Boroughs and the Badge: Local Contexts and Confidence in Police

As citizens interact with the police more than most civil servants, increasing the citizenry’s confidence in police is key to helping maintain rule of law and internal stability within a state. One of the key areas to be investigated in the pursuit of better police-community relations is on the impact of public services and housing on police legitimacy. Historically, American cities have been widely segregated based on race and income, especially in urban areas, which in turn alters the services available in those areas. The public services and the neighborhoods in which they are delivered are key parts of many people’s lives, positioning them as an important variable in determining whether individuals have confidence in their police force. This paper will investigate the relationship between the satisfaction individuals have for their local context and their confidence in police to answer: Do conditions in an individual’s city or town causes them to lose confidence in the police

Video-based Education Ethnography Project

This article chronicles the development of a video-based ethnography project documenting daily life in a Kansas elementary and a secondary classroom. The project, which took nearly two years of planning, allows a direct link to two classrooms approximately 250 miles away to provide a virtual field experience for undergraduates and a wide array of research possibilities for faculty. Since its first semester in spring 2016, it now enables students to see the daily actions of an elementary teacher and a secondary math teacher in a live classroom setting, and various faculty and graduate student research projects are currently under way

In Search of More Mature Uses of Data: Problematizing Education and Poetry

Alex Romagnoli’s article in this issue, a discussion of the use of quantitative metrics in education and baseball, provides a thoughtful discussion the limitations inherent in those metrics as well as ways they can be enhanced to provide more useful information. This manuscript extends Romagnoli’s manuscript with specific illustrations of the ways grade point averages can be interpreted in context along with a call for a much more nuanced approach to data by policy makers and decision makers

Õpetajate elu ja töö uurimine

Töö suhteline osakaal õpetajate elus on viimase 40 aasta jooksul astmeliselt kasvanud. Ettepanekuid kooli ja hariduse ümberkorraldamiseks on esitatud üha rohkem, niisamuti on suurenenud muutuste mõju käsitlevate uuringute arv. Siinne uurimus võimaldab meil keskenduda mõningatele keerulistele probleemidele, mis peituvad uue koolireformi algatustes. Lääne ühiskonna kuldaja lõpus, 1975. aastal võttis Lortie Ameerika õpetajate ja haridusteaduslike uurimuste seose kokku järgmiste, tänini kehitavate sõnadega: "Kooliharidus on ettekirjutuste järgi mahukas, ent kirjelduse järgi väikesemahuline. Kuskil mujal ei ilmne see nii selgelt kui nende kahe miljoni inimese puhul, kes õpetavad riigikoolis." See küsimus, millele Lortie tähelepanu pöörab, on õpetajatega seotud teaduslikes aruteludes endiselt aktuaalne: palju ettekirjutusi ja kaudset portreteerimist, aga väga vähe tõsiselt võetavaid uurimusi portreteeritavatest ja ka ebapiisavalt koostööd nendega. Full tex

The Silent Reich: Austria’s Failed Denazification

Between 1945 and 1956, the Second Austrian Republic failed to address the large number of former Austrian Nazis. Due to Cold War tensions, the United States, Britain, and France helped to downplay Austria’s cooperation with the Nazi Reich in order to secure the state against the Soviets. In an effort to stall the spread of socialism, former fascists were even recruited by Western intelligence services to help inform on the activities of socialists and communists within Austria. Furthermore, the Austrian people were a deeply conservative society, which often supported many of the far-right’s positions, as can be seen throughout contemporary Austrian newspaper articles and editorials. Antisemitism, belief in the superiority of Austro-Germanic culture, disdain for immigrants, and desire for national sovereignty were all widely present in Austrian society before, during, and after the Nazi period. These cultural beliefs, combined with neglect from the Western powers, integrated the far-right into the political decision-making process. This has made parties with Nazi affiliations, such as the VdU and the FPÖ legitimate parts of Austrian political culture and prevents the political disarmament of the far-right due to the deep roots which they have in Austrian culture

Time Capsule: Artifacts for Documentation of the Paradigm Shift

This issue of Educational Considerations is comprised of three manuscripts offering different applications of the tools of the historian within education. Educators have a long and unfortunate history of ignoring their own history. Time and again, we pay a price for this in a variety of ways

Over at the College

Today, rural America is complex and layered, and it deserves the attention of those who have spent far too many years flying over it only to occasionally see through the clouds and wonder what those big circles are below dotting the landscape. The manuscripts in this issue chart several ways a spirit of new dialogue with rural America can begin. Authors discuss the embedded qualities of higher education demonstrates well how it is possible to anchor the work of post-secondary education in contemporary rural locations, and other perspectives on that which is possible if we engage productively with rural communities and people. This engagement is long overdue. I don’t believe it is an exaggeration to say the future of our nation depends on healing the divide that has festered entirely too long. Educators have always led the way into the most important work in our society. It is time to boldly approach this wor

While This is Difficult for an Adult, A Child Can Handle It Easily

I attempted to learn to play chess when my daughter was in middle school. At that time, she joined an after-school chess club sponsored by a teacher she admired, and I felt obligated to follow her into the game. She assumed the role of teacher, and she instructed me in the game. Eventually, my daughter moved on to a point where she no longer required my services as her student, and I made a conscious decision not to invest more time in chess. I either wanted to be good, or I didn’t want to continue, and I knew becoming good would take more time than I felt being good at chess was worth. In this issue of Educational Considerations, we have a provocative piece from a European scholar Gulcin Karakus, who offers a comprehensive review of the impact of chess on student learning--and who has caused me to reconsider chess

Necessary Nerve Fatigue

A major transformation of a core academic school subject will undoubtably ripple through society in ways we are not currently equipped to map. What we can do, however, is pay much more attention to those shining moments of innovation in our history as educators. Returning to the primary documents and reports from the time can help any number of ways. Rarely are we reinventing the wheel, even if we naively assume we are. Large widespread curricular movements such as the English elective programs do not magically appear. They emerge from a larger cultural, intellectual, pedagogical, and economic environment. It is always instructive to go back and examine those moments in schooling, as they are ripe with lessons. Certainly interesting and often powerful methods and methodologies can be found, but the dynamics leading to the creation of widespread curricular innovation are endlessly fascinating