Showing papers in "Harvard Educational Review in 1979"

Meaning in Context: Is There Any Other Kind?

Abstract: While the contextual grounding of the meanings of human action and language is vital to our everyday understanding of our own and others' behavior, the importance of context has been largely ignored by traditional research approaches in the social and behavioral sciences and in their application to the field of education. The positivist model, which has dominated these disciplines, has led to a search for universal context-free laws and to the use of context-stripping methods. Investigators in developmental and social psychology and in educational research have increasingly begun to note the inadequacies of this approach. Drawing examples from phenomenology, sociolinguistics, and ethnomethodology, Elliot Mishler proposes alternative approaches which are more appropriate to the study of meaning in context.

Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle

Abstract: Drawing on literary and psychological sources, Carol Gilligan documents the way in which theories of the life cycle, by taking for their model the lives of men, have failed to account for the experience of women. Arguing that this bias has promoted a concern with autonomy and achievement at the expense of attachment and intimacy, she suggests that systematic attention to women's lives, in both theory and research, will allow an integration of these concerns into a more balanced conception of human development.

Ideology and United States History Textbooks

Abstract: In this study the author examines the content of seventeen widely used secondary-school United States history textbooks, focusing on economic and labor history from the Civil War to World War I Her findings reveal that the content of the textbooks reflects an ideology that serves the interests of particular groups in society to the exclusion of others

Feminist Criticism of the Social Sciences.

Abstract: The tensions and contradictions that permeate women's lives simultaneously create the potential for both alienation and liberation. These antithetical conditions form the outline of the debate within the social sciences concerning the interpretation of women's experiences. Marcia Westkott discusses the feminist criticism of the content, method, and purpose of knowledge about women as defined by the social sciences, and offers a dialectical alternative to conventional analyses.

The Sensitivity of Measures of School Effectiveness

Abstract: The search for evidence of differences in the effectiveness of schools has become one of the central themes in educational research. In this article, George Madaus, Thomas Kellaghan, Ernest Rakow, and Denis King question the use of standardized achievement tests as measures for comparing the quality of different schools.

The Application of Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development to Education

Abstract: In this essay, Deanna Kuhn argues that the difficulties encountered in attempting to apply Piaget's theory of cognitive development to education are revealing of the ambiguities that exist within the theory itself. She illustrates this first by reviewing experimental curricula that derive their educational objectives from Piaget's developmental stage sequences, and, second, by examining those programs that derive their educational methods from Piaget's theories about the process of cognitive development. The author argues that the efforts of educators attempting to utilize developmental theory in educational contexts and the efforts of developmental theoreticians attempting to construct a more adequate theory of cognitive development ought to be mutually illuminating, and, indeed, that research activity across these disparate contexts must be integrated in order to achieve either a comprehensive developmental theory or an effective application of it.

Either We're Too Early and They Can't Learn It or We're Too Late and They Know It Already: The Dilemma of Applying Piaget

Abstract: This essay is a response to the history of American reactions to Piaget's work—skepticism about his findings, followed by a desire to accelerate development. Influenced by the mass of psychological research devoted to these issues, educators have adopted them as their concerns as well. Eleanor Duckworth sketches this history, reviews recent Genevan learning research, and in so doing, suggests that the dilemma is both false and beside the point. She turns to a consideration of issues of greater educational concern, bringing Piaget's work to bear on them.

Sex Differences in Educational Attainment: A Cross-National Perspective

Abstract: Throughout the world, schools perpetuate the sexual inequalities of their cultural and economic environments. Jeremy Finn, Loretta Dulberg, and Janet Reis review crossnational studies of educational attainment, such as those sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement and the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and conclude that, regardless of the type of educational system or extent of opportunity, women are universally disadvantaged educationally.

Foundations, United States Foreign Policy, and African Education, 1945-1975

Abstract: In this essay Edward Berman explores the way in which the relationship between United States foreign policy and the major American foundations has helped to shape African educational policy since 1945. Berman contends that the foundations, in particular Ford, Rockefeller, and the Carnegie Corporation, have directed their support at areas of political or economic importance to American corporate interests—to the possible detriment of the needs of the developing nations themselves.

Introduction: The First Decade of Women's Studies

Abstract: The scholarship in this special double issue, Women and Education, illuminates the vitality of women's studies a decade after its beginnings. We could not have had this issue until quite recently, at least in part because schools of education have been among the most resistant to the impact of the women's movement, which first touched the campus a decade ago. As the academic arm of the women's movement, women's studies has developed an area of research and curriculum focused on women as a distinguishable group to be studied from their own perspective and on gender as a significant issue in a democratic society founded and administered as a patriarchy. Like most educational movements of the past, this one has a political goal: to establish equity for women, which, as John Stuart Mill said more than a hundred years ago, would be as healthy for men as it was essential for women. Unlike most educational movements, this one has moved very rapidly, at least in higher education, to develop a body of knowledge an...

Open Admissions and Equal Access: A Study of Ethnic Groups in the City University of New York

Abstract: In 1970 the City University of New York (CUNY) adopted a policy which guaranteed admission to every graduate of the city's high schools Designed to increase the proportion of minority students in the university and to slow the reproduction of social inequality, CUNY's open-admissions policy has been criticized as a threat to academic standards and as an unnecessary expense during periods of economic scarcity In this article, David Lavin, Richard Alba, and Richard Silberstein argue instead that there has been no definitive evidence of a decline in standards and that the policy has been successful in reducing educational inequality Basing their conclusions on a detailed study of the first three classes admitted under this policy, the authors examine its effects on the university's ethnic composition and integration at various levels, and on the academic performance of different ethnic groups

Sexism and Self-Healing in the University

Abstract: While legislation exists which is intended to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex, the nature and extent of its impact remains indeterminate. Describing her personal experiences as a junior faculty member, Linda Nielsen delineates the subtle manifestations of prejudice that are often more pernicious than overt inequities. The author analyzes the impact of discrimination on her personal and professional life, comparing her perspective on the nature and efforts of prejudice with those of other researchers and female academicians.

School Busing in Britain: Policies and Perceptions

Abstract: In 1965 the British Department of Education and Science promulgated a policy encouraging local education authorities to disperse immigrant children, by busing if necessary, from schools in which they constituted more than one third of the enrollment. This legitimized the practice by a few authorities of busing Asian and West Indian children out of neighborhood schools where there was racial imbalance. Although busing never became widely practiced, it was challenged by minority group members as being discriminatory. In 1975 the Race Relations Board issued a ruling that busing did constitute racial discrimination unless it could be shown that the children needed special language training. The major opposition to busing came from minority groups and was expressed in much the same terms as white opposition to busing in the United States. Comparing the origins of school busing in Britain and the United States, Lewis Killian concludes that busing can best be understood as a political issue rather than in terms ...

The Rediscovery of the Need for a Feminist Medical Education

Abstract: For well over a century, women have sought acceptance in the medical profession. The first breakthrough in this effort, in the late nineteenth century, resulted in a "golden age": women then accounted for up to half of some medical school graduating classes. These early successes were not followed by subsequent gains. The twentieth century became a period of stagnation for women physicians with respect to both their number and their power. Against the background of this earlier history, this article analyzes contemporary efforts to empower women as physicians.

Further Comment: on Reading, Language, and Learning

Abstract: Frank R. Vellutino's article, "Alternative Conceptualizations of Dyslexia: Evidence in Support of a Verbal-Deficit Hypothesis," generated the following response from Martin H. Singer. The introduction that preceded the Vellutino article (HER, August 1977) is reprinted here to set this discussion in context.

Minority-Admissions Programs after Bakke.

Abstract: John Sexton describes the special-admissions program challenged in the Bakke litigation and outlines the reaction to it by the Supreme Court. He then argues that while Bakke is an instance of judicial intrusion into educational policy, it is simultaneously an invitation to greater autonomy for educators. On this premise, he examines the desirability of an affirmative-action component in an enlightened admissions program, considering the appropriate role of such objective indicators as standardized test scores and college grades, and describing the factors that would affect the legality of admissions programs. Finally, he offers two models of special-admissions programs that would meet the requirements of the Bakke decision.