In Search of the Comprehensive Ideal: By Way of and Introduction

This introductory article first gives a brief overview of the articles in the remainder of this special issue. It then considers what we can learn about the comprehensive ideal, and what questions still remain about it, from the treatment it receives in these articles. After an initial discussion of the nature of the common school, two dimensions are identified in which interpretations of the comprehensive ideal often differ: how fully the content of such schooling is filled in, and what its scope is considered to be. Six categories of values are identified to which arguments both for and against the comprehensive ideal may appeal: educational values; values of community; justice and equality; respect; freedom; and non-discrimination. It is suggested that in a context of value-pluralism there can be no canonical interpretation of the comprehensive ideal.     

Contextualising Authentic Assessment

The term 'authentic assessment' has recently gained widespread use in education. This paper explores various ways in which authentic assessment is being interpreted and the relationship between these different interpretations and the original focus of authenticity in learning. The paper explores briefly the ways in which implicit and explicit beliefs about the nature of learning and knowledge formation direct the ways in which authentic assessment is interpreted and used. Educational issues that arise from some implementations of authentic assessment, identified as camouflage, simulation and abstraction, are discussed. The need for authentic assessment to be contextualised through a coherent teaching, learning and assessment domain is stressed.     

Interlending of audio–visual materials: a neglected national resource for medical and health libraries

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Teacher Identity and Curriculum Change: A comparative case-study analysis of small schools in England and Finland

The findings reported in this article form part of a wider comparative research project investigating the processes of curriculum change in primary schools in England and Finland. This comparison has a special interest because in many respects the current policies of the two countries are moving in opposite directions, with Finland dismantling its long-standing subject-based national curriculum and encouraging school-based curricula incorporating integrated topic work. Data are presented from qualitative research case studies of four schools-two in each country-in relation to three themes: teachers' values, curriculum and classroom organisation and curriculum planning. It is argued that teachers' self-identities are powerful mediators in terms of their interpretations of and responses to imposed changes and that the ethos of very small schools enables teachers to preserve their prior value systems more easily than their colleagues in other schools.     

Peer Perceptions of Counselor Effectiveness: A Multiple Regression Approach

The present study investigates the relationship between the personal preferences of beginning counselor education students and the sociometric choices of their peers. Fifty-four subjects, who were enrolled in the entry-level guidance seminar at the University of Akron between March and December 1971 were administered the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS). At the end of the seminars the students were asked to respond to a sociometric technique. The data from the EPPS (predictor variables) and from the sociometric technique (criterion) was then subjected to multiple regression analysis, which revealed that students with higher sociometric ratings demonstrated greater manifest needs for dominance, change, succorance, order, nurturance, and achievement than did those with lower sociometric ratings.