British lesbian, gay and bisexual psychologies:theory, research and practice

Gain insight into crucial British mental health approaches for LGB individuals. There is very little collaborative literature between LGB-affirmative psychologists and psychotherapists in the United States and the United Kingdom. British Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Psychologies: Theory, Research, and Practice may well be a crucial beginning step in building dialogue between these two countries on important LGB psychotherapy developments. Leading authorities comprehensively examine the latest studies and effective therapies for LGB individuals in the United Kingdom. Practitioners will discover an extensive survey of the most current developments to supplement their own work, while educators and students will find diverse expert perspectives on which to consider and broaden their own viewpoints. This unique book offers an informative introduction to British psychosocial perspectives on theory, research, and practice. British Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Psychologies provides a critical exploration of the recent history of LGB psychology and psychotherapy in the United Kingdom, focusing on key publications and outlining the current terrain. Other chapters are organized into two thematic sections. The first section explores theoretical frameworks in United Kingdom therapeutic practice, while the second section examines sexual minority identities and their needs for support and community. Topics in British Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Psychologies include: - similarities and differences between LGBT psychology and psychotherapy in the United States and United Kingdom - gay affirmative therapy (GAT) as a positive framework - existential-phenomenological approach to psychotherapy - core issues in the anxiety about whether or not to “come out” - object relations theory - exploring homo-negativity in the therapeutic process - aspects of psychotherapy that lesbians and gay men find helpful - research into how the mainstreaming of lesbian and gay culture has affected the lives of LGB individuals - study into LGB youth issues - difficulties of gay men with learning disabilities—with suggestions on how to offer the best psychological service - a study on gay athletes’ experiences of coming out in a heterosexist world British Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Psychologies takes a needed step toward sharing valuable psychosocial perspectives between countries. This useful, enlightening text is perfect for educators, students, psychologists, psychotherapists, and counselors working in the field of sexuality.

Promoting scholarship - The way forward: Learning & teaching research in a complex environment – A typology

This paper provides a critical overview into a distinctive typology of Learning and Teaching Research developed at a relatively small, research-led UK University. Based upon research into staff perceptions of the relationship between learning and teaching research and practice, the model represents an holistic approach to evidence-based learning and teaching practice in Contemporary Higher Education.

Moving from HRM to knowledge productivity:a study of whether and how organizations become learning organizations

Practitioners and academics are in broad agreement that, above all, organizations need to be able to learn, to innovate and to question existing ways of working. This thesis develops a model to take into account, firstly, what determines whether or not organizations endorse practices designed to facilitate learning. Secondly, the model evaluates the impact of such practices upon organizational outcomes, measured in terms of products and technological innovation. Researchers have noted that organizations that are committed to producing innovation show great resilience in dealing with adverse business conditions (e.g. Pavitt, 1991; Leonard Barton, 1998). In effect, such organizations bear many of the characteristics associated with the achievement of ‘learning organization’ status (Garvin, 1993; Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 1999; Senge, 1990). Seven studies are presented to support this theoretical framework. The first empirical study explores the antecedents to effective learning. The three following studies present data to suggest that people management practices are highly significant in determining whether or not organizations are able to produce sustained innovation. The thesis goes on to explore the relationship between organizational-level job satisfaction, learning and innovation, and provides evidence to suggest that there is a strong, positive relationship between these variables. The final two chapters analyze learning and innovation within two similar manufacturing organizations. One manifests relatively low levels of innovation whilst the other is generally considered to be outstandingly innovative. I present the comparative framework for exploring the different approaches to learning manifested by the two organizations. The thesis concludes by assessing the extent to which the theoretical model presented in the second chapter is borne out by the findings of the study. Whilst this is a relatively new field of inquiry, findings reveal that organizations have a much stronger chance of producing sustained innovation where they manage people proactively where people process themselves to be satisfied at work. Few studies to date have presented empirical evidence to substantiate theoretical endorsements to engage in higher order learning, so this research makes an important contribution to existing literature in this field.

Review of doctoral research in second-language teaching and learning in Australia (2003–2006)

This article reviews recent doctoral research in Australian universities in the area of language teaching and learning. Doctoral work in three main areas of research concentration is described: language teaching, language learning, and writing. The authors whose studies are reviewed are graduates of the Australian National University, Griffith University, Macquarie University, the University of Technology, Sydney, the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, La Trobe University, Deakin University and Murdoch University.

Sailing close to the wind? Experiential learning in engineering education – a research driven approach

A critique of experiential learning in engineering

A bridge too far? Breaching the research/learning and teaching nexus in a previously research-led university

The relationship between research and learning and teaching represents what has been described as ‘amongst the most intellectually tangled, managerially complex and politically contentious issues in mass higher education’ (Scott, 2005, p 53). Despite this, arguments that in order to achieve high quality scholarly outcomes, university teachers need to adopt an approach to teaching similar to that of research (i.e. founded upon academic rigour and evidence), has long been discussed in the literature (see for example, Elton, 2005 & Healey, 2000). However, the practicalities of promoting an empirical and evidence-based approach to teaching within a research-led institution makes dealing with the research/learning and teaching nexus a somewhat challenging proposition. Drawing upon the findings of a mixed methodological study, this paper critically analyses the pedagogical, organisational and practical issues encountered by academics and support staff working within a newly established Centre for Learning Innovation and Professional Practice. Comprising an eclectic group of staff drawn from across the five Schools in the University, the Centre is dedicated to enhancing student learning through the development of evidence based teaching practice. Based upon the premise that the promotion of research-led teaching will act to bring teaching and research together, and in doing so enhance students learning experiences (Simmons & Elen 2007), the paper critically analyses the challenges encountered by staff responsible for developing and introducing a new learning & teaching focused organisational strategy (by reflecting on the previous 12 months work). In doing so it makes a significant contribution to current academic theory and debate in the areas of pedagogic practice and organisational management. Focusing specifically on the impact of the new policy on various aspects of university life including, pedagogic practice, student support, staff training, and organisational management, the paper critically addresses the cultural and attitudinal challenges of change management (Kotter, 1996) within a ‘grey-brick’ university. It concludes by arguing that the move towards becoming a more learning-focused university has started to develop an awareness of the positive impact the change initiative is having on the student experience and wider institution; whilst also drawing attention to the organisational challenges ahead.

Promoting scholarship - the way forward:learning and teaching research in a complex environment – a typology

Scholarship in learning and teaching.

AquaLog : an ontology-driven question answering system for organizational semantic intranets

The semantic web vision is one in which rich, ontology-based semantic markup will become widely available. The availability of semantic markup on the web opens the way to novel, sophisticated forms of question answering. AquaLog is a portable question-answering system which takes queries expressed in natural language and an ontology as input, and returns answers drawn from one or more knowledge bases (KBs). We say that AquaLog is portable because the configuration time required to customize the system for a particular ontology is negligible. AquaLog presents an elegant solution in which different strategies are combined together in a novel way. It makes use of the GATE NLP platform, string metric algorithms, WordNet and a novel ontology-based relation similarity service to make sense of user queries with respect to the target KB. Moreover it also includes a learning component, which ensures that the performance of the system improves over the time, in response to the particular community jargon used by end users.

Community relation discovery by named entities

Discovering who works with whom, on which projects and with which customers is a key task in knowledge management. Although most organizations keep models of organizational structures, these models do not necessarily accurately reflect the reality on the ground. In this paper we present a text mining method called CORDER which first recognizes named entities (NEs) of various types from Web pages, and then discovers relations from a target NE to other NEs which co-occur with it. We evaluated the method on our departmental Website. We used the CORDER method to first find related NEs of four types (organizations, people, projects, and research areas) from Web pages on the Website and then rank them according to their co-occurrence with each of the people in our department. 20 representative people were selected and each of them was presented with ranked lists of each type of NE. Each person specified whether these NEs were related to him/her and changed or confirmed their rankings. Our results indicate that the method can find the NEs with which these people are closely related and provide accurate rankings.

Action research at the Sea Fish Industry Authority:improving the quality of our knowing- how do practices achieve organisational learning and renewal and how does this change overtime?

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Professionalism and quality in European business courses:utilising research to enhance student learning and promote employability - a pan-European study

This..paper provides a comparative analysis of Quality Management and standards in four European countries, (the UK, Austria, Slovenia and Romania) and in doing so addresses the gap in academic knowledge about how the introduction and implementation of Quality Management Strategies can both facilitate and enhance student learning within Universities.

Research strategies for organizational history:a dialogue between historical theory and organization theory

If history matters for organization theory, then we need greater reflexivity regarding the epistemological problem of representing the past; otherwise, history might be seen as merely a repository of ready-made data. To facilitate this reflexivity, we set out three epistemological dualisms derived from historical theory to explain the relationship between history and organization theory: (1) in the dualism of explanation, historians are preoccupied with narrative construction, whereas organization theorists subordinate narrative to analysis; (2) in the dualism of evidence, historians use verifiable documentary sources, whereas organization theorists prefer constructed data; and (3) in the dualism of temporality, historians construct their own periodization, whereas organization theorists treat time as constant for chronology. These three dualisms underpin our explication of four alternative research strategies for organizational history: corporate history, consisting of a holistic, objectivist narrative of a corporate entity; analytically structured history, narrating theoretically conceptualized structures and events; serial history, using replicable techniques to analyze repeatable facts; and ethnographic history, reading documentary sources "against the grain." Ultimately, we argue that our epistemological dualisms will enable organization theorists to justify their theoretical stance in relation to a range of strategies in organizational history, including narratives constructed from documentary sources found in organizational archives. Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved.

Organizational challenges of community associations:applying nonprofit research to real-world problems

Can voluntary and nonprofit research be helpful for local community associations (CAs) seeking to respond to organizational challenges and problems? This paper builds on a study of an organizational crisis in an English CA to explore this question. The events which precipitated and prolonged the crisis seemed inexplicable to outside observers. Yet the study found that much of what occurred could be explained in the light of earlier theories and research. The paper concludes that voluntary and nonprofit scholarship, as well as generic organizational theories, has the potential to be helpful for community association members and activists in anticipating and responding to organizational problems. But scholars need to do more to disseminate existing research findings; to make them accessible and to adapt them to the distinctive needs and real world problems of community associations.