Girls and Cultural Consumption: ‘Typical Girls’, ‘Fangirls’ and the Value of Femininity

In recent years feminist commentators, girls’ studies scholars, parents and guardians have discussed the choices offered to girls with both hope and despair. It seems it is either a great time or a dire time to be a girl. Following the success of twitter campaigns such as #lettoysbetoys, toy aisles across Britain are being ‘de-gendered’, and the success of girls’ engineering toys such as GoldieBlox show the increasing range of roles girls now have access to. However, despite these successes writers such as Orenstein (2012) (amongst countless other online commentators) have expressed dismay at the increased ‘pinkification’ of girls’ cultural lives (even GoldieBlox foregrounds pink and princesses for example). From this perspective, the chasm between what boys can be and what girls can be is as wide as ever

The Efficient Use of Time in Education

The attempt to include the time variable in a production function of education is often plagued by the lack of attention paid to the different dimensions of time (such as amount, dispersion and intensity). This study investigates the importance of time in contributing to the efficiency of the educational process by developing a typology for the addition of the time variable in the production of education. The study includes a literature review on the subject, outlines the conceptual frameworks surrounding time and education, and then draws on international evidence, with new evidence drawn from a survey of Middle East/North African Countries.The study suggests that time remains a critical factor in the educational process, and more accurate measures of time input could help policymakers improve educational legislation.