A typology of arguments in defence of a coercive language policy favouring a cultural minority

Abstract

What kind of arguments can be used to justify a coercive language policy favouring the language of a cultural minority over the majority language of a state? To answer this question we will focus mainly on the language policy of the Catalan government and, to a lesser extent, on the language policies of the Basque Country and Quebec. Our aim is to develop a typology of arguments and try to show that each argument resorts to a different reason for coercion and has both virtues and flaws.     

Five Minute Dog Feeder

In this article, the author explores music education counterforces, examining whether and how (a) federal and state education policies can better address the in-service needs of special area teachers, particularly music teachers, in the school setting; and (b) policy organizations in the music education profession (i.e., The National Association for Music Education, the National Association of Schools of Music, the College Music Society, the Society for Music Teacher Education, and the Music Education Research Council) might also address the inherent tensions between music education and schooling.     

Is the edTPA the Right Choice for Evaluating Teacher Readiness?

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the edTPA, a performance assessment created by the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) and administered by Pearson, Inc., to assess the professional readiness of student teachers. We challenge claims made in support of using this assessment, specifically within the context of arts teacher preparation programs, and we address areas of immediate critical concern to make alternative recommendations.     

Examining arts education policy development through policy frameworks

ABSTRACT

While policy formation frameworks are commonly used to understand public policy developments, scholars rarely have used them to reflect on arts education policies. Such analysis is important because it can assist both in identifying the genesis of past policies, including who the important actors are, how issues are framed and problematized, and how specific solutions are designed, as well as how to interpret unfolding policies. In this article, I review three prominent policy frameworks: Kingdon's “multiple streams framework,” Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith's “advocacy coalition framework,” and Baumgartner and Jones' “punctuated equilibrium framework.” After reviewing the frameworks, I address the following questions: (a) How would these conceptual frameworks predict arts education policy development to proceed? (b) How would these conceptual frameworks explain constituents and coalitions that affect the arts education policy sphere? (c) How would these conceptual frameworks illuminate precipitating events that drive the policy development process? I apply the frameworks to several instances of arts education policy development, including the formal designation of the arts as a core subjects under the Goals 2000: Educate America Act of 1994 (P.L. 103-227), the development of the 2014 National Core Arts Standards, and music's enumeration in the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015. Because these three policy issues differ in important ways, they can help to illuminate the breadth of arts education policy.     

Abstract Nature Forms

Abstract

This article is the introduction to the special issue about Evaluation, Educational Policy Reforms, and Their Implications for Arts Education. A summary of all the articles comprised in the special issue is reported, mainly featured, on the one hand, by a discussion about how the education policy reforms shape a particular approach to evaluation that ends up conforming education and arts education and, on the other hand, it shows some magnet examples of arts curriculum evaluation combining both standardized assessment with qualitative strategies pertinent to the nature of arts content and experiences. The article also discusses how it could be possible to move from the current scope of school arts education most of the authors depict to the development of another way of evaluation and curriculum development where the experiential process is taken into account. While these signals might be still scarce, for some other authors could be the opportunity to overcome at least partially the current demise of school arts curriculum.     

Implementing Extended Producer Responsibility Legislation

The goal of this article is to contribute to the understanding of how the multiple, and sometimes conflicting, stakeholder perspectives and prevailing conditions (economic, geographic, etc.) in the implementation locality shape extended producer responsibility (EPR) “on the ground.” We provide an in‐depth examination of the implementation dimension of EPR in a specific case study by examining concrete activities at the operational front of the collection and recycling system, and probing the varying stakeholder preferences that have driven a specific system to its status quo. To this end, we conduct a detailed case study of the Washington State EPR implementation for electronic waste. We provide an overview of various stakeholder perspectives and their implications for the attainment of EPR policy objectives in practice. These findings shed light on the intrinsic complexity of EPR implementation. We conclude with recommendations on how to achieve effective and efficient EPR implementation, including improving design incentives, incorporating reuse and refurbishing, expanding product scope, managing downstream material flows, and promoting operational efficiency via fair cost allocation design.     

The Temporal Evolution of Anthropogenic Phosphorus Consumption in China and Its Environmental Implications

Modern human activities greatly disturb substance flows in nature and senselessly discard massive amounts of precious resources to natural waste reservoirs; phosphorus (P) is a good example of this. In this article, substance flow analysis is employed to quantify and explore the temporal evolution of China's P consumption in main metabolic nodes from 1984 to 2008, and then the environmental implications for P flows into both surface waters and natural soil are investigated. Results show that the metabolic nodes of human life and animal husbandry have demanded increasingly more P inputs, while disseminating more and more P wastes, with the waste recycling ratios of these processes dropping, respectively, from 65.9% and 66.1% in 1984 to 50.7% and 40.6% by 2008. These change traits were closely related to national polices including the Household Contract Responsibility System and the Shopping Basket Program, as well as the policy vacuum existing between China's agricultural and environmental administration departments. To achieve high crop yield, increasingly more inorganic P fertilizers have been utilized in China, but their use efficiency has decreased by 46.3%. From 2003 to 2008, the total P load into surface waters was stabilized at about 900.0 kilotons (kt), while the total P load into natural soil increased by more than 3.8 times to 3,131.3 kt P in 2008. City life and the intensive breeding of crops are identified as the main targets for further pollution control and nutrient recycling in China. Some suggestions for achieving environmentally sound practices and resource sustainability in China are proposed at the end of this article.     

中国增汇型气候保护政策实施对经济的影响

系统地给出了中国实施增汇型CO2减排政策对宏观经济影响的模拟结果,所采用的模拟系统包括基于Pizer,Demeter,Zwaan工作发展的中国气候保护决策支持系统和中国经济可计算一般均衡(CGE)系统。研究结果表明,增汇型气候保护政策较其他单一的气候保护政策更有利于国家经济安全;虽然增汇型气候保护政策在短期内会对国家GDP产出造成影响,但从长远角度看,增汇型气候保护将带动经济的发展,是一项值得推广的减排政策。同时,发现中国实行每年增加4%的碳汇和实施4%能源替代以减少CO2排放控制率,辅助于0.2%的生产型CO2排放控制率,如果能够促进世界其它地区到2050年减排1990年的10%的CO,是一个合适的方案。     

An Integrated Framework for Risk Management and Population Health

The traditional medical model of health and health policy development has focused on individuals and the role of medical care in preventing and treating disease and injury. Recent attention to health inequities and social determinants of health has raised the profile of population heath and evidence-based strategies for improving the health of whole populations. At the same time, risk science has emerged as an important new discipline for the assessment and management of risks to health. This article reviews historical developments in the fields of risk management and population health and proposes a joint population health risk management framework that integrates the key elements of both fields. Applying this integrated approach to managing population health risks will facilitate the development of evidence-based health policy. It will encourage a more systematic and comprehensive evaluation of population health issues and promote the use of a broader suite of interventions to reduce health risks and enhance population health status.