‘We do not wish to be sofa cushions,or even props to men,but we wish to work by their side’: celebrating women as popular educators at the Anglican Church congresses 1881–1913

ABSTRACT

The Anglican Church congresses sought to foster relations between clergy and lay people. They promoted the Church as part of the social fabric of the nation with parades, civic receptions, services and public talks. Women were a presence at the congresses as platform speakers, organisers, hostesses and members of the audience. Congresses provided opportunities for informal collaborations and networking between organisations including the National Union of Women Workers, Mothers’ Union and Girls’ Friendly Society. Dedicated women’s sections from 1881 provided a space that was exploited by women activists seeking a voice in the public sphere. The congresses reflected a context of increasing professionalisation amongst women. This article celebrates the contribution made by women in the role of popular educators via congress platforms between 1882 and 1913. In addition, the article seeks to commemorate the unvoiced presence of working class women who engaged with the congresses as members of the audience.     

Adolescents earlier diagnosed as dyslexic show major IQ declines on the WISC-III

Adolescents (n=43) previously diagnosed as dyslexic/reading disabled had markedly lower IQ scores on the newly standardized Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) than on the earlier administered WISC-R. The declines for Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQs were 10, 12, and 11 points, respectively, which were twice as great as in a subset of the standardization sample given both versions of the WISC. The adolescents did not show a significant decline in standard scores from the Wide Range Achievement Test (Level I to Level II). However, only two subjects had current reading and spelling standard scores above the 25th percentile. The impact of lower WISC-III IQs on guidelines for classification of students as learning disabled is discussed.     

Lifelong learning and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Probing the implications and the effects

International Review of Education -     

Fostering Spirituality in a Pastoral Care Context

This article addresses the issue of promoting spirituality as a dimension of pastoral care in schools. The everyday practice of caring and giving may leave carers tired, depleted of spiritual sustenance, and without practices that nurture their spirituality. This article proposes that spirituality is an essential element of pastoral care, and that it can be promoted through examination of one's sense of vocation, bodywork, journal writing and nurturing soul friends.     

Understanding the graphical challenges faced by vision-impaired students in Australian universities

Information graphics such as plots, maps, plans, charts, tables and diagrams form an integral part of the student learning experience in many disciplines. However, for a vision impaired student accessing such graphical materials can be problematic. This research seeks to understand the current state of accessible graphics provision in Australian higher education. We conducted an online survey of 71 vision-impaired university students and semi-structured interviews with 44 key stakeholders (students, academics, disability liaison officers and accessible graphics providers). We found that difficulty in accessing graphical materials was a barrier to many vision-impaired students and that there were systemic problems with current processes for accessible graphics provision. Recommendations are made on ways to address these concerns in order to provide a more equitable higher education experience.     

Lifelong learning challenges: Responding to migration and the Sustainable Development Goals

International Review of Education - The 21st century, not yet two decades old, has already seen massive migration of peoples escaping the degradation of the environment, effects of war, threats to...     

‘Make money,get money’: how two autonomous schools have commercialised their services

ABSTRACT

Using the stories of two autonomous public schools in Australia, this paper demonstrates how commercialisation can simultaneously position schools as both consumer and for-profit producer. Drawing on Foucault's articulation of discourse as that which constitutes and makes available what is possible to be said, done and imagined, the paper illustrates how the current marketised articulation of education is allowing for new possibilities of commercialisation in schools. Together these stories demonstrate that there are creative ways that these schools have embraced their autonomy, while relying on market solutions to acquire the resources they deem necessary for their students and their communities. However, it also shows how these resources and the attainment for them are inextricably constituted by the market orientation of education more broadly and how this presents potential dangers for what schools may be and become as a result.     

Different teacher-level effectiveness estimates,different results: inter-model concordance across six generalized value-added models (VAMs)

In this study, researchers compared the concordance of teacher-level effectiveness ratings derived via six common generalized value-added model (VAM) approaches including a (1) student growth percentile (SGP) model, (2) value-added linear regression model (VALRM), (3) value-added hierarchical linear model (VAHLM), (4) simple difference (gain) score model, (5) rubric-based performance level (growth) model, and (6) simple criterion (percent passing) model. The study sample included fourth to sixth grade teachers employed in a large, suburban school district who taught the same sets of students, at the same time, and for whom a consistent set of achievement measures and background variables were available. Findings indicate that ratings significantly and substantively differed depending upon the methodological approach used. Findings, accordingly, bring into question the validity of the inferences based on such estimates, especially when high-stakes decisions are made about teachers as based on estimates measured via different, albeit popular methods across different school districts and states.     

Conditioning copulatory behavior to an artificial object: Efficacy of stimulus fading

Copulatory behavior rarely occurs in response to an arbitrary inanimate object. However, such behavior can provide important information about the stimulus control of copulatory behavior. In the present study, male Japanese quail were administered 15–20 conditioning trials that included exposure to an inanimate object and an opportunity to copulate with a live female quail. For some subjects, the stimulus object was always entirely covered with terrycloth. For other birds, the stimulus object contained a taxidermically prepared head and neck of a quail hen. Fading consisted of gradually covering up the neck and then the head portions of the stimulus object over successive trials. After conditioning, all subjects were tested with the entirely covered object. The fading procedure facilitated the conditioning of copulatory behavior to the entirely artificial object. In subjects that received the fading procedure, learning did not depend on pairings of the stimulus object with copulatory opportunity. The results are discussed with respect to an associative mediation mechanism.