The teaching of English in Scottish secondary schools 1940-1990 : a study of change and development

This study follows the progress of a key school subject towards its slow, partial fulfilment of the 1940s' aspiration for equality of educational opportunity within the post war reconstruction of Scottish society. Its focus is on 'English' at both the level of public pronouncement and of day-to-day classroom experience and on the intricate interactions between these two worlds. Therefore, in addition to analysis of official documentation and school materials, the personal testimony of twenty long-serving participants, practitioners as well as policy makers, is woven into the account. Two factors have helped to elucidate this history: the centralised, uniform nature of the Scottish system; the post-war inheritance of two articulated but competing models of English - the initially dominant Scottish Education Department supported academic syllabus built on knowledge inculcation, national examination and institutional division into 'junior' and 'senior' secondary curricula as against the progressivist alternative of 'the full and harmonious development of the individual' to be sought in 'omnibus' schools. Superficially, 1940-1990 may be viewed as the gradual, orderly movement towards Standard Grade English as a consensual acceptance of the progressivist version, a process facilitated by an opening up of decision-making into a partnership between SED and the profession through such bodies as the Consultative Council and a devolved Examination Board. A detailed investigation of actual practice shows a more ambiguous curricular reality in which pragmatic management and deeply embedded assumptions sustain a contradictory adherence to didactic methodology and rigid assessment procedure. The Scottish experience suggests that curricular change is a necessarily problematic process whose promotion depends upon a sensitive appreciation of its complex rhythms. In Scotland this means using the traditional authority of the centre to establish clear frameworks and appropriate assessment targets within and against which the individual teacher is freed to work out a matching pedagogy and to take control of in-course evaluations. Above all, the educational innovator must be alert to the power of historical inheritance in the construction of classroom practice

Re-establishing the ‘outsiders’: English press coverage of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup

In 2015, the England Women’s national football team finished third at the Women’s World Cup in Canada. Alongside the establishment of the Women’s Super League in 2011, the success of the women’s team posed a striking contrast to the recent failures of the England men’s team and in doing so presented a timely opportunity to examine the negotiation of hegemonic discourses on gender, sport and football. Drawing upon an ‘established-outsider’ approach, this article examines how, in newspaper coverage of the England women’s team, gendered constructions revealed processes of alteration, assimilation and resistance. Rather than suggesting that ‘established’ discourses assume a normative connection between masculinity and football, the findings reveal how gendered ‘boundaries’ were both challenged and protected in newspaper coverage. Despite their success, the discursive positioning of the women’s team as ‘outsiders’, served to (re)establish men’s football as superior, culturally salient and ‘better’ than the women’s team/game. Accordingly, we contend that attempts to build and, in many instances, rediscover the history of women’s football, can be used to challenge established cultural representations that draw exclusively from the history of the men’s game. In such instances, the 2015 Women’s World Cup provides a historical moment from which the women’s game can be relocated in a context of popular culture

A critical examination of the group method of primary school teaching in the light of experimental standards

Thesis (MEd) -- University of Stellenbosch, 1948.Full text to be digitised and attached to bibliographic record

Five lectures on "The growth of the jaws, normal and abnormal, in health and disease."

"References" at end of third lecture (p. 103-105)"These lectures were delivered in 1924 in London at the offices of the Dental board ... at the University of Birmingham ... at the University of Bristol ... at the University of Liverpool ... at the University of Manchester ... at the University of Durham college of medicine ... at the University of Edinburgh ... at the University of Glasgow ... at Queens university, Belfast ... and at the Royal college of surgeons in Ireland, Dublin."At head of title: The Dental board of the United Kingdom.Fawcett, E. The development of the bones around the mouth.--Brash, J.C. The growth of the jaws and palate.--Brash, J.C. The genesis and growth of deformed jaws and palates.--Northcroft, G. The teeth in relationship to the normal and abnormal growth of the jaws.--Keith, Sir A. Concerning certain structural changes which are taking place in our jaws and teeth.Mode of access: Internet