Explaining Obama: The Continuation of Free Market Politics in Education and the Economy

The contributors to this special issue of The Journal of Inquiry and Action provide insight into why the Obama administration’s educational policies manifest the dominance of neoliberal ideology over most elements of social life. The articles presented herein build on the work originally presented in The Phenomenon of Obama and the agenda for Education: Can hope audaciously trump neoliberalism? (Carr & Porfilio, 2011)

Good Medicine and Good Music: The Virtual Life of Mrs. Joe Person at East Carolina University

Tells about a digital exhibit celebrating the life of North Carolina patent medicine entrepreneur and folk musician Alice Person

Calling All Academic Music Library Reference Desks: A Follow-Up Study

The East Carolina University Music Library established regularly staffed reference desk service and studied whether the presence of a reference desk increased patron comfort level in seeking assistance even when the reference desk was unstaffed. Reference activity statistics and results from a patron survey indicate that the reference desk strengthened reference service during hours the desk was staffed but did not increase patron comfort level at times the desk was unstaffed. This article presents key components of music library reference service highlighted by the survey and makes recommendations for other music libraries considering implementing or continuing reference desk service

What Do Patrons Really Do in Music Libraries? An Ethnographic Approach to Improving Library Services

Improving services is what librarians are all about. Of course, doing that requires them to first determine what needs improving, a process that typically involves activities such as number-gathering (e.g., circulation statistics and gate counts), face-to-face patron interviews, surveys, and observation, all of which individually have shortcomings. If the source of the data is reliable, number-gathering is a highly-accurate evaluation method. Unfortunately, this method cannot be used to address all inquiries, and it lacks the human element that brings life to research. Face-to-face interviews and surveys may introduce the human element, but can be misleading because people often say one thing and do another. Likewise, observation introduces the human element, but it does so in a limited way when carried out in the traditional fashion, which centers on defining the behaviors on which observers will focus their attention (Zweizig 1996, 118). Doing this, however, means that any number of other behaviors, knowledge of which could prove useful to improving services, will be ignored. Though admittedly more challenging and time consuming, adopting an ethnographic approach to evaluating library services results in a more complete and accurate picture than is possible with traditional library evaluation methods

What needs to happen for school autonomy to be mobilised to create more equitable public schools and systems of education?

The series of responses in this article were gathered as part of an online mini conference held in September 2021 that sought to explore different ideas and articulations of school autonomy reform across the world (Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, the USA, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand). It centred upon an important question: what needs to happen for school autonomy to be mobilised to create more equitable public schools and systems of education? There was consensus across the group that school autonomy reform creates further inequities at school and system levels when driven by the logics of marketisation, competition, economic efficiency and public accountability. Against the backdrop of these themes, the conference generated discussion and debate where provocations and points of agreement and disagreement about issues of social justice and the mobilisation of school autonomy reform were raised. As an important output of this discussion, we asked participants to write a short response to the guiding conference question. The following are these responses which range from philosophical considerations, systems and governance perspectives, national particularities and teacher and principal perspectives

Illuminating hydrological processes at the soil-vegetation-atmosphere interface with water stable isotopes

Funded by DFG research project “From Catchments as Organised Systems to Models based on Functional Units” (FOR 1Peer reviewedPublisher PDFPublisher PD

Restricted growth of Schwann cells lacking Cajal bands slows conduction in myelinated nerves

Nerve impulses are propagated at nodes of Ranvier in the myelinated nerves of vertebrates. Internodal distances have been proposed to affect the velocity of nerve impulse conduction; however, direct evidence is lacking, and the cellular mechanisms that might regulate the length of the myelinated segments are unknown. Ramon y Cajal described longitudinal and transverse bands of cytoplasm or trabeculae in internodal Schwann cells and suggested that they had a nutritive function. Here we show that internodal growth in wild-type nerves is precisely matched to nerve extension, but disruption of the cytoplasmic bands in Periaxin-null mice impairs Schwann cell elongation during nerve growth. By contrast, myelination proceeds normally. The capacity of wild-type and mutant Schwann cells to elongate is cell-autonomous, indicating that passive stretching can account for the lengthening of the internode during limb growth. As predicted on theoretical grounds, decreased internodal distances strikingly decrease conduction velocities and so affect motor function.We propose that microtubule-based transport in the longitudinal bands of Cajal permits internodal Schwann cells to lengthen in response to axonal growth, thus ensuring rapid nerve impulse transmission

Review of The Politics of Inquiry: Education Research and the “Culture of Science

Baez and Boyles critique the view that science can and should be objective and neutral and the impact such a view has had on the nature of educational research, teacher professionalism, teacher education, and the university. In particular, they link the rise of neoliberalism and entrepreneurialism with the decline of thoughtful, reflective, and ethical research and teaching

Total Health for Music Librarians

Slides and script for this presentation are provided. SEMLA stands for the Southeast Chapter of the Music Librarian Association

Grassroots democracy in New York State: Opting out and resisting the corporate reform agenda in schooling

Set against acknowledgement that neoliberalism has negatively affected the functioning of democracy through the reconstruction of homo politicus as homo economicus, this chapter documents and analyses the ways of working and successes of two parent activist groups in the state of New York opposed to the corporate reform agenda in schooling with a targeted focus on opting their children out of the standardised tests in Grades 3–8. These parents have clearly rejected a neoliberal policy framing of them as merely consumers and choosers in school markets. Rather, they have asserted their rights as active citizens to be included in framing school policies, to be involved in school governance through election to School Boards and the Board of Regents, and to be active participants in all aspects of their children’s schooling. The two groups, New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) and Long Island Opt-out (LIOO), have had some real successes achieved through their activism, including the failure of the InBloom data infrastructure project. These groups have cleverly utilised the local governance of schooling in the US to adopt strategies to resist the depredations of high stakes testing and other aspects of the neoliberal corporate reform agenda in schooling. The chapter will show that there are effective grassroots social movement utilising all the resources available to them, particularly social media and the expertise of their teacher members. The impact of the Trump Presidency on their work and policy targets is also briefly traversed