Constructive and Reconstructive Political Education

It is a recurrent feature of the history of political thought that thinkers have turned their attention to education. Some have been concerned with the reproduction of a political culture through education. Others have sought to redress the failings of present generations by re-educating future citizens. A broad distinction is drawn between 'constructive' political education which takes human nature as given and aims to redirect pupils to new priorities and 'reconstructive' education which tries to effect a transformation of the mind-set and produce new persons. Constructive theories include early utilitarians, conservatives such as Oakeshott and modern democratic realists. Examples of reconstructive theories are communitarians, such as Rousseau and participatory democrats, including J. S. Mill and Dewey. The article concludes with a discussion of attempts, such as that by Rawls, to educate for political neutrality.     

Enhancing Teaching and Learning: Libraries and Open Educational Resources in the Classroom

Academic libraries continually adjust services to adapt to the ever-changing landscape in higher education. In response to the broken textbook market, libraries are becoming actively involved in the open educational resources (OER) movement. Although there is not a formal program in place, librarians at Utah State University explored a collaborative approach to integrate OER in faculty members' courses. One goal of the effort was to work closely with faculty to consider course objectives and learning outcomes when evaluating and incorporating OER. This article identifies a streamlined process for targeting courses most suited for OER adoption and outlines a process of collaborating with teaching faculty to integrate relevant OER. The paper includes a detailed workflow that other libraries can easily adapt to make OER part of their faculty outreach toolkit.     

Lifelong Debt: Rates of Return to Mature Study

High rates of return to first degrees have been used to justify increased student financial contributions to higher education. However, no discrete study of rates of return to mature graduates has been carried out although mature graduates now form a significant proportion of the student population. The General Household Survey 1983–1992 was used to examine the earnings of mature graduates compared with those of matriculates. The GHS yielded 616 mature graduate men in full-time work and 296 mature graduate women who were in full-time employment. It was found that the rate of return to mature male graduates was just above one per cent. With recent added costs, new male mature graduates can be forecast to make a sizeable loss on their study. Rates of return to women mature graduates were higher, between five and six per cent, and, based on these figures, the recent increased cost of mature graduate study should be covered by increased earnings. However, these calculations are based on average earnings for the modal age cohort of mature graduates. Those who are older when they complete or earn below the average (a large percentage) will not recoup the costs of study.     

A meta-analysis of maturation-related variation in adolescent boy athletes’ adaptations to short-term resistance training

This meta-analysis investigated the maturation-related pattern of adaptations to resistance training in boy athletes. We included studies examining the effects of 4–16-week resistance training programmes in healthy boy athletes aged 10–18 years. Pooled estimates of effect size for change in strength across all studies (n = 19) were calculated using the inverse–variance random effects model for meta-analyses. Estimates were also calculated for groups based on likely biological maturity status (“before”, “during” and “after” peak height velocity). Using the standardised mean difference, resistance training increased strength across all groups (effect size = 0.98, [CI: 0.70–1.27]). Strength gains were larger during (1.11 [0.67–1.54]) and after (1.01 [0.56–1.46]) peak height velocity than before (0.5 [?0.06–1.07]). Adaptations to resistance training are greater in adolescent boys during or after peak height velocity. These findings should help coaches to optimise the timing of training programmes that are designed to improve strength in boy athletes.     

Separability in a class of coordinate systems

A study is made of separability conditions for the Helmholtz and Laplace equations. Attention is confined to the most useful case for physical applications; namely,

1.

(a) The coordinate system is either cylindrical or it has rotational symmetry, and     

Simplified interflection calculations

The purpose of the paper has been to present simplified methods that will expedite the calculation of ceiling lighting (Type II). Approximate formulas have been given, which allow ordinary slide-rule calculations to be made very easily for the usual range of variables. Only with rooms having very high domance (or perhaps with extraordinarily high floor reflectance) are the complicated equations of the previous paper (1) needed. These approximate formulas can be represented also by alignment charts, Figs. 2 to 5, which further simplify the work.Either the formulas or the charts may be used to investigate the effect of a change in ?₁, ?₂, or ?₃. However, if reflectances are standardized at recommended values, other methods are possible.In particular, one may use graphs (Fig. 6) or a slide-rule (Figs. 7 and 8). The method of calculation chosen for a specific problem will depend on the problem and on the preferences of the designer. The previous equations and tables (3) may always be used; but in most cases, time can be saved by employing the short-cuts given in the present paper.