Peter Ramsay

Capacities and Behaviour of Quality Classroom Teachers

ABSTRACT This study focussed on the capacities and behaviours of quality teachers. Four key capacities were identified as being characteristic amongst the five quality teachers who were observed in action which were then related to their behaviour. Prominent amongst the findings was the conclusion that these teachers had high cognitive ability which allowed them to develop critical powers of observation, reflection and analysis; they had strong philosophies of education; they had developed a bicultural approach, and possessed a strong sense of humour and a well developed social conscience. Above all else they cared about the learning outcomes of their children. Their approach was child‐centred and they encouraged students to set goals, to review progress, to challenge, and to solve problems. The article concludes with a discussion of its relationship to, and differences with, the parent CERI/OECD study of which it was part.

Book Reviews : Bowles and Gintis Revisited: Correspondence and Contradiction in Educational Theory: Cole, M. (ed.) Falmer, East Sussex, 1988

de Castell, S., A. Luke and K. Egan (eds.) (1986), Literacy, Society and Schooling: A Reader, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Fairclought, N. (1985), ’Critical and Descriptive Goals in Discourse Analysis’, Journal of Pragmatics, 9, 739-763. Gilbert, P. (1988), From Voice to Text, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hirsch, E.D. (1987), Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, Boston, Houghton Mifflin. Liberman, K. (1985), Understanding Interaction in Central Australia: An Ethno-

Book Reviews : Access To Privilege: Patterns of Participation in Australian Post-Secondary Education, by D. S. Anderson and a. E. Vervoorn: Canberra, A.N.U. Press, 1983. 197 pp.

One of the tasks of the social sciences is to monitor, and comment on, societal trends. While essentially descriptive, such work does provide the basis for rather more critical research which strives for a level of understanding. Anderson and Vervoorn’s book Access to Privilege falls into the former area. It is a review of approximately 50 years of Australian research which has focused on the characteristics of people who enter into and graduate from tertiary education. The book brings together in separate and detailed chapters valuable statistics on the numbers of entrants, their age, their sex, the schools they have come from, their ethnic origin, their social class, and the type and level of study they have undertaken. For anyone requiring an overview of the Australian tertiary system of education the book is therefore essential reading. After an opening chapter which one assumes is designed to provide some theoretical framework (I return to this point later) the authors look at the numbers of entrants to the tertiary system. They show that there has been an

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Hugh Stretton still confesses to a bias in favour of women, children and the poor when it comes to planning cities. With wry humour, he deplores the planning of roads which ignores the fact that pedestrians exist, and the erection of drive-in shopping centres difficult to reach on foot without jeopardy to life and limb. This second edition covers many of the details of the first, including the case studies of planning in Canberra, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Uncontrolled growth of city centres is discussed, but the chapter in the previous edition which elaborated on the advantages of linear design in urban planning is concentrated, and replaced by an examination of the planning practices of South Australia’s colourful leader, Donald Dunstan. It is this chapter which is mainly responsible for the updating of the material first published in 1970. There are also minor additions commenting on what has been happening in the last five years in the urban centres mentioned above. The book highlights the best and the worst which can happen with urban design. It examines the role both of the state governments and their respective housing commissions, as well as the contributions of the private developers. Stretton offers not just the case studies as examples or as warnings; he also discusses the ideologies underlying planners’ work. This discussion covers the most recent emphasis in planning-that of popular participation. This includes, in Stretton’s words, everything from occasional uproar to continuous co-operation which requires a responsive, respectful bureacracy. Such participation, Stretton believes, should aim at enlivening government, not necessarily replacing it. This book is very much in line with the thinking of those who advocate alternative strategies being made available to people who wish to take part in the planning of the environments in which they live. It will be a useful text both for students of social planning and of community studies, and for the urban dweller concerned with his or her community. Both groups will appreciate its content and its practical, humane approach to cities and city life.