Class,Culture and Agency: Researching parental voice

This paper explores the differential possession and deployment of social, cultural and material resources by parents, and the effect of these processes on their willingness and ability to be involved with and intervene in their children's school life--what we have called 'parental voice'. The data presented here are drawn from a study of parents at two secondary schools, a subsample of data from a larger study involving six schools. We consider the social positioning and behaviour of three cohorts of parents, those demonstrating high, low and intermediate levels of intervention in the school. Our conclusions stress both the similarities and differences in parents' experience of voice. Certainly, parental access to and deployment of a number of social resources significantly affected how often, how easily and over what range of issues they approached the school. However, we also describe the overall character of parental voice in these two schools as individual, cautious and insecure.     

Serum Lp(a) in diabetics with and without evidence of clinical nephropathy—A preliminary study

Type 2 diabetes is associated with a marked increase in the risk of coronary artery disease. Dyslipidaemia is believed to be a major cause of this increased risk. Recently, elevated levels of lipoprotein (a), Lp(a), have been reported to be associated with an increased risk. However there is very little data regarding Lp(a) concentrations and type 2 diabetes from India. The objective of the study was to assess serum Lp(a) levels in type 2 diabetics with and with out evidence of clinical nephropathy. We estimated serum Lp(a) levels in 30 control subjects, 30 diabetics without evidence of clinical nephropathy and 30 diabetics with evidence of clinical nephropathy. Statistical analysis showed that Lp(a) levels were increased in diabetic patients with nephropathy (mean 46.3±17.6 mg/dl). The Lp(a) levels however did not differ significantly between control (mean 20.2±15.9 mg/dl) and diabetics without nephropathy (mean 22.6±13.1mg/dl). Thus diabetes per se seems to have little or no influence on serum Lp(a) levels, however elevated levels were seen in patients with nephropathy.     

Improving students’ help-seeking skills using metacognitive feedback in an intelligent tutoring system

The present research investigated whether immediate metacognitive feedback on students’ help-seeking errors can help students acquire better help-seeking skills. The Help Tutor, an intelligent tutor agent for help seeking, was integrated into a commercial tutoring system for geometry, the Geometry Cognitive Tutor. Study 1, with 58 students, found that the real-time assessment of students’ help-seeking behavior correlated with other independent measures of help seeking, and that the Help Tutor improved students’ help-seeking behavior while learning Geometry with the Geometry Cognitive Tutor. Study 2, with 67 students, evaluated more elaborated support that included, in addition to the Help Tutor, also help-seeking instruction and support for self-assessment. The study replicated the effect found in Study 1. It was also found that the improved help-seeking skills transferred to learning new domain-level content during the month following the intervention, while the help-seeking support was no longer in effect. Implications for metacognitive tutoring are discussed.     

Differential effects of a long teacher training internship on students’ learning-to-teach patterns

To become a lifelong learner as a teacher, student teachers already have to learn how to direct their own learning during initial teacher education programmes. Previous empirical research has shown that student teachers differ in their patterns of learning-to-teach, but few is known about the changeability of these learning patterns throughout teacher education and the role of teacher training internships in this. In this study, the changes in student teachers’ patterns of learning-to-teach amongst pre-service teachers were investigated using a longitudinal design. 253 student teachers were asked to complete the ‘Inventory Learning To Teach Process’ questionnaire at two points during the last semester of a three-year teaching programme: immediately prior to and immediately following a long teacher training internship. The results of this study demonstrate that learning-to-teach patterns are subject to a relative degree of change. In particular, survival-oriented student teachers appear to have undergone a greater degree of change after the long teacher training internship.     

生命安全教育：体育教育的本源回归探索

摘要：生命安全教育是现代教育“以人为本”的核心价值体现和素质教育的重要内容。采用文献资料法、逻辑分析法,以体育的本源为逻辑起点和研究对象,从生命安全教育的视角审视体育产生过程和体育起源学说。旨在探索原始体育的价值取向和隐性功能,进而分析生命安全教育在体育教育中的本源地位和作用,阐释体育教育中的生命安全教育品性,体现个体生命发展的安全需求,以期回归体育教育的本真。其研究价值在于为学校体育中生命安全教育的课程建设提供理论依据。结论：体育的产生、形成和发展过程带有明显的生存技能及安全教育特征;生命安全教育是体育的本源要素;进入21世纪的现代文明社会,生命安全教育在学校体育教育中具有重要的价值和功能。     

Public‐Private Substitution in Higher Education: Has Cost‐Sharing Gone Too Far?

This paper looks at the current challenge facing higher education by exploring the historical relationship between higher education funding and long economic cycles in the UK, USA and France. It examines the consequence of the transformation of public‐private income in higher education that followed the 1970s downturn, questioning whether the rise of private resources acted as additional or substitutive resources for public spending. The paper suggests that there is a risk that the cost‐sharing strategy could be turned into a policy of public‐private substitution of funding and provision, leading to a transfer rather than an increase of resources with strong implications on quality and equity. However, the Kondratiev cycle suggests an alternative route by designating the impact of the 1970s economic downturn on education as unique. Previous economic crises were contemporary of accelerations of public funding towards education which in fact contributed to economic recovery. The current crisis could represent an opportunity to revive counter‐cyclical policy by looking not only at efficient public spending but also at developing fairer taxation. A revival of public funding complemented by an additional rather than substitutive diversification of income would rebalance the public‐private structure of funding and drive a sustainable higher education system capable of playing a key part in these counter‐cyclical transformations.     

Performance and age of African and non-African runners in World Marathon Majors races 2000–2014

The age for the fastest marathoners is well investigated, but not the age and nationality of the fastest. We investigated the age of peak marathon performance for the annual top 100 women and men competing in four races of the “World Marathon Majors” (Boston, Berlin, Chicago and New York) and the “Stockholm Marathon” between 2000 and 2014 using mixed-effects regression analyses and one-way ANOVA. Race times of Ethiopian men decreased to 2:14 h:min, but remained unchanged for Kenyan (2:14 h:min), Moroccan (2:15 h:min) and South African (2:18 h:min) men. Race times in Ethiopian (2:34 h:min), Kenyan (2:29 h:min) and South African (2:49 h:min) women showed no changes. Age increased in Ethiopian and South African men to 29.0 ± 5.0 and 32.0 ± 1.0 years, respectively. Age for Kenyan (29.9 ± 2.0 years) and Moroccan (34.9 ± 3.9 years) men remained unchanged. Age remained unchanged for Ethiopian (26.5 ± 2.0 years), Kenyan (30.0 ± 0.8 years) and South African (36.3 ± 7.0 years) women. In summary, Ethiopian men improved marathon race times, but not Ethiopian women. Age increased in Ethiopian men, but not in Ethiopian women. For practical applications, female and male marathoners from Ethiopia were the youngest and the fastest.     

Do players and staff sleep more during the pre- or competitive season of elite rugby league?

This study establishes the sleep behaviour of players and staff during the pre- and competitive seasons of elite rugby league. For seven days during both the pre- and competitive seasons, seven rugby league players and nine full-time staff from one professional Australian rugby league club had their sleep monitored via wrist actigraphy and self-report sleep diaries. Two-way repeated measures analysis of variance determined differences between the pre- and competitive season in players and staff, with effect sizes (ES) used to interpret the practical magnitude of differences. Findings show an earlier bed time and wake time for players (?34 min, ES?=?1.5; ±0.5 and ?39 min, 2.1; ±0.5 respectively) and staff (?29 min, ES?=?0.8; ±0.3 and ?35 min, ES?=?1.7; ±0.4 respectively) during pre-season when compared to the competitive season. Despite this, no differences were seen when considering the amount of time in bed, sleep duration or sleep efficiency obtained between the pre- and competitive seasons. Our results suggest that early morning training sessions scheduled during pre-season advances wake time in elite rugby league. However, both players and staff can aim to avoid reductions in sleep duration and sleep efficiency with subsequent adjustment of night time sleep patterns. This may be particularly pertinent for staff, who wake earlier than players during both the pre- and competitive seasons.