The Ideology of Pedogogy: The Right and the Left of it!

No doubt real education could only flourish only after the Revolution, when its importance would be generally recognised and when educators would be honoured and respected by the community, but something could be honourably achieved even now. He must try to do his job as effectively as the existing educational conditions and his own limitations allowed. Though he would not without inviting the sack introduce revolutionary politics directly into his teaching, he could aim at propagating humane ideas and getting his pupils to think

Personal Construct Theory and the Reconstruction of Teacher Education

The preparation of teachers, earnest enterprise though it is, is fraught with inadequacies. Many of these stem from the ill-defined nature of the enterprise itself. The goal of getting fledgling teachers into the classroom has taken many guises over the years, as befits an enterprise somewhat uncertain of its direction and goals. Courses of teacher education have got longer and the experiences contained within them more varied and academic. The spoils of educational science, if \u27science\u27 is the right word, are ever more marshalled into the service of teacher training, with the natural expectation that teachers will be better for them. Yet though this \u27science\u27 is proudly advertised as a sound basis for practice, the spectre of classroom reality frequently tells teachers otherwise. The regular gripe is that, contrary to all the propaganda, educational theory either speaks to a world of pedagogic fantasy or supplies such an adamantine critique of classrooms and schools that any teacher (would-be or otherwise) whose scruples are not compromised by the need for security, would surely want to reconsider his or her decision to be such

How can we optimise inhaled beta2 agonist dose as ‘reliever’ medicine for wheezy pre-school children? Study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Background: Asthma is a common problem in children and, if inadequately controlled, may seriously diminish their quality of life. Inhaled short-acting beta2 agonists such as salbutamol are usually prescribed as ‘reliever’ medication to help control day-to-day symptoms such as wheeze. As with many medications currently prescribed for younger children (defined as those aged 2 years 6 months to 6 years 11 months), there has been no pre-licensing age-specific pharmacological testing; consequently, the doses currently prescribed (200–1000 μg) may be ineffective or likely to induce unnecessary side effects. We plan to use the interrupter technique to measure airway resistance in this age group, allowing us for the first time to correlate inhaled salbutamol dose with changes in clinical response. We will measure urinary salbutamol levels 30 min after dosing as an estimate of salbutamol doses in the lungs, and also look for genetic polymorphisms linked to poor responses to inhaled salbutamol. Methods: This is a phase IV, randomised, controlled, observer-blinded, single-centre trial with four parallel groups (based on a sparse sampling approach) and a primary endpoint of the immediate bronchodilator response to salbutamol so that we can determine the most appropriate dose for an individual younger child. Simple randomisation will be used with a 1:1:1:1 allocation. Discussion: The proposed research will exploit simple, non-invasive and inexpensive tests that can mostly be performed in an outpatient setting in order to help develop the evidence for the correct dose of salbutamol in younger children with recurrent wheeze who have been prescribed salbutamol by their doctor. Trial registration: EudraCT2014-001978-33, ISRCTN15513131. Registered on 8 April 2015

Towards a structural epistemology of a discipline

Knowledge is both a phenomenon of the mind and of society. Most analyses of knowledge have tended to emphasize either the mental or societal attributes of knowledge, and have rarely sought out cross linkages between them. It is often argued that the disposition \u27to know\u27 is a conditional or warranted assertion, and the conditions upon which such assertions are based are a matter of consensual agreement amongst the members of a knowledge community. To acquire knowledge, then, is to be introduced into an arena where assertions about the world have been publicly authenticated. That introduction occurs in the context of education, and from it stems the slow displacement of a private disposition to the world by one that is public and consensual amongst members of a particular discipline. It is possible, in fact, to construct a model of that displacement and show how it is that exposure to knowledge results in the gradual accretion of an epistemological sensitivity towards the world. But knowledge is corrigible and subject to change, so that epistemological sensitivity is itself subject to modification. This raises the issue, then, of how it is and by whom epistemological modification is executed. In fact, it is possible to show that knowledge changes are in the main a matter of refining the nexus between knowledge and reality. That refinement is largely executed by certain sorts of members in knowledge communities. For within knowledge communities - which, it is argued, exist to promote refinements to knowledge - a number of roles can be prescribed, one of which, that of the researcher, advances the territory of publicly certifiable knowledge. But his role is not the only one essential to the functioning of knowledge communities. Teachers are also necessary to them. If disciplines are, in fact, to survive they must enlist new personnel to be researchers and teachers, with the requisite mental outlook and dispositions to the world, to continue the advancement of certified knowledge

No time on their hands : children and the narrative architecture of school diaries

Diaries are elements of a school's documentary reality. They possess a complex 'narrative architecture' and serve multiple functions. In addition to playing an important role in inducting students into the adroit chronometry of contemporary work, the school diary is also a manual of self-government, given that much of it deals with goal setting, managing health and conflict resolution. On the grounds that it ameliorates communication between the school and parents, the diary, unlike its adult counterparts, is subject to regular inspection. As such, it is part of the machinery of surveillance and accountability that are features of neo-liberalist schooling.19 page(s

Revolting campuses : novel impressions of Australian higher education

Australian higher education has undergone a process of policy renovation during the post-war period. Much has been written about the impact of this renovation, much of it written from a sociological point of view. There is also a body of more imaginative literature, campus fiction, which variously recounts, often in uproarious and light-hearted terms, its impact. In this paper such fiction is analyzed and it is suggested that its various authors provide a far from sanguine picture of Australian higher education, and intimate that campus communities far from embracing policy renovation have rejected it holus bolus and yearn for the halcyon days of the university circa 1970.12 page(s

Capital degrees: another episode in the history of work and learning

12 page(s

Coaching and training : an ethnography of student commuting on Sydney's suburban trains

Public transport systems in Australia receive subsidies from state governments to facilitate the movement of students to and from schools. During the educational peak hours, students on their way to and from school dominate the demographics of buses and trains. Policies of de-zoning plus the drift to non-government schooling have increased the numbers of students commuting each day. As with commuting in general, student commuting is taken for granted and its associated 'travel performances' under-investigated. This paper analyses the 'choreographies' of students as they travel to and from school on Sydney trains. It is argued that students form closed micro-communities for the passage of their journeys, during which they enact a range of cultural and educational activities and performances.19 page(s

Setting the record straight : a material history of classical recording

Record albums are more than records; they include covers and liner notes, catalogs, magazines, and advertisements. In this fascinating study of the materials that surround LPs and CDs, Colin Symes undertakes a cultural history of the record, looking specifically at the way the phonograph helped democratize classical music by enabling it to be heard at home, away from the concert hall. Symes argues that the listening habits associated with classical records and recording were produced and naturalized through a magazine culture, which conveyed the idea that collecting and listening to records were legitimate pastimes for the general public. The first chapter lays out a textual theory of the phonograph and compact disc, while subsequent chapters look critically and historically at the different components of the recording process: covers and cover notes, the rhetoric of the record review, the influence of recording on performance, the domestication of the concert hall, advertising in the record industry, and even the architecture of record shops. Symes's path-breaking history will engage anyone with an interest in classical music and recording.1. Playing by the book: toward a textual theory of the phonograph -- 2. Disconcerting music: performers and composers on the record -- 3. The best seat in the house: the domestication of the concert hall -- 4. Creating the right impression: an iconography of record covers -- 5. Off the record: some notes on the sleeve -- 6. Just for the record: the narrative architecture of gramophone magazines -- 7. Compact discourse: the review of the Gramophone -- 8. Keeping records in their place: collections, catalogs, libraries, and societies -- 9. Coda: the end of the record