This article analyses Mind the Gap's Boo, a re-imagining of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird", which features a cast of learning disabled actors. It is concerned with the public reception of the work, particularly the "effect" of an all-disabled cast. What are the consequences, both ethical and aesthetic, for these actors to tell this story on…

This essay considers the performance context and aesthetics of "Journey Woman", a play devised to initiate a week-long rehabilitative groupwork programme for female prisoners. Although Geese Theatre UK are one of the country's longest-established companies specialising in drama work within the criminal justice sector, this 2006 piece is their…

When we speak of quality in drama education, we apply different educational and aesthetic criteria. For example, improvised drama practices such as process drama, are closely associated to John Dewey's constructivist philosophy. What makes a drama qualitatively "good" within such a framework differs radically from criteria that are familiar in…

This study aims to improve our understanding of the postsecondary impacts of high schools by investigating whether or not exposure to different high school contexts may explain academic performance once in college. Drawing on a sample of 3,750 participants from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, descriptive and multivariate analyses…

We examined baccalaureate colleges mission statements to better understand how these organizations represent themselves to potential students and other external constituent groups. We drew these documents from two sources, the colleges' official web sites and an archive constructed and maintained by "U.S. News and World Report." Most sampled…

The findings of this study show wide variation in the learning patterns of college students in the academic environments of Holland's theory and, more importantly, that such variability differs based on the level of "consistency" or "inconsistency" of the environments. Differences in the learning patterns of students in "consistent" academic…

State support of public higher education has rapidly declined relative to total state spending. Much of this decline in support is due to the rapid growth in spending on such things as Medicaid. However, relative support of public higher education varies significantly between states. This study applies Tandberg's (2009) fiscal policy framework…

The advent of merit-based state financial aid programs has had several first order effects, such as changes in enrollment. However, these programs may also have second order effects, such as declining state support for need-based state financial aid programs. I hypothesize that the advent of merit-based state financial aid may be an example of…

This paper explores the occurrence of conceptual incoherence in upper secondary school textbooks resulting from the use of multiple historical models. Swedish biology and chemistry textbooks, as well as a selection of books from English speaking countries, were examined. The purpose of the study was to identify which models are used to represent…

This article reports a cross-national study of classroom environments in Australia and Indonesia. A modified version of the What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire was used simultaneously in these two countries to: 1) cross validate the modified WIHIC; 2) investigate differences between countries and sexes in perceptions of…

Laboratory work is considered essential in promoting students' learning of science and of scientific inquiry. What the students perceive as important to learn from a regular laboratory exercise is probably affected by the teacher's objectives. We study the extent to which one teacher's objectives are fulfilled during lab work, and how…

In Uganda, curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS has largely depended on public and private media messages about the disease. Media campaigns based on Uganda's cultural norms of communication are metaphorical, analogical and simile-like. The topic of HIV/AIDS has been introduced into the Senior Three (Grade 11) biology curriculum in Uganda. To what…

Understanding of Earth's systems, including the crucial role of human beings within them, is an important part of citizens' ability to think intelligently and critically about the environment, pollution, sustainability and other socio-economic and scientific issues central to life in the modern world. Part of this understanding involves seeing the…

The starting point of the present research is the following question: since we live in an age that makes increasing use of visual representations of all sorts, is not the visual representation a learner constructs a window into his/her understanding of what is or is not being learned? Following this direction of inquiry, the present preliminary…

This study examined the interrelationship between tenth-grade students' problem solving ability (PSA) and their domain-specific knowledge (DSK) as well as reasoning skills (RS) in a secondary school of Taiwan. The PSA test was designed to emphasize students' divergent-thinking ability (DTA) and convergent-thinking ability (CTA) subscales in the…