Unions and productivity growth: a meta-analytic review

The impact of unions on productivity growth has received extensive
attention from researchers in industrial relations and economics. Despite
a voluminous literature, controversy continues regarding the effect of unions on productivity growth. In this paper, meta-analysis and metaregression
analysis is used to quantify the association between unions and productivity growth and to accomplish a quantitative assessment of the empirical literature. The results indicate that the overall association between unions and productivity growth is negative, especially for the U.S. The search for moderator variables revealed that most of the variation in the published results is artificial and can be attributed to specification differences.

The role of socio-cultural factors in the obesity epidemic

Obesity is socio-culturally distributed; that is the prevalence of obesity is known to vary according to socio-cultural factors, including socio-economic position, social roles and circumstance, and cultural factors. Further, these socio-cultural patterns are complex and specific to sex, age, and sometimes racial groups, as well as type of society, with patterns of relationships observed in developed countries sometimes reversed in developing countries. As described in Chapter 4, there is little doubt of the importance of the changing physical environment to the increases in obesity observed over the past several decades. However, far less attention has been paid to investigating the potential contribution of socio-cultural factors and to changes in the socio-cultural environment over time to the current obesity pandemic. The mechanisms through which socio-cultural factors may influence body weight and risk for obesity are also not well understood. In discussing socio-cultural influences we refer to systems of social relations (roles and relationships that define class, gender, ethnicity, and other social factors) and the meanings attached to these (1). For the purposes of this chapter, we focus on the impact of social, economic, and value systems on individuals' obesity-related behaviors (particularly, certain eating patterns and physical inactivity). In particular, we examine socio-cultural categories (socio-economic status, ethnicity, marital/family roles) for which evidence exists that rates of obesity are differentially distributed. We have not focused on the role of physical environmental factors, which is covered in Chapter 4, and we have largely restricted our focus to developed countries, from where the majority of the evidence for socio-cultural influences on obesity is derived. Issues relating to influences on obesity in developing countries are covered in detail in Chapter 5. This chapter provides an overview of the impact of socio-cultural influences on obesity in developed countries, and considers the potential pathways through which these influences may operate. The chapter concludes by speculating about the potential impact of societal trends on future rates and patterns of obesity in developed countries.

Settlement of Disputes Within the World Trade Organisation: A Guide to the Jurisprudence

The Urugauy Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations led to the development of a revised set of procedures on dispute settlement. These procedures dealt with a number of significant problems that had arisen under GATT dispute settlement experience. In spite of these important reforms, there are numerous, complex and contentious questions of legal adjudication that any formal dispute settlement system must face. The article outlines the aims and organs of dispute settlement under the WTO. It addresses some of the key questions as to standing, interpetation, evidence and adjudicatory practices and processes. While ongoing moitoring and reform is necessary, an important thesis is that the inherent nature of legal adjudication forces uncertain determinations that can too easily give rise to unwarranted criticism of the system as a whole.

Copper-dependent iron assimilation pathway in the model photosynthetic eukaryote chlamydomonas reinhardtii

The unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a valuable model for studying metal metabolism in a photosynthetic background. A search of the Chlamydomonas expressed sequence tag database led to the identification of several components that form a copper-dependent iron assimilation pathway related to the high-affinity iron uptake pathway defined originally for Saccharomyces cerevisiae. They include a multicopper ferroxidase (encoded by Fox1), an iron permease (encoded by Ftr1), a copper chaperone (encoded by Atx1), and a copper-transporting ATPase. A cDNA, Fer1, encoding ferritin for iron storage also was identified. Expression analysis demonstrated that Fox1 and Ftr1 were coordinately induced by iron deficiency, as were Atx1 and Fer1, although to lesser extents. In addition, Fox1 abundance was regulated at the posttranscriptional level by copper availability. Each component exhibited sequence relationship with its yeast, mammalian, or plant counterparts to various degrees; Atx1 of C. reinhardtii is also functionally related with respect to copper chaperone and antioxidant activities. Fox1 is most highly related to the mammalian homologues hephaestin and ceruloplasmin; its occurrence and pattern of expression in Chlamydomonas indicate, for the first time, a role for copper in iron assimilation in a photosynthetic species. Nevertheless, growth of C. reinhardtii under copper- and iron-limiting conditions showed that, unlike the situation in yeast and mammals, where copper deficiency results in a secondary iron deficiency, copper-deficient Chlamydomonas cells do not exhibit symptoms of iron deficiency. We propose the existence of a copper-independent iron assimilation pathway in this organism.

The graphic calculator as a thinking tool: perspectives from the classroom

For over a decade the graphic calculator has been promoted not only as a computational tool but also as a thinking tool — for example, as an aid to enhance conceptual understanding, as a problem-solving tool and as a means of enabling students to engage in meaningful investigations. However, research studies focusing on these aspects have shown mixed results and have mostly focused on graphs and functions. This paper reports on one aspect of a case study in a year 10 mathematics classroom — the role of the graphic calculator as a thinking tool. Data from observations of nine statistics lessons and interviews with the teacher and five students are analysed from three perspectives: the teacher’s intentions with respect to the use of the graphic calculator as a tool to promote conceptual understanding as opposed to procedural competence; the opportunities afforded during the lessons for student investigation; and students’ views of how the graphic calculator enhanced conceptual understanding. The results provide insights into ways in which students perceive the graphic calculator as promoting conceptual understanding, as well as some of the difficulties encountered in practice in a classroom.

Elements of a model of effective teachers

Much research in teacher education has concentrated on individual elements of effective teaching such as the best way to teach content. There has been less emphasis on understanding the complex process of effective teaching in its entirety. Teacher educators are in the business of creating effective teachers and as such need a clear, evidence based model of an effective teacher. We believe that current models of effective teachers are limited because they fail to give sufficient emphasis to many important aspects of effective teachers and fail to integrate these components into a coherent whole and so provide a language for discussion of and a conceptual framework for developing teacher education.

This paper discusses the elements needed for a model of an effective teacher. This model emphasises not only the domains of effective teaching which receive most of the attention in teacher education and evaluation, namely content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and, more recently, pedagogical content knowledge but also takes into account the teacher's personal knowledge and knowledge of context. We suggest that it is not just this knowledge that teachers have in these domains but the way this knowledge overlaps and interacts both within the teacher and with the teacher's physical, social, intellectual and emotional environment.

An examination of the effective teacher challenges not only teacher educators to rethink the way we educate both preservice and inservice teachers; but also the way we assess, judge and reward teachers.

Departmental advisers as official interpreters : torchbearers and holders of official knowledge

The work undertaken by departmental advisers who assist teachers to implement particular state education policies such as syllabus and curriculum documents is the focus of this paper. The author's doctoral thesis involved an analysis of the interactions between teachers, the texts of the Queensland English Syllabus, and two women who worked as 'official interpreters' guiding teachers in their uses of the texts. This paper examines the complex positions taken up by these interpreters. On the one hand, their expertness is demonstrated by the official knowledge they hold and by the torchbearing work they do with teachers. But on the other hand, the choices and selections made during this torchbearing work are governed by the interpreters' regulation by the discourses surrounding their official knowledge. The research undertaken on these interpreters' work informs the author's final call to recognise the complexity surrounding implementations of new curriculum and syllabus documents. Such recognition would include making use of the departmental advisers' expertness and depth of knowledge in particular curriculum areas in innovative and collegial projects crossing over traditional boundaries between academic research and teachers' practices.

A focus on teaching in online pedagogy

As the Internet continues to grow in popularity and educational institutions feel the need to have a presence online, 'learning and teaching online' has become somewhat of an IT cliché. In many cases course material is made available online and it is left up to the learner to learn. The claims made for online courses promise considerable cost savings after the initial establishment period, and opportunities to provide education to a larger, globalised marketplace. For students, online learning is thought to allow more flexible study options, and the opportunity to work and study at the same time (Bell, et al 2002, p. 27).

In this paper we question the assumption that online teaching is merely making course material available on the World Wide Web. We report on our study of what is involved in the act of teaching online and on the research that led to the development of the 'mobile teaching facility' to enable a focus on teaching in the online environment. We reflect on how a group of academic staff are responding to online teaching. Details of professional development workshops, hardware and software solutions and working with the complexities of pedagogy will also be discussed. This paper is about our findings, recommendations and plans for future explorations.

Lessons for 2003 from 1993 : primary teacher standpoint on policy backlash against the gender inclusive curriculum

In this paper, I provide evidence of policy 'backlash' against feminism from the standpoint of the practitioner. When asked, in a case study of Victorian primary schools how the gender inclusive curriculum was conceptualised and enacted, practitioners critique the conservative policy shift that they observed. I premise this paper on the notion that critical reflection on the specificities of policy discourse from the previous decade represents transformative work for the contemporary policy context. I conclude with a discussion of how research agendas in the current era of uncertainty can be re-assessed in the light of this study.

Ian's story : the complex interaction of ethnicity, class and masculinities

In this paper, a narrative is used to convey the complex connectedness that exists between class, ethnicity and masculinity. The story is of Ian, a successful academic who describes himself as Eurasian, and traces his development through parts of his childhood and into his professional career, using what Gough (1994) describes as a 'realistic fiction'. Relevant literature on masculinities and ethnicity is considered. There is some evidence to suggest that Ian has developed a fluid version of masculinity as a result of his Asian-Australian upbringing, and that he expresses different masculinities according to the social settings in which he finds himself. The paper concludes, just as Ian's story does, that masculinity interacts with class and ethnicity. This accords with Connell's (1995) caution that it is dangerous to think that there is a colored masculinity or a working class masculinity, and that the milieux of class and race need to be considered as well.

What can we learn from McLuhan? Electronic communication technologies and the future of schooling

In the 1960's, Marshall McLuhan predicted that schooling, among other things, would be transformed as society embraced electronic communication technologies. McLuhan and other medium theorists provided an evocative but controversial discussion of the effects of technological development on society and its institutions. McLuhan's ideas were widely criticised by his contemporaries, particularly educationalists; however, his ideas are not so radical today and visions similar to those formulated by McLuhan can now be found in mainstream educational literature. Predictions made by medium theorists about the future of schooling are consistent with both the reforms advocated by current-day educationalists and the speculations of technologists.

In this paper, I revisit McLuhan's predictions for the future of education. I then draw parallels between McLuhan's vision and those espoused by contemporary educationalists. I argue that, although McLuhan's predictions have re-emerged, his analysis of the interaction between new technologies and old ways of doing have not re-emerged to the same extent, with many commentators neglecting to take account of the resilience of the institutionalised practices, structures and roles of traditional schooling.