'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' by Oscar Wilde

A new edition of Wilde's poem, with notes and afterword.

Student teachers’ perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading: the implications for teacher education

This article reports on research which identified perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading held by trainee teachers and the impact on my provision as a teacher educator. It found that students’ past and present experiences of learning to read and being a reader influenced their perceptions of what reading is and of what it means to teach reading. As a teacher educator, I am not able to give students long experience of seeing children becoming readers, but I am able to give them richer experiences of reading in personally and culturally relevant contexts. This has implications for the nature of subject knowledge required by a student teacher of reading and the curriculum and practice of teacher education.

Proceedings of the inaugural construction management and economics ‘Past, Present and Future’ conference CME25, 16-18 July 2007, University of Reading, UK

This conference was an unusual and interesting event. Celebrating 25 years of Construction Management and Economics provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the research that has been reported over the years, to consider where we are now, and to think about the future of academic research in this area. Hence the sub-title of this conference: “past, present and future”. Looking through these papers, some things are clear. First, the range of topics considered interesting has expanded hugely since the journal was first published. Second, the research methods are also more diverse. Third, the involvement of wider groups of stakeholder is evident. There is a danger that this might lead to dilution of the field. But my instinct has always been to argue against the notion that Construction Management and Economics represents a discipline, as such. Granted, there are plenty of university departments around the world that would justify the idea of a discipline. But the vast majority of academic departments who contribute to the life of this journal carry different names to this. Indeed, the range and breadth of methodological approaches to the research reported in Construction Management and Economics indicates that there are several different academic disciplines being brought to bear on the construction sector. Some papers are based on economics, some on psychology and others on operational research, sociology, law, statistics, information technology, and so on. This is why I maintain that construction management is not an academic discipline, but a field of study to which a range of academic disciplines are applied. This may be why it is so interesting to be involved in this journal. The problems to which the papers are applied develop and grow. But the broad topics of the earliest papers in the journal are still relevant today. What has changed a lot is our interpretation of the problems that confront the construction sector all over the world, and the methodological approaches to resolving them. There is a constant difficulty in dealing with topics as inherently practical as these. While the demands of the academic world are driven by the need for the rigorous application of sound methods, the demands of the practical world are quite different. It can be difficult to meet the needs of both sets of stakeholders at the same time. However, increasing numbers of postgraduate courses in our area result in larger numbers of practitioners with a deeper appreciation of what research is all about, and how to interpret and apply the lessons from research. It also seems that there are contributions coming not just from construction-related university departments, but also from departments with identifiable methodological traditions of their own. I like to think that our authors can publish in journals beyond the construction-related areas, to disseminate their theoretical insights into other disciplines, and to contribute to the strength of this journal by citing our articles in more mono-disciplinary journals. This would contribute to the future of the journal in a very strong and developmental way. The greatest danger we face is in excessive self-citation, i.e. referring only to sources within the CM&E literature or, worse, referring only to other articles in the same journal. The only way to ensure a strong and influential position for journals and university departments like ours is to be sure that our work is informing other academic disciplines. This is what I would see as the future, our logical next step. If, as a community of researchers, we are not producing papers that challenge and inform the fundamentals of research methods and analytical processes, then no matter how practically relevant our output is to the industry, it will remain derivative and secondary, based on the methodological insights of others. The balancing act between methodological rigour and practical relevance is a difficult one, but not, of course, a balance that has to be struck in every single paper.

Love of reading: the evaluation of KidsREAD programme in Singapore

In Singapore about 20% of families are considered to be socio-economically disadvantaged. Children from these families have been identified as having reading difficulties when they enter primary school. Recognizing that children from these families have limited access to reading materials, the National Library Board, in partnership with local community clubs and family service centres, has established the KidsREAD literacy programme where volunteers, mostly university and college students, help children between 4 and 8 years of age overcome some of their reading problems. The KidsREAD clubs aim to “promote the love of reading and cultivate good reading habits among all young Singaporeans, in particular children from low-income families” (National Library Board, 2005). This paper presents an evaluation of the KidsREAD clubs with regard to children’s attitudes towards reading. It explores the differences in children’s reading attitudes at the beginning of the programme and half way through the programme. The study was carried out in three representative clubs. This paper evaluates the attitudes of 65 children towards the clubs and the activities conducted at the clubs. It outlines the children’s beliefs about reading and the extent to which they value reading. It further explores how much KidsREAD clubs have influenced their attitudes towards reading in general and their enjoyment of reading in particular.

The Operation of the Crichel Down Rules (Final Report to the DETR by The University of Reading and Gerald Eve)

Report for the DETR on the operation of the Crichel Down Rules (July 2000). The Crichel Down Rules are non-statutory rules relating to the offer back to the previous owners of surplus government land that was acquired from the previous owners by, or under the threat of, compulsory purchase.

The practice of reading aloud in the high school: a preliminary investigation

The paper considers students’ views of why reading aloud takes place and what are its effects.The results of two small focus-group discussions are presented, in which high school students were given the opportunity to express their responses to the practice of reading aloud in the classroom. Their responses are considered in the context of theoretical perspectives: pedagogical, reader-response and social/vocational. Analysis of responses reveals acknowledgement that reading aloud is not only a useful skill but also that it is a site of anxiety and even conflict.

Conformational behavior of different possible ways of oligoglycine formation in a solvent-free environment

The possible ways for glycine oligopeptide formation in gas phase, both in the extended P-strand like conformation and folded 2(7)-ribbon like conformations are analyzed using quantum chemical calculations. We focus on the sequential formation of peptide bond through upgradation of the immediate lower order molecule and observe the consequences in other related processes like oligoglycine formation through simultaneous peptide linkage of n glycine monomers and interchange of molecular conformation through peptide linkage. A comparison is made between the structures and binding energies obtained for both conformers. All binding energies are increased by the zero-point energy contribution. The role of electron correlation effects is briefly analyzed. The folded 2(7)-ribbon-like conformations in vacuo are found to be more stable in comparison to the extended structure. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Ways of knowing in ways of moving : A study of the meaning of capability to move

The overall aim of this thesis has been to investigate the meaning of the capability to move in order to identify and describe this capability from the perspective of the one who moves in relation to specific movements. It has been my ambition to develop ways to explicate, and thereby open up for discussion, what might form an educational goal in the context of movements and movement activities in the school subject of physical education and health (PEH). In this study I have used a practical epistemological perspective on capability to move, a perspective that challenges the traditional distinction between mental and physical skills as well as between theoretical and practical knowledge. Movement actions, or ways of moving, are seen as expressions of knowing. In order to explore an understanding of the knowing involved in specific ways of moving, observations of  actors’ ways of moving and their own experiences of moving were brought together. Informants from three different arenas took part: from PEH in upper secondary school, from athletics and from free-skiing. The results of the analyses suggest it is possible to describe practitioners’ developed knowing as a number of specific ways of knowing that are in turn related to specific ways of moving. Examples of such specific ways of moving may be discerning and modifying one’s own rotational velocity and navigating one’s (bodily) awareness. Additionally, exploring learners’ pre-knowing of a movement ‘as something’ may be fruitful when planning the teaching and learning of capability to move. I have suggested that these specific ways of knowing might be regarded as educational goals in PEH. In conducting this study, I have also had the ambition to contribute to the ongoing discussion of what ‘ability’ in the PEH context might mean. In considering specific ways of knowing in moving, the implicit and taken-for-granted meaning of ‘standards of excellence’ and ‘sports ability’can be discussed, and challenged.

Corporate social responsibility: some key theoretical issues and concepts for new ways of doing business

This paper brings together some of the main scholarly sources and thinkers of the last fifty years or so, who have been influential in the corporate social responsibility discussions which have become important, once again, as we begin the 21st century. The author creates a narrative ofkey social, economic and political concepts and themes, which are rationalised (in ways that others might not) from what is often a very disparate, diverse and not always connected discussion on corporate social responsibility. This is not an objective history, charting the developments chronologically, but is the bringing together ofsome serious thinking in the field of corporate social responsibility in a way which has considerable resonance JOT both the development of public policy and business practice in corporate citizenship at the beginning ofthe 21st century.

Future directions in Australian social policy : new ways of preventing risk

Future directions in Australian social policy: new ways of preventing risk, no. 49: growth.
The papers presented in this issue of Growth aim to explore the scope for new directions in social policy in the light of critical shifts in working life, household relations and the economy.