Investigation of the factors responsible for the superior performance of male students in standardised testing at one primary school

The project set out to investigate one primary school where, for four years or more, boys have outperformed girls in standardized Year 3 and 5 Basic Skills Tests in literacy and numeracy, which contradicts general findings on male and female performance in standardized literacy and numeracy testing. The school placed a heavy emphasis on literacy programs, which appear to be making a difference to the boys. Over time, there has been a slight improvement in boys’ literacy performance but the greatest area of growth is generally boys’ numeracy, rather than boys’ literacy.

Further aims of the study were to isolate school-based factors, which are potentially responsible for this phenomenon, from community-based factors and to explore the possibility that, rather than boys being advantaged, girls were actually being disadvantaged by practices at the school. The approach adopted by the research team employed intensive case-study methods and ethnographic approaches, including interviews, document analysis, and structured and unstructured observation of a range of school activities.

This paper describes how the school has transformed itself, the effects that this has had upon the teaching and learning environment and the results that have been achieved in the key areas of numeracy and literacy.

New world orders in contemporary children's literature : utopian transformations

"New World Orders shows how texts for children and young people have responded to the cultural, economic, and political movements of the last 15 years. With a focus on international children's text produced between 1988 and 2006, the authors discuss how utopian and dystopian tropes are pressed into service to project possible futures to child readers. The book considers what these texts have to say about globalisation, neocolonialism, environmental issues, pressures on families and communities, and the idea of the posthuman."--BOOK JACKET.

Poetry in motion : Ko Un and Korean democratisation

This essay focuses on the poet and intellectual Ko Un, a prominent nationalist and critic of successive authoritarian regimes in Korea. Ashis Nandy gleaned insights into colonial India by investigating the lives of individuals who were emblematic of British colonialism. For instance Nandy focused on Rudyard Kipling to explain how colonialism damaged both Indians and the English who were complicit to it. Similarly, I intend to use the life and literary output of Ko Un to glean insights into Korea’s fight for democracy in the context of the onset of modernisation. Through his political activism and writing Ko celebrated the lives of ordinary Koreans, including his one-time prison mate Kim Dae-jung and numerous political activists, workers, and farmers. He linked their struggle for democracy to a much longer quest to preserve what he considered to be the unique and invaluable aspects of the Korean national character.

Do female and male employees in Iran experience similar work-family interference, job and life satisfaction?

This study aims at examining gender differences in the experience of work–family interference and perceived job–life satisfaction in a group of Iranian employees. The participants in the study consist of 387 Iranian male and female employees from a variety of organizations. The results of t tests and multiple regression analysis using EQS 6.1 support the hypothesis that Iranian male and female employees experience similar interference in their work–family domains although they spend different numbers of hours in the workplace. The findings also show that whereas work-to-family interference has significant and negative effects on job–life satisfaction among male employees, for female employees, working hours and family-to-work interference had even more significant and negative effects on their job–ife satisfaction. Implications are discussed and recommendations made regarding future research and interventions in this area.

'Friend of my soul' : constructing spiritual friendship in the autobiography of Mary Fletcher

Mary Bosanquet Fletcher (1739-1815) was a leading early English Methodist, active throughout her adult life as a preacher, author, spiritual director and head of a large household. She was also part of a largely unexamined network of intense and intimate friendships between Methodist women across England. This article analyses the ways in which Fletcher represented friendship in her autobiography, a text that was widely published and read throughout the nineteenth century. Fletcher's autobiography shows how religious conviction could shape a distinctive construction of female friendship, at a time when such friendships had growing social and cultural significance.

Narrativization of actuality : convergence of form and genre in film and television

The thesis concerns the treatment of actuality in film and television, particularly the narrativization of actuality images, and the context of their placement within audio/visual texts. Several instances of the convergence of media form and genre are analyzed, and the conventions of classificatory systems and boundaries that pertain to film and television representations are reconsidered in light of changes in the conventions of genre. The distinction between, and convergence of fictional and non-fictional conventions of narrative are therefore central to the thesis, as are the related issues of viewer response, the nature of subjectivity in the viewer, the connectivity of text and culture, and the relations of actuality to the text. The thesis traces the narrativization of actuality through textual, formal and genre boundaries, adopting a ‘line of flight or deterritorialization’ that enables the thesis to ‘change in nature and connect with other multiplicities.’This line of flight passes through the conventional separation of genre groupings and texts, and, similarly, has been applied in the thesis as a rationale for the diminution of theoretical boundaries. A multiperpectival approach is applied to the permeability of, or transcendent relations of the analysis to the boundaries between genres, between texts and culture, and between actuality and virtual representation. In the thesis there is also a theoretical deterritorialization that consents to a pluralism of theory, which is an approach demonstrated by Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus. The model of multi-perspectivalism adopted in the thesis engages in establishing connections and similarities between theories, rather than emphasizing contradictory and exclusive practices. The Foucauldian notion of the rules of formation in discourse, Nichols’ theories of documentary representation of reality, Bordwell’s schematic interpretation, and several other positions are critiqued, as the line of flight embarked upon in the thesis intersects with, and passes through both textual and theoretical boundaries. The thesis consists of two parts: firstly, a location of theoretical perspective, in which the issues of theory pertaining to actuality and narrative are explicated, and the methodological approach of the thesis is defined. The second part commences with an analysis of the most familiar instances of actuality in film and television, with particular attention to documentary forms. It then engages in the analysis of films that represent actuality but which, in the process of narrativization, display a convergence of genre conventions. The films selected for analysis include Steven Speilberg's Schindler's List, (1993) Oliver Stone's JFK, (1991) and Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump, (1994) and Contact, (1996). Hence the thesis is concerned with the application of a pluralist theoretical approach, with, however, an emphasis on the Deleuzo-Guattarian notions of rhizome and assemblage. Within this theoretical frame, the connections between actuality and the audio/visual text are explicated, and the formation of text as ‘a rhizome with the world’, is analyzed across a range of examples.

Changing politics of male homosexuality in contemporary Singapore

Over the last few years, the Singapore government appears to have been softening its hard line position on homosexuality in Singapore. This thesis examines the various developments that have recently taken place in this area; assesses the role of the media in homosexual related stories and coverage, and conducts a comprehensive survey eliciting views of young people towards a wide range of established and emerging homosexual issues in Singapore.

Celluloid dreaming : cultural myths and landscape in Australian film 1970-1990

Examines the way in which cultural myths in selected Australian feature films of the 1970s and 1980s reflect changing attitudes towards nationalism, Australian identity, gender roles, mateship and how the Australian settler culture defines (or fails to define) its relationship with indigenous Australians.

Representation and judgement : 'privileged' Jews in Holocaust writing and film

This thesis analyses the ways in which moral judgements of so-called privileged Jews are constructed in Holocaust representations. ‘Privileged’ Jews include those prisoners in the camps and ghettos who held positions which gave them access to material and other benefits. Subject to extreme levels of coercion, these victims were compelled to act in ways that have often been judged as both self-serving and harmful to fellow inmates. Such controversial figures constitute an intrinsically important, frequently misunderstood and hastily judged facet of the Holocaust. Scholars have neglected the problem of judgement in relation to ‘privileged’ Jews; nonetheless, Holocaust texts frequently portray these liminal figures.

Of crucial importance to the thesis is Primo Levi’s paradigmatic essay entitled ‘The Grey Zone,’ which directly engages with the complex and sensitive issue of ‘privileged’ Jews. Levi argues that due to the extreme ethical dilemmas that ‘privileged’ Jews confronted, any judgement of these victims needs to be suspended. However, if, as Levi suggests, judgement is at times impossible, the thesis challenges Levi’s assumption by contending that representations of ‘privileged’ Jews inevitably take a moral position. In this way, the thesis conceptualises judgement as a ‘limit’ of representation. Indeed, it is shown that Levi himself cannot abstain from judging those for whom he argues judgement should be suspended.

The thesis takes Levi’s concept of the ‘grey zone’ as a point of departure in order to examine the problems of judgement and representation in relation to ‘privileged’ Jews. Analysis focuses on Raul Hilberg’s influential historical work and examples of documentary and fiction films. The thesis examines how Hilberg and several filmmakers employ conventions as a means of conveying judgement. It is argued that self-reflexive representations of ‘privileged’ Jews in film, particularly fictional dramatisation, have the potential to provide a nuanced representation of ‘privileged’ Jews, which engages with Levi’s ideas by questioning the possibility of judgement.

Individual differences in affective responses to violence and sexual violence

The thesis aimed to identify and compare individual differences in anger related affective responses upon exposure to neutral, violent and sexually violent film. The findings revealed that both graphic and non-graphic sexually violent film content may have a stronger impact on viewers' anger levels than exposure to standard violent film. The portfolio examined in four case studies the utility of the Violence Risk Scale when seeking to identify factors associated with risk of violent recidivism and subsequent treatment targets for intellectually disabled offenders . Treatment indications must consider the impaired cognitive and adaptive abilities and the difficulties inherent in modifying the behavioural characteristics of intellectually disabled offenders.

Bcp1, a gene required for male fertility in Arabidopsis

Male fertility in flowering plants is dependent on production of viable pollen grains within the anther. Genes expressed exclusively in the anther are likely to include those that control male fertility. On the basis of their tissue specificity, such genes have been isolated, yet in none of them has this function been demonstrated. Here we report that one such gene, Bcp1, is active in both diploid tapetum and haploid microspores and is required for pollen fertility. Perturbation of this gene in either tapetum or microspores prevents production of fertile pollen in transgenic Arabidopsis plants. When tapetum expression of this gene is perturbed, mature anthers contain dead shriveled pollen. On the other hand, when microspore expression is perturbed, anthers show 1:1 segregation of viable/aborted pollen. These findings identify a class of sporophytic/gametophytic genes controlling male fertility and, hence, reproduction in flowering plants.

Genetic control of male fertility in Arabidopsis thaliana : structural analysis of postmeiotic developmental mutants

Seven new male-sterile mutants (ms7–ms13) of Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. (ecotype columbia) are described that show a postmeiotic defect of microspore development. In ms9 mutants, microspores recently released from the tetrad appear irregular in shape and are often without exines. The earliest evidence of abnormality in ms12 mutants is degeneration of microspores that lack normal exine sculpturing, suggesting that the MS12 product is important in the formation of pollen exine. Teratomes (abnormally enlarged microsporocytes) are also occasionally present and each has a poorly developed exine. In ms7 mutant plants, the tapetal cytoplasm disintegrates at the late vacuolate microspore stage, apparently causing the degeneration of microspores and pollen grains. With ms8 mutants, the exine of the microspores appears similar to that of the wild type. However, intine development appears impaired and pollen grains rupture prior to maturity. In ms11 mutants, the first detectable abnormality appears at the mid to late vacuolate stage. The absence of fluorescence in the microspores and tapetal cells after staining with 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) and the occasional presence of teratomes indicate degradation of DNA. Viable pollen from ms10 mutant plants is dehisced from anthers but appears to have surface abnormalities affecting interaction with the stigma. Pollen only germinates in high-humidity conditions or during in-vitro germination experiments. Mutant plants also have bright-green stems, suggesting that ms10 belongs to the eceriferum (cer) class of mutants. However, ms10 and cer6 are non-allelic. The ms13 mutant has a similar phenotype to ms10, suggesting is also an eceriferum mutation. Each of these seven mutants had a greater number of flowers than congenic male-fertile plants. The non-allelic nature of these mutants and their different developmental end-points indicate that seven different genes important for the later stages of pollen development have been identified.