Search results

The future provision of education for pupils with special educational needs is at the heart of an international debate, and the inclusion of all pupils in mainstream schools (established as a goal in UK legislation) has been the subject of many papers and discussions. In this paper, the authors observe that, despite general acceptance of humanistic arguments, there remains a dearth of research into the efficacy of inclusive practices. In calling for more evaluation, they suggest that the role of special schools for pupils with the most complex learning needs has been overlooked, and that their potential expertise should be harnessed in the move towards inclusion. To make real progress, LEAs and others charged with responsibility for inclusion will need to ensure that the skills developed by teachers in special schools are retained for the benefit of a much larger population ‐ a key challenge in developing a more inclusive education system.

The paper seeks to provide personalized learning objects to adults' educators of special groups (AESG) in a technology‐enhanced learning environment.

The paper presents a definition of specific criteria by which personalization of learning objects is effected. An analysis under the scope of adult education and multicultural education is performed, resulting in the development of tools and a clear path leading to more efficient personalization of learning objects of AESG within an e‐learning environment.

Personalization of learning objects for AESG can be achieved to a much greater extent when the element of compatibility between educator and learner defines content, preceding and mapping with presentation factors.

As the research is focused on AESG, the key notion of compatibility may not be applicable to adult educators of the general public.

The paper offers a path through which learning management systems can provide improved personalization of learning objects addressed to AESG.

The introduction of compatibility between educator and learner as the key element of the educator's profile in order to provide personalized learning objects addressed to AESG opens up new territory. The paper is also useful to the developers of learning management systems addressed to any group with special attributes which strongly affect the learner's profile.

The Children Act 1989 ended a period of four decades during which the education of children and young people in care was almost entirely neglected. However, it was another 20 years before education took its rightful place at the centre of provision for the care of children away from home. This article considers the contribution made to this process by the Act and its accompanying Guidance, what progress has been made and what were the obstacles, past and continuing, that have made it so difficult to narrow the gap in attainment between looked‐after children and others.

When managers are faced with making a decision about what to do in a particular situation, do they base that decision on findings from research? This research paper seeks to report on qualitative and quantitative research which examined school principals' perceptions of barriers to the use of research.

To facilitate a comparison the qualitative and quantitative study was conducted simultaneously in two countries, i.e. England and Israel, using individual and group interviews, and the Barriers Scale survey instrument.

The results of tests indicated that factors associated with the research itself (e.g. relevance and access), were significant barriers to research use for principals from both countries (compared with factors associated with the setting, the presentation of research, and the individual).

The authors acknowledge some limitations with respect to equivalence across cultures, particularly functional and contextual (e.g. political) equivalence.

The paper concludes that multiple strategies would be required to address a number of issues related to the dissemination of research and ways of addressing the gap between the aims of researchers, and the needs and expectations of practitioners.

The topic is timely, and a comparative approach is particularly useful in any social area, especially in public school management.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

The author argues that we must stop and take a look at what our insistence on human labour as the basis of our society is doing to us, and begin to search for possible alternatives. We need the vision and the courage to aim for the highest level of technology attainable for the widest possible use in both industry and services. We need financial arrangements that will encourage people to invent themselves out of work. Our goal, the article argues, must be the reduction of human labour to the greatest extent possible, to free people for more enjoyable, creative, human activities.