Exploring the construction of social class in educational discourse: the rational order of the nation state versus global uncertainties

This article aims to create intellectual space in which issues of social inequality and education can be analyzed and discussed in relation to the multifaceted and multi-levelled complexities of the modern world. It is divided into three sections. Section One locates the concept of social class in the context of the modern nation state during the period after the Second World War. Focusing particularly on the impact of 'Fordism' on social organization and cultural relations, it revisits the articulation of social justice issues in the United Kingdom, and the structures put into place at the time to alleviate educational and social inequalities. Section Two problematizes the traditional concept of social class in relation to economic, technological and sociocultural changes that have taken place around the world since the mid-1980s. In particular, it charts some of the changes to the international labour market and global patterns of consumption, and their collective impact on the re-constitution of class boundaries in 'developed countries'. This is juxtaposed with some of the major social effects of neo-classical economic policies in recent years on the sociocultural base in developing countries. It discusses some of the ways these inequalities are reflected in education. Section Three explores tensions between the educational ideals of the 'knowledge economy' and the discursive range of social inequalities that are emerging within and beyond the nation state. Drawing on key motifs identified throughout, the article concludes with a reassessment of the concept of social class within the global cultural economy. This is discussed in relation to some of the major equity and human rights issues in education today.

Disparity with respect to a local reference plane as a dominant cue for stereoscopic depth relief

Earlier studies showed that the disparity with respect to other visible points could not explain stereoacuity performance, nor could various spatial derivatives of disparity [Glennerster, A., McKee, S. P., & Birch, M. D. (2002). Evidence of surface-based processing of binocular disparity. Current Biology, 12:825-828; Petrov, Y., & Glennerster, A. (2004). The role of the local reference in stereoscopic detection of depth relief. Vision Research, 44:367-376.] Two possible cues remain: (i) local changes in disparity gradient or (ii) disparity with respect to an interpolated line drawn through the reference points. Here, we aimed to distinguish between these two cues. Subjects judged.. in a two AFC paradigm, whether a target dot was in front of a plane defined by three reference dots or, in other experiments, in front of a line defined by two reference dots. We tested different slants of the reference line or plane and different locations of the target relative to the reference points. For slanted reference lines or plane, stereoacuity changed little as the target position was varied. For judgments relative to a frontoparallel reference line, stereoacuity did vary with target position, but less than would be predicted by disparity gradient change. This provides evidence that disparity with respect to the reference plane is an important cue. We discuss the potential advantages of this measure in generating a representation of surface relief that is invariant to viewpoint transformations. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Enhancing dominant modes in nonstationary time series by means of the symbolic resonance analysis

We present the symbolic resonance analysis (SRA) as a viable method for addressing the problem of enhancing a weakly dominant mode in a mixture of impulse responses obtained from a nonlinear dynamical system. We demonstrate this using results from a numerical simulation with Duffing oscillators in different domains of their parameter space, and by analyzing event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from a language processing experiment in German as a representative application. In this paradigm, the averaged ERPs exhibit an N400 followed by a sentence final negativity. Contemporary sentence processing models predict a late positivity (P600) as well. We show that the SRA is able to unveil the P600 evoked by the critical stimuli as a weakly dominant mode from the covering sentence final negativity. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.

Analysis of the dominant enterprise information assurance mechanisms

The purpose of this study is to analyse current data continuity mechanisms employed by the target group of businesses and to identify any inadequacies in the mechanisms as a whole. The questionnaire responses indicate that 47% of respondents do perceive backup methodologies as important, with a total of 70% of respondents having some backup methodology already in place. Businesses in Moulton Park perceive the loss of data to have a significant effect upon their business’ ability to function. Only 14% of respondents indicated that loss of data on computer systems would not affect their business at all, with 54% of respondents indicating that there would be either a “major effect” (or greater) on their ability to operate. Respondents that have experienced data loss were more likely to have backup methodologies in place (53%) than respondents that had not experienced data loss (18%). Although the number of respondents clearly affected the quality and conclusiveness of the results returned, the level of backup methodologies in place appears to be proportional to the company size. Further investigation is recommended into the subject in order to validate the information gleaned from the small number of respondents.

Understanding of auditory discourse in older adults: the effects of syntax and working memory

Background: As people age, language-processing ability changes. While several factors modify discourse comprehension ability in older adults, syntactic complexity of auditory discourse has received scant attention. This is despite the widely researched domain of syntactic processing of single sentences in older adults. Aims: The aims of this study were to investigate the ability of healthy older adults to understand stories that differed in syntactic complexity, and its relation to working memory. Methods & Procedures: A total of 51 healthy adults (divided into three age groups) took part. They listened to brief stories (syntactically simple and syntactically complex) and had to respond to false/true comprehension probes following each story. Working memory capacity (digit span, forward and backward) was also measured. Outcomes & Results: Differences were found in the ability of healthy older adults to understand simple and complex discourse. The complex discourse in particular was more sensitive in discerning age-related language patterns. Only the complex discourse task correlated moderately with age. There was no correlation between age and simple discourse. As far as working memory is concerned, moderate correlations were found between working memory and complex discourse. Education did not correlate with discourse, neither simple, nor complex. Conclusions: Older adults may be less efficient in forming syntactically complex representations and this may be influenced by limitations in working memory.

The implications of service-dominant logic and integrated solutions on the sales function

This study explores the implications of an organization moving toward service-dominant logic (S-D logic) on the sales function. Driven by its customers’ needs, a service orientation by its nature requires personal interaction and sales personnel are in an ideal position to develop offerings with the customer. However, the development of S-D logic may require sales staff to develop additional skills. Employing a single case study, the study identified that sales personnel are quick to appreciate the advantages of S-D logic for customer satisfaction and six specific skills were highlighted and explored. Further, three propositions were identified: in an organization adopting S-D logic, the sales process needs to elicit needs at both embedded-value and value-in-use levels. In addition, the sales process needs to coproduce not just goods and service attributes but also attributes of the customer’s usage processes. Further, the sales process needs to coproduce not just goods and service attributes but also attributes of the customer’s usage processes.

Subjectively construed identities and discourse: towards a research agenda for construction management

Identity issues are under-explored in construction management. We provide a brief introduction to the organization studies literature on subjectively construed identities, focusing on discourse, agency, relations of power and identity work. The construction management literature is investigated in order to examine identity concerns as they relate to construction managers centred on (1) professionalism; (2) ethics; (3) relational aspects of self-identity; (4) competence, knowledge and tools; and (5) national culture. Identity, we argue, is a key performance issue, and needs to be accounted for in explanations of the success and failure of projects. Our overriding concern is to raise identity issues in order to demonstrate their importance to researchers in construction management and to spark debate. The purpose of this work is not to provide answers or to propose prescriptive models, but to explore ideas, raise awareness and to generate questions for further programmatic research. To this end, we promote empirical work and theorizing by outlining elements of a research agenda which argues that 'identity' is a potentially generative theme for scholars in construction management.