I hope you liked the movie which we saw last Friday.

The real story of George VI The King’s Speech :

And just for fun, the swearing scene :

http://www.booksatoz.com/witsend/tea/orwell.htm : by the famous writer George Orwell

These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.

more pictures here

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School pupils in England have less tolerant attitudes to immigration, and are less interested in news than their international peers, a study finds. The research showed a hardening of attitudes on immigrants, jail sentences and benefit payments as students in England got older. The National Foundation for Educational Research also found that English pupils’ knowledge of the EU was poor.

But it found that regular citizenship classes could raise civic involvement.

The research tracked the attitudes of some 24,000 pupils over nine years, as they aged from 11 to 18.

It showed that over time, the cohort experienced a hardening of attitudes towards refugees and immigrants, jail sentences and benefit payments. It also showed their trust in politicians declined.

The researchers also compared the attitudes of English teenagers with those of their international counterparts.

This revealed that English pupils had attitudes which were “broadly democratic and tolerant”, the study said.

But “their tolerance of immigration is well below the international average and their view of European migration is particularly critical,” the researchers said.

English pupils had a “low” level of interest in social and political issues, the study found.

The report’s authors noted that this is an international trend, but that English young people had a level of news media interest significantly below the international average.

Pupils in England scored significantly above average in the international test of civic knowledge and understanding when compared to all participating countries.

But when compared only to their European counterparts, their performance was average.

Their knowledge of the European Union was significantly below that of other pupils in Europe, with English pupils scoring the worst on many questions of all 24 member states that took part in the study.

Pupils in England had a strong sense of national identity, which outweighed their sense of European identity.

The report’s authors noted that this is an international trend, but that English young people had a level of news media interest significantly below the international average.

Pupils in England scored significantly above average in the international test of civic knowledge and understanding when compared to all participating countries.

But when compared only to their European counterparts, their performance was average.

Their knowledge of the European Union was significantly below that of other pupils in Europe, with English pupils scoring the worst on many questions of all 24 member states that took part in the study.

Pupils in England had a strong sense of national identity, which outweighed their sense of European identity.

‘Weakening attachment’

The research also showed a weakening of English pupils’ attachment to their communities at local, national and European level, although their attachment to their school communities remained strong.

Trust in social, civil and political institutions also remained high, although 33% reported in the latest survey that they do not trust politicians “at all” – up from 20% at age 11.

The findings indicated that when citizenship education learning is delivered in slots of more than 45 minutes per week on a regular basis, it can improve young people’s chances of positive involvement in civic activities.

It also suggested that this can lead to young people feeling more able to make a difference to their communities.

Citizenship became compulsory for pupils aged 11 to 16 in September 2002 and a GCSE is available in the subject.

In the citizenship classes, young people learn about democracy and justice, the structure of political systems and how to function in that structure.

Curriculum shake-up

But Education Secretary Michael Gove has said he wants to slim down the national curriculum.

On Sunday he told the BBC that “hundreds of pages of prescription” aimed at teachers would be removed.

The Association for Citizenship Teaching (ACT) last month said it understood that citizenship will be made non-statutory in the coming curriculum shake-up.

It fears this will mean the end for a subject which, it says, chimes with the Conservatives’ “Big Society” idea.

The government said it had not decided the future status of any subject.

Millicent Scott, Development Manager at the ACT said citizenship education, when taught well, equipped young people with the skills to appreciate the intricacies of controversial issues:

“The future health of British democracy will only be secure if we have an active, engaged electorate who participate in public life. Citizenship education supports the development of these skills.”

Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said citizenship classes were “a very important part of education” But she said many schools struggle to find sufficient time to teach it properly. “Also, as the report suggests, teachers need to have access to training in order to be able to teach the subject effectively,” she added.

Citizenship education is statutory in some form in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and is one of the national priorities for education in Scotland.

Pupils in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland were not included in the study.

A used car dealership in Florida has launched an unusual promotion to help it through the sluggish US economic recovery: a complimentary AK-47 with every purchase.

une bonne page pour tout comprendre, sur le site du Monde.

C’est ici

David Cameron is Britain’s new Prime Minister. The photo shows him shaking hands with the Queen, who invited him to become prime minister following Gordon Brown’s resignation and the agreement between  Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to form a coalition government.

Gordon Brown resigned. Speaking outside No 10, he said: “I wish the next prime minister well as he makes the important choices for the future.

Tout savoir sur les elections britanniques, c’est ici !

Une petite révision sur le système politique britannique : là

Quelques mots sur l’origine du 1er Mai.

Starting in 1948, the Nationalist Government in South Africa enacted laws to define and enforce segregation.

What makes South Africa’s apartheid era different to segregation and racial hatred that have occurred in other countries is the systematic way in which the National Party, which came into power in 1948, formalised it through the law. The main laws are described below.

Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, Act No 55 of 1949
Prohibited marriages between white people and people of other races. Between 1946 and the enactment of this law, only 75 mixed marriages had been recorded, compared with some 28,000 white marriages.

Immorality Amendment Act, Act No 21 of 1950; amended in 1957 (Act 23)
Prohibited adultery, attempted adultery or related immoral acts (extra-marital sex) between white and black people.

Population Registration Act, Act No 30 of 1950
Led to the creation of a national register in which every person’s race was recorded. A Race Classification Board took the final decision on what a person’s race was in disputed cases.

Group Areas Act, Act No 41 of 1950
Forced physical separation between races by creating different residential areas for different races. Led to forced removals of people living in “wrong” areas, for example Coloureds living in District Six in Cape Town.

Suppression of Communism Act, Act No 44 of 1950
Outlawed communism and the Community Party in South Africa. Communism was defined so broadly that it covered any call for radical change. Communists could be banned from participating in a political organisation and restricted to a particular area.

Bantu Building Workers Act, Act No 27 of 1951
Allowed black people to be trained as artisans in the building trade, something previously reserved for whites only, but they had to work within an area designated for blacks. Made it a criminal offence for a black person to perform any skilled work in urban areas except in those sections designated for black occupation.

Separate Representation of Voters Act, Act No 46 of 1951
Together with the 1956 amendment, this act led to the removal of Coloureds from the common voters’ roll.

Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act, Act No 52 of 1951
Gave the Minister of Native Affairs the power to remove blacks from public or privately owned land and to establishment resettlement camps to house these displaced people.

Bantu Authorities Act, Act No 68 of 1951
Provided for the establishment of black homelands and regional authorities and, with the aim of creating greater self-government in the homelands, abolished the Native Representative Council.

Natives Laws Amendment Act of 1952
Narrowed the definition of the category of blacks who had the right of permanent residence in towns. Section 10 limited this to those who’d been born in a town and had lived there continuously for not less than 15 years, or who had been employed there continuously for at least 15 years, or who had worked continuously for the same employer for at least 10 years.

Natives (Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents) Act, Act No 67 of 1952
Commonly known as the Pass Laws, this ironically named act forced black people to carry identification with them at all times. A pass included a photograph, details of place of origin, employment record, tax payments, and encounters with the police. It was a criminal offence to be unable to produce a pass when required to do so by the police. No black person could leave a rural area for an urban one without a permit from the local authorities. On arrival in an urban area a permit to seek work had to be obtained within 72 hours.

Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act of 1953
Prohibited strike action by blacks.

Bantu Education Act, Act No 47 of 1953
Established a Black Education Department in the Department of Native Affairs which would compile a curriculum that suited the “nature and requirements of the black people”. The author of the legislation, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd (then Minister of Native Affairs, later Prime Minister), stated that its aim was to prevent Africans receiving an education that would lead them to aspire to positions they wouldn’t be allowed to hold in society. Instead Africans were to receive an education designed to provide them with skills to serve their own people in the homelands or to work in labouring jobs under whites.

Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, Act No 49 of 1953
Forced segregation in all public amenities, public buildings, and public transport with the aim of eliminating contact between whites and other races. “Europeans Only” and “Non-Europeans Only” signs were put up. The act stated that facilities provided for different races need not be equal.