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An introduction is presented in which the authors discuss various reports within the special section of the issue on topics including the contemporary craft and Asia, ironsmith Jaidev Baghel, and the conversation with artist Heri Dono.

This study of 1,601 students in the middle years of schooling (Grades 5-8, each student measured twice, 1 year apart) from 200 classrooms in 44 schools sought to identify factors explaining gains and declines in mathematics engagement at key transition points. In multilevel regression modeling, findings showed that compared with Grade 6 students (upper elementary; the reference category), students in Grades 7 (typically the first secondary school year) and 8 have significantly declined in mathematics engagement from their previous year. Notably, in further analyses, these declines were found to be related to student (particularly mathematics self-efficacy and valuing), home (parent valuing of mathematics and availability of a computer for mathematics), classroom (class-average achievement and perceived climate), and school (socio-economic status and ethnic composition) factors. Implications for research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay identifies aspects of Eduardo Paolozzi's art and life that warrant study from a transnational perspective. As an example, it considers how Paolozzi's collage-book, Psychological Atlas, 1949, uses a catalogue for the exhibition ‘Kunstschaffen in Deutschland’ to intensify its exploration of mobility, how people and objects belong to a place and a nation, the reclamation of cultural patrimony and the revitalization of nation-based, contemporary culture. Within the context of the social and cultural climate of the post-war period in England and Europe, the themes held significance for developments in nation-art relationships and some aspects of Paolozzi's life. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports on the art of twentieth century being treated geographically. Current events involving geography values academic interest in their convergence with art and culture. According to Thomas DaCosta Kaufman, he approaches art in the context of human geography with emphasis on origins, religions, political systems, resource use, diffusions, spatial variation of landscapes and environmental perception.

According to Kellie Jones, reterritorialization involves `recapturing one's (combined and various) history, much of which has been dismissed as an insignificant footnote to the dominant culture'. In this essay, I bring artist and photography scholar Deborah Willis's use of Jones's concept of reterritorialization to bear on Whispers from the Walls, an installation that Whitfield Lovell created at the University of North Texas Art Gallery in 1999. Chiefly, I explore what kinds and whose histories Whispers from the Walls engaged. In particular, I emphasize contributions that the photographs Lovell studied to create the installation and the objects he included therein made to recovering histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the middle of the twentieth century, members of the American art world, academics from the arts and sciences, and cultural commentators all used concepts from the economy and consumer culture to describe and evaluate the meaning and significance of vanguard painterly abstract painting. Restaging their discourse reveals they perceived that consumer culture was determining the forms, uses, and values of art. However, there were alternatives, as evidenced by the early sculpture of Claes Oldenburg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reconstitutes the sense artists and intellectuals made of vanguard painting in relation to a consumer culture they observed burgeoning in the United States during the 1950s. In analyzing how painterly abstract painting approximated its forms and practices, they surmised consumer culture was becoming hegemonic and tending to frustrate redress thereof. However, the essay identifies an alternative to the inevitable course of culture commentators espied and disparaged. In his early sculpture Claes Oldenburg wittily engaged to revalorize the very painterliness affording commodification in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using growth modeling, this study examined trajectories of 'switching on' (aspirations) and 'switching off' (disengagement) in mathematics across middle school and high school. In addition, guided by principles under expectancy-value theory, the study sought to determine the extent to which patterns of growth differed by motivation (self-efficacy and valuing) and socio-educational attributes (gender, language background, and achievement). The sample comprised 194 students from four schools who participated in three rounds of data collection across five academic years of their schooling, spanning middle school and high school. In the main, mathematics aspirations declined over time while mathematics disengagement increased. However, initial levels of aspirations and disengagement and their rates of change over time were impacted by motivational and socio-educational factors. Salient findings and their implications for educational assessment and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prompted by international concerns about school and postschool participation in mathematics, the authors of the present study sought to investigate factors predicting "switching on" and "switching off" in mathematics, operationalized through measures of future intent and disengagement, respectively. They drew from Bronfenbrenner's ecological model to explore an educational ecology comprising student, home, classroom, school, and time factors in predicting future intent and disengagement. These models were conducted within a multilevel context, thereby also assessing variation at student, classroom, and school levels. Based on data from 1,601 Australian middle school students from 200 classrooms in 44 schools, variance components models showed the bulk of variance (> 85%) in future intent and disengagement resided at the student (and residual) level, with 10%-12% variance explained at classroom and school levels. Multilevel hierarchical regression analyses revealed that student, home, and classroom factors explained most variance in dependent measures. For future intent and disengagement, mathematics self-efficacy, valuing, enjoyment, perceived classroom enjoyment, and parent interest were significant predictors. For disengagement, additional predictors were mathematics anxiety, perceived classroom disengagement, school ethnic composition, and school socioeconomic status. Modeling indicated all predictive effects generalized across classrooms and schools. Findings hold implications for the breadth and depth of efforts in mathematics aimed at reducing disengagement, increasing participation, and promoting more positive future orientations through school and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]