ orientations towards their own professional learning and the nature of the learning environments in which they are working. The complex interrelationships between these two dimensions are illuminated by six case studies, which offer strong support to those who have challenged exclusive conceptualisations of ‘learning’ as either ‘construction’ or ‘participation’. The findings have important implications for all those responsible for the professional education of beginning and early career teachers, especially as they respond to the government launch in England of a new ‘national framework’ intended (eventually) to offer opportunities for Masters level professional learning to all newly qualified teachers.     

The complex development of student-teachers' thinking

Studies of student-teacher development have tended to suggest a three-stage model of development in which the novices' concerns shift outwards from an initial preoccupation with self, to a focus on tasks and teaching situations, and finally to consideration of pupil learning. This paper, based on sequence of post-lesson interviews conducted with 25 student teachers following 1-year postgraduate courses within school-based partnership schemes of initial teacher education, questions the adequacy of such a model. Analysis of the reasons that the student-teachers offered for their teaching decisions, and of their lesson evaluations suggests a high level of concern for pupils' learning and an awareness of the complexity of teaching from very early in their training. The implications of these findings are explored; in particular, the challenges that they pose to teacher educators in terms of course structure and curricula, and the need to be responsive to individual learners.     

Re‐enchantment of School Bureaucracy: The Historical Relationship Between Rationality and Romanticism

“Disenchantment” has been a popular trope in the social sciences since Max Weber's appropriation of the term nearly a century ago. In recent years, however, scholars have come to argue that, in contrast to the standard modernization story of unabated rationalization, organizations have long been subject to countervailing forces. In this essay, David Diehl uses modern reinterpretations of the “disenchantment” thesis to suggest that the structure of contemporary schooling is the product of ongoing cultural efforts to re‐enchant public life by infusing rational bureaucracy with Romantic impulses in order to combat alienation and social fragmentation. Moreover, Diehl argues that the changing relationship between rationality and Romanticism has taken a unique form in the contemporary period and that recognizing this helps us to better understand the paradoxical modern push for schools to achieve seemingly incompatible goals such as diversity and standardization, community and accountability, and creativity and efficiency.     

Re‐asserting the place of context in explaining student (under‐)achievement

One popular view of student achievement is that the quality of teaching students receive plays an important part in whether or not they do well at school. In this article we draw attention to ‘context’ as a complementary explanation, particularly regarding achievement differences between students from different socio‐economic backgrounds. In making these observations, we utilise data from one Australian secondary school located in an economically depressed rural community. Drawing on the insights of Bourdieu, our focus is on the broader social and economic influences that can adversely position students and schools, as well as work to inform the institutional stance that schools take in relation to their students.     

Curating in the Open: A Case for Iteratively and Openly Publishing Curatorial Research on the Web

Through a case study of using social media tools to open up part of the curatorial research process for an online exhibit on the history of astronomy at the Library of Congress, I offer some initial ideas about how an open approach to sharing curatorial research could significantly expand the impact and reach of such work. Drawing on three distinct emerging conceptions and frameworks for the idea of “open” (open notebook science, linked open data, and open innovation) I suggest how this case study can be used to guide work with existing simple and inexpensive tools and how it could also inform the development of future tools, services and exhibit development methods. This work builds on an ongoing discussion of open data in libraries, archives, and museums. To date, most of that dialog is about object records and not about the stories and narratives cultural heritage institutions tell about them. I suggest ways to make the production of cultural heritage data, as well as the final outputs, part of an open and transparent process.     

Defining educational research: A perspective of/on presidential addresses and the australian association for research in education

This paper is concerned with the definition of the field of educational research and the changing and developing role of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) in representing and constituting this field. The evidence for the argument is derived from AARE Presidential Addresses across its 40-year history. The paper documents the enhanced complexity and diversity of the field over these 40 years, including the emergence of a global educational policy field, theoretical and methodological developments in the social sciences and new research accountabilities such as the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) measure. Specifically, the paper suggests that the evidence-based movement in public management and education policy, and the introduction of the ERA, potentially limit and redefine the field of educational research, reducing the usefulness and relevance of educational research to policy makers and practitioners. This arises from a failure to recognise thatEducation is both a field of research and a field of policy and practice. Located against both developments, the paper argues for a principled eclecticism framed by a reassessment of quality, which can be applied to the huge variety of methodologies, theories, epistemologies and topics legitimately utilised and addressed within the field of educational research. At the same time, the paper argues the need to globalise the educational research imagination and deparochialise educational research. This call is located within a broader argument suggesting the need for a new social imaginary (in a post-neoliberal context of the global financial crisis) to frame educational policy and practice and the contribution that educational theory and research might make to its constitution. In relation to this, the paper considers the difficulties that political representations of such a new imaginary might entail for the President and the Association, given the variety of its membership and huge diversity of its research interests.     

Variability in muscle damage after eccentric exercise and the repeated bout effect

The first purpose of this study was to determine a possible explanation for the variability in the response to eccentric exercise by having participants repeat the same exercise 1 year apart. The second purpose was to examine whether initial injury in response to eccentric exercise was associated with the extent of the repeated bout effect (RBE). Male students performed 30 eccentric contractions (ECC) of the elbow flexors using a dumbbell set at 80% of the pre-exercise maximal isometric force (MIF). Participants were then classified into low (LR; n=6), medium (MR; n=6), high (HR; n=5), and higher (HrR; n=7) based on the increase in blood creatine kinase (CK) activity. A year later, participants repeated this exercise (ECC30). Four days after ECC30, participants performed 70 eccentric contractions (ECC70). Range of motion, MFI upper arm circumference, soreness, and blood CK activity were measured before and up to 9 days after each bout. The change in the criterion measures following ECC and ECC30 were similar for each group. There were no further changes in all parameters after ECC70 for MR, HR, and HrR, although there was a small increase in CK after ECC70 for LR. LR showed a smaller RBE after ECC70 compared with the other groups. It is concluded that participants who exercised 1 year apart showed remarkably similar responses between the bouts. The extent of the RBE following the second bout for the LR group is less for participants who demonstrate the least evidence of muscle damage after a first exercise bout.