Educational aspirations in inner city schools

The research aimed to assess the nature and level of pupils’ educational aspirations and to elucidate the factors that influence these aspirations. A sample of five inner city comprehensive secondary schools were selected by their Local Authority because of poor pupil attendance, below average examination results and low rates of continuing in full-time education after the age of 16. Schools were all ethnically mixed and co-educational. Over 800 pupils aged 12-14 completed a questionnaire assessing pupils’ experience of home, school and their peers. A sub-sample of 48 pupils selected by teachers to reflect ethnicity and ability levels in individual schools also participated in detailed focus group interviews. There were no significant differences in aspirations by gender or year group, but differences between ethnic groups were marked. Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani groups had significantly higher educational aspirations than the White British group, who had the lowest aspirations. The results suggest the high aspirations of Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani pupils are mediated through strong academic self-concept, positive peer support, a commitment to schooling and high educational aspirations in the home. They also suggest that low educational aspirations may have different mediating influences in different ethnic groups. The low aspirations of White British pupils seem to relate most strongly to poor academic self-concept and low educational aspirations in the home, while for Black Caribbean pupils disaffection, negative peers and low commitment to schooling appear more relevant. Interviews with pupils corroborated the above findings and further illuminated the factors students described as important in their educational aspirations. The results are discussed in relation to theories of aspiration which stress its nature as a cultural capacity

Questioning and organization studies

This essay identifies a cleavage in the organisation literature that separates ‘questions’ and ‘questioning’ at a very fundamental philosophical level. On the one hand, the objective notion of ‘questions’ has already been well addressed within organization studies, evident in how scholars have scrutinized questions as objects of analysis; for example, paying close attention to the forms and functions of questions as instruments of research. More recently, the linguistic turn within the social sciences has influenced how organization studies researchers have considered organizations as discursive entities, with debate extending to the discursive nature of ‘questions’. On the other hand, the process of ‘questioning’ remains under-researched. From one perspective, questioning the process of questioning is challenging, but, as we submit, this is precisely where American pragmatism can be helpful. As we explore in this essay, the forward-looking quality of pragmatist inquiry is what motors the process of questioning. Our pragmatist-inflected argument is that questioning does not have to always serve critique and position building in the organization studies field. Rather, questioning out of curiosity can build new dialogue and open up new methodological avenues. This may help change the habitual ways in which we explore ideas, problems and situations in organization studies as well as lead to more democratic forms of organizing. Crucially, in this essay we are not looking for ultimate ‘answers’; rather we hope to excite discussion about questioning by giving prominence to something that is so ubiquitous and taken-for-granted as to be invisible to many of us as an object of inquiry

Sigmund Exner's (1887) einige beobachtungen über bewegungsnachbilder (some observations on movement aftereffects):an illustrated translation with commentary

In his original contribution, Exner’s principal concern was a comparison between the properties of different aftereffects, and particularly to determine whether aftereffects of motion were similar to those of color and whether they could be encompassed within a unified physiological framework. Despite the fact that he was unable to answer his main question, there are some excellent—so far unknown—contributions in Exner’s paper. For example, he describes observations that can be related to binocular interaction, not only in motion aftereffects but also in rivalry. To the best of our knowledge, Exner provides the first description of binocular rivalry induced by differently moving patterns in each eye, for motion as well as for their aftereffects. Moreover, apart from several known, but beautifully addressed, phenomena he makes a clear distinction between motion in depth based on stimulus properties and motion in depth based on the interpretation of motion. That is, the experience of movement, as distinct from the perception of movement. The experience, unlike the perception, did not result in a motion aftereffect in depth

Collective Power to Create Political Change: Increasing the Political Efficacy and Engagement of Social Workers

Because social workers are called to challenge social injustices and create systemic change to support the well-being of individuals and communities, it is essential that social workers develop political efficacy: belief that the political system can work and they can influence the system. This study explored the impact of an intensive political social work curriculum on political efficacy and planned political engagement among social work students and practitioners. The findings suggest this model of delivering a political social work curriculum effectively increases internal, external, and overall political efficacy, and that increasing political efficacy has promise for increasing future political engagement

How organic farmers view their own practice: results from the Czech Republic

This paper addresses the development of organic agriculture in the Czech Republic, which is seen as a success story among post-communist countries. The relatively short history of organic farming and specific contextual factors raises questions about the nature and meaning of Czech organic farming. The goal of this study was to find out how farmers view their own practice, interpret its symbolic value, and construct its content. This empirical study uses Q methodology aimed at the identification of the collectively-shared perspectives belonging engaged actors. Data were gathered through semi-standardized interviews with Czech farmers registered in official organic scheme. The analysis emphasized three components, which are considered as three distinct perspectives possessed by organic farmers; that is, (1) organic farming as a way of life, (2) as an occupation, and (3) as a production of food of an alternative quality compared to conventional food. Each viewpoint entails a different understanding of what organic farming means; each then—when considered together—comprises the meaning of organic agriculture in the Czech Republic. The presented classification of the farmers holding the viewpoints contributes to the ongoing theoretical discussion regarding the nature of the current organic sector, its development and potential conventionalization

Is the Homunculus "Aware" of Sensory Adaptation?

Neural activity and perception are both affected by sensory history. The work presented here explores the relationship between the physiological effects of adaptation and their perceptual consequences. Perception is modeled as arising from an encoder-decoder cascade, in which the encoder is defined by the probabilistic response of a population of neurons, and the decoder transforms this population activity into a perceptual estimate. Adaptation is assumed to produce changes in the encoder, and we examine the conditions under which the decoder behavior is consistent with observed perceptual effects in terms of both bias and discriminability. We show that for all decoders, discriminability is bounded from below by the inverse Fisher information. Estimation bias, on the other hand, can arise for a variety of different reasons and can range from zero to substantial. We specifically examine biases that arise when the decoder is fixed, “unaware ” of the changes in the encoding population (as opposed to “aware ” of the adaptation and changing accordingly). We simulate the effects of adaptation on two well-studied sensory attributes, motion direction and contrast, assuming a gain change description of encoder adaptation. Although we cannot uniquely constrain the source of decoder bias, we find for both motion and contrast that an “unaware ” decoder that maximizes the likelihood of the percept given by the preadaptation encoder leads to predictions that are consistent with behavioral data. This model implies that adaptation-induced biases arise as a result of temporary suboptimality of the decoder

Q methodology and rural research

Traditionally, rural scholarship has been limited in its methodological approach. This has begun to change in recent years as rural researchers have embraced a range of different methodological tools. The aim of this article is to contribute to greater methodological pluralism in rural sociology by introducing readers to a method of research that is rarely engaged in the field, that is, Q methodology. The article describes the defining features of the approach as well as providing examples of its application to argue that it is a method that offers particular opportunities and synergies for rural social science research

Stakeholder perspectives on shale gas fracking: A Q-method study of environmental discourses

The rapid expansion of shale gas exploration worldwide is a significant source of environmental controversy. Successful shale gas policymaking is dependent upon a clear understanding of the dynamics of competing stakeholder perspectives on these issues, and so methods are needed to delineate the areas of agreement and conflict that emerge. This empirical study, based in the United Kingdom, examines emergent perspectives on a range of environmental, health and socio-economic impacts associated with shale gas fracking using Q- methodology: a combined qualitative-quantitative approach. The analysis reveals three typologies of perspectives amongst key industry, civil society and non-affiliated citizen stakeholders; subsequently contextualised in relation to Dryzek’s typology of environmental discourses. These are labelled A) “Don’t trust the fossil fuels industry: campaign for renewables” (mediating between sustainable development and democratic pragmatism discourses); B) “Shale gas is a bridge fuel: economic growth and environmental scepticism” (mediating between economic rationalism and ecological modernisation discourses); and C) “Take place protective action and legislate in the public interest” (reflecting a discourse of administrative rationalism). The implications of these competing discourses for nascent shale gas policy in the UK are discussed in light of recent Government public consultation on changes to national planning policy