Morris, C.  (2002).  A book review of Geoffrey Walford's Doing a Doctorate in Educational Ethnography. 

This excellent book provides the reader with a first-rate introduction to the qualitative research school of educational ethnography from multiple contexts and theoretical perspectives.  Eleven ethnographic researchers contributed to the text.  I found the 214-pages of this book to be a well-arranged series of stories of post-graduate students who undertook a qualitative research study to complete their doctoral dissertations.  Walford’s research foci are the relationships between central government policy and local processes of implementation, choice of schools, religiously-based schools, private schools and, for the purpose of this book review, qualitative research methodology.  He successfully created an exciting collection of papers dealing with a central question often asked by qualitative field researchers: “What are some of the key research problems in my field site and how have they been managed?”  I felt that the chapter authors well responded to that essential enquiry.  To read the rest of my review, go to Geoffrey Walford's Doing a Doctorate in Educational Ethnography.

 

Morris, C.  (1999b).  Pictures of our Minds  A book review of Howard Gardner's Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century  To see my greater review of this book, click on the front cover image of the Gardner Intelligence Reframed book, to your left.  In the interim, here is a short summary.

In 1983, a Harvard University psychologist, Howard E. Gardner, wrote Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, a book that he believed he was writing predominantly to enlighten mainstream psychologists, not classroom educators.  In Frames, he proposed a novel notion: that the psychological construct intelligence be formally measured in more ways than simply through dry statistical analytical lenses of widely accepted logical / linguistic IQ-type formalized tests, tests standardized for most schooling systems.  Gardner questioned the classical belief that we could have only one mode of representation about life.  Instead, he suggested that a more pluralistic viewpoint for measuring mental functioning ought be addressed -- a variety of intelligent ways of thinking.

In his 1999 book, Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century, Gardner once again acquaints his followers with another first rate book that continues the argument he made in many of his earlier books, namely, that there are multiple forms of human intelligences.  Although "he introduces the possibility of three new intelligences (but canonizes only existential intelligence and naturalist intelligence)" (book jacket, inside front cover), Gardner, feels that what is more important is how people make use of MI to carry out daily tasks prized in the culture.  This latter statement was well summarized during an interview when Gardner said "The fact that we have the same intelligences means that we can communicate with one another.  But the fact that we represent things mentally in numerous symbolic systems to one another means that we are not necessarily going to construe things in the same way or see the same options."  To access a short version of my review, click on the front cover image of that Professionally Speaking magazine, to your right.

 

Morris, C.  (1997).  Intelligences are Nature, Nurture and Symbol Systems  A chapter review of Howard Gardner, Thomas Hatch, and Bruce Torff's A third perspective: The Symbol Systems Approach to Intelligence 

For years, I have spent hours with parents of students formally registered under my daily classroom charge.  During such interactions, I have often been asked by these mothers and fathers to assist them as they attempt to interpret their offspring's intellectual makeup.  A t times, many of them would wonder if the intellectual behaviors of their own child / ren stemmed solely from a heredity-genetic set of factors, or if their kids were smart due to their environmental -- cultural environment.  This type of question has been often asked with no clear definitive answer ... that is, until now.  To see my chapter review, go to Howard Gardner, Thomas Hatch, and Bruce Torff's A third perspective: The Symbol Systems Approach to Intelligence.

 

Morris, C.  (1996).  A book review of Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeaure of Man: Revised and Expanded Edition 

In 1981, (the late) Stephen Jay Gould wrote The Mismeasure of Man, published mainly to argue against serious social and political suggestions earlier scribed by Arthur R. Jensen in his 1969 legendary article How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement?  Fifteen (15) years later, in 1996, Gould produced a (slightly) revised and expanded version of the same book, mainly as a response to Richard L. Herrnstein and Charles Murray's 1994 book The bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life.

In Thoughts at Age Fifteen, the sub-title to his new introduction to the Revised and Expanded Edition, Gould, calls himself a "working scientist by trade" (p. 24), then "a statistically minded paleontologist" (p. 25), and finally "an evolutionary biologist by training" (p. 41).  The author of thirteen books, Gould currently teaches geology, the history of science and biology at Harvard University.  Gould's strong interest in intelligence initially arose from his desire to bring science and its discoveries to the attention of the non-scientist.  To see the rest of my review, go to The Mismeaure of Man: Revised and Expanded Edition.  And to see John Carroll's review, click on the image of the book's front cover.

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Revised on Tuesday, 03 March, 2009