The Measurement of Progress and the Role of Education

Some talk of well-being, others of sustainable development, and some of progress. They may differ in their terminology, but those who preach these ideas are part of a growing global consensus — a consensus that believes societies need to look beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to develop a more holistic view of the directions in which they are heading. The strength of the consensus is evidenced by the thousands of initiatives worldwide that seek to measure societal progress. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is advocating and supporting this work through its Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies. The article focuses on two areas.

• • Global views on measuring progress and well-being. Why do increasingly many people consider that measuring progress and well-being is important? What are they trying to achieve and is any agreement emerging around what ‘well-being’ is and how it can be measured?
• • Education and well-being. Do, and should, measures of ‘education’ play a role in any set of key indicators that seek to assess societal well-being? And what are the links between how educated a society is and how, indeed whether, it is progressing against other key economic, social and environmental concerns?

     

Cognitive Style in Counselor Education: A Comparison of Practicum Supervisors and Counselors in Training

The authors compared practicum supervisors and counseling students in training in terms of dominant cognitive style and related cognitive style of counselors in training to supervision process and outcome measures. A sample of 18 supervisors and 46 students completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. After at least six supervision sessions, supervisors rated the counseling students on the Counselor Evaluation Rating Scale and the students rated the quality of the supervision relationship using the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory. Supervisors had a stronger Thinking orientation and less variability on the Sensing-Intuiting orientation than did counselors in training. In contrast to previous research, a strong relationship between the cognitive style of counselors in training and supervision process and outcome measures was not detected in this study.     

A Hidden Value in Examinations?

Mrs. Hall, who edits the NATE Newsletter, indicates how with sympathetic teaching even the examination system can be used to overcome the sense of failure. She is Head of English at Mountbatten School (formerly Corner Hall Schools), Hemel Hempstead.     

Unique Ethical Dilemmas in Counselor Training

The author proposes that when counselor candidates are allowed to participate as clients in counselor-training laboratories, an indirect dual relationship is established, which may create unique ethical conflicts.     

玫瑰芬芳

Inspite new trends in the garden,the rose is still the most popularflower in Britain.ashion has come to the garden.     

Essential Characteristics of Master's Level Counselors: Perceptions of Agency Administrators

The purpose of this study was to determine to what degree the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) standards represent skills and knowledge that mental health agency employers use to judge candidates for master's level counseling positions. A total of 84 professionals who hired master's level counselors in their agencies rated the likely effect of each CACREP knowledge and skill area on their judgment of a potential candidate. Respondents also checked specific knowledge and skills they considered important and the type(s) of master's degrees typically possessed by counselors hired by their agency. Data suggested that each knowledge and skill area may have a moderate to significant impact on the employers' judgments, although some competencies were clearly seen to be more relevant than others. Family intervention was the most highly endorsed specialization, and candidates with social work degrees were hired far more frequently than was any other single type. Implications for counselor education programs and graduates are discussed.     

Tensions in Teaching and Teacher Education: Professionalism and professionalisation in England and Canada

The argument in this article derives from a comparative case study of two pre-service teacher education programmes in England and in Canada. Using Goodson and Hargreaves' propositions about the seven principles of postmodern teacher professionalism, we discuss the tensions between government professionalisation agendas for teaching and teacher education, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the creation of conditions in schools and faculties of education in which professionalism is diminished or even systematically undermined. We extend the analysis to consider the particular tensions teacher educators experience as they manage competing definitions of professionalism within university and school contexts.     

Moments of Inclusion and Exclusion: pupils negotiating classroom contexts

This paper uses evidence from a small-scale study of two English primary school classrooms to examine school inclusion in its political contexts. We argue that ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ are complex processes, enacted moment-by-moment by pupils and teachers. Our focus is on the pupils' negotiation of these moments, and we examine how their negotiations are contingent on (although not determined by) a web of intersecting indices of ‘difference’, including differences of social class, ethnicity, gender/sexuality, perceived academic ability and physical appearance. We take a post-structuralist approach, well-known in feminist educational research but less often used in research and thinking about ‘inclusive’ schooling, to foreground children's active role in making sense of social conditions that are not of their own making or choice. We conclude that a politically literate understanding of the processes of inclusion and exclusion is necessary both to highlight the continuing reproduction of educational inequality, and to produce the necessary conditions for egalitarian change.