ontoReadiness: A meta-ontology for readiness certification and career portability

This paper argues the need for the information communication technology (ICT), labor exchange (job boards), and Human Capital ontology engineers (ontoEngineers) to jointly design and socialize an upper level meta-ontology for people readiness and career portability. These enticing ontology research topics have yielded "independent" results, but have yet to meet the more broader or "universal" requirement that emerging frameworks demand. This paper will focus on the need to universally develop an upper level ontology and provide the reader concepts and models that can be transformed into marketable solutions.

Life histories of academics who become heads of department: socialisation, identity and career trajectory

Although the role of the academic head of department (HoD) has always been important to university management and performance, an increasing significance given to bureaucracy, academic performance and productivity, and government accountability has greatly elevated the importance of this position. Previous research and anecdotal evidence suggests that as academics move into HoD roles, usually with little or no training, they experience a problem of struggling to adequately manage key aspects of their role. It is this problem – and its manifestations – that forms the research focus of this study. Based on the research question, “What are the career trajectories of academics who become HoDs in a selected post-1992 university?” the study aimed to achieve greater understanding of why academics become HoDs, what it is like being a HoD, and how the experience influences their future career plans. The study adopts an interpretive approach, in line with social constructivism. Edited topical life history interviews were undertaken with 17 male and female HoDs, from a range of disciplines, in a post-1992 UK university. These data were analysed using coding, categorisation and theme formation techniques and developing profiles of each of the respondents. The findings from this study suggest that academics who become HoDs not only need the capacity to assume a range of personal and professional identities, but need to regularly adopt and switch between them. Whether individuals can successfully balance and manage these multiple identities, or whether they experience major conflicts and difficulties within or between them, greatly affects their experiences of being a HoD and may influence their subsequent career decisions. It is claimed that the focus, approach and analytical framework - based on the interrelationships between the concepts of socialisation, identity and career trajectory - provide a distinct and original contribution to knowledge in this area. Although the results of this study cannot be generalised, the findings may help other individuals and institutions move towards a firmer understanding of the academic who becomes HoD - in relation to theory, practice and future research.

The history curriculum and its personal connection to students from minority ethnic backgrounds

Whereas history is seen by some as crucial in developing a sense of identity and fostering social cohesion, it is however, often based around narrowly nationalistic views of the past, and yet little is known about how students relate to the past they are taught. Thus, this paper focuses on the history curriculum and the ways in which students aged 12-14, from different ethnic backgrounds, relate to it. Moreover, the small-scale study which enabled this paper, focused, in particular, on whether students enjoyed and valued history and whether they felt any sense of personal connection to the topics studied. Drawing on survey data collected from 102 students and focus group discussions with 42 students, from two high schools, the findings indicate that although many students enjoy history, they fail to fully understand its value. Additionally most students, especially those from minority ethnic backgrounds, feel a lack of personal connection to the past, as they do not see themselves in the history they are taught.

One step forward, and two steps back: women and career progression in academia during times of uncertainty

While there is an extensive and still growing body of literature on women in academia and the challenges they encounter in career progression, there is little research on their experience specifically within a business school setting. In this study, we attempt to address this gap and examine the experiences and career development of female academics in a business school and how these are impacted by downsizing programmes. To this end, an exploratory case study is conducted. The findings of this study show that female business school academics experience numerous challenges in terms of promotion and development, networking, and the multiple and conflicting demands placed upon them. As a result, the lack of visibility seems to be a pertinent issue in terms of their career progression. Our data also demonstrates that that, paradoxically, during periods of downsizing women become more visible and thus vulnerable to layoffs as a consequence of the challenges and pressures created in their environment during this process. In this paper, we argue that this heightened visibility, and being subject to possible layoffs, further reproduces inequality regimes in academia.

Winning and losing in the creative industries: an analysis of creative graduates' career opportunities across creative disciplines

Following earlier work looking at overall career difficulties and low economic rewards faced by graduates in creative disciplines, the paper takes a closer look into the different career patterns and economic performance of “Bohemian” graduates across different creative disciplines. While it is widely acknowledged in the literature that careers in the creative field tend to be unstructured, often relying on part-time work and low wages, our knowledge of how these characteristics differ across the creative industries and occupational sectors is very limited. The paper explores the different trajectory and career patterns experienced by graduates in different creative disciplinary fields and their ability to enter creative occupations. Data from the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) are presented, articulating a complex picture of the reality of finding a creative occupation for creative graduates. While students of some disciplines struggle to find full-time work in the creative economy, for others full-time occupation is the norm. Geography plays a crucial role also in offering graduates opportunities in creative occupations and higher salaries. The findings are contextualised in the New Labour cultural policy framework and conclusions are drawn on whether the creative industries policy construct has hidden a very problematic reality of winners and losers in the creative economy.

Teachers as researchers and teachers as software developers: how use-case analysis helps build better educational software

A series of government initiatives has raised both the profile of ICT in the curriculum and the expectation that high quality teaching and learning resources will be accessible across electronic networks. In order for e-learning resources such as websites to have the maximum educational impact, teachers need to be involved in their design and development. Use-case analysis provides a means of defining user requirements and other constraints in such a way that software developers can produce e-learning resources which reflect teachers' professional knowledge and support their classroom practice. It has some features in common with the participatory action research used to develop other aspects of classroom practice. Two case-studies are presented: one involves the development of an on-line resource centred on transcripts of original historical documents; the other describes how 'Learning how to Learn', a major, distributed research project funded under the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme is using use-case analysis to develop web resources and services.

Educational participation post-16: a longitudinal analysis of intentions and outcomes

The issue of levels of participation in post-compulsory education has been emphasised by the current policy initiatives to increase the age to which some form of participation is compulsory. One of the acknowledged weaknesses of research in the field of children's intentions with regard to participation is the lack of longitudinal data. This paper offers a longitudinal analysis using the Youth Survey from the British Household Panel Survey. The results show that most children can express intentions with regard to future participation very early in their secondary school careers and that these intentions are good predictors of actual behaviour five years later. Intentions to stay on are more consistent than intentions to leave and most children who finally leave at 16 have at some point said they want to remain in education post-16. The strongest association with participation levels is attainment at GCSE. However, there are also influences of gender and parental background and these remain, even after attainment is held constant. The results show the value of focusing on intentions for participation at a very early stage of children's school careers and also the importance of current attempts to reform curriculum and assessment for the 14-19 age group.

Creating teaching and learning in Europe: promoting a new paradigm

The tides of globalization and the unsteady surges and distortions in the evolution of the European Union are causing identities and cultures to be in a state of flux. Education is used by politicians as a major lever for political and social change through micro-management, but it is a crude tool. There can, however, be opportunities within educational experience for individual learners to gain strong, reflexive, multiple identities and multiple citizenship through the engagement of their creative energies. It has been argued that the twenty-first century needs a new kind of creativity characterized by unselfishness, caring and compassion—still involving monetary wealth, but resulting in a healthy planet and healthy people. Creativity and its economically derived relation, innovation, have become `buzz words' of our times. They are often misconstrued, misunderstood and plainly misused within educational conversations. The small-scale pan-European research study upon which this article is founded discovered that more emphasis needs to be placed on creative leadership, empowering teachers and learners, reducing pupils' fear of school, balancing teaching approaches, and ensuring that the curriculum and assessment are responsive to the needs of individual learners. These factors are key to building strong educational provision that harnesses the creative potential of learners, teachers and other stakeholders, values what it is to be human and creates a foundation upon which to build strong, morally based, consistent, participative democracies.

Sustaining linguistic diversity within the global cultural economy: issues of language rights and linguistic possibilities

This paper draws on ethnographic case-study research conducted amongst a group of first and second generation immigrant children in six inner-city schools in London. It focuses on language attitudes and language choice in relation to cultural maintenance, on the one hand, and career aspirations on the other. It seeks to provide insight into some of the experiences and dilemmatic choices encountered and negotiations engaged in by transmigratory groups, how they define cultural capital, and the processes through which new meanings are shaped as part of the process of defining a space within the host society. Underlying this discussion is the assumption that alternative cultural spaces in which multiple identities and possibilities can be articulated already exist in the rich texture of everyday life amongst transmigratory groups. The argument that whilst the acquisition of 'world languages' is a key variable in accumulating cultural capital, the maintenance of linguistic diversity retains potent symbolic power in sustaining cohesive identities is a recurring theme.

The "freedom to frame questions... worth asking" or three stories and three (other) fragments of research

In our state of centralised control of the curriculum and high-stakes testing an examination subject's assessment objectives have become high profile. Some of the anomalous effects of this profile are shown in the teaching, question-setting, and marking of English literature. Glimpses of earlier times are revealed, all three secondary school key stages are considered, examination performances are discussed, and the views of beginning teachers about teaching to the test are sought.

Narrativising the facts: acting in screen and stage docudrama

This article presents findings and seeks to establish the theoretical markers that indicate the growing importance of fact-based drama in screen and theatre performance to the wider Anglophone culture. During the final decade of the twentieth century and the opening one of the twenty-first, television docudrama and documentary theatre have grown in visibility and importance in the UK, providing key responses to social, cultural and political change over the millennial period. Actors were the prime focus for the enquiry principally because so little research has been done into the special demands that fact-based performance makes on them. The main emphasis in actor training (in the UK at any rate) is, as it always has been, on preparation for fictional drama. Preparation in acting schools is also heavily geared towards stage performance. Our thesis was that performers called upon to play the roles of real people, in whatever medium, have added responsibilities both towards history and towards real individuals and their families. Actors must engage with ethical questions whether they like it or not, and we found them keenly aware of this. In the course of the research, we conducted 30 interviews with a selection of actors ranging from the experienced to the recently-trained. We also interviewed a few industry professionals and actor trainers. Once the interviews started it was clear that actors themselves made little or no distinction between how they set about their work for television and film. The essential disciplines for work in front of the camera, they told us, are the same whether the camera is electronic or photographic. Some adjustments become necessary, of course in the multi-camera TV studio. But much serious drama for the screen is made on film anyway. We found it was also the case that young actors now tend to get their first paid employment before a camera rather than on a stage. The screen-before-stage tendency, along with the fundamental re-shaping that has gone on in the British theatre since at least the early 1980s, had implications for actor training. We have also found that theatre work still tends to be most valued by actors. For all the actors we interviewed, theatre was what they liked doing best because it was there they could practice and develop their skills, there they could work most collectively towards performance, and there they could more directly experience audience feedback in the real time of the stage play. The current world of television has been especially constrained in regard to rehearsal time in comparison to theatre (and, to a lesser extent, film). This has also affected actors’ valuation of their work. Theatre is, and is not, the most important medium in which they find work. Theatre is most important spiritually and intellectually, because in theatre is collaborative, intensive, and involving; theatre is not as important in financial and career terms, because it is not as lucrative and not as visible to a large public as acting for the screen. Many actors took the view that, for all the industrial differences that do affect them and inevitably interest the academic, acting for the visible media of theatre, film and television involved fundamentally the same process with slightly different emphases.

Student teachers’ perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading: the implications for teacher education

This article reports on research which identified perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading held by trainee teachers and the impact on my provision as a teacher educator. It found that students’ past and present experiences of learning to read and being a reader influenced their perceptions of what reading is and of what it means to teach reading. As a teacher educator, I am not able to give students long experience of seeing children becoming readers, but I am able to give them richer experiences of reading in personally and culturally relevant contexts. This has implications for the nature of subject knowledge required by a student teacher of reading and the curriculum and practice of teacher education.