Facilitating sustainable professional part-time work: A question of design?

Despite significant socio-demographic and economic shifts in the contours of work over the past 40 years, there has been surprisingly little change in the way work is designed. Current understandings of the content and structure of jobs are predominantly underpinned by early 20th century theories derived from the manufacturing industry where employees worked independently of each other in stand-alone organisations. It is only in the last 10 years that elaborations and extensions to job/work design theory have been posed, which accommodate some of the fundamental shifts in contemporary work settings, yet these extended frameworks have received little empirical attention. Utilising contemporary features of work design and a sample of professional service workers, the purpose of this study is to examine to what extent and how part-time roles are designed relative to equivalent full-time roles. The findings contribute to efforts to design effective part-time roles that balance organisational and individual objectives.

Market structure of international construction professional services: Evidences from top design firms

Construction professional service (CPS) in the international arena has been very competitive despite that the industry is proliferating at a high rate. To excel in international business, CPS firms have the importance of building overseas competition strategies on a proper understanding of the international CPS (I-CPS) market. However, subject to borderless trade, information technology–based networking, global outsourcing, and changing forms of procurement, the I-CPS market structure has become more covert, intricate, and unstraightforward than before. Through examining business competition among top international design firms, this study aims to identify the attributes of the I-CPS market structure from two perspectives—concentration and turnover. Data from Engineering News-Record over the period 2001–2011 were collected to calculate market concentration ratios and turnover indices. The results show that I-CPS competition is characterized by atomism, much turbulence with a steady increase in competition intensity, and the predominant role of new entrants and exiting firms in market turnovers. The combination of concentration and turnover is found useful to address the attributes of the I-CPS market structure, which favors I-CPS firms to formulate international competition strategies in due ways.

An entrepreneurial music industry education in secondary schooling: The emerging professional learning model

There is widespread agreement that entrepreneurial skills are crucial for young people today, yet there are few studies of high school students engaging in entrepreneurship education that might prepare them for music industry careers. This study has been developed in response to these challenges. It explores a group of high school students (15 – 17 years) who alongside their teacher, have co-designed, developed and driven a new business venture, Youth Music Industries (YMI) since 2010. This venture staged cycles of differently scaled events featuring young artists for a young audience. The project was designed to give students a real business situation for developing their project management skills and a broader understanding of working in the music industry. Informed by concepts of social capital and communities of practice, the study examines the process of learning with and through others. This high-stakes environment increased their sense of presence and participation and made it possible for these young people to distribute expertise and learn from each other in a reciprocal and more democratic way. The ongoing success of this organisation can be attributed to the entrepreneurial competencies students developed. The resulting model and design principles talk to an ongoing challenge that has been identified in music education, and creative industries more generally. These principles offer a way forward for other music and creative industries educators or researchers interested in developing models of, and designs for, nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset.

Performance pay for Australian teachers: A critical policy historiography

In May 2011, the Australian Federal Education Minister announced there would be a unique, innovative and new policy of performance pay for teachers, Rewards for Great Teachers (Garrett, 2011a). In response, this paper uses critical policy historiography to argue that the unintended consequences of performance pay for teachers makes it unlikely it will deliver improved quality or efficiency in Australian schools. What is new, in the Australian context, is that performance pay is one of a raft of education policies being driven by the federal government within a system that constitutionally and historically has placed the responsibility for schooling with the states and territories. Since 2008, a key platform of the Australian federal Labor government has been a commitment to an Education Revolution that would promote quality, equity and accountability in Australian schools. This commitment has resulted in new national initiatives impacting on Australian schools including a high-stakes testing regime 14 National Assessment Program 13 Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) 14a mandated national curriculum (the Australian Curriculum), professional standards for teachers and teacher accreditation 14Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) 14and the idea of rewarding excellent teachers through performance pay (Garrett, 2011b). These reforms demonstrate the increased influence of the federal government in education policy processes and the growth of a 1Ccoercive federalism 1D that pits the state and federal governments against each other (Harris-Hart, 2010). Central to these initiatives is the measuring, or auditing, of educational practices and relationships. While this shift in education policy hegemony from state to federal governments has been occurring in Australia at least since the 1970s, it has escalated and been transformed in more recent times with a greater emphasis on national human capital agendas which link education and training to Australia 19s international economic competitiveness (Lingard & Sellar, in press). This paper uses historically informed critical analysis to critique claims about the effects of such policies. We argue that performance pay has a detailed and complex historical trajectory both internationally and within Australian states. Using Gale 19s (2001) critical policy historiography, we illuminate some of the effects that performance pay policies have had on education internationally and in particular within Australia. This critical historical lens also provides opportunities to highlight how teachers have, in the past, tactically engaged with such policies.

Defective co-creation: Developing a typology of consumer dysfunction in professional services

Purpose This study aims to explore the scope of consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour in professional service encounters. One of the founding premises of service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2008) is that consumers co-create the value they derive from service encounters. In practice, however, dysfunctional consumer behaviour can obstruct value co-creation. Extant research has not yet investigated consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour in highly relational services, such as professional services, that are heavily reliant on co-creation. Design/methodology/approach To investigate defective co-creation in professional services, 164 critical incidents were collected from 38 health-care and financial service providers using the critical incident technique within semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Thematic coding was used to identify emergent themes and patterns of consumer behaviour. Findings Thematic coding resulted in a comprehensive typology of consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour that both confirms the prevalence of previously identified dysfunctional behaviours (e.g. verbal abuse and physical aggression) and identifies two new forms of consumer misbehaviour: underparticipation and overparticipation. Further, these behaviours can vary, escalate and co-occur during service encounters. Originality/value Both underparticipation and overparticipation are newly identified forms of defective co-creation that need to be examined within the broader framework of service-dominant logic (SDL).

An enquiry into the professional competence of inclusive education teachers in Beijing: Attitudes, knowledge, skills, and agency

Attitudes, knowledge, and skills are widely recognised as the three pillars of professional competence of inclusive education teachers. Studies emerging from the Chinese context consider these three pillars important for the practice of Learning in Regular Classrooms—an idiosyncratic Chinese form of inclusive education. Our mixed methods study reveals that agency is the fourth pillar of the professional competence for inclusive education teachers in Beijing, China. Results from comparative analysis indicate that the level of teachers’ agency is significantly lower than that of their attitudes, knowledge, and skills. We offer some implications for policy and practice in inclusive education.

How professional development impacts on experienced teachers' perceptions of their ICT practices

Teachers are at the forefront of Information Communication Technology (ICT) use in schools. Teachers face many challenges and competing priorities such as literacy, numeracy and changing curriculum frameworks and are expected to adopt new ICT practices to improve students¿ outcomes. Effective professional development (PD) methods must be identified and implemented. This research examined two core issues: (1) experienced teachers' perceptions of their ICT practices and (2) how PD courses have affected these practices. This case study and its findings has important implications for the implementation of effective PD in schools.

Orientations to Critical Literacy for English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) learners: A case study of four teachers of senior English

Recently, the debate around critical literacy has dissipated as literacy education agendas and attendant policies shift to embrace more hybrid approaches to the teaching of senior English. This paper reports on orientations towards critical literacy as expressed by four teachers of senior English who teach culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Teachers’ understandings of critical literacy are important given the emphasis on Critical and Creative Thinking as well as Literacy as General Capabilities underpinning the Australian Curriculum. Using critical discourse analysis and Janks' (2010) Synthesis Model of Critical Literacy, interview and classroom data from four teachers of English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) learners in two high schools were analysed for the ways these teachers constructed critical literacy in their talk and practice. While all four teachers indicated significant commitment to critical literacy as an approach to English language teaching, their understandings varied. These ranged from providing access to powerful genres, to rationalist approaches to interrogating text, with less emphasis on multimodal design and drawing on learner diversity. This has significant implications for what kind of learning is being offered to EAL/D learners in the name of English teaching, for syllabus design, and for teacher professional development.

International representations of inclusive education: How is inclusive practice reflected in the professional teaching standards of China and Australia?

Inclusive education focuses on addressing marginalisation, segregation and exclusion within policy and practice. The purpose of this article is to use critical discourse analysis to examine how inclusion is represented in the education policy and professional documents of two countries, Australia and China. In particular, teacher professional standards from each country are examined to determine how an expectation of inclusive educational practice is promoted to teachers. The strengthening of international partnerships to further support the implementation of inclusive practices within both countries is also justified.

The impact of personality and workplace belongingness on mental health workers’ professional quality of life

Objectives Mental health workers are constantly exposed to their clients’ stories of distress and trauma. While listening to these stories can be emotionally draining, professionals in this field still derive pleasure from their work. This study examined the role of personality and workplace belongingness in predicting compassion satisfaction, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout in mental health professionals. Methods Mental health staff (N = 156) working in a counselling service completed a questionnaire that included measures relating to professional quality of life, the Five-Factor Model of personality, workplace belongingness, as well as questions relating to the participants’ demographic profile, work roles and trauma history. Results The results indicated that, high levels of emotional stability (low neuroticism), extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and being connected at work, are essential factors that promote the professional quality of life of mental health workers. Specifically, workplace belongingness was the strongest predictor of compassion satisfaction and low levels of burnout, while neuroticism was the strongest predictor of secondary traumatic stress. Conclusions Important implications from this study include: (1) encouraging mental health staff to increase self-awareness of their dispositional characteristics and how their personalities affect their wellbeing at work, and; (2) encouraging management to facilitate practices where mental health workers feel connected, respected, and supported in their organisation.

Challenges in embedding numeracy throughout the curriculum in three Queensland secondary schools

The Australian Curriculum identified seven General Capabilities, including numeracy, to be embedded in all learning areas. However, it has been left to individual schools to manage this. Whilst there is a growing body of literature about pedagogies that embed numeracy in various learning areas, there are few studies from the management perspective. A social constructivist perspective and a multiple case study approach were used to explore the actions of school managers and mathematics teachers in three Queensland secondary schools, in order to investigate how they meet the Australian Curriculum requirement to embed numeracy throughout the curriculum. The study found a lack of coordinated cross-curricular approaches to numeracy in any of the schools studied. It illustrates the difficulties that arise when teachers do not share the Australian Curriculum cross-curricular vision of numeracy. Schools and curriculum authorities have not acknowledged the challenges for teachers in implementing cross-curricular numeracy, which include: limited understanding of numeracy; a lack of commitment; and inadequate skills. Successful embedding of numeracy in all learning areas requires: the commitment and support of school leaders, a review of school curriculum documents and pedagogical practices, professional development of teachers, and adequate funding to support these activities.

Teacher Education for High Poverty Schools

This volume captures the innovative, theory-based, and grounded work being done by established scholars who are interrogating how teacher education can prepare teachers to work in challenging and diverse high-poverty settings. It offers articles from the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and Chile by some of the most significant scholars in the field. Internationally, research suggests that effective teachers for high poverty schools require deep theoretical understanding as well as the capacity to function across three well-substantiated areas: deep content knowledge, well-tuned pedagogical skills, and demonstrated attributes that prove their understanding and commitment to social justice. Schools in low socioeconomic communities need quality teachers most, however, they are often staffed by the least experienced and least prepared teachers. The chapters in this volume examine how pre-service teachers are taught to understand the social contexts of education. Drawing on the individual expertise of the authors, the topics covered include unpacking poverty for pre-service teachers, issues related to urban schooling as well as remote and regional area schooling.

The trend toward pre-graduation professional work experience for Australian young planners: Essential experience or essentially exploitation

This paper explores the changing employment expectations that frame the early professional work experiences of young planners in Australia. In particular, it considers the rising popularity of pre-graduation professional work experience as a precursor to formal entry into the workforce as a practising planner. This shift is being driven in part by employer expectations that graduates will already have ‘real world’ and relevant work experience. However, an equally significant driver appears to be a growing desire for early career and graduate planners to find ways to distinguish themselves from their peers in an increasingly tight labour market. Using data from an ongoing research project into the formative work experiences of young people this paper describes the three main types of pre-graduation professional work experience undertaken by young planners. It highlights the potential challenges and benefits of pre-graduation work experience from a legal, social and ethical perspective as well as from the perspective of young planners themselves. The paper concludes by reflecting on the role of the planning profession – employers, peak bodies and planning educators – in managing the tensions between producing ‘work ready’ graduates and safeguarding the employment conditions of early career planning professionals.

Telling tales and painting pictures: A narrative inquiry into the professional learning of Northern Territory primary teachers

This thesis narrates the professional learning experiences of seven Northern Territory teachers. It outlines the evolution from traditional professional development in schools to an active, responsive professional learning agenda. With increasing demands on teachers, standardisation and the quest for improved student outcomes, key themes in the re-storied narrative emerge about the definition and role of professional learning in complex conditions, effective teaching, quality programmes, and teacher agency. This thesis contributes to knowledge about the characteristics that teachers value in their professional learning experiences. An Ongoing Professional Enhancement Model (OPE) is proposed, highlighting directions in this field for key stakeholders.

Australian journalism students’ professional views and news consumption: Results from a representative study

Journalism education’s role in shaping students’ professional views has been a topic of interest among scholars for the past decade in particular. Increasing numbers of studies are concerned with examining students’ backgrounds and views in order to identify what role exposure to the tertiary environment may play in socializing them into the industry. This study reports on the results of the largest survey of Australian journalism students undertaken to date, with a sample size of 1884 students. The study finds that time spent studying journalism appears to be related to changes in role perceptions and news consumption. Final-year students are significantly more likely to support journalism’s watchdog role and to reject consumer-oriented and ‘loyal’ roles. They also consume more news than first-year students. On the other hand, journalism education appears to have little impact on views of controversial practices, with only marginal differences between final- and first-year students.