Introduction: Arguments for a more grounded approach in management education

The article mentions the aims and objectives of the "Academy of Management Learning & Education" and introduces four essays in this issue. Milton R. Blood focuses on the role of business schools in generating actionable knowledge. Peter Navarro asserts that macroeconomics is necessary in MBA programs. Scott Julian and Joseph C. Ofori-Dankwa comment on business school accreditation and competition status. Michael Harmon offers an argument that competition status is negatively affecting research, teaching, and social objectives.

Bridging the divide between theory and practice. Experiential learning approaches for tourism and hospitality education

Experiential learning approaches such as role-play have been found to be valuable methods of bridging the divide between academic knowledge and practical skills, a problem often cited in tourism and hospitality management education. Such approaches have been found to contribute towards deeper learning by enhancing students' interest, motivation, participation, knowledge and skill development. This paper reports on the implementation of an experiential learning approach designed to encourage and facilitate deeper learning approaches, with the contributing aims of providing students with a more interesting learning experience and a broader set of skills for future employment.

Leading theory: Bourdieu and the field of educational leadership. An introduction and overview to this special issue

Bourdieu … makes it possible to explain how the actions of principals are always contextual, since their interests vary with issue, location, time, school mix, composition of staff and so on. This 'identity' perspective points at a different kind of research about principal practice: to understand the game and its logic requires an analysis of the situated everyday rather than abstractions that claim truth in all instances and places. (Thomson 2001a: 14)

'Slippage' is not a dirty word: Considering the usefulness of Giddens' notion of knowledgeability in understanding the possibilities for teacher education

The attempt to understand the relationship between messages intended and messages received has been an enduring issue in teacher education. For the past three decades researchers have made forays into understanding this enduring issue, and in the process have drawn on various explanatory frameworks, one of them being socialisation. In this paper we work with Giddens' structuration theory as well as his concept of knowledgeability as analytical frameworks for understanding the relationship between messages intended (by the teacher educator) and messages received (by the student-teachers). Our discussion is informed by the findings of a study that investigated student-teachers' interpretations of the pedagogical process of a physical education teacher education course. Data generated from conversations with, and observations of, the student-teachers indicated that there was considerable “slippage” between the teacher educator's critical pedagogy inspired intentions and what was understood by the student-teachers.

Towards an ethics of engagement in education in global times

Starting from the observation that patterns of educational inequality are widely known but largely invisible in public debates on education, this article argues for the importance of an ethics of education which challenges simple acceptance of 'things as they are'. It suggests possibilities for working with discourses of ethics, rights and citizenship in contingent and strategic ways, and argues for the importance of engaging ethically across difference in current global times. It proposes three interrelated dimensions for an ethics of engagement in education: an ethics of commitment to intellectual rigour; an ethics of civility; and an inter-human ethics of care.

Moving and dancing towards decolonisation in education: An example from an Indigenous Australian performance classroom

This paper explores the special type of thinking, moving and dancing place which is opened up for decolonisaton when students engage in an embodied pedagogical practice in Indigenous education. The author examines what decolonisation means in this context by describing the ways in which the curriculum, the students and teacher, and more generally the discipline of ethnomusicology itself, undergo a process to question, critique, and move aside the pedagogical script of colonialism in order to allow Indigenous ways of understanding music and dance to be presented, privileged and empowered. Key questions are: What is the relationship between embodiment and disembodiment and decolonisation and colonisation? In what ways is embodiment more than, or other than, the presence of moving bodies? In what ways is performativity an aspect of power/knowledge/subject formations? How can it be theorised? What could the pedagogical scripts of decolonisation look like?

Assessing professionalism: theory and practice

Professional attitudes and behaviours have only recently been explicitly recognized by medical educators as legitimate and necessary components of global competence, although the idea of Fitness to Practice has always presupposed acceptable professional behaviour. Medical schools have recently begun to introduce teaching and assessment of professionalism, including attitudes and behaviours. Partly as a result of the difficulty of assessment in this area, selection of students is receiving greater attention, in the pursuit of globally competent graduates. However, selection processes may be overrated for this purpose. Assessing actual attitudes and behaviour during the course is arguably a better way of ensuring that medical graduates are competent in these areas. I argue that judgments about attitudinal and behavioural competence are legitimate, and need be no more arbitrary than those made about scientific or clinical knowledge and skills, but also that these judgments should be restricted to what is agreed to be unacceptable behaviour, rather titan attempting to rate attitudes and behaviour positively. This model introduces students to the way in which their behaviours will be judged in their professional lives by registration authorities. These theoretical positions are illustrated by a recent case of academic failure based on inadequate attitudes and behaviours.

Situating Learning: (Re)examining the Notion of apprenticeship in Coach Education

The last two decades has seen a proliferation in the provision of and importance attached to coach education in many Western countries. Pivotal to many coach education programmes is the notion of apprenticeship. Increasingly, mentoring is being positioned as a possible tool for enhancing coach education and professional expertise. However, there is a paucity of empirical data on interventions in and evaluations of coach education programmes. In their recent evaluation of a coach education programme, Cassidy, Potrac & McKenzie conclude that the situated learning literature could provide coach educators with a generative platform for the (re)examination of apprenticeships and mentoring in a coach education context. This paper discusses the merits of using Situated Learning theory and the associated concept of Communities of Practice (CoP) to stimulate discussion on developing new understandings of the practices of apprenticeship and mentoring in coach education.