Teacher-Directed Learning Approaches and Science Achievement: Investigating the Importance of Instructional Explanations in Australian Schools

Research in Science Education - This study investigated the relationships of teacher-directed approaches with science achievement in Australian schools. The data for this study were drawn from the...     

Assessment in special schools: national early assessment procedures and pupils attending special schools in England

An implicit assumption that fostering inclusion means having shared systems encompassing the needs of all children is evident in many aspects of policy development over the past decade. Reflecting this, the implementation of ‘baseline assessment’ schemes (i.e. testing at around age 5 years) is a statutory requirement on all state-maintained special and mainstream schools in England since 1998. Our argument is that the enthusiasm for commonality has obscured the need to question the value and validity of baseline assessment schemes for children with special educational needs (and possibly some others such as children having English as an additional language). We illustrate this position with reference to data from our recent study on baseline assessment in England. The study encompassed survey data from a national sample of 982 schools, of which 107 were special schools. Between them, these special schools used 42 different baseline assessment schemes. Comparisons between our mainstream and special school respondents indicated that there were similarities in the nature and perceived value of the schemes used. However, special schools were less satisfied with their schemes. We suggest that a reappraisal of the nature and purpose of baseline assessment for pupils with special educational needs warrants greater critical debate. Without this, there is a danger that a stress on commonality, veiling an inclusion orthodoxy, will ultimately be counterproductive.     

‘Tours of Imperialism’: Cricket and Cultural Transfer in South Africa, 1880–1910

Abstract

Few can deny the significance of sport in today’s South Africa. The sporting structures upon which this is based were first introduced to the country by the British in the late nineteenth century. In line with policies of cultural imperialism, sports such as cricket were promoted at this time as part of a wider political agenda that encouraged the adoption of an ‘English’ way of life in the region. Sports tours, most notably cricket, were a fundamental part of this cultural transfer between the ‘Mother Country’ and her colonies in Southern Africa. To underpin the study of transnational linkages and transfer in African sports, this paper will offer an historical overview of how ‘British-styled’ sport arrived in South Africa and how the early cricket tours between England and South Africa were constructed to promote distinct political and cultural connections. This paper will explore the early development of cricket in South Africa and investigate its symbiotic link to British imperialism and colonialism via the first tours and sporting exchanges that took place. The origins of the game in South Africa will be examined as well as its development up to 1910 (the date of Union in South Africa) as the site of a constructed transnational 'brotherhood' between Britain and its most coveted African colonies.     

Managing physical education lessons: an interactional approach

Physical education (PE) lessons involve complex and dynamic interactive sequences between students, equipment and teacher. The potential for unexpected and/or unintended events is relatively large, a point reflected in an increasing amount of scholarship dealing with classroom management (CM). This scholarship further suggests that unexpected and disruptive events negatively impact on learning and can have deleterious effects on teacher health. Despite considerable potential for these kinds of events, many PE lessons occur in structured, organized ways. The broad purpose of this paper is to consider how classroom action becomes ordered in PE contexts. To this end, an interactional approach is put forward including the specific analytic concepts of directives, epistemic authority and deontic authority. To exemplify the approach, the micro-dynamics of a situation in which a group of students are building a human pyramid is examined. The examination draws attention to: how the teacher engages in a series of interactions with the students to move the sequence forward; how the students themselves achieve order through their interactions with one another; and how the characteristics of the activity help to organize the students' behaviors and limit possibilities for action. The discussion is located against a backdrop of current CM scholarship. Reference is also made to two aspects of social context: the increasing prominence of managerial discourse in educational arenas and the significance of student-centeredness in pedagogical theory. Both aspects appear to influence how order can be achieved in PE today. The analysis raises issues related to pedagogy, management and authority which are addressed in the final two sections of the paper.     

Community School Leadership Development in Papua New Guinea: perspectives for change

Community school personnel in Papua New Guinea are expected to undertake an increasingly complex leadership role in making education more relevant to the needs of the community, yet current administrative training does not acknowledge this leadership perspective. In the light of this changing role, the current model for the in‐service development of community school leaders in Papua New Guinea appears limited theoretically. This is because existing programmes are inadequate epistemologically and do not fully equip community school leaders with the knowledge required to cope with educational change. Existing programmes are based on a technical rationality which serves bureaucratic purposes rather than contributing to teacher empowerment and organisational reward. A new approach is required which recognises the increasing complexities of community school leadership and which links leadership training with the process of professional development.     

WIDENING AND INCREASING POST-16 MATHEMATICS PARTICIPATION: PATHWAYS, PEDAGOGIES AND POLITICS

This paper explores the potential impact of a national pilot initiative in England aimed at increasing and widening participation in advanced mathematical study through the creation of a new qualification for 16- to 18-year-olds. This proposed qualification pathway—Use of Mathematics—sits in parallel with long-established, traditional advanced level qualifications, what we call ‘traditional Mathematics’ herein. Traditional Mathematics is typically required for entry to mathematically demanding undergraduate programmes. The structure, pedagogy and assessment of Use of Mathematics is designed to better prepare students in the application of mathematics, and its development has surfaced some of the tensions between academic/pure and vocational/applied mathematics. Here, we explore what Use of Mathematics offers, but we also consider some of the objections to its introduction in order to explore aspects of the knowledge politics of mathematics education. Our evaluation of this curriculum innovation raises important issues for the mathematics education community as countries seek to increase the numbers of people that are well prepared to apply mathematics in science and technology-based higher education courses and work places.     

The Law of Unintended Consequences: The ‘Real’ Cost of Top-Down Reform

In most jurisdictions around the world,governments, in the name of economiccompetitiveness, have imposed comprehensive andquite dramatic changes on state schools. Mostchanges require a more centralized and rigorouscurriculum for pupils, a plethora ofaccountability measures and mandatoryin-service for teachers, and carefully definedand more onerous responsibilities for schoolleaders. The province of Ontario is nodifferent. Since 1995, its educational systemhas experienced quite revolutionary changes– all instituted with break-neck speed. At thesame time most schools in Ontario are employinginternal change strategies to address theseoutside pressures. These change forces havecoalesced to redefine the work and lives ofteachers and school leaders in many intendedand unintended ways. There is a substantialliterature on both external and internal changeforces, but very little has been written aboutthe conjunction of these change forces with thepersonal side of change for teachers andleaders. Based on two studies undertaken by theInternational Centre for Educational Change atthe Ontario Institute for Studies inEducation/University of Toronto, this paperexamines the unintended consequences of thesechange forces on the teachers and principals ofone secondary school in Ontario, Canada. Theteachers and leaders of Lord Byron High Schoolare not averse to change and are generallyquite content to do whatever is in the bestinterests of their students. The school has along history of innovation and change and areputation for attending to a wide diversity ofstudent needs.Through the use of multiple conceptual lenses,this paper addresses the unintendedconsequences of systemic change to the schooland its teachers and principals. At a time whenteacher shortages and teacher morale aregrowing problems for many educationaljurisdictions, this investigation will point toan urgent need to build better bridges ofunderstanding between policy makers and policyimplementers, and for researchers to provideresearch that is more sensitive to the work andlives of real people in real schools.     

用法治理性建构校园和谐

建设校园和谐关系,以法治理性的价值判断和价值选择审视并优化校园环境,是坚持以人为本、以民主法治原则建设校园和谐关系的关键所在。以民主法治原则构建现代校园和谐关系是法治理性的基本要求;尊重人权是法治理性的真谛;校园和谐需要法治理性的宽容精神;法治理性包含对法制的敬畏和行使自由权利的节制;校园和谐关系呼唤体现法治理性的校园文化。学校教育通过尊重和保护青年学生的正当权利并使其自觉践行义务的过程,使他们长期浸润在崇尚法治的文化氛围里,培养并形成他们未来人生中自觉的、理性的遵纪守法和护法精神。     

公司治理结构有关问题的理论探讨

以建立现代企业制度为根本目标的国企改革自上世纪 90年代启动 ,迄今已有十多年。宏观和微观环境决定了没有现成模式可以照搬 ,摸索中前进的企业改革历程充满矛盾和艰辛。本文力图运用现代企业理论 ,对国企改革确立公司治理结构过程中所涉及的产权问题 ,股东会、董事会、经理人之间相互制衡的机制 ,对经理 (代理人 )人员的激励机制作一梳理 ,检视其利弊 ,分析其得失 ,并尝试给出改良的方法。