The 'new majority' and the academization of journalism

The academization of journalism is reliant on the development of the field founded in scholarship demonstrated through the publication of research in peer-reviewed specialist journals. Given the profile of journalism faculty, this means inducting practitioners into a culture of critical research. In Australia at least, this cohort of neophytes is predominantly comprised of middle-aged women who were surveyed about their personal attitudes to research. They were mostly open to the idea of becoming researchers but were inclined to proceed cautiously without necessarily severing their ties with practice. There was evidence to suggest that a generally positive orientation to research was not capitalized on and that they remained uncertain about the role of research. On the other hand, they appeared not to have adopted the orthodoxy of implacable opposition to scholarly inquiry. The change in gender composition in the academy may provide, contrary to historical, but more in line with contemporary, evidence, a renewed impetus to the project of academizing the field

The uses and abuses of power: teaching school leadership through children's literature

There are relatively few studies of how representations of teachers, schools and educational administrators in popular films and television might be, and are, used in leadership preparation. This paper seeks to add to this small body of work; it reports on an exploratory study of the representation of headteachers in contemporary children's fiction. Thirty-one texts are analysed to ascertain key themes and the major characterisations. The paper draws on children's literature scholars to argue that both the historical school story and its contemporary counterpart focus heavily on the power of the head to control the micro-world of the school. Because these fictional accounts deal with issues of power and justice more openly than many mainstream educational administration texts, this makes them particularly useful in the preparation of potential school leaders

Children's acceptance of milk with xylitol or sorbitol for dental caries prevention

BACKGROUND: Xylitol, a polyol sugar, has been shown to reduce dental caries when mixed with food or chewing gum. This study examines the taste acceptability of xylitol in milk as a first step toward measuring the effectiveness of xylitol in milk for the reduction of dental caries in a public health program. METHODS: Three different types of milk (Ultra High Temperature (UHT), powder and evaporated) were tested for acceptability by 75 Peruvian children (25 per milk group, ages 4 to 7 years). Each group evaluated xylitol and sorbitol in one type of milk. In the first phase, each child was presented with a tray of four plastic cups containing 50 ml of milk with 0.021 g/ml xylitol, 0.042 g/ml xylitol, 0.042 g/ml sorbitol or no sugar. Each child was asked to taste the samples in a self-selected order. After tasting each sample, the child placed the milk cup in front of one of three cartoon faces (smile, frown or neutral) representing the child's response to the taste of each sample. In the second phase, the child was asked to rank order the milk samples within each category (smile, frown or neutral). Ranks within categories were then combined to obtain a rank ordering for all the test samples. RESULTS: The ranking from best to worst for the samples across categories (UHT, powder, evaporated) was xylitol (0.0.042 g/ml), sorbitol (0.042 g/ml), xylitol (0.021 g/ml) and milk alone (Friedman's ANOVA). Xylitol and sorbitol were preferred over milk alone, and xylitol (0.042 g/ml) was preferred to sorbitol (0.042 g/ml)(p < .05 sign test). CONCLUSION: Milk sweetened with xylitol is well accepted by Peruvian children ages 4–7 years

Erosive characteristics and fluoride content of cola-type drinks

Aim: Excessive consumption of carbonated soft drinks is detrimental to general and oral health. This study determined endogenous pH, titratable acidity (TA) and fluoride (F) ion concentration of cola-type drinks available in the UK. Subsidiary aims were to compare; i) endogenous pH and TA of drinks upon opening (T0) and after 20 minutes (T20); ii) endogenous pH, TA and F ion concentration of diet v regular and plastic v canned drinks. Methods: Endogenous pH, TA (mls 0.1M NaOH) and F ion (mg/L) of 71 products measured using pH meter and F-ISE. A Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test compared pH and TAs at T0 and T20; a Mann-Whitney U test compared pH, TAs and F ion concentration for; a) regular v diet drinks; b) plastic v canned drinks. Results: Mean (±SD) pH for regular and diet drinks was 2.44± 0.12 and 2.83± 0.33 respectively (p=0.001); mean NaOH (ml) to raise pH to 5.5 and 5.7 was 5.49± 0.76 and 6.40± 0.78 (regular drinks); 5.17±1.03 and 6.03±1.07 (diet drinks). Diet (p=0.040) and regular (p=0.041) drinks had higher TA to pH 5.7 at T0 compared with T20; at T20 regular drinks had higher TA to pH 5.5 (p=0.026) and pH 5.7 (p=0.030) than diet drinks. There was no difference in F ion concentration between regular v diet drinks (p=0.754) and no significant container effect. Conclusion: Erosive characteristics were similar between manufacturers but higher erosive potentials were evident at T0 compared with 20 minutes later and for regular compared with diet drinks. F ion concentration of drinks was low

Moulding them in the industry's image: Journalism education's impact on students' professional views

Long-running debates over the value of university-based journalism education have suffered from a lack of empirical foundation, leading to a wide range of assertions both from those who see journalism education playing a crucial role in moulding future journalists and those who do not. Based on a survey of 320 Australian journalism students from six universities across the country, this study provides an account of the professional views these future journalists hold. Findings show that students hold broadly similar priorities in their role perceptions, albeit to different intensities from working journalists. The results point to a relationship between journalism education and the way in which students' views of journalism's watchdog role and its market orientation change over the course of their degree – to the extent that, once they are near completion of their degree, students have been moulded in the image of industry professionals