Establishing statistical foundations early : data modeling with young learners

This paper addresses research from a three-year longitudinal study that engaged children in data modeling experiences from the beginning school year through to third year (6-8 years). A data modeling approach to statistical development differs in several ways from what is typically done in early classroom experiences with data. In particular, data modeling immerses children in problems that evolve from their own questions and reasoning, with core statistical foundations established early. These foundations include a focus on posing and refining statistical questions within and across contexts, structuring and representing data, making informal inferences, and developing conceptual, representational, and metarepresentational competence. Examples are presented of how young learners developed and sustained informal inferential reasoning and metarepresentational competence across the study to become “sophisticated statisticians”.

A Submission to the Inquiry into the Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists Bill 2008 (Cth)

A right of resale, or droit de suite (a right to follow), is a legislative instrument under intellectual property law, which enables artists to receive a percentage of the sale price whenever artistic works are resold. A French legal scholar, Albert Vaunois, first articulated the need for a 'droit de suite' in connection with fine art back in 1893. The French Government introduced a scheme to protect the right of resale in 1920, after controversy over artists living in poverty, while public auction houses were profiting from the resale of their artistic creations. In the United States, there has been less support for a right of resale amongst legislatures. After lobbying from artists such as the king of pop art, Robert Rauschenberg, the state of California passed the Resale Royalties Act in 1977. At a Federal level, the United States Congress has shown some reluctance in providing national recognition for a right of resale in the United States. A number of other European countries have established a right of resale. In 2001, the European Council adopted the Artists' Resale directive and recognised that the 'artist's resale right forms an integral part of copyright and is an essential prerogative for authors.' In 2006, the United Kingdom promulgated regulations, giving effect to a right of resale in that jurisdiction. However, a number of Latin American and African countries have established a right of resale. The New Zealand Parliament has debated a bill on a right of resale.

The changing role of the supervisory board chairman: the case of the Netherlands (1997-2007)

Over the last ten years, the corporate governance context in most Western countries has changed as a result of irregularities, increased regulation, heightened societal expectations and shareholder activism. This paper examines the impact of the changing context on the role of chairmen of supervisory boards in the Netherlands. Based on a combination of thirty semi-structured interviews with board members of leading Dutch corporations and secondary data on the position of supervisory board chairmen at the top-100 listed firms in the Netherlands, the study reveals that board chairmen have become increasingly involved in both their control and service roles. While the demographics (i.e., age, tenure, gender and nationality) of chairmen have hardly changed over the last decade, chairmen are spending considerably more time on boards and committees, have reduced the number of board interlocks and have become more active on the forefront of the corporate governance discussion. The paper highlights several implications for scholars and practitioners.

‘Only a pawn in their game’ : crime, risk and politics in the case of Robert Fardon

In 2003 Robert Fardon was the first prisoner to be detained under the Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act 2003 (Qld), the first of the new generation preventive detention laws enacted in Australia and directed at keeping sex offenders in prison or under supervision beyond the expiry of their sentences where a court decides, on the basis of psychiatric assessments, that unconditional release would create an unacceptable risk to the community. A careful examination of Fardon’s case shows the extent to which the administration of the regime was from the outset governed by politics and political calculation rather than the logic of risk management and community protection. In 2003 Robert Fardon was the first person detained under the Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act 2003 (Qld) (hereafter DPSOA), a newly enacted Queensland law aimed at the preventive detention of sex offenders. It was the first of a new generation of such laws introduced in Australia, now also in force in NSW, Western Australia and Victoria. The laws have been widely criticized by lawyers, academics and others (Keyzer and McSherry 2009; Edgely 2007). In this article I want to focus on the details of how the Queensland law was administered in Fardon’s case, he being perhaps the most well-known prisoner detained under such laws and certainly the longest held. It will show, I hope, that seemingly abstract rule of law principles invoked by other critics are not simply abstract: they afford a crucial practical safeguard against the corruption of criminal justice in which the ends both of community protection and of justice give way to opportunistic exploitation of ‘the mythic resonance of crime and punishment for electoral purposes’ (Scheingold 1998: 888).

The influence of Lord Robert Baden-Powell on the development of the Boy Scout Movement with observations on its operation in Queensland 1907-1937

The purpose of the Boy Scout Movement was to create boys who were honest, obedient to constituted authority and loyal to the King and the British Empire. This thesis examines the influence that Scouting's founder, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, had on the development of Scouting in Queensland in the period 1907 to 1937, and concludes that that influence was profound. Baden-Powell conceived the Boy Scout Movement, and its non-formal educative method as an answer to some of the social, economic, and political problems at the beginning of the twentieth century – a paradigm recognised and acknowledged by educators of the day.