Preparing leaders to work with emotions in culturally diverse educational communities

Purpose – This paper argues that because leadership is a relational practice and leaders are gendered and racialised, in socially diverse schools and societies, leader preparation around difference is potentially emotionally confronting to leaders' professional and personal identities.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on critical race and feminist theoretical perspectives to undertake a review and analysis of current approaches to professional development.

Findings – The paper concludes that because there is significant agreement now that leadership is considered to be emotional management work, then leadership learning, if it seeks to change practice, is also emotionally laden. The paper concludes that to develop more reflexive leaders, professional learning should begin with scrutiny of the self as gendered and racialised to consider what that means for “the Other” in terms of leadership in culturally diverse communities and schools.

Research limitations/implications – The paper is context specific, largely drawing on Australian data with reference to indigeneity. This is consistent with its theoretical position that leadership is relational and situated.

Practical implications – The paper identifies possible strategies that could be undertaken in professional learning forums that address issues of difference.

Originality/value – While there are significant issues around professional learning to develop pedagogical practices that address student diversity, there is less theorising around leadership diversity and what that might mean in terms of professional development of leaders.

Gender and schooling : still making the difference?

This chapter analyses contemporary political responses to the perceived academic success of girls as compared with boys, and the motivations behind what they call the 'what about the boys?' lobby. It argues that the growth of this influential lobby group is emblematic of a feminist backlash in western societies. By exposing some of the theoretical problems with the construction of difference upon which the 'boys in education' case is based, the author constructs an alternative relational approach which urges that the school curriculum should encourage all students to deconstruct gender, and particularly the ways in which hegemonic masculinity is formed and shaped in our society

Appearing pedagogy : from embodied learning and teaching to embodied pedagogy

In this paper images are used to support the conceptualisation and recognition of embodied pedagogy. Analysis of data gathered during an arts-based teaching project in pre-service teacher education revealed the presence of an embodied pedagogy and supports the further deployment of embodied teaching and learning in teacher education. Embodied pedagogy includes embodied teaching and embodied learning but is conceptualised through ‘pedagogy as relational’ – between teaching and learning and between teacher and learner. Through image this paper presents traces of embodied pedagogy from the classroom. These tracings of embodied pedagogy in classrooms defy baseline certainty and instead assert Benjamin’s thesis that knowledge can only ‘stand up’ through multiplicity, through all acts of knowing.

Relationship-based determinants of building project performance in China

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship-based factors that affect performance of general building projects in China. Eight performance metrics that may be used to measure the success level of construction projects are defined and categorized into two groups namely 'hard' and 'soft' performance. Eight indicators of risks inherent in relationships and seven indicators of tools expected to facilitate relationship building that may affect project success are identified. Data of different projects were collected in China via a self-administered postal survey. By using structural equation modelling techniques, a structural model is developed to help explain the relationship among different variables. It has been found that relational risk has negative influence on project performance. It is recommended that firms in the Chinese construction industry manage the relationship-based factors that are significant in the model so as to achieve project success.

Abstracting in the context of spontaneous learning

There is evidence that spontaneous learning leads to relational understanding and high positive affect. To study spontaneous abstracting, a model was constructed by combining the RBC model of abstraction with Krutetskii's mental activities. Using video-stimulated interviews, the model was then used to analyse the behaviour of two Year 8 students who had demonstrated spontaneous abstracting. The analysis highlighted the crucial role of synthetic and evaluative analysis, two processes that seem unlikely to occur under guided construction.

Risk and trust in cross-sector R & D projects

The Cooperative Research Centres are hybrid organizations at the leading edge of change in Australia's research culture and are key elements in the new knowledge infrastructure contributing to technological innovation. The paper presents findings from a qualitative study of CRC managers' perceptions and management of downside risk in commercially-focused R&D projects. CRC managers deal with both performance risks (arising from uncertainties about achieving goals) and relational risks (arising from collaborative relationships). They do so through formalisation, the selection of people with desirable characteristics, and the building of relationships. Underlying these risk mitigation strategies is the formation of trust (a willingness to rely on a partner in whom one has confidence), and this occurs at both interorganizational and project levels.

Metaphysics of love as moral responsibility in nursing and midwifery

This study used a qualitative research design incorporating principles of social constructionism, hermeneutic dialectic method, Neo-Socratic dialogue and philosophy for reporting the tacit and social knowledge constructions underlying particular ways of knowing that inform the experiential reality of love in the practice of nursing and midwifery. The philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, that culminated in his magnum opus of the ‘metaphysics of otherness’, provided the theoretical underpinning for the interpretation of the experiences nurses and midwives believed were examples of love in their clinical practice in Australia, Singapore and Bhutan. What is love in nursing and midwifery? The answer is moral responsibility. The relational context has a nurse and midwife constantly exposed to patient situations that give rise to expressions of love as moral responsibility. It is a form of love that centres on the ability of our being, or at least the possibility of our being, to transcend its everyday form to a metaphysical state of being moral. It enables a nurse and midwife to transcend the isolation associated with their personal being as a self-project, to be ‘for’ the patient as a first priority. But while the ‘Goodness’ of the ‘Good’ assigns the nurse and midwife responsible and is expressed to their personal being in the form of the ‘urge to do’, ‘what to do’ in caring for the patient is a matter of living out the command to be responsible and will be different for each nurse and midwife. However, no matter the outcome, love as moral responsibility will always leave a nurse and midwife feeling there is still more to be done in being responsible.

Studies in supervisory practice : the effectiveness of the practicum in teacher education in the Northern Territory

In this thesis we descend into the swampy lowlands to meet with student-teachers and their supervisors and observe them working together at different sites across the Top End of Australia. In the process we discover the multiple relationships that comprise the practicum text and the discomforting untidiness and unwieldiness, as well as the awkwardness of complexity, which surrounds research into supervisory practice. The thesis demonstrates the need to attend to the subjectivities of the participants and highlights the conflicting attitudes, beliefs, interests, and desires which are only partially realised or understood. It moves us beyond language to the sentient world of anger, love, disgust, hope, fear, despair, joy, anguish, and pain and we become immersed in a murky, incoherent, interior world of hints, shadows, and unfamiliar sounds, a world of lost innocence and conflict in which knowledge is truly embodied. Encompassing a view of supervision as moral praxis, particular attention was given to the care and protection of the self and a romanticist conception of the self was seen to predominate. The thesis demonstrates the part played by positioning and agency in the process of subjectification, the importance of emotional and relational bonding in the emergence of collegiality, the tactics of power employed by supervisors, the struggle for personal autonomy, the presence of anxiety induced by failure to pro vide feedback, the inculcation of guilt, and the complex interplay of age-related and gender effects. Attention is also given to the degree to which supervisors adopt reflective and constructivist approaches to their work. The stories reveal that supervision is much more than advising student-teachers on curriculum content, resource availability and lesson presentation. It is a process of interiority in which supervisors may need to provide emotional support in the face of displacement and disorientation, and assume the role of an abiding presence, someone capable of imaginative introjection, someone who ‘knows’. Particular attention is paid to the language of supervision which was marked by indirection, diffidence, imprecision, irony, and understatement. At the same time, the agonistic nature of language associated with the politics of the personal is made apparent. Whilst in the opinion of Liaison Lecturers, context-of-site did not appear to matter as far as acquiring teaching competence was concerned, the failure to attend to context-of-site affected how student-teachers engaged with difference and diversity. In spite of attempts to contest the myths of Aboriginal education and interrupt the discourse of impoverishment, colonialist attitudes and resistance to liberatory education persisted. The thesis ends with suggestions for alternatives to the traditional practicum and discusses the introduction of Field-Based Teacher Education into Northern Territory schools.

Knowledge, identities and dilemmas of the self in physical education teacher education

The purpose of this study was to understand how becoming a physical education teacher is shaped by personally and socially constructed knowledge and is affected by the rules and resources of the structural systems in which physical education teacher education (PETE) takes place. The study was influenced by the traditions of Personal Construct Theory (Kelly 1955), the theoretical tenets of social constructionism (Gergen 1991), and Giddens’s work on structuration (1984) and self-identity (1991). Ten PETE students participated in the study over almost three years. They undertook repertory grid sessions periodically through their study, followed by ‘learning conversations’, in which the grid itself was discussed, reworked and collaboratively analysed. All conversations were audio taped and were fully transcribed. The data were analysed in three ways, all of which were used to construct a story of the study. First, the grids were analysed for patterns, consistencies across students and for consistencies within students. These grids provided the first level story that related to constructions of knowledge. These constructions were then content analysed using analysis categories developed from Gergen’s notion of the saturated self and Giddens’ ideas of identity in late modernity. These analyses represented what Giddens calls a double hermeneutic since to all intents and purposes, the story of the study was constructed from the participants’ constructions of what it is to be a physical education teacher. The data suggests that during the process of constructing professional knowledge the student experienced a series of dilemmas of professional self-identity. It seems that to become a PE teacher, the dilemmas must be worked through until a position of what Giddens calls ontologist security has been achieved. Some students in this study had not managed to reach such a point before they left university and entered the teaching profession. In spite of this, the methods of the study allowed the participants to begin to articulate their theories and visions of teaching physical education. The therapeutic qualities of Kelly’s theory encouraged a number of the students to ‘see it differently’ (Rossi, 1997) and to begin to develop a rationale for physical education based on educational practice that considers the needs of individuals and the promotion of a socially just community. I have argued however that this ‘critical’ approach to physical education pedagogy was considered risky and as such students who were prepared to engage in such risk strategies also had other strategic relational selves (Gergen, 1991) to minimise risk at key times during their teacher education.

Employee psychological contracts

This thesis concerns the psychological contracts of employees. A psychological contract is an employee’s perception that: 1) an employer has certain obligations to them, and 2) in return, they have obligations as employees. A psychological contract is therefore a set of subjectively perceived reciprocal obligations. The psychological foundations of this construct are linked with cognitive schemas and social exchange theories. While the concept of psychological contracts was first proposed in the early 1960s, it has only been operationalised for empirical study in the last decade. The purpose of the thesis was to increase the understanding of the content and structure of employee psychological contracts and their links with career cognitions. The specific aims of the thesis were to: 1) examine the relational-transactional dimensions of psychological contracts, 2) develop a comprehensive set of workplace obligations for use with employees, 3) consider alternative dimensions of employee psychological contracts, 4) demonstrate reciprocity between obligations, and 5) determine whether psychological contracts directly affect career cognitions. The thesis contains four quantitative studies. Data were collected using self-report questionnaires that contained both established and new measures. Most participants were employees from a large insurance company, government vocational services or educational institutions. The analyses included canonical correlation, factor analysis, development of measurement models and structural analysis. The findings did not strongly support a distinction between relational and transactional obligations. Instead, a five-factor model of psychological contracts emerged from an expanded set of workplace obligations when it was used with two separate employee samples. This model demonstrated reciprocal relationships between the dimensions of employee and employer obligations. It was also found that alternative dimensions of the psychological contract have a direct influence on organisational commitment and career satisfaction. The thesis supports several general conclusions about the nature of employee psychological contracts, appropriate measures and future research. General workplace obligations that apply across different workplaces can be found, and these should continue to be refined. Such workplace obligations group in meaningful ways, and they can be usefully studied in terms of employer support and employee attitudes to work, rather than in terms of relational and transactional dimensions. Furthermore, this thesis shows that reciprocity in psychological contracts can be demonstrated by correlations between dimensions of employee and employer obligations. The measure used for studying reciprocity was new, and it requires further work. However, this measure is as reliable and valid as any currently available. Measurement is the single most urgent issue facing researchers. Finally, this thesis provides sufficient empirical evidence to support the claim that psychological contracts are an important variable for the understanding of careers.

Customer relationship management in banks with special reference to Bangladesh

Customer-banker relational behavior is dynamic and fast-changing and better interpersonal relationships tend to be characterized by their quality. Banks in Bangladesh are functioning increasingly under the competitive pressures originating from the banking system from non-banking institutions as well as from the domestic and international capital markets. In order to expand banking business, as well as sustain it in the long run, it has now become essential for banks to focus on developing long-term relationships with their customers. One facet of the efficient management of banks is the matching of customers' needs and banking products. Banks, when creating new products, should take into consideration their customers' needs informed by market research programs. In this paper we examine whether banking products in Bangladesh address customers' needs.

Action research of cyclonic transactions in online management education

The aim of the research was to generate a cyclonic model for understanding the influences and processes of continuously improving management education in an environment rich in online learning technologies. The research questions were:
1. What is the nature of the cyclonic interactions observed in the transactions of a team of online management educators?
2. How might an understanding of cyclonic interactions
a. help refine action research, and
b. generate rich insight for online management education?
The methodology was an action research project. The research team worked in an online Master of Business Administration (MBA) to continuously develop teaching practice in one unit of the MBA. The methodology matched the objectives of the project, and the appropriate rigour associated with qualitative, interpretive research. The results showed that theories of systems and relational dynamics, adapted to hermeneutics and aligned with other learning theories, can be framed by the metaphor of a cyclone to conduct research into teaching practice and build upon the theory base in the field of online education.
Online management education is subject to reinterpretations. The cyclonic framework explains some of the changes. The project showed that a chaotic but organised cyclonic program development process in one particular MBA course was informative for and informed by the chaotic and cyclonic globalized business world. For the education of managers the cyclonic view was relevant. The approach was metaphorical and, therefore, opened new ways of seeing and speaking. Findings pertained to the nature of the cyclonic interactions, how an understanding of cyclonic interactions helped to refine action research, and how an understanding of cyclonic interactions helped generate rich insight for online management education.
It was found that it was the asymmetrical impetus of imperfection that created the examples of cyclonic learning spirals formed as double feedback loops for improved understanding. Online education in the action research required cyclical enhancement of connectedness by teachers, stronger emphasis on relational considerations in learning, and heightened expectations of collaboration by educators. It became possible to correlate earlier conceptions of action research with cyclonic categories and analyse the parallels with events in this action research project. Models were developed and presented to explain 3 cyclonic connections with hermeneutics, collaborative teaching, online resource
development, and the environment of online management.

Professional identity and pedagogical space : negotiating difference in teacher workplaces

This paper explores ‘spatial struggle’ in the formation of professional identities of overseas born teachers. The basis of this struggle arises from a limited number of subject positions available for them in pedagogical spaces of the Australian system of education. We argue that relations of power/professional knowledge in teacher workplaces as well as the binary strategy of ‘us’ and ‘them’ generate marginal locations for overseas born teachers within schools. This construction of marginality is informed not only by discourses of what counts as being a professional but also by the conception of workplace – spaces of the school, staffroom and classroom – as monocultural, pre-given and bounded entities (McGregor, 2003). By rethinking workplaces as relational, as spaces that are connected to other sociocultural places as well as spaces of semiotic flows, we can also rethink the professional becoming of overseas born teachers. This involves a critical understanding of their positionality, which can be conceptualised as a struggle for voice within “a cacophony of past and present voices, lived experiences and available practices” (Britzman, 1991, p.8). It is because of this polyphony of voices and multiplicity of experiences that the process of professional identity formation for ‘alien’ teachers should be seen as becoming in continual negotiation of power/knowledge relations within workplaces. Recognising this dynamic is important for re-constructing our pedagogical spaces and, in turn, for a more equitable workplace practices.

Professional identity and pedagogical space : negotiating difference in teacher workplaces

This paper explores "spatial struggle" in the formation of professional identities of overseas-born teachers. The basis of this struggle arises from a limited number of subject positions available for them in pedagogical spaces of the Australian system of education. We argue that relations of power/professional knowledge in teacher workplaces as well as the binary strategy of "us" and "them" generate marginal locations for overseas-born teachers within schools. This construction of marginality is informed not only by discourses of what counts as being a professional but also by the conception of workplace as a monocultural, pre-given and bounded entity. By rethinking workplaces as relational, as locations that are connected to other socioculturally produced places through spaces of semiotic flows, we can also rethink the professional becoming of overseas-born teachers. This involves a critical understanding of their situationality, which can be conceptualised as a struggle for professional recognition, voice and place within the real and imagined communities of teachers.

The ethics of surrogate decision making in medicine : autonomy, paternalism, or a different approach?

Knowing who to involve in treatment decisions when a patient is incapacitated has been the subject of discussion in bioethical, health law and clinical research. The major issues tend to revolve around the tension between exercising a degree of medical paternalism and respecting patient autonomy. Patients are encouraged to exert their autonomy even when they may not be capable of doing so, by means of surrogate consent or advanced directives. While liberal concepts of autonomy are exemplified in western bioethics and legal systems, clinically these decisions remain difficult, and input from medical professionals is sought, raising the issue of paternalism. A framework of bioethics, which places the patient in a relational context rather than a strictly autonomous one, may be a more helpful way of deliberating these difficult decisions