别害羞!

如今我们生活的环境可能导致害羞,因为我们日常生活中面对面交流的需要减少了。一些专家认为,已经习惯于使用电子邮件、玩网络游戏、使用自助银行和其他自助服务的网络新生代面临着不能培养社交技能的危险。不管什么原因,克服害羞的方法还是有的。“你可以树立新的世界观,”沃克强调, “你可以戒除旧习。”你可以这样做:     

Teaching as an Immortality Project: Positing Weakness in Response to Terror

Teaching as a profession can be read as an immortality project, a form of compensation to help resolve a certain kind of existential terror. Terror management theory can help us understand the ways teachers might compensate for their limitedness as humans by imposing prescribed attributes on their students. In response to the freighted reality of teaching as quasi‐missionary work, we suggest a new orientation, namely that the profession embrace the terror of the future that it cannot know. Through a theoretical engagement with Weak Theology in the context of Eugene Thacker's philosophical ‘doomcore’, we hope to re‐orient the educational project into one with lower stakes, a shift from immortality to more ‘goodness’. The desired result is to refocus on the relationships we develop with other humans as well as with the planet.     

Cohort analysis of writing in Year 7 following two,four and seven years of the National Literacy Strategy

At 11 years of age, English students in secondary schools are expected to make no more than five spelling errors per 100 words and write at a speed of 25 words per minute in order to cope with the curriculum. This research found that at least one third of the Year 7 cohorts (ages 11–12) in three typical suburban secondary schools were unable to meet the spelling criterion and 12% or more were so poor they were in the dyslexic category. Over 95% could not meet the handwriting speed criterion and boys were more than 10% slower than girls. Fluency and speed in writing are essential underpinning skills contributing to spelling accuracy and compositional ability in examination performance. Their role in underachievement across the ability range appears greater than suspected for the difficulties observed so far go far wider than amongst children identified with SEN, such as those with dyslexia and developmental co‐ordination difficulties (DCD), sometimes called dyspraxia. Interventions which teachers in general might undertake are indicated. The research is ongoing.     

Gender Issues in Parental Involvement in Student Choices of Higher Education

This article explores gender, social class and ethnic issues in parental involvement in students' choices of higher education. It draws upon interviews with students and their parents, who were a small group of an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study of students' higher education choice processes in the UK. Gender was highly significant in several respects, illustrating changes in higher education over the last 20 years, whereby more women than men now enter higher education. Most of the interviewees were female. They were mothers and daughters who were thinking about higher education. The article explores first how gender is inflected in choice processes--from whether students choose to involve their parents in the study, to their parents' characteristics, to the forms of involvement revealed. Different facets of involvement are considered--interest, influence and support, investment and intrusion. Secondly, the article provides illustrations of girls' collaborative approaches to the choice processes, in which some of their mothers also engage. This is contrasted with boys' perspectives and those of fathers who were interviewed. This illustrates how gender is woven through social networks across the generations. Parental involvement varied in terms of gender, educational and social backgrounds, or notions of 'institutional' and 'familial habitus'. Finally, the authors reflect upon why gender is salient in how young people and their parents think about their involvement in choosing universities and relate this to changes in higher education policies and practices.     

An Atlas Has More Than One Map: A Reply to Our Commentators

Current trends in research on motivation in the classroom are based on theories that focus on the individual's intrapsychological traits or his or her cognitive and/or affective functioning. In contrast to this individualistic perspective, social constructivist theory provides a framework for conceptualizing motivation as socially negotiated by the participants in the classroom. In such a conceptualization, motivation is inseparable from the instructional process and the classroom environment. The culturally determined joint activity between student and social context results in an internal state of interest and cognitive and affective engagement, and motivated behaviors, both of which can be considered cultural norms. Implications of this perspective for understanding motivation, classroom instruction, and research are discussed.