Female entrepreneurs : are they really any different?

School of Managemen

How do you know that he's bright but lazy? Teachers' assessments of Bangladeshi English as an Additional Language pupils in two Year Three classrooms

This article considers how teachers come to assess pupils' needs and abilities and how pupils come to acquire particular identities in the classroom - particularly Bangladeshi pupils who are both English as Additional Language (EAL) pupils and minority ethnic pupils. This work is a contribution to an emerging 'sociology of educational assessment' (Filer and Pollard, 2000) which considers assessment as a social practice, one which has consequences for identity, educational opportunity and the reproduction of social difference. How teachers understandings and expectations of pupils, how their needs as teachers to organise, manage and accomplish their lessons and how their pupils' actions in presenting themselves as particular kinds of pupils, contribute to the achievement and underachievement of minority ethnic and EAL pupils is outlined through the presentation of data from three case studies. The article attempts to outline how the case study pupils came to be positioned within their classrooms, how particular understandings and identities were ascribed to them and how this resulted in particular resources being made available to them. It also considers how the support provided by teachers focused on behaviour rather than on language development because of teachers’ needs to manage their lessons

Children as researchers in English primary schools: developing a model for good practice

Since the establishment of the Children's Research Centre at The Open University (CRC) in 2004, children from the age of nine have been shown to be able to engage meaningfully with research process when given appropriate training. This paper reports on the findings of a four-year doctoral study (Bucknall, 2009) which identifies and explores the issues and barriers that influence experiences of children's engagement in self-directed empirical research in these settings. Multiple-case study was adopted as the research strategy for this study. A flexible, multi-method research design was applied. Predominantly qualitative data were generated with adult and child participants in five schools associated with the CRC and data analysis was informed by grounded theory. The central categories which emerged from the data and, in particular, the identification of important issues by the children, have together informed the staged construction of a model for CaR initiatives in English primary schools. This illustrates the factors and processes that had an impact on both the children's experiences of research training and the research process and outcomes and demonstrates that these are inextricably interrelated. This study addresses a gap in our knowledge and understanding of children as researchers and consideration of the issues and barriers identified will provide a basis for good practice during the further implementation and evaluation of young researcher initiatives in schools (author abstract

Teaching science out-of-doors

Currently there are moves to increase learning out-of-doors and to represent the work of inspirational scientists in the secondary science curriculum. In 2009 the scientific processes and knowledge derived from Darwin's work, much of which was undertaken out-of-doors, will feature prominently in science education. His simple, hands-on, practical enquiries can be replicated in schools. Here his weed plot and worm cast experiments are described and their implications discussed

Review of 'The City's Outback' by Gillian Cowlishaw.

Review of 'The City's Outback' by Gillian Cowlishaw

The emergence of the concept of unjust enrichment in New Zealand, its relationship to the remedial constructive trust and the development of the status of joint ventures in equity

From the 1970s onward there have been numerous attempts to persuade the courts of New Zealand that unjust enrichment might be an acceptable basis for imposing equitable remedies. The foundation for this proposition rests upon the supposed existence of a broad principle that the imposition of a constructive trust is justified in any circumstances where it would be against equity or good conscience to allow the retention of property by one who has an ostensible legal title. So the unjust enrichment, once established, becomes the cause of action and the constructive trust follows as an equitable remedy of a proprietary nature which is available to prevent the unjust enrichment. This has important ramifications for the development of the law pertaining to restitution in this country. This paper will show that the acceptance of the remedial constructive trust is linked to the development of a law of restitution founded upon the principle of unjust enrichment. It will also be shown that, while the roots of the conceptual distinction between law and equity remain intact, in many courts the practical ramifications of that distinction are being eroded, particularly in commercial cases

Assessing library web page usability: how benchmarking can help

This article looks at how the ‘Mystery Shopper’ methodology used by a consortium of universities was adapted to assess the usability of the library web pages of all four universities. Using a methodology refined from a previous web usability exercise, the various elements in the process are described. The outcomes of the project are briefly discussed, along with lessons learnt from the process

Locking Out the Mother Corp: Nationalism and Popular Imaginings of Public Service Broadcasting in the Print News Media

Early promoters of public-service broadcasting (PSB) in Canada emphasized its democratic and nationalist merit. Of these twin pillars, only nationalism appears to still be standing. In this article, the author surveys the vision of PSB that emerged in the national English-language print media during the 2005 CBC/Radio-Canada lockout and suggests that our peculiar brand of multicultural nationalism (which underestimates the divisions within civil society) has subsumed democratic values. Yet, she argues democratic principles—particularly those of access, participation, and publicness—are critically important to defending the relevance of PSB in the current environment of seemingly endless media choices and borderless technology