Response of males and females to high-force eccentric exercise

It has previously been shown that females incur less muscle damage than males after strenuous exercise, but limited data are available for humans. To determine possible differences between the sexes in humans, the response to high-force eccentric exercise was examined in a large sample of women (n = 83) and men (n = 82). The participants performed a bout of eccentric exercise of the elbow flexors consisting of 70 maximal repetitions. Isometric strength, resting elbow angle and muscle soreness were measured before, immediately after (except soreness) and then daily for 7 days after exercise. There was a significant loss in strength among both groups (69% for women and 63% for men) (P < 0.01) immediately after exercise; at 168 h post-exercise, women still had a 27% strength loss and men had a 24% strength loss. No significant difference in strength loss or recovery rate was found between men and women. Soreness reached peak values 32-48 h post-exercise (P < 0.01), with no significant difference between men and women. Range of motion decreased significantly until 3 days after exercise (14.6 degrees or 0.255 rad loss for women; 12.2 degrees or 0.213 rad loss for men) (P < 0.01); at 168 h post-exercise, the women and men still showed a loss of 4.8 degrees (0.084 rad) and 4.0 degrees (0.07 rad), respectively. There was a significant interaction of sex x time (P < 0.01); a post-hoc test indicated that the women experienced a greater loss in range of motion at 72 h than men and this difference was maintained to 168 h post-exercise (P < 0.01). Thus, our results do not support the contention that women have a lower response to eccentric exercise than men.     

Cinema Demand in Spain: A Cointegration Analysis

In this paper we explain the decline in cinema attendance in Spain since 1968. We use a cointegration analysis to estimate an individual demand function for cinema, with annual data and in terms of average attendance per inhabitant. We find that cinema is a luxury good and that its demand is elastic with respect to its price. We also show that television acts as a deterrent with regard to cinema attendance. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Writing instruction for social justice: an investigation into the components of a teacher preparation course

Future teachers must notice, navigate, and address ideologies in order to counter inequities in the literacy classroom. This article presents the findings of two teacher educators who have taken up the call to critically reflect on their own underlying beliefs and discourses regarding writing instruction. Through an education design framework, they analysed important components of the course, arguing for a higher degree of visibility of the ideologies and social forces that impact writing instruction. They found that despite encouraging a fairly complex and all-encompassing view of learning to write to the future teachers in their course, the creativity discourse was present passively and the socio-political was downright absent, despite clear social justice aims in the course. They discuss how well-established discourses can serve as gateways to embed the socio-political into the course and address more granularly the question of exclusion through selected mentor texts.     

CURRICULUM AND IDEOLOGY: INDOCTRINATION AS AN INAPPROPRIATE APPROACH TO CONSERVATIVE JEWISH EDUCATION

Education is a dynamic discipline. Dynamic because an educational system does not stand on its own, apart from the social structure of which it is an extension. It must be steeped with its culture's moral and sociological beliefs in order to ensure the survival and growth of that particular culture through each new generation.     

Restructuring reforms in Turkish teacher education: Modernisation and development in a dynamic environment

The paper examines the effectiveness of recent reforms in teacher education in Turkey, specifically the restructuring of programmes in university faculties of education. It first, briefly, sets the reforms of the 1990s in an historical context, prior to the 1997 Act which increased the length of compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years, and the 1998 restructuring of faculties of education. It considers the national need for the restructuring of teacher education and the issues involved. The thrust of the paper is a study of how teacher educators across the country perceive both the changes and their effect on the quality of teacher education, methodology as a discipline, school partnerships, and relationships with the Ministry of National Education.     

Motivational Profile and Academic Achievement Among Students Enrolled in Different Schooling Tracks

From the contextual perspective, researchers argue that the relevance and weight of motivational variables of students' functioning vary depending on different dimensions related to individual, cultural or situational characteristics. The first objective of this study examined this contention by comparing self-perceptions of competence, learning goals and judgments of usefulness of school subjects as motivational determinants of high school students' commitment and achievement according to their assignment to their learning abilities. The second objective was to compare how these variables related to academic commitment and achievement according to the type of student and two school subjects. Two-hundred-and-twenty-six high school students from a same school participated sixty-one were learning disabled students, 60 were high achievers and 105 were average students. Findings suggest that the relevance of the motivational variables did not vary much across either the type of student or the school subjects. They also support Bandura's view about the primary role of self-perceptions of competence in students' academic commitment and achievement.     

Developmental Achievements of 7‐year‐old Children in Poland in the Light of International Tests and the Requirements of the Polish Language School Program

The language competence and reading comprehension of 406 7‐year‐old children are examined in the research discussed in this article. The children were tested using comparative tests as part of an international project conducted in 14 countries and sponsored by the IEA and the High Scope Research Foundation in Ypsilanti, USA. The discussion here relates only to a part of this wider research and focuses upon the aims and contents of Polish language teaching in grades I—III of the Polish primary school.