Search results

Self-initiated international placements by students have been largely ignored in the literature on outward mobility in higher education. The support given to self-initiated international placement students, if any, has received even less attention. This study aims to address this lacuna.

Drawing on insights from global mobility literature, we conducted a survey of UK university students who engaged in self-initiated international placements to various countries such as France, China, Brazil and Ghana. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic content analysis.

Findings reveal that these “voluntary” placements can improve language fluency, increase self-confidence, renew stress management abilities and enhance cross-cultural competencies and intercultural sensitivity. The study problematises the lack of support given to these students particularly in terms of career development.

Our paper is one of the first to bring this under-studied population to the attention of career guidance scholars. We propose that scholarly attention should be directed toward the agency of self-initiated international placement students and that targeted career guidance must be provided through more inclusive career services.

This chapter explores the proposition that Australia’s abusive treatment of refugees and asylum seekers can be traced back to a denial of the foundational violence of colonisation.

By adopting a psychoanalytic frame, the research explores three questions: is Australia engaging in cruel, degrading and humiliating treatment of asylum seekers, a treatment that devolves into torture? If so, how is this operationalised? And finally what does the abuse satisfy within the state?

The work uses Freud’s paper, ‘Mourning and Melancholia’, and Melanie Klein’s work on the paranoid/schizoid position to describe the psycho-affective terrain from which this abuse emanates.

The chapter takes this psycho-affective terrain as the foundation and then investigates the impact the privatised detention regime has had in enabling the known/unknowability of the abuse and mechanisms at work within media practice to create ‘torturable subjects’ (Mendiola, 2014, p. 13).

This study aims to identify the critical factors contributing to India-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) capacity building and value creation for beneficiaries.

A total interpretive structural modeling technique has been used to develop a hierarchical model of critical factors and understand their direct and indirect interrelationships. The driving force and dependence force of these factors were determined by using cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification analysis.

This study identifies 12 critical factors influencing NGO capacity building in India’s intellectual disability sector across four dimensions. Internal organizational capabilities include infrastructure, staff qualifications, fundraising, vocational activities and technical resources. Second, coordination and stakeholder engagement highlight government and agency collaboration, dedicated board members and stakeholder involvement. Third, adaptability and responsiveness emphasize adjusting to external trends and seizing opportunities. Finally, impact and value creation emphasis on improving value for persons with disabilities (PWDs).

The findings of this study have practical implications for Indian NGOs working for PWDs. The study provides NGOs with a structural model for improving organizational capacity by identifying and categorizing critical factors into the strategic model.

There is a scarcity of literature on capacity building for disability-focused NGOs in India. This study seeks to identify critical factors and develop a hierarchical model of those factors to assist policymakers in India in building the capacity of NGOs.

Evidence of overprescribing of psychotropic medicines to manage challenging behaviour in people with intellectual disabilities has led to national programmes within the UK to promote deprescribing, such as stopping the overprescribing of medication in people (with learning disabilities, autism or both). To successfully implement deprescribing initiatives, we need to understand how to engage stakeholders in the process.

In a published systematic review, we reported evidence about the process of deprescribing psychotropic medicines for people of all ages with intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviour. As a part of the original review, we searched for evidence about stakeholders’ experiences of the psychotropic deprescribing process, which was synthesised and reported within the current study.

Six studies were identified. Involving carers and people with intellectual disabilities, providing ongoing support and improving access to non-pharmacological interventions, including positive behaviour support, may contribute to successful outcomes, including reducing or stopping psychotropic medicines and improving quality of life. Implementing psychotropic deprescribing requires a multidisciplinary collaborative care approach and education for stakeholders.

There have been no previous reviews of stakeholder experiences of deprescribing psychotropic medications for people with intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviour. The existing literature is scant, and further research is needed.

The paper aims to explore the roles and impact of design in incubating and accelerating social enterprises. It aims to understand design’s influence on social enterprise ecosystems and in improving outcomes for social enterprises.

The study used an exploratory, qualitative approach, using case studies and interviews. The comparative case-study methodology was applied to evaluate the influence of design on the development of social enterprises in the UK and South Korea and identify critical issues in their utilisation of design. Empirical data included: in-depth case studies of design utilisation practices (UK = 6; South Korea = 15) and design applications (UK = 2; South Korea = 2) for the growth of social enterprise and its ecosystem; 27 social enterprise/design experts (UK = 17; South Korea = 10); and 22 social enterprises (UK = 12; South Korea = 10). Content and thematic analysis were used to synthesise the findings.

Findings demonstrate the differing influences of design on social enterprise, from improving products/services and business models to enhancing social enterprise ecosystem support and networks. Future directions are suggested for applying design for social enterprise growth, business stage development and systematising interactions between the social enterprise and design sectors.

The research is based on case studies from only two countries. Further, the adoption of working definitions of social enterprise in the countries may result in the research underestimating the heterogeneity of social enterprise.

The findings contribute to optimising efficient ecosystem development to improve social enterprise competitiveness and innovation.

This paper establishes a research foundation on design for social enterprise, offering theoretical and practical insights into its impact on growth.

How parents experience school governance is increasingly shaped by its changing requirements as well as their positioning by leaders and policy makers within a marketised education system. In order to make sense of these experiences, they are situated within a wider policy context in which both neoliberalism and increased centralisation are juxtaposed. Policy has a significant influence on leadership, yet the relationship between them is complex, and while the impact of the former on the latter is clearer, this is less so in terms of the extent to which governance (as a form of leadership) shapes policy, and this is explored further in this chapter. It considers the prescriptive nature of current policy and how this not only hinders the ability of governance to influence policy but facilitates and reproduces the neoliberal ideology underpinning it. The implications of neoliberalism and increased centralisation, with their associated policy technologies, such as performance management and accountability for school governance are considered, including the underrepresentation of certain parents and the ‘professionalisation’ of governing boards. Through a critical exploration of this professionalisation of governance, this chapter makes an original contribution to our understanding of the complex relationship between leadership and policy. It uses Foucault’s work as a conceptual framework, drawing on his tools of governmentality, discipline and surveillance. It has significance not only in terms of governance in the school system in England, but within the wider global policy context in which the influence of both market-oriented policies and centralised policies is evident.

Generative conversational artificial intelligence (AI) demonstrates powerful conversational skills for general tasks but requires customization for specific tasks. The quality of a custom generative conversational AI highly depends on users’ guidance, which has not been studied by previous research. This study uses social exchange theory to examine how generative conversational AI’s cognitive and emotional conversational skills affect users’ guidance through different types of user engagement, and how these effects are moderated by users’ relationship norm orientation.

Based on data collected from 589 actual users using a two-wave survey, this study employed partial least squares structural equation modeling to analyze the proposed hypotheses. Additional analyses were performed to test the robustness of our research model and results.

The results reveal that cognitive conversational skills (i.e. tailored and creative responses) positively affected cognitive and emotional engagement. However, understanding emotion influenced cognitive engagement but not emotional engagement, and empathic concern influenced emotional engagement but not cognitive engagement. In addition, cognitive and emotional engagement positively affected users’ guidance. Further, relationship norm orientation moderated some of these effects such that the impact of user engagement on user guidance was stronger for communal-oriented users than for exchange-oriented users.

First, drawing on social exchange theory, this study empirically examined the drivers of users’ guidance in the context of generative conversational AI, which may enrich the user guidance literature. Second, this study revealed the moderating role of relationship norm orientation in influencing the effect of user engagement on users’ guidance. The findings will deepen our understanding of users’ guidance. Third, the findings provide practical guidelines for designing generative conversational AI from a general AI to a custom AI.

When it comes to deterring and incarcerating people seeking asylum, there is a fusion between racialisation and politicisation. The bedrock is the colonisation of the nation now called Australia, where the dispossession of Indigenous peoples was a national project that later merged into the building of a state that lauded British heritage and the exclusion of migrants through the White Australia policy. This foundation of nationhood continues in a manner that challenges the myth of harmonious multiculturalism by determining who is deemed worthy and who is excluded. The centrepiece of racialised bordering is the immigration detention regime which is increasingly characterised by transporting people to offshore sites. This chapter argues through examples, how people seeking asylum have been racialised, dehumanised and criminalised, particularly through a national security lens.

Michael Gove is a controversial figure, not least due to his time as secretary of state for education under the Cameron coalition government from 2009 to 2013. Gove’s internationalising policy claimed to be addressing the attainment gap between rich and poor, supporting a workforce for the global markets. Gove appealed to all educational leaders by sending them a Gove-signed King James Bible, and he set up a Victorian school desk as the primary display artefact in the Ministry of Education. These two artefacts provide the analytical lens from which the claims and consequences of Gove’s education policy reforms were experienced by educational leaders and schools. This chapter aligns with the editorial line of this book in three ways. First, it acknowledges context as the most important aspect of understanding reform, in this case the neoliberal market economy of Britain in the 21st century. Second, it affords insight into how the selective use of data and political rhetoric acted as a vehicle for power in and through social relations. Finally, it reveals where disadvantage lies and provides impetus for further research and scholarship to mitigate it.