Can education add value to values? A study of law students

In the global market place the value of education takes on many meanings. In transnational education forums it relates to the market’s assessment (in dollar terms) of a qualification. But can we measure the value-addedness of tertiary education in existential terms? Can we measure the value that tertiary education provides to the enhancement of societies as a whole?

This study attempts to investigate what values are characteristic of Australian lawyers in their last year of law school. It is part of a larger longitudinal study, which aims to determine how values develop or degrade over time and what effect, if any, tertiary education can have in building and perpetuating ‘appropriate’ professional values? Results show that differing values sets do significantly predict behavioural choices on ethical questions presented to participants. The implications of results are discussed in the contexts of ethics education in a tertiary context, and applications for the professions.

Project team trust in leadership and leader values

This international research showed that when senior leaders' values and behaviours were perceived as being congruent by project teams, there was enrichment of interpersonal relationships and a reinforcement of relational trust. Conversely, when leaders' values and behaviours were perceived as not congruent, they were considered to lack integrity and trustworthiness.

Mediatizing educational policy : the journalistic field, science policy, and cross-field effects

This paper is concerned to demonstrate the usefulness of the theory of Bourdieu, including the concepts of field, logics of practice and habitus, to understanding relationships between media and policy, what Fairclough has called the 'mediatization' of policy. Specifically, the paper draws upon Bourdieu's accessible account of the journalistic field as outlined in On television and journalism. The usefulness of this work is illustrated through a case study of a recent Australian science policy, The chance to change. As this policy went through various iterations and media representations, its naming and structure became more aphoristic. This is the mediatization of contemporary policy, which often results in policy as sound bite. The case study also shows the cross-field effects of this policy in education, illustrating how today educational policy can be spawned from developments in other public policy fields.

Factors that predict work ability : incorporating a measure of organisational values towards ageing

This research conducted in an Australian public sector organisation aimed to identify the main factors that predict work ability for employees. According to Ilmarinen's (1999) model of work ability, an individual's work ability is influenced by their general health, attitudes, values and motivation interacting with workplace and other environmental demands. However what is unknown is the influence of value incongruence (i.e. the lack of fit between individual and organisational values), particularly when that incongruence results in age discrimination. This is important in an Australian context where youth and symbols of youth are over-valued in business environments and where older workers themselves perceive age discrimination as the single most important cause of early exit from the labour force.

109 participants completed a survey about work ability. Differences between work ability and health were not found between older and younger workers suggesting that strategies for improving work ability could be targeted at all employees rather than just older employees. However there were significant differences found between older and younger workers on reasons that would influence employees to stay longer in the organisation. Older workers tended to be more influenced by the provision of less demanding work, and positive attitudes towards older workers. Younger workers tended to be more influenced by opportunities to be employed in another section of the organisation, skills training opportunities and career advancement opportunities.

Results from hierarchical regression analyses suggested that good physical and mental health, and low occupational stress related to workplace culture were significant predictors of increased work ability. Results also suggested that occupational stress is likely to decrease with: high work ability and work satisfaction; and high value congruence. Implications for wellbeing programs to include the development of targeted organisational values are discussed.

Values in science, environmental education and teacher education

The aim of this chapter is to establish values as a key component of science and environmental education, consistent with the troika framework, and to explore the implications of this for teacher education. In the chapter, we review research that has increasingly placed values at the centre of the process of learning science, and central also in framing students' responses to school science. We then present findings from three projects that explore the relationship of values to teaching and learning science: first, an exploration of the pedagogies of effective teachers of science; second,an environmental education project in which students explore science and sustainability ideas in the context of a community exchange program in Mexico and Alaska; and, third, a teachcr education initiative focused on place-based education. In the chapter, we argue that learning science and engaging with the environment entails pedagogies that link conceptual learning, values and community.

The effects of cultural values in word-of-mouth communication

When new products and brands are introduced into other cultures, the speed and extent of the product's acceptance are important concerns for marketers. The spread of positive word of mouth (WOM) and the lack of negative WOM about the product or brand by early adopter groups are critical to the product's successful diffusion in a population. This is the first study to investigate the effects of consumers' cultural values on their WOM behavior. Data analysis from two samples indicates that the pattern, type, and target receivers of consumers' WOM activity depend on their cultural values. The authors use Hofstede's four cultural dimensions to test the effects of cultural values on WOM behavior to social in- and out-groups. They find that all four dimensions have significant effects on WOM engagement to those groups. Although the authors could not determine the causal nature of the relationships because of the sample design used, they argue that marketers should monitor the cultural values of their market to anticipate in- and out-group discussions and the choice of appropriate brand communication strategies in other countries.

The educative value of values

There appears to be increasing interest among certain educational institutions to include values as a prominent feature of their practice (Buckley & Erricker, 2004). One recent example is the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority (VCAA) who released a discussion paper earlier this year, which indicates that values are to play a much greater role in government schools. However, endeavouring to promote values as common standards can be criticised to be problematic in our pluralist society, because not all values are necessarily valuable.

This paper reviews the VCAA paper and attempts to respond to Nietzsche’s (1998) challenge to question the value of our values, by offering guidance as to how the educative value of values might be determined. Such an examination is expected to identify a potential tension between a particular civic education and that of a more philosophic and universally educative perspective. In order to do this, a differentiation between a value (noun) as ‘objective fact’ and value (verb) as a ‘subjective relation’ is made. This paper will adopt an existential perspective by drawing upon consequentialism, intentionality and the works of Kierkegaard and Dewey, to argue that emphasis should be placed on the subjective aspects of educative valuing without fostering an objective/subjective divide.

Does the Australian national framework for values education stifle an education for world peace?

This paper aims to offer an evaluation of Australia's National Framework for Values Education in terms of its educative value. The criteria to be employed in this evaluation shall be drawn primarily from the works of UNESCO and John Dewey. In addition to a re-evaluation of values, consideration will also be given to how individual learners are being prepared to participate democratically in the quest for world peace. It will therefore be necessary to determine whether the Australian framework promotes the potential for democratic participation through inquiry or whether through schooling its overtly nationalistic agenda actually stifles the capacity of persons to participate in a pursuit for global understandings and world peace.

On a clear day you can see forever : integrating values and skills in sex offender treatment

The topic of sex offender rehabilitation frequently evokes fierce reactions, ranging from strident demands for harsher sentences contrasted with calls for more imaginative and compassionate sentencing options. There seems to be a polarization of positions centred on the question of offenders' moral standing: are they moral strangers or fellow travellers? This fundamental disagreement about offenders' moral status is at the core of a number of independent, although related current practice and research issues confronting the field, namely: (1) risk management versus strength-based treatment approaches; (2) the utility of utilizing individually tailored versus manual-based programmes for offenders; (3) focusing on the technical aspects or therapy as opposed to relationship and therapist factors (what has been called process issues); and (4) the conflict between protecting the community versus promoting the interests of offenders. In this paper I suggest that an approach to sex offender treatment based on a combination of human rights theory (an ethical resource) and strengths-based approaches can help us navigate our way through the above dilemmas in a way that addressees both the needs of offenders and those of the community.

Beliefs, values, and action : the judgment model of cognitive distortions in sexual offenders

In this paper, we present the Judgment Model of Cognitive Distortions (JMCD), a new model of cognitive distortions that spans multiple levels of analysis and contains different types of judgments. This model proposes that cognitive distortions tend to cluster together in what we have termed Thematic Networks (TN): judgments about beliefs, values, and actions. We argue that the three sets of judgments cover all types of cognitive distortions apparent in sexual offenders including those revolving around content (i.e., asserting characteristics to people, the offender, the world) and cognitive operations (i.e., denial, minimization, rationalizations). Following a description of the JMCD, we demonstrate how it can account for the cognitive schemata identified in sexual offenders by researchers and clinicians. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the clinical and research implications of the JMCD.

Consumer concerns about food and health : examination of general and specific relationships with personal values and demographics

Purpose – Aims to investigate the relationships between consumers' food concerns and their personal values and demographic characteristics.

Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire was administered in a cross sectional random population survey conducted among a sample of 1,000 adults in South Australia. The questionnaire elicited information about respondents' concerns about 20 food and health issues, the perceived importance of 23 values items derived from the Schwartz values inventory, and their demographic characteristics.

Findings – Principal components analyses derived four food concerns factors and six personal values factors. Respondents' safety concerns scores were positively associated with devout-tradition, order-discipline, and moderate-independent values. Their disease concerns score was positively linked to beauty-nature, devout-tradition, and order-discipline. Multiple regression and chi-square automatic interaction detection (CHAID) analyses showed that individual values items were strong predictors of consumers; specific concerns such as food and heart disease, and, genetic modification of foods.

Research limitations/implications – The research was based on a cross sectional study. More refined indices of food concerns and personal values should be used in replications of this preliminary study.

Practical implications – The findings support the use of psychographic market segmentation approaches in communication programs about food and health issues.

Originality/value – The findings suggest that personal values, may be stronger predictors of consumers' concerns about food and health issues than demographics. They also show that measurement level of values and concerns influence the observed strength of their relationships.