Profession, “performance”, and policy: teachers,examinations, and the state in England and Wales, 1846–1862

Abstract

When historians discuss the impact of examinations on elementary education in mid-Victorian England and Wales they typically focus on the Revised Code of 1862. The Revised Code is famous for instituting a policy of “payment-by-results” for teachers in state-supported voluntary schools. “Payment-by-results” made government grants to schools – and, by extension, for teachers’ salaries – contingent upon student attendance and pass rates in reading, writing and arithmetic. As this article emphasises, however, “payment-by-results” was not the first, or even the most significant, instance in which competitive examination was used by the state as an instrument for establishing the pedagogical fitness and salaries of teachers. Less often explored by historians is the formative role that state-mandated competitive examinations for teachers played in developing a professionally aspirant body of schoolteachers and, consequently, the schoolteachers’ later role in developing competitive examination as a broad-scale national accreditation apparatus. But while the use of competitive examinations came to shape modern British academic and professional life in fundamental ways, the strengthening effects that they had for certain occupations and institutions, such as physicians, civil servants and middle-class secondary schools, were in fact ultimately denied to state teachers and the elementary education sector generally. With the introduction of “payment-by-results” in 1862, competitive examinations were converted into an instrument that weakened rather than strengthened teachers’ professional identity and policy influence. This article explains how the nineteenth-century English state structured examinations and examination results to manipulate the professional status of teachers in order to suit state priorities during different stages of national development. This historical narrative is framed in reference to present-day examination-based reforms of teacher compensation systems such as performance-related-pay and value-added modelling.     

中国境内的第一份近代化中文期刊──《杂闻篇》考

本文将根据在英国发现的刊物原件所作的考证,推断1833年由马礼逊创办的中文期刊——《杂闻篇,》是中国境内出版的第一份近代化中文期刊、第一份用铅活字排印的期刊、澳门历史上第一份中文期刊。     

沟通与互动:大学领导力的文化与解释学分析

文化与解释学是大学领导力研究的一个独特视角。大学领导力的内涵应从领导过程和有效领导力判定层面进行界定,不仅要看领导者的所作所为,更应考察其潜在追随者的反应方式。大学有效领导力的产生与形成在于领导者与学校成员间良性的沟通与互动方式,其目的在于通过改变沟通模式,促使模范型领导力的实现。因此,从具体层面看,要提高大学领导力,除拥有工具型领导力之外,更重要的是必须运用沟通手段,充分考虑学校成员的意见、态度与价值观,大力提升与增强解释型领导力。     

意境和主题的结合:中国意境视野下的《雪夜林边小驻》

从中国诗学的意境视角来分析罗伯特.弗罗斯特的名作《雪夜林边小驻》,可以解读其意境和主题的结合特点及其审美效果,揭示该首诗歌的哲学意蕴。     

弗罗斯特诗歌中家的隐喻及其社会伦理

罗伯特·弗罗斯特诗歌中的家总是坐落于远离现代都市的偏僻新英格兰农村,给人一种强烈的孤独的地域感,然而其隐喻及其文化内涵却使它们超越了地域的限制.弗罗斯特借此探讨在现代科学、现代工业发展冲击下家的变迁.通过分析可以发现:笃信个人主义和自立的他,在家庭的社会伦理问题上同样持二元论及平衡论的观点,在强调现代文化背景下邻里关系的重要性的同时,又强调在家庭社会责任问题上自立与博爱之间平衡的必要性.     

论欧文的教育思想

欧文作为空想社会主义思想家,不仅在社会主义思想史上占有重要地位,而且在教育问题上有着独到的见解,他提出的人是教育的产物、早期教育、教育与生产劳动相结合的观点对西方教育史和马克思主义教育学均产生了积极的意义。     

隐喻和象征:弗罗斯特诗歌的两大特色(英文)

弗罗斯特诗歌的语言似乎简单、含糊,但其思想蕴意深刻,常常给读者留下难忘的印象,余味无穷。本文认为弗氏的诗歌的主要特征是隐喻和象征,其著名的抒情诗中蕴涵着丰富的哲理,揭示了弗氏对人生和存在的解读和人与自然的关系。     

Negotiating the World: Some philosophical considerations on dealing with differential academic language proficiency in schools

Differential academic language proficiency is an issue of major educational concern, bearing on problems varying from pupil performance, to social prospects, and citizenship. In this paper we develop a conception of the language-acquiring subject, and we discuss the consequences for understanding differential language proficiency in schools. Starting from Wittgenstein's meaning-as-use theory we show that learning a language requires an activity that relates the subject both to the community of language users, and to the things language is about. In opposition to Luntley, we contend that this does not mean that linguistic development involves linguistic adjustment to the world 'as it is'. It is argued that, in as far as linguistic development involves a process of adjustment, this concerns conceptions about the world as it is presupposed to be—a 'world' that is subjected to doubt and revision time and again. With respect to dealing with differential academic language proficiency, this approach to linguistic development suggests bringing pupils into situations which require active participation in processes of 'negotiating meaning', including negotiating the prevailing presuppositions about what the world is like. This also puts novices in a different position—less assimilatory—recognising their co-constructive potencies at a more fundamental level.