Teachers´ experiences of school choice from ´marginalised´ and ´privileged´ public schools in Oslo

ABSTRACT

Oslo introduced a combination of school choice, per capita funding, balanced management and accountability in their public schools. Recent studies point out that this has increased segregation. In this study, teachers have been interviewed about their experiences. Bernstein´s classification and framing tools have been used to analyse the consequences for schools and relations between schools and parents/students. ´Marginalised´ and ´privileged´ schools find themselves in negative and positive spirals when it comes to popularity. These spirals are classed, raced and, (in upper secondary school), also gendered. Since attracting the ´right´ students and avoiding getting the ´wrong´ ones is essential for both school categories, school choice creates a mutual interest between the school and privileged parents/students in fortifying the latter´s voice. Three findings are especially interesting: 1. Cream skimming occurs in undersubscribed schools in a strictly public-school context. 2. School choice affects internal priorities in marginalised schools so that segregation at the class level increases, thus the educational context may be more segregated than what is indicated by school level information. 3. School choice increases segregation in the local communities, as two schools near each other may have very different student compositions. Segregation is thus not only explained by segregated housing.     

信息框架对健康风险认知和行为改变决策的影响

[目的/意义]通过调查问卷和实验相结合的方法探究处于健康行为改变过程不同阶段的个体接收不同的框架化信息后健康风险认知及相应行为改变决策的变化情况的差异,确定何种信息能更有效提升处于不同变化阶段个体对风险的认知并促进行为改变决策形成,为下一步进行不良行为改变的纵向信息干预提供依据。[方法/过程]基于前期研究提出的综合理论模型,选取按时吃早餐作为研究特例,利用自制问卷对被试者进行横断面考察研究。最终通过对所获得数据的统计分析,对其中具有统计学差异的结果进一步讨论,得出可行的干预意见。[结果/结论]在健康行为改变的初期(前意向阶段、意向阶段),负性框架信息更有助于个体提升风险认知进而促进行为改变决策的形成,而在健康行为改变的中后期(准备阶段、行动转变),信息框架不再对风险认知的提升程度具有差异,但此时正性框架信息能够通过对自我效能的显著提升来促进个体产生行为改变决策,而信息框架对处于健康行为改变终末期(维持阶段)的个体未产生显著影响。     

Framing social determinants of health within the professional public health community: research translation and implications for policy change

Despite what experts know about the importance of social determinants of health (SDOH), poor health is generally understood by the public as an individual problem ameliorated through lifestyle and/or healthcare. To remedy this knowledge gap and promote policy change, public health professionals are investing in media advocacy to raise public awareness about SDOH and promote collective responsibility for health improvement. However, policy theory suggests this may be insufficient. More attention to the role of professional communities, as mediators of research translation and important policy actors, is warranted. We conducted a content analysis of news articles published by the American Public Health Association and found substantial attention to SDOH. However, the discourse was more biomedical than expected given the evidence regarding the relative importance of the major categories of health determinants. This may be a barrier to policy change and detract from the field’s efforts to promote political action.     

What global perspective does our university foster in our students?

We used a modified circuit of culture enquiry to explore processes of production, representation and consumption of global perspective at our university, in the context of fostering this perspective as a graduate attribute. We identified four frame packages by which this perspective is understood and communicated. Global perspective is framed within our institution simultaneously as essentially cooperative and as competitive. We express concern about how such complexity is fostered in our students. We ask our colleagues and university teachers internationally to critically reflect upon the diversity of global perspectives extant within higher education and potentially to clarify their intentions as university teachers.     

If it Bleeds it Leads

This paper examines newspaper coverage of sexual and reproductive health and violence against women, from 1995 until 2015, in two print newspapers from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The analysis shows that while coverage of violence against women increased over the 20-year period, coverage of sexual and reproductive health did not. Moreover, drawing on framing theory, content analysis indicates that, regardless of the level of coverage, throughout the period examined, articles on these topics tended to eschew a gender equality approach, and to be framed in episodic, rather than thematic frames. Finally, articles about violence against women are significantly less likely to use either the equality frame or the thematic frame than stories about sexual and reproductive health. This paper draws on these findings to reflect on the relevance of portraying these issues as social concerns with impact in gender equality.     

美国卡内基·梅隆大学战略规划研究

制定一个科学合理的高校发展战略规划直接关系到一个高校在新的世纪赢得发展主动权的问题，但是如何制定这样一个有效的高校发展战略规划仍是不少研究者们探讨的问题。美国卡内基·梅隆大学是美国高校发展的后起之秀，其高校发展战略规划取得的显著成果更是不少国家高校效仿的对象，本文试从其大学的发展历史、战略规划历程、制定特色入手，对卡内基·梅隆战略规划相关情况作简要介绍。     

论决策中的框架陷阱

领导者常借用框架进行决策,若对框架的认知不足就会陷入决策陷阱,如被框架所禁锢、"选择性失明"、思想意识上的强制扭曲、过度自信、过分谨慎等框架效应。通过科学认知框架和对框架陷阱的分析,能够让决策者回避这些陷阱。     

Towards an Analysis of Visual Images in School Science Textbooks and Press Articles about Science and Technology

This paper aims at presenting the application of a grid for the analysis of the pedagogic functions of visual images included in school science textbooks and daily press articles about science and technology. The analysis is made using the dimensions of content specialisation (classification) and social-pedagogic relationships (framing) promoted by the images as well as the elaboration and abstraction of the corresponding visual code (formality), thus combining pedagogical and socio-semiotic perspectives. The grid is applied to the analysis of 2819 visual images collected from school science textbooks and another 1630 visual images additionally collected from the press. The results show that the science textbooks in comparison to the press material: a) use ten times more images, b) use more images so as to familiarise their readers with the specialised techno-scientific content and codes, and c) tend to create a sense of higher empowerment for their readers by using the visual mode. Furthermore, as the educational level of the school science textbooks (i.e., from primary to lower secondary level) rises, the content specialisation projected by the visual images and the elaboration and abstraction of the corresponding visual code also increases. The above results have implications for the terms and conditions for the effective exploitation of visual material as the educational level rises as well as for the effective incorporation of visual images from press material into science classes.     

In ‘Numberland’: play-based pedagogy in response to imaginative numeracy

The overarching interest of this study concerns how to outline learning opportunities and support in early childhood education (ECE) without losing its play-based character. More specifically, the study reports an empirical investigation into the evolving activity of a 6.5-year-old child and an adult conversing about the child’s drawing of ‘Numberland’. What the child’s drawing and his discussion about it with the adult tell us about his emergent mathematics skills is analysed. How the child shifts between speaking and enacting as if and as is, and how the adult supports his mathematics understanding through entering into the play-frame are analysed. How imaginary, play-based activities like this can provide the means for ECE and what this implies for the teacher are discussed.     

Epistemological framing and novice elementary teachers' approaches to learning and teaching engineering design

As engineering learning experiences increasingly begin in elementary school, elementary teacher preparation programs are an important site for the study of teacher development in engineering education. In this article, we argue that the stances that novice teachers adopt toward engineering learning and knowledge are consequential for the opportunities they create for students. We present a comparative case study examining the epistemological framing dynamics of two novice urban teachers, Ana and Ben, as they learned and taught engineering design during a four-week institute for new elementary teachers. Although the two teachers had very similar teacher preparation backgrounds, they interpreted the purposes of engineering design learning and teaching in meaningfully different ways. During her own engineering sessions, Ana took up the goal not only of meeting the needs of the client but also of making scientific sense of artifacts that might meet those needs. When facilitating students' engineering, she prioritized their building knowledge collaboratively about how things work. By contrast, when Ben worked on his own engineering, he took up the goal of delivering a product. When teaching engineering to students, he offered them constrained prototyping tasks to serve as hands-on contexts for reviewing scientific explanations. These findings call for teacher educators to support teachers' framing of engineering design as a knowledge building enterprise through explicit conversations about epistemology, apprenticeship in sense-making strategies, and tasks intentionally designed to encourage reasoning about design artifacts.