Suchergebnisse

Another version published in the Educational Record, Fall, 1979.

Examines the impact on live attendance resulting from the 1984 US Supreme Court ruling granting individual schools the property rights to college football telecasts. While own-team telecasts increased attendance for major football programs, the net impact of the general increase in telecasts is to reduce attendance. (Abstract amended)

Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit der Art und Weise, wie eine Organisation von ihren "Kund(inn)en" wahrgenommen wird, genauer, wie eine bestimmte Organisation – ein "Teachers' Training College" – von ihren "Kund(inn)en, d.h. den dort Studierenden, gesehen wird. In die empirische Untersuchung wurden Geschichten von Studierenden einbezogen, in denen diese ihr Alltagsleben in Verbindung mit ihren Studien am College beschrieben. Die Geschichten wurden anhand von vier Verfahren untersucht: die strukturalistische Methode von LEVI-STRAUSS, PROP's formalistische Methode, LABOV's analytische Methode und die lexikalische Analysemethode. Ein wichtiger Befund ist, dass das College sich – hauptsächlich bezogen auf Regeln, Vorschriften und Beziehungen – als relativ ambigues System darstellt, was zu widersprüchlichen Erwartungen und zu Konflikten führt. Diese Ambiguität ist möglicherweise eine Folge des Übergangs von der Kultur einer "kleinen Organisation" zu der einer "großen Organisation", resultierend aus einem erheblichen Zuwachs an Aktivitäten, die in den letzten Jahren in diesem College stattfanden und mit einer zunehmenden Akademisierung einhergingen.

Administrators who opt to provide education programs in prison are faced with the need to structure programs that span primary, secondary, and postsecondary levels. There seems to be consensus in the United States that prison education programs can properly include literacy, vocational education, and life-skill programs. However, this agreement doesn't extend to college programs. Prison college programs have a long history in the United States but their acceptability has ebbed and flowed over the years. Support of college programs in prison peaked in the 1960s and 70s, but became less popular in the 1980s and 90s. These programs depend, to a large extent, on federal tuition assistance. Amendments to federal legislation are offered almost annually, to exclude all prisoners from any college tuition assistance entitlement. These efforts have been unsuccessful, to date, but they reflect a section of public opinion which remains critical of tax supported grants to pay for prison college programs. Do inmate education programs reduce recidivism? Although some argue that it is not reasonable to correlate postrelease outcomes with any one prison program or situation, legislators and the public focus on recidivism and its correlation to specific programs. A significant body of research has developed in recent years that demonstrates a positive correlation between higher education and postrelease success. Despite this, currently, at least in the United States, college programs continue to be the most vulnerable of all prison education programs. If research data continue to show that these programs are cost effective and impact recidivism in positive ways, the situation may stabilize.

Noting that access to higher education has expanded dramatically in the past several decades, Sara Goldrick-Rab and Kia Sorensen focus on how unmarried parents fare once they enter college. Contrary to the expectation that access to college consistently promotes family stability and economic security, the authors argue that deficiencies in current policy lead college attendance to have adverse consequences for some families headed by unmarried parents. Although rates of college attendance have increased substantially among unmarried parents, their college completion rates are low. One explanation is inadequate academic preparation. Another is financial constraints, which can force unmarried students to interrupt their studies or increase their work hours, both of which compromise the quality of their educational experiences and the outcomes for their children. The authors point out that although many public programs offer support to unmarried parents attending college, the support is neither well coordinated nor easily accessed. Over the past three decades, loans have increasingly replaced grants as the most common form of federal and state financial aid. Confusion about what is available leads many low-income students to the two most "straightforward" sources of income—loans and work, both of which involve significant costs and can operate at cross-purposes with public forms of support. Too much work can lead to reductions in public benefits, and earnings do not always replace the lost income. A growing body of experimental evidence shows that providing social, financial, and academic supports to vulnerable community college students can improve achievement and attainment. Contextualized learning programs, for example, have enabled participants not only to move on from basic skills to credit-bearing coursework, but also to complete credits, earn certificates, and make gains on basic skills tests. Another successful initiative provided low-performing students with special counseling services and a small stipend of $150 per semester when they used those services. And researchers are conducting experimental performance-based financial aid programs at community colleges to test their effectiveness. Goldrick-Rab and Sorensen conclude that more effective support could enable unmarried students to complete college degree and certificate programs.

There are signs of these times at non-profits, too: Clarkson University has established scholarships for freshmen entrepreneurs--free tuition, but Clarkson gets a percentage of any profits the start-up companies may later achieve. Washington State has created an Opportunity Scholarship Program, funded partly by the State and partly by corporate donors; Boeing and Microsoft kick-started it with $25million each. Since Reagan's time, federal support for funding of K-12 schools has been ritually linked to the premise that it is good for (a) individual economic success, (b) the competitiveness of U.S. corporations, and (c) an ever-rising GDP. [...] When I did the college tour with my granddaughter two years ago, only one of the expensive and hard-to-get-into schools on her itinerary included in its admissions office pitch any reason for going to X other than, basically, "you can get anything you want, here"--an upscale version of education as a commodity, omitting scary references to the tough world in which good jobs are hard to find, maybe impossible even with a degree from X. One college said it was for peace and justice.