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?

     

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.     

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.     

Discriminative validity of the behavior assessment system for children‐parent rating scales in children with recurrent abdominal pain and matched controls

Examined discriminative validity of the Parent Rating Scale (PRS) of the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1992, Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Services). Two groups were compared: a cohort with recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) (n= 49) and children from the BASC‐PRS standardization sample (n = 49) matched on the background characteristics of age, race/ethnicity, and gender. A multivariate, two‐group discriminant function analysis was used to compare groups across standard scores from the nine clinical scales of the PRS. Results demonstrated that children with RAP could be differentiated (Wilks λ = .642, F = 6.45, df (9, 88), p < .001), and demonstrated higher scores on the Somatization, Depression, Anxiety, Attention Problems, and Withdrawal scales. Subsequent jackknifed classification analysis, diagnostic efficiency statistics, and an odds ratio for the classification analysis added to the overall validity of results. The practical utility of the BASC‐PRS is further supported in light of expanding roles for school psychologists in the assessment and treatment of children with health problems. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 145–154, 2003.     

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.     

威廉姆斯王子

The pright future for Britain's Royalty 不列颠皇室的美好未来 Prince William has come of age. After his father, the Prince of Wales, he is next in line to the throne. This is an enormous responsibility for anyone let alone someone in his twenties. As the future King of England, Prince William lives in the public eye.     

Crits—An Examination

Architectural design education relies upon a practice known in Britain as the ‘crit’ through which to discuss student's work. The author, who studied as an architect and now teaches design to architecture students, describes the history of this institution and the ways in which its use has changed in the last 150 years. She uses the context of a British school of architecture and both contemporary and earlier research examples to support the hypothesis that these changes have contributed to the current atmosphere of doubt in which the crit is held. Central to her argument is the unresolved connection between formative and summative assessment occasions brought about by an apparently unavoidable association between the work of students and the students themselves. The paper supports the call for a review of architectural education methods, whilst stressing that the nature and flaws of the existing process must first be recognised.