The functional liminality of the not-dead-yet students, or, how public schooling became compulsory: A glancing history

This paper redefines the focus for narrating histories of education in the USA through a ‘glancing history’. It highlights the important role played by ‘not-dead-yet students’ who occupied a liminal place on the scale of life in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century. Traditional histories of education have been more singularly focused on the advent and dynamics of public schooling, ignoring the functionality of such child subjects to public schooling’s existence. This paper argues that public schools as historical objects cannot be understood outside of a broader trinary system of prior institutions that were established for ‘delinquent’ and ‘special’ children. These prior institutions facilitated the formation of ‘the public’ in public schooling less in opposition to ‘the private’ and more in consonance with ‘the human’. The existence of prior institutions enabled the enforcement of compulsory attendance legislation. Compulsory attendance legislation, in place across all existing states by 1918, was concerned more with the conditions for exclusion and exemption than with compelling attendance. Thus, at the most immediate level, this paper historicizes some of the discursive and hence institutional events that linked an array of tutelary complexes by the early 1900s, and which enabled such legislation. This part of the argument extends the notion of institution to consider broader places of confinement and systematicity. It examines the prior practice of reservation and slavery systems, and the efficacy they lent to further institutionalized segregation in the USA. At a second level, the narrative reflects on how such a narration has become possible. It considers how histories of education can currently be rethought and rewritten around the notion of dis/ability, historicizing the formation of dis/ability as identity categories made noticeable in part (and circularly) through the crystallization of a segregated but linked common schooling system. The paper thus provides a counter-memory against dominant economic foundationalist and psychomedical accounts of schooling’s past. It documents both ‘external’ conditions of possibility for public schooling’s emergence and ‘internal’ effects that emerged through the experiences of confinement

Animal magnetism and curriculum history

This article elaborates the impact that crises of authority provoked by animal magnetism, mesmerism, and hypnosis in the 19th century had for field formation in American education. Four layers of analysis elucidate how curriculum history’s repetitive focus on public school policy and classroom practice became possible. First, the article surveys external conditions of possibility for the enactment of compulsory public schooling. Second, “internal” conditions of possibility for the formation of educational objects (e.g., types of children) are documented via the processes of différance that were generated from within the experiences of confinement. Third, the article maps how these were interpenetrated by animal magnetic debates that were lustered and planished in education’s emerging field, including impact upon behavior management practices, the contouring of expertise and authority, the role of Will in intelligence testing and child development theories, and the redefinition of public and private. Last, the article examines implications for curriculum history, whether policy- or practice-oriented, especially around the question of influence, the theorization of child mind, and philosophies of Being.

Torsions within the same anxiety? Entification, apophasis, history

In Anglophone educational research in the United States, the name Foucault has been more pointedly celebrated in some subfields such as curriculum studies relative to its more noticeable censorship in subfields such as history of education. This paper illustrates how such differential epistemological politics might be accounted for through reapproaching the challenges to historiography that Histoire de la Folie (Madness and Civilization) raised. Through the formalist lens of performative apophasis, and with attention to the dependencies of discourse that characterize narrative prosthesis, this paper re-engages the least referenced of Foucault's major histories in the educational field to bring into noticeability other ‘conditions of possibility’—ones that explicate how an apophatic turn might account for divergent reactions to less familiar philosophies of history and/or to ‘alternative’ approaches to documents through which history is now being narrated and critiqued in education and beyond.

Is that all there is? The limitations of global/local, PISA, and the dilemma of transnational curriculum research

Sob o rótulo da globalização, as ciências humanas e sociais têm sido forçadas a rever seu pensamento para encontrar novas maneiras de falar sobre as situações de mudança ao nosso redor e para reorientar-se conceitualmente em um aparente ‘mundo sem fronteiras’. Este artigo analisa algumas dessas formas, sugerindo que a pesquisa em currículo transnacional como tarefa, como talvez inclusiva de algo para além dos estudos curriculares como subárea, tem preocupações, pontos de entrada e horizontes de promulgação amplos, inconstantes, imprevisíveis, que levantam uma série de questões e considerações éticas que exigem maior compromisso nos espaços em que as fronteiras percebidas forem transgredidas no ato da investigação. Usando os relatórios sobre os resultados do PISA como disparador intelectual, este artigo discute quatro questões que surgem no ato investigativo em currículo transnacional: a comparação como princípio de produção de conhecimento; as estratégias de agrupamento onto-teo-filosóficas e a delimitação da ética; o retorno do sujeito centrado, humanista, racional e as críticas a esse sujeito inspirado no Iluminismo; as questões relativas à causalidade, ou seja, como os processos de atribuição são forjados e que tipos de ‘legitimação via procedimento’ operam na crítica social. Em vez de sugerir uma nova ordem, este artigo busca um questionamento mais profundo dos repetitivos pressupostos ocidentalistas.

The purposes of history? Curriculum studies, invisible objects and twenty-first century societies

A new intellectual epoch has generated new enterprises to suit changed beliefs and circumstances. A widespread sentiment in both formal historiography and curriculum studies reduces the “new” to the question of how knowledge is recognized as such, how it is gained, and how it is represented in narrative form. Whether the nature of history and conceptions of knowledge are, or ought to be, central considerations in curriculum studies and reducible to purposes or elevated as present orientated requires rethinking. This paper operates as an incitement to discourse that disrupts the protection and isolation of primary categories in the field whose troubling is overdue. In particular, the paper moves through several layers that highlight the lack of settlement regarding the endowment of objects for study with the status of the scientific. It traces how some “invisible” things have been included within the purview of curriculum history as objects of study and not others. The focus is the making of things deemed invisible into scientific objects (or not) and the specific site of analysis is the work of William James (1842-1910). James studied intensely both child mind and the ghost, the former of which becomes scientized and legitimated for further study, the latter abjected. This contrast opens key points for reconsideration regarding conditions of proof, validation criteria, and subject matters and points to opportunities to challenge some well-rehearsed foreclosures within progressive politics and education.

Materials and technologies for energy conversion, saving and storage: A global network enabling capacity-building for sustainable energy in developing countries

Access to energy is a fundamental component of poverty abatement. People who live in homes without electricity are often dependent on dirty, time-consuming and disproportionately expensive solid fuel sources for heating and cooking. [1] In developing countries, the Human Development Index (HDI), which comprises measures of standard of living, longevity and educational attainment, increases rapidly with per capita electricity use. [2] For these reasons the United Nations has been making a concerted effort to promote global access to energy, first by naming 2012 the Year of Sustainable Energy for All, [3] and now by declaring 2014-2024 the Decade of Sustainable Energy for All. [4]

Genome sequencing of cells that live inside glass cages reveals their past history

One-quarter of the total primary production on earth is contributed by diatoms1. These are photosynthetic, unicellular algae with ornamented silica shells found in all aquatic and moist environments. They form the base of energy-efficient food webs that support all aquatic life forms. More than 250 genera of living diatoms, with as many as 100,000 species are known2. Fossil diatoms are known as early as the Cretaceous, 144–65 m.y. ago3. In India, deposits of diatoms occur in Rajasthan and are known as ‘multani mitti’. Multani mitti or Indian Fuller’s earth or diatomaceous earth as it is called in the West, is applied as a paste on the surface of the skin for 15–20 min and then washed-off. This leaves the skin feeling smooth, soft, moist and rejuvenated. Diatomaceous earth is now being used in the formulation of soaps, cleansing products, face powders and skincare preparations. Diatomaceous earth is a mineral material consisting mainly of siliceous fragments of various species of fossilized remains of diatoms.

Public disclosure of biological sequences in global patent practice

Biological sequences are an important part of global patenting, with unique challenges for their effective and equitable use in practice and in policy. Because their function can only be determined with computer-aided technology, the form in which sequences are disclosed matters greatly. Similarly, the scope of patent rights sought and granted requires computer readable data and tools for comparison. Critically, the primary data provided to the national patent offices and thence to the public, must be comprehensive, standardized, timely and meaningful. It is not yet. The proposed global Patent Sequence (PatSeq) Data platform can enable national and regional jurisdictions meet the desired standards.

A Global Constraint On Relative Rotation To Avoid Lumped Compliant Mechanisms In Topology Optimization

Some of the well known formulations for topology optimization of compliant mechanisms could lead to lumped compliant mechanisms. In lumped compliance, most of the elastic deformation in a mechanism occurs at few points, while rest of the mechanism remains more or less rigid. Such points are referred to as point-flexures. It has been noted in literature that high relative rotation is associated with point-flexures. In literature we also find a formulation of local constraint on relative rotations to avoid lumped compliance. However it is well known that a global constraint is easier to handle than a local constraint, by a numerical optimization algorithm. The current work presents a way of putting global constraint on relative rotations. This constraint is also simpler to implement since it uses linearized rotation at the center of finite-elements, to compute relative rotations. I show the results obtained by using this constraint oil the following benchmark problems - displacement inverter and gripper.

Corporate governance and law reform in Japan: From the lost decade to the end of history?

Japan is in the midst of massive law reform. Mired in ongoing recession since the early 1990s, Japan has been implementing a new regulatory blueprint to kickstart a sluggish economy through structural change. A key element to this reform process is a rethink of corporate governance and its stakeholder relations. With a patchwork of legislative initiatives in areas as diverse as corporate law, finance, labour relations, consumer protection, public administration and civil justice, this new model is beginning to take shape. But to what extent does this model represent a break from the past? Some commentators are breathlessly predicting the "Americanisation" of Japanese law. They see the triumph of Western-style capitalism - the "End of History", to borrow the words of Francis Fukuyama - with its emphasis on market-based, arms-length transactions. Others are more cautious, advancing the view that there new reforms are merely "creative twists" on what is a uniquely (although slowly evolving) strand of Japanese capitalism. This paper takes issue with both interpretations. It argues that the new reforms merely follow Japan's long tradition of 'adopting and adapting' foreign models to suit domestic purposes. They are neither the wholesale importation of "Anglo-Saxon" regulatory principles nor a thin veneer over a 'uniquely unique' form of Confucian cultural capitalism. Rather, they represent a specific and largely political solution (conservative reformism) to a current economic problem (recession). The larger themes of this paper are 'change' and 'continuity'. 'Change' suggests evolution to something identifiable; 'continuity' suggests adhering to an existing state of affairs. Although notionally opposites, 'change' and 'continuity' have something in common - they both suggest some form of predictability and coherence in regulatory reform. Our paper, by contrast, submits that Japanese corporate governance reform or, indeed, law reform more generally in Japan, is context-specific, multi-layered (with different dimensions not necessarily pulling all in the same direction for example, in relations with key outside suppliers), and therefore more random or 'chaotic'.

Understanding the use of a bug tracking system in a global software development setup

Bug fixing is a highly cooperative work activity where developers, testers, product managers and other stake-holders collaborate using a bug tracking system. In the context of Global Software Development (GSD), where software development is distributed across different geographical locations, we focus on understanding the role of bug trackers in supporting software bug fixing activities. We carried out a small-scale ethnographic fieldwork in a software product team distributed between Finland and India at a multinational engineering company. Using semi-structured interviews and in-situ observations of 16 bug cases, we show that the bug tracker 1) supported information needs of different stake holder, 2) established common-ground, and 3) reinforced issues related to ownership, performance and power. Consequently, we provide implications for design around these findings.

Australia

Crisis management in the banking sector is a topical issue in Australia. This is not because financial institutions are facing a financial crisis. Indeed, in 2012, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) noted that ‘Australia has a history of few bank failures, even fewer financial crises, and its banking sector emerged from the global financial crisis relatively well.’ Rather, crisis management of banks is topical because there has been the first full review of Australia’s banking and financial system in nearly 20 years, which has examined and raised issues about the resilience and capacity of the Australian regime in this post GFC world. At the time of writing, the Report’s recommendations, including for Australian banks to meet capital standards in line with emerging international practice, are the subject of industry debate in advance of the Australian government’s decision.