Education and social mobility: leader and learner voices within the prism of perspectives

In this thesis I argue that the classic 'get good grades get a good job' narrative of education's relationship with social mobility is a misappropriation and represents cruel optimism for most learners. In policy, a contemporary education has been framed by the incumbent and successive governments as an emancipatory tool and therefore a premier conduit for social mobility in England. In Theory, a contemporary education is accused of primarily being a reproductive mechanism as educational outcomes possess symbolic power which legitimises class inequality as justly unequal thus presenting an apparition of meritocracy. The aim of this thesis, then, was to understand better how secondary school leaders and learners understood social mobility and its seemingly dystopian relationship with education in practice. Using a social constructivist ontological perspective, semi-structured interviews with three head teachers and three semi-structured focus groups with 14 learners, the perceived role of education in the processes of social mobility were illuminated. Specific focus within the interpretive phenomenological analysis was how social, cultural and economic capital were believed to play out within the leader and learner's specific contexts. Key findings noted that the head teachers overwhelmingly credited a contemporary education with being the single most important conduit for social mobility with a maintained class structure. Paradoxically, it was also conceded by all head teachers that inequality was systemically inbuilt and therefore education served, on the whole, to maintain not eradicate English class structures. Learners were almost absolute in the belief that outcomes of a contemporary education would deliver social mobility. They saw the accumulation of symbolic capital (formal qualifications) as almost a direct and assured exchange mechanism for accumulation of high levels of economic capital and thus a worthy pursuit. This symbolic capital to economic capital exchange mechanism was viewed as dichotomous in nature as dominant narratives centred around a lack of symbolic capital leading to destitution. Finally, the learners perceived the labour market to be meritocratic and credentials were the legitimate, and unquestioned, currency with barely a mention of the importance of cultural or social capital when seeking employment. This was evidenced by their apparent inability even to identify what may constitute as social and cultural capital and how they might be employed in the processes of social mobility. I conclude by recommending that educational leaders do what they can to arm learners with an understanding of societal inequality and problematise any simplistic views that guarantee a learner will be socially mobile with only symbolic capital to employ. For this deeper understanding to occur, leaders and learners need not only an understanding of what social and cultural capital are but how they are an important and underappreciated part of the equation of converting symbolic into economic capital. Limitations of these conclusions are in line with the chosen qualitative research paradigm and further questions raised from this study centre around where the leaders and learners' beliefs stem from. An understanding of this may further assist the field of knowledge surrounding social mobility which has been accused of being so poorly understood. Given limited space at the top of society and myriad nuanced barriers needed to be overcome to get there; social mobility for all appears at best as oxymoronic as the cruel optimism it arguably represents

Freeze/Thaw-Induced Embolism: Probability of Critical Bubble Formation Depends on Speed of Ice Formation

Bubble formation in the conduits of woody plants sets a challenge for uninterrupted water transportation from the soil up to the canopy. Freezing and thawing of stems has been shown to increase the number of air-filled (embolized) conduits, especially in trees with large conduit diameters. Despite numerous experimental studies, the mechanisms leading to bubble formation during freezing have not been addressed theoretically. We used classical nucleation theory and fluid mechanics to show which mechanisms are most likely to be responsible for bubble formation during freezing and what parameters determine the likelihood of the process. Our results confirm the common assumption that bubble formation during freezing is most likely due to gas segregation by ice. If xylem conduit walls are not permeable to the salts expelled by ice during the freezing process, osmotic pressures high enough for air seeding could be created. The build-up rate of segregated solutes in front of the ice-water interface depends equally on conduit diameter and freezing velocity. Therefore, bubble formation probability depends on these variables. The dependence of bubble formation probability on freezing velocity means that the experimental results obtained for cavitation threshold conduit diameters during freeze/thaw cycles depend on the experimental setup; namely sample size and cooling rate. The velocity dependence also suggests that to avoid bubble formation during freezing trees should have narrow conduits where freezing is likely to be fast (e.g., branches or outermost layer of the xylem). Avoidance of bubble formation during freezing could thus be one piece of the explanation why xylem conduit size of temperate and boreal zone trees varies quite systematically.We are grateful for support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Harvard University. We also thank the Australian Research Council for support (DP110105380)

Book Reviews

Equity, an Analysis of Modern Equity Problems Designed Primarily for Students. George L. Clark, SJ.D., Professor of Law, University of Missouri. E. W. Stephens Publishing Co., Columbia, Mo., igig. Pp. lii, 639

Ion Induced Changes in the Structure of Bordered Pit Membranes

Ion-mediated changes in xylem hydraulic resistance are hypothesized to result from hydrogel like properties of pectins located in the bordered pit membranes separating adjacent xylem vessels. Although the kinetics of the ion-mediated changes in hydraulic resistance are consistent with the swelling/deswelling behavior of pectins, there is no direct evidence of this activity. In this report we use atomic force microscopy (AFM) to investigate structural changes in bordered pit membranes associated with changes in the ionic concentration of the surrounding solution. When submerged in de-ionized water, AFM revealed bordered pit membranes as relatively smooth, soft, and lacking any sharp edges surface, in contrast to pictures from scanning electron microscope (SEM) or AFM performed on air-dry material. Exposure of the bordered pit membranes to 50 mM KCl solution resulted in significant changes in both surface physical properties and elevation features. Specifically, bordered pit membranes became harder and the fiber edges were clearly visible. In addition, the membrane contracted and appeared much rougher due to exposed microfibers. In neither solution was there any evidence of discrete pores through the membrane whose dimensions were altered in response to the ionic composition of the surrounding solution. Instead the variable hydraulic resistance appears to involve changes in the both the permeability and the thickness of the pit membrane

The Biotechnology Cluster in Vancouver

There is a strong biotechnology cluster in Vancouver yet there is no major manufacturing facility. The Vancouver cluster is unlike other biotech clusters in that its output is solely intellectual property. This ongoing study not only examines the usual structure of a cluster, but also will focus on the issue of intellectual environment, and seek to determine whether a strong cluster can be built without the presence of a large, globally-competitive, manufacturer

Note and Comment

Inducing Breach of Agreement by Employees Not to Join a Labor Union, in Order to Compel Unionization of Plaintiff\u27s Business - In Hitchnan Coal & Coke Compazy v. John Mitchell, et al., (Dec. 10, 1917), 38 Sup. Ct. 6s, the novel question was presented to the Supreme Court of the United States, as to whether or not members of a labor Union could be enjoined from conspiring to persuade, and persuading, without violence or show of violence, plaintiff\u27s employees, not members of the Union,-and who were working for plaintiff not for a specified time, but under an agreement not to continue in plaintiff\u27s employment if they joined the Union, this agreement being fully known to defendants,-secretly to agree to join the Union and continue working for plaintiff until enough had agreed to join, so that a strike could be called, and plaintiff be thereby forced to unionize its business of mining coal

The redox potential of human Protein Disulphide Isomerase' a' domain, and further characterisation of hPDI's ligand binding behaviour

Protein Disulphide Isomerase (PDI) is a 57 kDa multi-domain protein found within the endoplasmic reticulum. PDI consists of four thioredoxin-like domains (named a and b) each containing five ?-sheets and four ?-helices in the conformation ?????????. The four domains are ordered in the sequence abb'xa'c; with a 19 amino acid x linker between the b' and a' domains, and an acidic tail, c, after the a' domain. PDI acts as an oxidoreductase and chaperone to help fold newly synthesized proteins into their native state through the formation of disulphide bonds via the oxidation of sulfhydryl groups of cysteines, as well as the rearrangement of mispaired disulphides in an isomerisation reaction. The catalytic domains responsible for the thiol/disulphide reactions are a and a', and one of the aims of this work is to determine the redox potential of the a' domain and how it is influenced by the adjacent b', x and c regions. Fragments of human PDI containing the a' domain were expressed in E.coli and their redox potential measured by 15N/1H NMR using mixtures of reduced and oxidised glutathione. The b' domain of PDI which is known to contain the primary binding site for unfolded substrates was also investigated. The interaction of the b'xa'c fragment to the PDI ligand ?-somatostatin fused to the carrier protein GB1 was used to investigate its binding behaviour by NMR in a range of different redox conditions

Assessing student engagement in a multi-media teaching tool in Pharmacy

The School of Pharmacy at the University of Waterloo offers an Integrated Patient Focused Care (IPFC) course series to students with the first of nine courses being taught in their second year. IPFC1 includes sections on Pharmacokinetics, Clinical Biochemistry, Immunology, Critical Appraisal and Patient Focused Care. The Pharmacokinetics section is taught using an online and in-class blended approach. A survey of the 2009 cohort demonstrated that this format aided in student learning and that enthusiasm for this section of the course increased over time. A more traditional, lecture-based section of this course, Clinical Biochemistry, was not well received by students; their feedback suggested that they were not able to make clear links between laboratory data and patient assessment. We used student feedback from the 2010 course offering to drive the development of a multi-media online learning module and face-to-face instructor-led tutorial to teach the Clinical Biochemistry section of the course this winter. The design and implementation of the new modules provided us with an opportunity to investigate whether the introduction of multi-media based teaching using virtual field trips, self-assessments and a single face-to-face tutorial increased student understanding of the connections between the results from lab measurements and patient assessment and whether this teaching format enhanced student engagement. We will present how assessment of student learning and engagement was accomplished before and after the introduction of the online components, the results of our analysis of exam grades from both years and our qualitative analysis of students’ feedback from the 2011 class