Search results

This study examined constraints to participation in the arts by three sub-populations of older Americans: the young old (60–69), the old (70–79) and the oldest old (80+). Health, poor performance quality and lack of companions were identified as constraints more frequently by the oldest old than by the younger respondents. The oldest old were five times more likely to be constrained by health than the young old and twice as likely as the old. The oldest old were over two times more likely to be constrained by performance quality and lack of companionship than the young old.

Ratings grids, emerging from personal construct theory, measure an individual's perception of a situation. This paper and exercises seek to demonstrate how researchers and managers can use the grid to evaluate visitors' perceptions of an attraction or event.

A training exercise explains how to use the ratings grid, a type of repertory grid, to evaluate tourist attractions or special events. A ratings grid example analyzes visitors' impressions of an art festival (n=142). The steps taken for grid development, administration strategy, and analysis are discussed and described.

The results suggest that visitors' impressions of the art festival are consistent with the festival's communication objectives. These findings suggest that the art festival presents itself to visitors accurately.

Ratings grids are designed to examine only the elements a researcher selects. Important elements to respondents may be overlooked using this test, and the researcher will not get an accurate measure of respondents' attitudes.

The exercise provides guidance to a useful method for measuring visitor perceptions and allows researchers and managers to understand visitor experiences better.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

This work concerns William Norman Illingworth [1902–1980]. Disillusioned with teaching in conventional schools and inspired by Rudolf Steiner [1861–1925] he founded Sangreal School, in 1947, and operated this until the early 1970s. Sangreal was what I describe as a “conservative alternative school”, employing methods and pursuing goals not found in most British schools of the period but, unlike avowedly progressive establishments, guided by socially conservative principles. The purposes of the work are both to rescue his/Sangreal’s story from obscurity and to encourage research to establish if other such schools have existed and, if so, to describe and analyse them in an effort to give the category conservative alternative school the recognition it properly deserves.

The method is a combination of life history/biography and case study of a specific school.

The story is interesting in its own terms and points to the existence of a hitherto unnoticed category in history of education.

This work may lead to the proper recognition of a neglected category.

This work deals with a school hitherto unknown to most people and may lead to the recognition of a new category.