Swimming with captive dolphins: current debates and post-experience dissonance

Dolphins have widespread contemporary appeal and anthropomorphic social representations of dolphins have fuelled a growing desire in tourist populations to seek interaction with them. This paper is concerned with the staged performance of swim-with-dolphin interaction programmes in aquaria. Qualitative interviews with tourists who have swum with captive dolphins identified their immediate recollections and stressed the grace, size and power of dolphins, but also a belief that the experience was too staged, too short and too expensive. Post-purchase dissonance focused on concerns with the size of enclosures and about captivity, too many tricks, limited interpretation and unfulfilled expectations of a quality interaction

Neighbourhood deprivation, school disorder and academic achievement in primary schools in deprived communities in England

There is growing concern about violent behaviour in schools, involving students, staff and/or parents. A survey of 1777 primary schools (for children aged 5 to 11) throughout England, most in areas of social and economic deprivation, found more disorder in neighbourhoods with greater deprivation. More disorder was also observed when there was more school-level disadvantage (e.g. students receiving free meals), larger school size and more children in need of special education services. Despite difficulties in drawing causal inferences from correlational data, the fact that more disorder significantly predicted lower school achievement for students at 7 and 11 in standardized English, mathematics and science assessments even once school characteristics and neighbourhood deprivation were taken into account is judged noteworthy. Potential confounding factors are considered in the discussion. © 2006 The International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development