The private problem with public service: Rural teachers in educational markets

Staffing rural and remote schools is an important policy issue for the public good. This paper examines the private issues it also poses for teachers with families working in these communities, as they seek to reconcile careers with educational choices for children. The paper first considers historical responses to staffing rural and remote schools in Australia, and the emergence of neoliberal policy encouraging marketisation of the education sector. We report on interviews about considerations motivating household mobility with 11 teachers across regional, rural and remote communities in Queensland. Like other middle-class parents, these teachers prioritised their children’s educational opportunities over career opportunities. The analysis demonstrates how teachers in rural and remote communities constitute a special group of educational consumers with insider knowledge and unique dilemmas around school choice. Their heightened anxieties around school choice under neoliberal policy are shown to contribute to the public issue of staffing rural and remote schools.

Designing hubs for connected learning: social, spatial and technological insights from Coworking, Hackerspaces and Meetup groups

Connected learning, as a design approach, does not restrict learning to a dedicated learning space (school, university, etc.), but considers it to be an aggregation of individual experiences made through intrinsically motivated, active participation in and across various socio-cultural, every-day life environments. Urban places for meeting, interacting and connected learning with people from diverse backgrounds, cultures and areas of expertise are highly significant in the knowledge economy of our 21st century. However, little is yet known about best practices to design and curate such hubs that attract and support interest-driven and socially embedded learning experiences. The research study presented in this paper investigates design aspects that contribute to successful place-based spaces for connected learning. The paper reports findings from observations as well as interviews with users and managers of three different types of local, community-led learning environments, i.e., coworking spaces, hackerspaces, and meetup groups across Australia. The findings reveal social, spatial and technological interventions that these spaces apply to nourish a culture of connected learning, sharing and peer interaction. The discussion suggests a set of design implications for designers, managers and decision makers that have an interest in nourishing a connected learning culture among their user community.

The purpose and place of mentoring for women managers in organisations: An Australian perspective

Mentoring has been identified as an important career development activity for women managers. Over the last four decades, organisations world-wide have implemented formal mentoring programs for women and for members of minority groups in recognition of the personal and professional benefits mentoring provides, not only for persons who are mentored but also, for those who undertake the mentoring. This chapter reviews the literature on mentoring and the contribution it can make to the career development of women managers. It reviews several inter-related bodies of literature: women’s representation in management positions worldwide; theories and frameworks of mentoring; empirical research exploring the impact of mentoring relationships on women managers’ career development; current illustrations of formal programs offered to women managers in the public and private sectors; and some critical issues that continue to impact women managers in relation to mentoring relationships. The chapter concludes by making an argument for further research on gender and mentoring.

Leading Beautifully : Educational Leadership as Connoisseurship

Leading Beautifully provides a new dimension to understanding effective leadership. Drawing from lessons in the arts and the humanities, English and Ehrich explore how educational decision-making in schools can be informed by identity, personal competence, and an understanding of the field's intellectual foundations. Based on in-depth interviews of artists and educational leaders, this book provides insight into the inner world of successful leaders who have developed competencies and understandings that extend beyond the standard leadership tool box. This exciting new book explores the theory and practice of leadership connoisseurship as a human-centered endeavor and as an antidote to mechanistic, business-oriented practices. The authors' well-grounded reconsideration of educational leadership will enliven and enhance any educational leader's practice.

Seeking continuity: Educational strategy in and for mobile ADF families

This report shares findings and insights from an interview study conducted in 2009, with 34 ADF families. These families were identified in the communities of primary schools in both state and Catholic systems with high ADF family enrolments in 3 towns across 2 states, with the assistance of the DCO and their embedded Defence School Transition Aides (DSTAs). In the interviews the parents were invited to describe their history of ADF relocations, and how they managed transitions for each member in terms of school choice, child care arrangements, spouse employment, and educational transitions. Parallel interviews were conducted with 12 teachers and 6 DSTAs across the identified schools to describe how schools cater for mobile ADF families flowing through their classes. Parents were invited to tell the story of their family’s sequence of moves and how each member made the transition, then reflect more generally on what advice they’d give other mobile families. Teachers were asked to describe how they respond to the mobile families in their school community, and to illustrate some of the issues and challenges from the institutional perspective. By offering perspectives from both parents and teachers, the report hopes to facilitate a dialogue between parties to address their common goal – promoting productive continuities in education for children in mobile families.

Scientific and technological aspects of fixed bed biomass gasification

In recent years new emphasis has been placed on problems of the environmental aspects of waste disposal, especially investigating alternatives to landfill, sea dumping and incineration. There is also a strong emphasis on clean, economic and efficient processes for electric power generation. These two topics may at first appear unrelated. Nevertheless, the technological advances are now such that a solution to both can be combined in a novel approach to power generation based on waste-derived fuels, including refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and sludge power (SP) by utilising a slagging gasifier and advance fuel technology (AFT). The most appropriate gasification technique for such waste utilisation is the British Gas/Lurgi (BGL) high pressure, fixed bed slagging gasifier where operation on a range of feedstocks has been well-documented. This gasifier is particularly amenable to briquette fuel feeding and, operating in an integrated gasification combined cycle mode (IGCC), is particularly advantageous. Here, the author details how this technology has been applied to Britain's first AFT-IGCC Power Station which is now under development at Fife Energy Ltd., in Scotland, the former British Gas Westfield Development Centre.

Canon Ulick Bourke: cultural nationalism, popular politics and the Knock apparition

Accounts of the Knock Apparition, academic and devotional, always start by relating that the Virgin Mary, St Joseph, and St John the Evangelist appeared to fifteen people on a rainy Thursday evening at the south gable of Knock chapel, Co. Mayo, on 21 August 1879. They usually mention that the Land War was in progress. Despite the fact Knock supposedly receives one and a half million visitors a year, until three decades ago no scholar had examined accounts of the apparition. Recent work has sought to define the Knock Apparition in light of the Land War, the ‘devotional revolution’, which took place in Irish Catholicism in the quarter century prior to the apparition, and the influence of the parish priest, Archdeacon Bartholomew Cavanagh. This thesis acknowledges these factors, but contends that the single greatest force in shaping accounts of the apparition was Canon Ulick Joseph Bourke, one of the three priests on the commission of investigation into Knock. Furthermore, this thesis proves that Bourke’s role as a central figure in influencing the later Gaelic revival has been overlooked by scholars of cultural nationalism. By examining Bourke’s cultural nationalism and views on antiquity and language, as well as his politics and reaction to the Land War, this thesis argues that Bourke sought to create an orthodox version of the apparition which could be reconciled to his views on Irish Catholic identity, while serving as a bulwark against threats to the temporal power of the clergy. In addition to influencing accounts of the apparition through his role in interviewing the witnesses and recording their testimony, Bourke further shaped the narrative of the apparition by controlling its dissemination, to the extent that all accounts of Knock are based on a text largely created by him.

Jung’s cultural writing: spiral essays and performing symbols (in literature)

Performance is a key ingredient of Jung’s writings on culture and of the function of the Jungian symbol in literature. This paper will compare and contrast Jung’s performance of cultural analysis and healing in his essays with the way his notion of the symbol works in literature to knit the individual psyche into the collective. It will explore Jung’s unique essay form of the spiral as a literary innovation, and look at the way a Jungian reading of literary reveals a significant contribution to cultural studies. [From the Author]

The (Soft) Power of Commitment:The EU and Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland

This paper examines the potential of international actors to contribute to conflict resolution by analysing the evolving role of the European Union (EU) in embedding Northern Ireland's peace process. Scrutiny of the EU's approach to conflict resolution in Northern Ireland offers useful insights into the scope and potential of soft power for facilitating behavioural change from governmental to grass-roots levels. This paper traces the development of the EU's approach to conflict resolution in Northern Ireland from one concentrated on encouraging state-level agreement, to nurturing peace through multilevel funding, through now to consolidating the peace by facilitating regional-level empowerment. The core argument is that, in sum, the most critical element of the EU's contribution to peace in Northern Ireland has been, quite simply, that of enduring commitment.

Socio-cultural determinants of adiposity and physical activity in preschool children: a cross-sectional study.

Both individual socio-cultural determinants such as selected parental characteristics (migrant background, low educational level and workload) as well as the regional environment are related to childhood overweight and physical activity (PA). The purpose of the study was to compare the impact of distinct socio-cultural determinants such as the regional environment and selected parental characteristics on adiposity, PA and motor skills in preschool children. Forty preschools (N = 542 children) of two culturally different urban regions (German and French speaking part of Switzerland) participated in the study (Ballabeina Study). Outcome measures included adiposity (BMI and skinfold thickness), objectively measured sedentary activities and PA (accelerometers) and agility performance (obstacle course). Parental characteristics (migrant status, educational level and workload) were assessed by questionnaire. Children from the French speaking areas had higher adiposity, lower levels of total and of more intense PA, were more sedentary and less agile than children from the German speaking regions (percent differences for all outcome parameters except for BMI ≥10%; all p ≤ 0.04). Differences in skinfold thickness, sedentary activities and agility, but not in PA, were also found between children of Swiss and migrant parents, though they were ≤8% (p ≤ 0.02). While paternal workload had no effect, maternal workload and parental education resulted in differences in some PA measures and/or agility performance (percent differences in both: ≤9%, p ≤ 0.008), but not in adiposity or sedentary activities (p = NS). Regional differences in skinfold thickness, PA, sedentary activities and agility performance persisted after adjustment for parental socio-cultural characteristics, parental BMI and, where applicable, children's skinfolds (all p ≤ 0.01). The regional environment, especially the broader social environment, plays a prominent role in determining adiposity, PA and motor skills of young children and should be implicated in the prevention of obesity and promotion of PA in children. clinicaltrials.gov NCT00674544.

Workplace Innovation and Technological Change. CEPS Special Report, September 2012

This paper explores the extent to which the illusive phenomenon of workplace innovation has pervaded workplaces in Europe and whether it could be one of the answers to Europe’s longterm social and economic challenges that stem from an ageing workforce and the need for more flexibility to stay competitive. Basic data drawn from European Working Conditions Survey conducted every five years by the Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions are supplemented by a series of case studies to look at the problems encountered in introducing workplace innovation and possible solutions. One set of case studies examines the following organisations: SGI/GI (Slovak Governance Institute (Slovakia), as representative of the world of small- and medium-sized enterprises; Oticon (Denmark) as representative of manufacturing companies; the Open University (UK), as representative of educational organizations; and FPS Social Security (Belgium) representing the public sector. Two final case studies focus on the country-level, one looking at of how a specific innovation can become fully mainstreamed (in the Netherlands and the ‘part-time economy’) and the other (Finland and TEKES) looking at how a government programme can help disseminate workplace innovation. These six case studies, together with the statistical analysis, constitute the main empirical value added of the report.

Power and Politics in Organizations

Aristotle made the observation that man is a political animal. Engineers often like to think they are above the fray when it comes to organizational politics, but most organizational theorists believe politics is a fundamental dynamic in any group. This paper examines the various ways that people use power within organizations to negotiate the political interactions in the work place.

Data base for light-weight automotive diesel power plants - Volume II: discussion and results. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Passenger Vehicle Research, Washington, D.C.