School English,literature and the knowledge-base question

This article takes up questions about knowledge and the school curriculum with respect to literary studies within subject English. Its intention is to focus on literary studies in English from the context of current waves of curriculum reform, rather than as part of the conversations primarily within the field of English, to raise questions about the knowledge agenda, and the knowledge-base agenda for teaching and teacher education. The selection of texts and form of study of literature within the English curriculum has long been an area of controversy. Without assuming a particular position on knowledge in this area, this article shows that important questions of what knowledge-base teachers are expected to bring to their work are elided both in current regulations and debates, and in research on ‘good teaching’ in this area. If ‘literary studies’ (as a discipline or university major) is itself an unstable and changing field, what kind of knowledge does a good English teacher bring to their work? This paper takes up these questions in the context of the Australian Curriculum and standards for teacher registration, but it also points to the way these issues about knowledge are of broader relevance for researchers and teacher education.     

A dialogue between partnership and feminism: deconstructing power and exclusion in higher education

Students as partners (SaP) has seen an increase in focus as an area of active student engagement in higher education. Many complexities and challenges have been shared in this evolving field regarding inclusivity and power. We discuss, in this dialogue, insights that can be uncovered by exploring SaP through a feminist lens – illuminating the fact that both fields seem to be seated in similar radical processes of challenging, questioning, destabilising, deconstructing, and empowering. We unravel issues of power and exclusion by exploring: what feminist theories might add to SaP; embedded binaries and what they reveal about power relations within the language of SaP; and ways of writing about SaP that are inclusive. We aim to step away from dominant understandings, incite acts of self-reflection, and open possibilities for future research and practice by questioning the boundaries and binaries that currently shape the institutions of higher education.     

Teaching Undergraduate Mathematics on the Internet

This is Part 2 of a two-part study of how APOS theory may be used to provide cognitive explanations of how students and mathematicians might think about the concept of infinity. We discuss infinite processes, describe how the mental mechanisms of interiorization and encapsulation can be used to conceive of an infinite process as a completed totality, explain the relationship between infinite processes and the objects that may result from them, and apply our analyses to certain mathematical issues related to infinity.     

Developmental Precursors of Relational Aggression From Late Childhood Through Adolescence

Relational aggression—a psychological form of aggression—has numerous negative consequences for physical and emotional health. However, little is known about the risk factors that lead youth to engage in relational aggression. Using multimethod data from a longitudinal research of 674 Mexican-origin youth, this study examined the influence of parents, siblings, and peers on the development of relational aggression. Increases in relational aggression from age 10 to 16 were associated with: (a) low levels of parental monitoring and (b) increased association with deviant peers and siblings. These results held across gender and nativity status. The findings suggest that multiple socialization agents contribute to the development of relational aggression. We discuss the practical implications for reducing relational aggression during adolescence.     

Towards a renaissance in urban parks

Public parks have been a familiar and popular feature of our towns and cities since their appearance throughout the 19th century. They arose out of social concern over public health and happiness and as a reaction to the squalid conditions endured by the masses. Civic pride determined that they were maintained to a very high standard as symbols of municipal power and excellence. Public parks were the first resort for local communities, especially children, to have fun and to relieve the pressures of modern life. As well as providing an urban pastoral they also provided for the exuberance of amatuer sport and lively play. They continued and strengthened the British fascination with horticultural magnificence ‐council apprenticeships provided the head gardeners for the National Trust and private estates as well as the men who competed with their peers in ever more imaginative and technically accomplished picture‐and carpet‐bedding displays which adorned the nation's premier public parks.

All this has sadly passed. The decline of parks can be traced back to the removal of railings for the War effort and consequent loss of sense of place, but the real damage became cumulative from the mid‐1970s. Local government reorganisation, political struggle between local and central government, privatisation of local services, year‐on‐year cuts in capital and revenue budgets and a shift of emphasis to foreign holidays and car‐borne countryside recreation all contributed to the downfall of urban parks into the dismal, neglected and vandalised landscapes which have become so familiar today. Responding to the concerns of voluntary and professional bodies, the Heritage Lottery Fund launched the Urban Parks Programme in 1996 to begin to address the issues. The Urban Parks Programme experience has highlighted how seriously underfunded parks have been and has committed far more money than intended to tackle the massive backlog of repairs to essential park infrastructure. It has also tried to address the causes of decline in partnership with local authorities and other bodies in the field ‐ loss of management structure and skills, lack of political support and understanding, and dearth of relevant data concerning parks.

This article traces the fortunes of public parks from their inception to their decline and documents the stirring of a potential renaissance as the government shows its concern with quality of life issues, with social exclusion, with multiple deprivation and with regeneration of the economic vitality and social coherence of urban areas. A government Select Committee has recently examined the state of the nation's parks and declared itself shocked and appalled at the extent of the problems that parks have faced in the last 30 years. There is now a chance that the long downward trend in the status and condition of urban parks can be reversed if a vigorous lead is given by government.     

Exploring the link between culture and strategy in media organisations: The cases of the BBC and CNN

Abstract

This study employs participant observation methodology to examine the U.S. broadcast industry's cognitions of its external environment. Previous research has documented a tendency among industry participants to operate under outdated mental models of their environment. This tendency ‐ labeled ‘cognitive inertia’ ‐ provides the analytical framework for this study. The results provide indications that broadcasters operate under what appear to be outdated mental models of their external environment, with broadcasters appearing to pay inadequate attention to competing program sources and failing to account for the changing demographic composition of the television audience. However, these conclusions are tempered by the broadcast industry's dual‐product marketplace characteristics, wherein cognitions that would appear to reflect inadequate assessment of the content market may in fact reasonably reflect the contemporary realities of the audience market.