Providing for the Priceless Student: Ideologies of Choice in an Emerging Educational Market

The growing popularity of school choice is typically linked to the spread of neoliberal ideology. Identifying four components of this ideology, we examine the rationales of providers in an emerging private school market. Data come from interviews and site visits at 45 “third-sector” private schools in Toronto, Canada. We find that only one of the four components has a strong resonance among these educators. Few private school operators sharply criticize public schools, compete via quantitative performance indicators, or are strongly business oriented. However, they voice a philosophy of matching their personal talents to the needs of “unique” children. Overall, rather than being influenced by neoliberalism, these providers are more directly driven by personalized rationales that prize tailored education in specialized niches. We draw two conclusions from these findings. First, they demonstrate how ideologies of choice are shaped by their market setting, in this case, small proprietorship, in contrast to a corporate environment. Second, they highlight how providers can be motivated by new cultures of consumerism and intensive child rearing when working in highly uncertain conditions. We recommend that theories of choice recognize the range of educational markets and the specific motives of their providers

A Dietary Assessment of the U.S. Food Supply: Comparing Per Capita Food Consumption with Food Guide Pyramid Serving Recommendations

Most American diets do not meet Federal Food Guide Pyramid dietary recommendations. On average, people consume too many servings of added fats and sugars and too few servings of fruits, vegetables, dairy products, lean meats, and foods made from whole grains compared with a reference set of Food Guide Pyramid serving recommendations appropriate to the age and gender composition of the U.S. population. In addition, while the healthfulness of diets has improved over time, the pace of improvement has been uneven. For example, while Americans consumed record amounts of fruits and vegetables in 1996, consumption of caloric sweeteners also reached a 27-year high. This report is the first dietary assessment to use ERSís time-series food supply data to compare average diets with Federal dietary recommendations depicted in the Food Guide Pyramid. Food Guide Pyramid servings were estimated for more than 250 agricultural commodities for 1970-96. New techniques were developed to adjust the data for food spoilage and other losses accumulated throughout the marketing system and the home.food, food consumption, CSFII, Food Guide Pyramid, Dietary Guidelines for Americans, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty,

Improving Retention of Science Student Teachers

Our on-going research aims to try and find out why some Science graduates on one year (PGCE) teacher training courses are not successful in completing the course. The course itself has been judged ‘Outstanding’ (Ofsted, 2010), so we have focused on the student teachers (trainees). Some key characteristics of trainees ‘at risk’ of being unsuccessful were identified in a variety of ways, including data analysis of records for trainees who left the course early and those who successfully completed the course, focus groups, questionnaires and case studies. Loss of trainees during PGCE courses appears to be a characteristic across many providers of initial teacher education for Science in the UK. Key factors emerging include gender, age, previous experiences/careers, support (or otherwise) of family/partner, caring issues (children/parents), subject knowledge, attendance at a subject knowledge enhancement course and more. If characteristics of ‘at risk’ trainees can be identified, strategies can be put into place to identify applicants, who might be at risk, at the selection stage and to support them during the course to reduce the drop-out rate. Recent work, described in the paper, appears to be improving our retention. Further research is needed to confirm and extend our current approach, which could, perhaps, be applied in other institutions and across other disciplines

What role do images and Arts Activism play in reinforcing messages connected to the theme of Climate Change ?

Abstract. The main focus of this research will be on the role that Illustration, Animation and Activism might play in raising awareness of Environmental Issues with a particular emphasis on Climate Change and will highlight creative events that took place in December 2015 to coincide with COP 21 in Paris. Through research undertaken using a range of sources including books, films, animations and the Internet, the aim is to identify individuals and collectives involved in creative practice that highlights Connected Communities of practitioners working individually and collectively, globally, towards the common theme of Climate Change. The research will include the work of the organization ‘ Forever Swarm ‘ and ‘ Cape Farewell ‘and other Collectives and individuals working towards an exploration of this theme

UA Research Summary No. 15

Utterly worthless. That’s how a congressman from Missouri described Alaska in 1867, when the U.S. bought it from Russia. A lot of Americans agreed. For almost 100 years, hardly anyone— except some Alaskans—wanted Alaska to become a state. But Alaska did finally become a state, in 1959. Today, after 142 years as a U.S. possession and 50 years as a state, Alaska has produced resources worth (in today’s dollars) around $670 billion. The U.S. paid$7.2 million for Alaska, equal to about $106 million now. For perspective, that’s roughly what the state government collected in royalties from oil produced on state-owned land in just the month of March 2009. To help mark 50 years of statehood, this publication first takes a broad look at what’s changed in Alaska since 1959. That’s on this page and the back page. We’ve also put together a timeline of political and economic events in Alaska from 1867 to the present. That’s on the inside pages. There’s an interactive version of the timeline—with photos, figures, and more—on ISER’s Web site: www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu

The effects of environment on the self perception of the mentally retarded adult.

The deinstitutionalization movement has made a significant impact on the lives of mentally retarded people. Deinstitutionalization provides the necessary environmental changes for mentally retarded people who have been forced to spend their prior years in institutions These environmental changes are widely regarded as having beneficial effects. However, little research has been done to assess whether the community residence is actually an environment of growth or even the environment of choice for the mentally retarded person. The purpose of this study was to explore the self-images of mentally retarded persons living in institutional and non institutional environments and attitudes toward retardation held by caretakers in those environments. It was expected that there would be some relationship between self-concept and current living environment, and that the relationship would be consistent with differences observed in caretaker attitudes

An evaluation of elementary school science kits in terms of classroom environment and student attitudes

The purpose of this evaluation study was to compare students' perceptions of their science classroom environment when using science kits, textbooks or a combination of science kits, textbooks and teacher-created materials. This year-long study involved using a learning environment questionnaire, namely the My Class Inventory (MCI), interviews and observations to assess which of the three treatments leads to a more positive learning environment. Three questions investigated were whether (1) the learning environment can be reliably and validly assessed among Grade 3-5 students in Texas, (2) instruction using textbooks, science kits, or a combination of textbooks and science kits is more effective in terms of changes in student attitudes and learning environment perceptions, and (3) there are associations between student attitudes toward science classes and the classroom environment? Administrators and teachers in Texas are searching for ways to improve the scores received on standardized tests. For more than 40 years, research has shown that positive classroom environments can lead to improvement in achievement. Therefore 1 chose to investigate the above questions using a learning environments framework. This study was conducted in three urban elementary schools in North Texas. There were a total of 588 students in 28 classrooms with 16 different teachers involved in this research. The schools were similar in demographic features such as ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Analyses of data collected with the My Class Inventory (MCI) supported the instrument's factorial validity, internal consistency reliability, and ability to differentiate between the perceptions of students in different classrooms.Also, simple correlation and multiple regression analyses indicated reasonably strong and positive associations between each classroom environment scale and the students' satisfaction. The Satisfaction scale was used as an outcome variable, following the lead of Majeed, Fraser and Aldridge (2002). Results h m the MCI, interviews and observations indicated that students preferred a more positive classroom environment in terns of Cohesiveness, Competition, and Friction. Importantly, the group of students using science kits experienced greater pretest-posttest changes in satisfaction and classroom cohesiveness than did either the textbook group of the combination group. This study supports previous research that combined qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection. Qualitative methods suggested that students preferred a more hands-on presentation of science lessons rather than a textbook presentation. This was suggested in interviews with students and teachers and by observations of students in their science classes. This research evaluated three educational methods to determine which instructional method would produce a more positive learning environment and student satisfaction. These results suggest that the utilization of science kits achieves this goal as measured by student satisfaction and cohesiveness

On the being of a teacher: analysis vs. experience in the classroom

Both analysis and experience are necessary forms in the classroom. Together, they complement each other