The risk and resilience framework and its implications for teachers and schools.

Risk and resilience theory and research are presented according to Stanley's (2003a) framework and the implications for teachers and schools are identified. Findings in the field make clear that those who are closest to children can reduce risk, enhance competence and prevent problem development, and by these means promote the attainments and wellbeing of the young people for whom they have a duty of care. Some critique of the risk and resilience framework is also offered

The future of educational psychology

Educational psychology is airing its anguish in public, and if the assertions of Brown (2010), Coleman and Pine (2010), and Hornby (2010) are to be believed then this professional discipline is indeed in a parlous state. As a psychologist who worked for the old Department of Education's Psychological Service, and subsequently for the Special Education Service and Specialist Education Services, I also think that educational psychology is in trouble. However, the history of occupations is littered with the wrecks of vocations that have become redundant to requirements. At the outset of his paper, Brown 2010 raises the possibility that educational psychologists are a species that may speedily become extinct because of hostile environments, and this parallel with the natural world is another reminder that change happens as circumstances alter

The New Multi-Ministry Response to Conduct Problems: A SWOT analysis

The Inter-agency Plan for Conduct Disorder/Severe Antisocial Behaviour 2007-2012 (Ministry of Social Development, 2007) is assessed according to the SWOT dimensions of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The document is one of the most important statements for the social services in New Zealand because of the primacy that it gives to current knowledge about conduct problems and for its endorsement of research-based practices. The plan's limitations include its risk-focused approach, its unsystematic response to 0-2 year-olds in difficult care-giving circumstances, and its lack of reference to adolescent girls with emotional issues who can contribute to the next generation of antisocial young people. As well, the plan might have considered the role of social systems in regard to conduct problems like the school, the neighbourhood, and community values. The implementation of the document could be imperilled by numerous influences, such as contrasting professional perspectives and non-empirical emphases in education

Forty or fifty something

Many teachers and human service workers are 40-50 years al age and this paper explores the formative influences, and the developmental characteristics, of workers who are presently middle-aged. This leads onto an examination of the importance of relationships and work to mid-lifers. In the concluding section of the paper, there is some consideration of the significance of having an older workforce for the success of the current policy innovations in special education

'Looking back, looking forward': An interview with Emeritus Professor Ted Glynn on his involvement in special education

In interview with Dr Peter Stanley, Professor Glynn reflects on how he became involved in special education, and on his work with the Pause Prompt Praise reading strategy, the Mangere Guidance and Learning Unit (which gave rise to Guidance and Learning Units nationally), and Glenburn Residential Centre, which was an innovative study of child behaviour management across multiple settings. Professor Glynn also talks about his time training psychologists on both the Auckland and Otago Diploma in Educational Psychology programmes and about his involvement in training Resource Teachers of Learning and Behaviour. Glynn advocates for inclusion, and for regular class teachers to be principally responsible for working with students with special needs. He also contends that much greater attention should be given to the cultural experiences of children in special and mainstream education

Crop Bioengineering: Enormous Potential for Catalyzing International Development

[Excerpt] Bioengineering provides unique and dramatic opportunities for crop improvement. It can be used to develop crop varieties that would otherwise be unavailable and can facilitate much faster and more precise ways of developing improved varieties. It can help to increase yields and reliability and thus reduce food costs for the consumer while helping to control input costs for farmers through reduced applications of herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizer. The extent to which this will be achieved depends on how effectively the global scientific community – including both the public and private sectors – can cooperate in harnessing the power of crop bioengineering and the allied scientific fields of genomics and bioinformatics for the poor and hungry of the world. This, in turn depends on the extent to which projects are demand-driven and holistic in approach, integrating all technical and non-technical factors relevant to the product development and commercialization/ delivery chain

Bottom Schur functions

We give a basis for the space V spanned by the lowest degree part \hat{s}_\lambda of the expansion of the Schur symmetric functions s_\lambda in terms of power sums, where we define the degree of the power sum p_i to be 1. In particular, the dimension of the subspace V_n spanned by those \hat{s}_\lambda for which \lambda is a partition of n is equal to the number of partitions of n whose parts differ by at least 2. We also show that a symmetric function closely related to \hat{s}_\lambda has the same coefficients when expanded in terms of power sums or augmented monomial symmetric functions. Proofs are based on the theory of minimal border strip decompositions of Young diagrams.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures To appear in the Electronic Journal of Combinatoric

Innovations in small dollar payments

On September 25, 2001, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia sponsored a workshop on innovations in small dollar payments. The moderated discussion was led by Richard Corl, an entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in the electronic payments industry.2 From his perspective as a director of Ecount, a small dollar payments innovator, Corl described a range of challenges and opportunities for innovators in their quest to convert small dollar cash and check payments into electronic transactions. In addition to broad market issues, he described a number of specific emerging applications. This paper is a summary of Corl's presentation.

Book Reviews

Book Reviews of: Birchall, J. Rediscovering the Cooperative Advantage: Poverty Reduction through Self-help Geneva: International Labour Office, 2003; Steinnert, H. and Pilgram, A. (eds.) Welfare Policy From Below: Struggles Against Social Exclusion in Europe Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Managing consumer credit risk

On July 31, 2001, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia hosted a workshop that examined current credit risk management practices in the consumer credit industry. The session was led by Jeffrey Bower, senior manager in KPMG Consulting’s financial services practice. Bower discussed "best practices" in the credit risk management field, including credit scoring, loss forecasting, and portfolio management. ; In addition, he provided an overview of developing new methodologies used by today's risk management professionals in underwriting consumer risk. This paper summarizes key elements of Bower's presentation.Consumer credit ; Credit cards