Are we there yet? Advancing women in Canada and Australia: Similar goals, different policies

Differences in opportunities and outcomes in the workplace are inherent in a free and competitive market. However when differences between individuals and groups are identified as resulting from particular policies, behaviours or attitudes, any resulting inequality may be identified as unfair. Increasingly, unfair disparities in societies and their workplaces are regularly challenged. Many of the unfair disparities are recognised as caused through unfair discrimination (Anker 1997). When defining discrimination, the International Labour Organization Convention (ILO) No. 111 defines it as “any distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction, or social origin, which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation” (ILO, 1958). Yet, the argument for addressing this ideal of ‘equality of opportunity’ is complex. Ekmekci (2013) identifies the difficulties as the determination of whether any process should be based on equality of opportunity or equality of outcome. In addition, there is the difficulty of determining what exactly constitutes a process for addressing unfair disparity due to the haziness of what constitutes discrimination and controversy in the meaning as well as policy implications of equality (Tomei, 2003).

ePortfolio use by university students in Australia: Informing excellence in policy and practice

In mid 2007, the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC), formerly the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, commissioned an intensive research project to examine the use of ePortfolios by university students in Australia. The project was awarded to a consortium of four universities: Queensland University of Technology as lead institution, The University of Melbourne, University of New England and University of Wollongong.---------- The overarching aim of the research project, which was given the working title of the Australian ePortfolio Project, was to examine the current levels of ePortfolio practice in Australian higher education. The principal project goals sought to provide an overview and analysis of the national and international ePortfolio contexts, document the types of ePortfolios used in Australian higher education, examine the relationship with the National Diploma Supplement project funded by the Federal government, identify any significant issues relating to ePortfolio implementation, and offer guidance about future opportunities for ePortfolio development. The research findings revealed that there was a high level of interest in the use of ePortfolios in the context of higher education, particularly in terms of the potential to help students become reflective learners who are conscious of their personal and professional strengths and weaknesses, as well as to make their existing and developing skills more explicit. There were some good examples of early adoption in different institutions, although this tended to be distributed across the sector. The greatest use of ePortfolios was recorded in coursework programs, rather than in research programs, with implementation generally reflecting subject-specific or program-based activity, as opposed to faculty- or university-wide activity. Accordingly, responsibility for implementation frequently rested with the individual teaching unit, although an alternative centralised model of coordination by ICT services, careers and employment or teaching and learning support was beginning to emerge. The project report concludes with a series of recommendations to guide the process, drawing on the need for open dialogue and effective collaboration between the stakeholders across the range of contexts: government policy, international technical standards, academic policy, and learning and teaching research and practice.

ePortfolio use by university students in Australia : Informing excellence in policy and practice. Supplementary report : October 2010

In April 2007, the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC)commissioned a study to examine the diverse approaches to ePortfolio use by students in Australian universities. The goals were to consider the scope, penetration and reasons for use of ePortfolios, and to examine the issues associated with their implementation in higher education. One of the central research activities in the project was a national audit which sought to establish a picture of current and emerging ePortfolio activities in Australian academic institutions. The data collection activities took place in late 2007 and the findings were presented and discussed in the final project report, published in October 2008. In 2010, the idea of a ‘follow up survey’ was developed. The resulting supplementary research activity was undertaken to update the data collected by the AeP project team in late 2007. The plan behind this ‘postscript to AeP’ project was to refresh the picture of ePortfolio practice in Australia by collecting new data to identify and map the use of ePortfolios in adult learning across the higher education, vocational education and training (VET) and the adult community education (ACE) sectors. The supplementary project has been referred to as the ‘AeP PS survey’.

The'dream'of multi-agency crime prevention : pitfalls in policy and practice

During the 1980s, terms such as interagency or multi-agency cooperation, collaboration, coordination, and interaction have became permanent features of both crime prevention rhetoric and government crime policy. The concept of having the government, local authorities, and the community working in partnership has characterized both left and right politics for over a decade. The U.S. National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals in the U.S.. Circulars 8/84 and 44/90 released by the U.K. Home Office, and the British Morgan Report-coupled with the launch of government strategies in France, the Netherlands, England and Wales, Australia, and, more recently, in Belgium, New Zealand, and Canada-have all emphasized the importance of agencies working together to prevent or reduce crime. This paper draws upon recent Australian research and critically analyzes multi-agency crime prevention. It suggests that agency conflicts and power struggles may be exacerbated by neo-liberal economic theory, by the politics of crime prevention management, and by policies that aim to combine situational and social prevention endeavors. Furthermore, it concludes that indigenous peoples are excluded by crime prevention strategies that fail to define and interpret crime and its prevention in culturally appropriate ways.

Decision-making about hormone replacement therapy by women in England and Scotland

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore women's decision-making about the balance of risks and benefits of taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) based on the latest evidence from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) trial of combined HRT. METHODS: Women aged 50-69 years, who were eligible for the Women's International Study of long Duration Oestrogen after Menopause (WISDOM) trial, were invited to participate in one of eight focus groups. Participants were asked to discuss their views about taking HRT based on the latest international evidence. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Eighty-two women participated overall. Qualitative content analysis was applied to the discussion transcripts. Women regarded the decisions they make about taking HRT as highly personal, and, for women currently taking HRT, the overwhelming reason for continuation was perceived improvement in quality of life regardless of either the risks or the benefits in the longer term.

Multifunctional agriculture in policy and practice? A comparative analysis of Norway and Australia

Ideals of productivist agriculture in the Western world have faded as the unintended consequences of intensive agriculture and pastoralism have contributed to rural decline and environmental problems. In Norway and Australia, there has been an increasing acceptance of the equal importance of social and environmental sustainability as well as economic sustainability. Alongside this shift is a belief that primary production needs to move away from an intensive, productivist-based agriculture to one that may be defined as post-productivist. In this paper, we argue that the dualism of productivism and post-productivism as concepts on agricultural policy regimes are too simplistic and discuss whether multifunctional agriculture is a better concept for a comparison of rural primary production at two extreme points of the scale, the market-oriented, liberalistic Australian agriculture and the market-protected small-scale Norwegian agriculture. We argue that multifunctionality in Australia rates relatively weakly as an ideology or policy and even less as a discourse or practice and hence is situated toward a ‘weak’ end of a continuum of a level of multifunctional agriculture. In Norwegian agriculture, multifunctional agriculture has thrived within a protectionist setting with the support of the public, the state and agricultural actors. In this sense it is very clearly a policy, practice and discourse that aims to preserve and conserve rural spaces, the cultural landscape, the farming way of life and food safety. Norway is as such situated toward a ‘strong’ end of a continuum of a level of multifunctional agriculture.

The honest broker; making sense of science in policy and politics

p.81-82

The honest broker; making sense of science in policy and politics

p.81-82

Women in peace and war, 1900-1945.

Forma parte de una serie que da a conocer una parte de la historia que a menudo se pasa por alto: la historia de las mujeres y el importante papel que han desarrollado en ella. Aquí, se repasa la primera mitad del siglo XX que significó para las mujeres la incorporación al trabajo, demostrando que eran iguales a los hombres y la conquista del voto.

Defining children's rights to work and care in Sub-Saharan Africa: tensions and challenges in policy and practice

This chapter explores the spatialities of children's rights through a focus on how children's paid and unpaid work in Sub-Saharan Africa intersects with wider debates about child labor, child domestic work and young caregiving. Several tensions surround the universalist and individualistic nature of the rights discourse in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa and policymakers, practitioners, children and community members have emphasized children's responsibilities to their families and communities, as well as their rights. The limitations of ILO definitions of child labor and child domestic work and UNCRC concerns about 'hazardous' and 'harmful' work are highlighted through examining the situation of children providing unpaid domestic and care support to family members in the private space of their own or a relative's home. Differing perspectives towards young caregiving have been adopted to date by policymakers and practitioners in East Africa, ranging from a child labor/ child protection/ abolitionist approach, to a 'young carers'/ child-centered rights perspective. These differing perspectives influence the level and nature of support and resources that children involved in care work may be able to access. A contextual, multi-sectorial approach to young caregiving is needed that seeks to understand children's, family members' and community members' perceptions of what constitutes inappropriate caring responsibilities within particular cultural contexts and how these should best be alleviated.

The neoliberal way of war: a critical analysis of contemporary British security in policy and practice.

Dominant paradigms of causal explanation for why and how Western liberal-democracies go to war in the post-Cold War era remain versions of the 'liberal peace' or 'democratic peace' thesis. Yet such explanations have been shown to rest upon deeply problematic epistemological and methodological assumptions. Of equal importance, however, is the failure of these dominant paradigms to account for the 'neoliberal revolution' that has gripped Western liberal-democracies since the 1970s. The transition from liberalism to neoliberalism remains neglected in analyses of the contemporary Western security constellation. Arguing that neoliberalism can be understood simultaneously through the Marxian concept of ideology and the Foucauldian concept of governmentality – that is, as a complementary set of 'ways of seeing' and 'ways of being' – the thesis goes on to analyse British security in policy and practice, considering it as an instantiation of a wider neoliberal way of war. In so doing, the thesis draws upon, but also challenges and develops, established critical discourse analytic methods, incorporating within its purview not only the textual data that is usually considered by discourse analysts, but also material practices of security. This analysis finds that contemporary British security policy is predicated on a neoliberal social ontology, morphology and morality – an ideology or 'way of seeing' – focused on the notion of a globalised 'network-market', and is aimed at rendering circulations through this network-market amenable to neoliberal techniques of government. It is further argued that security practices shaped by this ideology imperfectly and unevenly achieve the realisation of neoliberal 'ways of being' – especially modes of governing self and other or the 'conduct of conduct' – and the re-articulation of subjectivities in line with neoliberal principles of individualism, risk, responsibility and flexibility. The policy and practice of contemporary British 'security' is thus recontextualised as a component of a broader 'neoliberal way of war'.

Vocational English in policy and practice

The aim of this licentiate thesis is to examine how, and in what ways, vocational English is a part of English language teaching in the Building and Construc­tion Programme in Sweden, and what the influences are for such pedagogy. The main research question is how policy documents relate to the views of teachers and their educational practice regarding vocational English. The study consists of two parts: a textual policy analysis of the three latest upper secondary school reforms in Sweden (Lgy 70, Lpf 94, and Gy 2011), and semi-structured interviews with practicing English teachers in the Building and Construction Programme. The interviews are categorised by using Spradley’s (1979) semantic relationships and taxonomies. Balls’ (Ball, 1993) and Ozga’s (1990; 2000) concept of policy enactment is used in the analysis as well as Bernstein’s (1990; 2000) theoretical framework of classification, framing, and horizontal and vertical discourse. The results show that five of the six teachers in the interviews work with vocational English in some way. The study also shows that there is a distinct gap between policy and practice. Several of the teachers have the notion that they are supposed to work with vocational English and that it must be written down in policy somewhere. The greatest influence on the teaching for these teachers are their students, either indirectly or directly. Further, the study shows that different frame factors such as time poverty hinders the teachers from reading policy texts and cooperating with the vocational teachers in the Building and Construction Programme.