Standards and Their Stories

Standards and Their Stories PDF Author: Martha Lampland
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801474613
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Standardization is one of the defining aspects of modern life, its presence so pervasive that it is usually taken for granted. However cumbersome, onerous, or simply puzzling certain standards may be, their fundamental purpose in streamlining procedures, regulating behaviors, and predicting results is rarely questioned. Indeed, the invisibility of infrastructure and the imperative of standardizing processes signify their absolute necessity. Increasingly, however, social scientists are beginning to examine the origins and effects of the standards that underpin the technology and practices of everyday life.Standards and Their Stories explores how we interact with the network of standards that shape our lives in ways both obvious and invisible. The main chapters analyze standardization in biomedical research, government bureaucracies, the insurance industry, labor markets, and computer technology, providing detailed accounts of the invention of "standard humans" for medical testing and life insurance actuarial tables, the imposition of chronological age as a biographical determinant, the accepted means of determining labor productivity, the creation of international standards for the preservation and access of metadata, and the global consequences of "ASCII imperialism" and the use of English as the lingua franca of the Internet.Accompanying these in-depth critiques are a series of examples that depict an almost infinite variety of standards, from the controversies surrounding the European Union's supposed regulation of banana curvature to the minimum health requirements for immigrants at Ellis Island, conflicting (and ever-increasing) food portion sizes, and the impact of standardized punishment metrics like "Three Strikes" laws. The volume begins with a pioneering essay from Susan Leigh Star and Martha Lampland on the nature of standards in everyday life that brings together strands from the several fields represented in the book. In an appendix, the editors provide a guide for teaching courses in this emerging interdisciplinary field, which they term "infrastructure studies," making Standards and Their Stories ideal for scholars, students, and those curious about why coffins are becoming wider, for instance, or why the Financial Accounting Standards Board refused to classify September 11 as an "extraordinary" event.

Standards and Their Stories

Standards and Their Stories PDF Author: Martha Lampland
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801474613
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book Here

Book Description
Standardization is one of the defining aspects of modern life, its presence so pervasive that it is usually taken for granted. However cumbersome, onerous, or simply puzzling certain standards may be, their fundamental purpose in streamlining procedures, regulating behaviors, and predicting results is rarely questioned. Indeed, the invisibility of infrastructure and the imperative of standardizing processes signify their absolute necessity. Increasingly, however, social scientists are beginning to examine the origins and effects of the standards that underpin the technology and practices of everyday life.Standards and Their Stories explores how we interact with the network of standards that shape our lives in ways both obvious and invisible. The main chapters analyze standardization in biomedical research, government bureaucracies, the insurance industry, labor markets, and computer technology, providing detailed accounts of the invention of "standard humans" for medical testing and life insurance actuarial tables, the imposition of chronological age as a biographical determinant, the accepted means of determining labor productivity, the creation of international standards for the preservation and access of metadata, and the global consequences of "ASCII imperialism" and the use of English as the lingua franca of the Internet.Accompanying these in-depth critiques are a series of examples that depict an almost infinite variety of standards, from the controversies surrounding the European Union's supposed regulation of banana curvature to the minimum health requirements for immigrants at Ellis Island, conflicting (and ever-increasing) food portion sizes, and the impact of standardized punishment metrics like "Three Strikes" laws. The volume begins with a pioneering essay from Susan Leigh Star and Martha Lampland on the nature of standards in everyday life that brings together strands from the several fields represented in the book. In an appendix, the editors provide a guide for teaching courses in this emerging interdisciplinary field, which they term "infrastructure studies," making Standards and Their Stories ideal for scholars, students, and those curious about why coffins are becoming wider, for instance, or why the Financial Accounting Standards Board refused to classify September 11 as an "extraordinary" event.

Case Stories for Elementary Methods

Case Stories for Elementary Methods PDF Author: Sheila G. Dunn
Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN: 9780131791251
Category : Case method
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"We believe that our educational system must guarantee a learning environment in which all children can learn and achieve their own kind of individually configured excellence -- an environment that nurtures their unique talents and creativity; understands, respects, and incorporates the diversity of their experiences into the learning process; and cultivates their personal commitment to enduring habits of life-long learning." From http://www.ccsso.org INTASC 1992, Preamble INTASC was formed to ensure that all our P-12 students have the same base of knowledge and also that all teachers must meet the same standards for licensing. Recent reform such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 have brought the standards movement to the public eye. This book was written to provide what is often the missing piece of teacher preparation coursework-real-life experiences. Written in ten chapters with twenty cases, this supplementary methods text provides problem-based learning opportunities involving the use of authentic dilemmas and concerns. The cases are open-ended and require critical thinking skills and analysis by the student. A theme of the book is that teachers are human beings who are confronted with all the problems of daily life. Readers of this text are urged to read and analyze the case stories, not only with an eye to finding educational solutions, but also with a keen awareness of how the strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and lingering concerns of each teacher affect their daily performance. What we must remember is that while standards may serve as practical guidelines, it is individuals who are accountable for carrying out ethically good actions. This text aims to educate a new generation of teachers in how to find solutions to varying problems and make reflective decisions, and in so doing achieve their goal of educating their class to meet the standards of today.

One Size Fits Few

One Size Fits Few PDF Author: Susan Ohanian
Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Susan Ohanian recounts her quest to make sense of the Standards educational movement.

Common Core

Common Core PDF Author: Nicholas Tampio
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421424649
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
How the Common Core standardizes our kids’ education—and how it threatens our democracy. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is one of the most controversial pieces of education policy to emerge in decades. Detailing what and when K–12 students should be taught, it has led to expensive reforms and displaced other valuable ways to educate children. In this nuanced and provocative book, Nicholas Tampio argues that, though national standards can raise the education bar for some students, the democratic costs outweigh the benefits. To make his case, Tampio describes the history, philosophy, content, and controversy surrounding the Common Core standards for English language arts and math. He also explains and critiques the Next Generation Science Standards, the Advanced Placement US History curriculum framework, and the National Sexuality Education Standards. Though each set of standards has admirable elements, Tampio asserts that democracies should disperse education authority rather than entrust one political or pedagogical faction to decide the country’s entire philosophy of education. Ultimately, this lively and accessible book presents a compelling case that the greater threat to democratic education comes from centralized government control rather than from local education authorities.

Open Standards and the Digital Age

Open Standards and the Digital Age PDF Author: Andrew L. Russell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107039193
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
This book answers how openness became the defining principle of the information age, examining the history of information networks.

Steeped in Stories

Steeped in Stories PDF Author: Mitali Perkins
Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers
ISBN: 1506469108
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Join award-winning author Mitali Perkins as she explores the promise of seven timeless children's novels for adults living in uncertain times. Through works by Louisa May Alcott, C. S. Lewis, L. M. Montgomery, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and other literary "uncles" and "aunts," Perkins unpacks wisdom to help us thrive.

Making Standards Work

Making Standards Work PDF Author: Douglas B. Reeves
Publisher: Lead + Learn Press
ISBN: 9780970945501
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Rationale and step-by-step instructions for creating classroom assessments that accurately measure what students know and are able to do.

Standards

Standards PDF Author: Lawrence Busch
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262525054
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
An investigation into standards, the invisible infrastructures of our technical, moral, social, and physical worlds. Standards are the means by which we construct realities. There are established standards for professional accreditation, the environment, consumer products, animal welfare, the acceptable stress for highway bridges, healthcare, education—for almost everything. We are surrounded by a vast array of standards, many of which we take for granted but each of which has been and continues to be the subject of intense negotiation. In this book, Lawrence Busch investigates standards as “recipes for reality.” Standards, he argues, shape not only the physical world around us but also our social lives and even our selves. Busch shows how standards are intimately connected to power—that they often serve to empower some and disempower others. He outlines the history of formal standards and describes how modern science came to be associated with the moral-technical project of standardization of both people and things. Busch suggests guidelines for developing fair, equitable, and effective standards. Taking a uniquely integrated and comprehensive view of the subject, Busch shows how standards for people and things are inextricably linked, how standards are always layered (even if often addressed serially), and how standards are simultaneously technical, social, moral, legal, and ontological devices.

Sorting Things Out

Sorting Things Out PDF Author: Geoffrey C. Bowker
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262522950
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
A revealing and surprising look at how classification systems can shape both worldviews and social interactions. What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification—the scaffolding of information infrastructures. In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis. The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.

Beyond Standards

Beyond Standards PDF Author: Carol Jago
Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Beyond Standards offers concrete ways to reconceive what it means to foster excellent performance in the classroom and vivid examples of student work that was motivated by the pursuit of excellence rather than by test scores.