A bridge between worlds: understanding network structure to understand change strategy     

Alan J. Daly  Kara S. Finnigan 《Journal of Educational Change》2010,11(2):111-138

A number of scholars are exploring district and site relations in organizational change efforts in the larger policy context of No Child Left Behind. These studies suggest the importance of the central office as a support to the work of reform and offer strategies for building relations between district offices and sites in order to implement and sustain change efforts. What is frequently overlooked in these studies is that organizational change efforts are often socially constructed. Therefore, examining the underlying social networks may provide insight into structures that support or constrain efforts at change. This exploratory case study uses social network analysis and interviews to examine the communication and knowledge network structures of central office and site leaders in an ‘in need of improvement’ district facing sanctions under No Child Left Behind. Findings indicate sparse ties among and between school site and central office administrators, as well as a centralized network structure that may constrain the exchange of complex information and ultimately inhibit efforts at change.  相似文献   

The Risky Business of Doctoral Management     

Erica McWilliam  Don Sanderson  Terry Evans  Alan Lawson  Peter G. Taylor 《Asia Pacific Journal of Education》2006,26(2):209-224

Universities are under no less pressure to adopt risk management strategies than other public and private organisations. The risk management of doctoral education is a particularly important issue given that a doctorate is the highest academic qualification a university offers and stakes are high in terms of assuring its quality. However, intense risk management can interfere with the intellectual and pedagogical work which are essentially part of doctoral education. This paper seeks to understand how the culture of risk meets the culture of doctoral education and with what effect. The authors draw on sociological understandings of risk in the work of Anthony Giddens (2002 Giddens, A. 2002. Runaway world: How globalisation is reshaping our lives, London: Profile Books.  [Google Scholar]) and Ulrich Beck (1992 Beck, U. 1992. Risk society: Towards a new modernity, London: Sage. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]), the anthropological focus on liminality in the work of Mary Douglas (1990 Douglas, M. 1990. Risk and blame, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]), and the psychological theorising of human error in the work of James Reason (1990 Reason, J. 1990. Human error, New York: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]). The paper concludes that risk consciousness brings its own risks—in particular, the potential transformation of a culture based on intellect into a culture based on compliance.  相似文献   

Who is caring for our most vulnerable children? The motivation to foster in child welfare     

Rodger S  Cummings A  Leschied AW 《Child abuse & neglect》2006,30(10):1129-1142

Objective: Responding to the need for more foster families to provide care for increasing numbers of children coming into care, this study was designed to understand the motivations and needs of foster parents in order to improve recruitment and retention. To meet this goal, the study identified characteristics of current foster families, performed a factor analysis on the Foster Parent Satisfaction Survey (FPSS) (Denby, R. W., Rindfleisch, N., & Bean, G. 1999). Predictors of foster parent's satisfaction and intent to continue to foster were identified, and the results were used to differentiate between foster parents who did and did not consider quitting fostering. Method: A sample of 652 foster parents completed a survey of 139 items including the Foster Parent Satisfaction Survey [Denby, R. W., Rindfleisch, N., & Bean, G. (1999). Predictors of foster parent's satisfaction and intent to continue to foster. Child Abuse & Neglect, 23, 287-303]. Results: Foster parents were motivated by wanting to be loving parents to children and saving children from harm. The factor analysis of the FPSS resulted in five factors that were consistent with typical scoring methods of the instrument. A discriminant function analysis using these factors and whether parents had considered quitting fostering revealed that one factor, Challenging Aspects of Fostering, correctly classified 75.5% of parents. Conclusions: Foster parents' satisfaction is related to their perceptions about teamwork, communication, and confidence in relation to both the child welfare agency and its professionals. Further, the most frequently endorsed reasons for fostering reflected foster parents' altruistic and internal motivations to foster. Negative relationships with professional staff from the child welfare agency were linked to considering quitting fostering.  相似文献   

The Development of Gendered Interests and Personality Qualities From Middle Childhood Through Adolescence: A Biosocial Analysis     

Susan M. McHale  Ji-Yeon Kim  Aryn M. Dotterer  Ann C. Crouter  Alan Booth 《Child development》2009,80(2):482-495

This study charted the development of gendered personality qualities and activity interests from age 7 to age 19 in 364 first- and secondborn siblings from 185 White, middle/working-class families, assessed links between time in gendered social contexts (with mother, father, female peers, and male peers) and gender development, and tested whether changes in testosterone moderated links between time use and gender development. Multilevel models documented that patterns of change varied across dimensions of gender and by sex and birth order and that time in gendered social contexts was generally linked to development of more stereotypical qualities. Associations between time with mother and expressivity and time with father and instrumentality were stronger for youth with slower increases in testosterone.  相似文献   

WITTGENSTEIN'S CONTEXTUALIST APPROACH TO JUDGING "SOUND" TEACHING: ESCAPING ENTHRALLMENT IN CRITERIA-BASED ASSESSMENTS     

Jeff Alan Stickney 《Educational theory》2009,59(2):197-215

A bstract .  Comparing the early, analytic attempt to define "sound" teaching with the current use of criteria-based rating schemes, Jeff Stickney turns to Wittgenstein's holistic, contextualist approach to judging teaching against its complex "background" within our form of life . To exemplify this approach, Stickney presents cases of classroom practice (reexplanation), auditioning dance students, teacher inspection, and mentoring student teachers. These examples highlight problems with the epistemological and criterial construal of teaching, in that both sets of rules tend to constrict unnecessarily the ranges of "reasonable" practice. Shifting to the contextualist approach, according to Stickney, reveals these occluded, political aspects of assessing the "soundness" of teaching and invites a renegotiation of arbitrary limits.  相似文献   

Professor Dr Herbert Schultze 1928–2009: an obituary     

Alan Brown 《British Journal of Religious Education》2009,31(3):305-306

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Strange new world: applying a Bourdieuian lens to understanding early student experiences in higher education     

Jo Watson  Melanie Nind  Debra Humphris  Alan Borthwick 《British Journal of Sociology of Education》2009,30(6):665-681

Occupational therapy pre‐registration education stands at the intersection of the fields of health and social care and higher education. UK Government agendas in both fields have seen an increase in the number of students entering with non‐traditional academic backgrounds, a group noted to experience particular challenges in negotiating the transition to, and persisting and succeeding within, higher education. Drawing on data from an ongoing longitudinal case study, a Bourdieuian lens is applied to exploring the early educational experiences of a group of these students during their first year of study and highlights a number of key issues, including the high‐value status of linguistic capital and its relationship to understanding the rules governing practices within the learning environment, the processes via which students manage to adapt to or interestingly, to resist, the dominant culture of the field, and some of the barriers to finding a foothold and legitimate position within the new field.  相似文献   

Editorial Statement     

Alan Amtzis 《The Educational forum》2017,81(2):127-128

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Beautiful and good woman: gender role negotiation among Taiwanese women who belly dance     

Yuchi Chang  Alan Bairner 《Sport in Society》2019,22(8):1326-1345

Abstract

Confucian values have strongly influenced gender stereotypes in Taiwan. Contrary to traditional gender expectations, the display of the female body is exceptionally encouraged in belly dancing. Utilizing data collected from 21 experienced dancers in Taiwan, this study examines the conflicts that women face when taking part in belly dancing, but also how they merge belly dancing with ideal gender images without conflict. The results show that, whilst few of the women experience inner conflicts, some experience external conflicts, usually with family members. However, by viewing belly dancing as a leisure exercise, a frugal and natural approach to acquiring femininity and beauty, the participants sought to differentiate themselves from the ‘bad others’ to construct a ‘beautiful-and-good’ female image. More generally, we have sought to demonstrate that critical analysis of the physically active female body must always be cognizant of the specific characteristics of those societies towards which the research is directed.  相似文献   

Perceptions About Parental Engagement Among Hispanic Immigrant Mothers of First Graders from Low-Income Backgrounds     

Samantha Berkule Johnson  Jenny Arevalo  Carolyn Brockmeyer Cates  Adriana Weisleder  Benard P. Dreyer  Alan L. Mendelsohn 《Early Childhood Education Journal》2016,44(5):445-452

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