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Describes how a consumer satisfaction survey was carried out at a community mental health centre and the improvements that occurred as a result. A questionnaire was designed to be delivered as a semi‐structured interview to elicit the views and opinions of the clients. Their responses highlighted a number of positive areas about the centre, especially in terms of the staff and the therapeutic support they provide. The feedback also revealed a number of areas where improvements were needed. Reports on six recommendations which were made in terms of medication, activities, privacy, reviews, social service issues and complaints. The staff worked hard to implement a number of changes to improve the quality of the service they provide. The end result is that users’ views and opinions have been integrated with the service design and delivery, making the centre a more user‐friendly place.

This paper aims to explore the gendered narratives of change management at Marks and Spencer (M&S) and uses them as a lens to consider the gendered nature of the change process itself.

Two extant stories: Sleeping Beauty and the Trojan War are taken, along with the cultural archetype of the American West gunslinger to explore the gender aspects of change. The Marks and Spencer case is analysed using the corollary patriarchal narrative of Sleeping Beauty, a story whose organising logic is revealed as one of concern for patriarchal lineage, and legitimate succession. The paper, draws on the Marks and Spencer principals' memoirs and biographies.

Sleeping Beauty is shown as a narrative saturated in misogyny, aggression and violence. This violence, which is shown to characterise the Marks and Spencer case, is amplified in the second narrative, the Trojan War, in the highly personalised battles of the über‐warriors of The Iliad. The paper concludes that violent, hyper‐masculine behaviour creates and maintains a destructive cycle of leadership lionisation and failure at the company which precludes a more feminine and possibly more effective construction of change management.

Demonstrates how M&S, gendered from its birth, its development through the golden years, the crisis, its changes in leadership and its recent change management has attempted to respond to its changing environment.

Draws on a small research study undertaken in the retail industry, providing a very timely consideration of the choices and circumstances of those who work on a part‐time basis. Considers the reasons given by workers for choosing part‐time work, the costs involved and the extent to which part‐time workers are aware of these when making their decision. The research considers the role of trade unions in enhancing awareness of legal entitlements in view of the recent House of Lords ruling.

Industry and commerce in the UK are at a critical point. In the last 25 years our share of the world market in manufactured goods has more than halved. At the same time new technology is changing Britain's industry beyond recognition, while takeovers, mergers, buyouts and a fluctuating world economy are forcing a widespread reappraisal in business planning.

Intermediate care has featured strongly in evolving strategy for support provision for older people in England. In Scotland the concept appears to have been rejected in favour of an emphasis on integrated care. This apparent divergence is explored in the broader context of policy variation post‐devolution and against the aspirations for a whole‐system approach.

This investigation aims to highlight the need for the information professions globally to value diverse knowledge paradigms in a world where people from diverse cultures and backgrounds interact with information on a daily basis. We provide examples from the Library and Information Science (LIS) profession in New Zealand which has been shaped by socially and culturally inclusive education and practices which take into account diverse ways of knowing and understanding the world and information.

An investigation into socially and culturally inclusive LIS education initiatives worldwide contextualizes a discussion of current LIS curricula in New Zealand and their delivery. The achievements and challenges in LIS education, the library profession, and library service are considered alongside the rich and varied nature of New Zealand society and the provision and accessibility of library services.

LIS education is at the start of this process, and New Zealand education providers promote a range of socially and culturally inclusive practices within their programs resulting in LIS graduates who are equipped to make ongoing contributions to an inclusive society through their professional work. We conclude that these three inseparable components of LIS in New Zealand result in social and cultural inclusion, but can always be further enhanced.

This chapter draws attention to the absence of consideration for non-Western knowledge paradigms in LIS curricula worldwide, and brings together diverse examples, mandating for library services and a library profession that reflect the rich social and cultural makeup of the communities we serve. We conclude that three inseparable components of LIS in New Zealand result in social and cultural inclusion, and there is always opportunity for further enhancement.

This article examines the educational decision-making of hearing parents for their deaf children born during a period (1970–1990s) before the introduction of new-born hearing screening in New South Wales, where the study was conducted, and prior to the now near-universal adoption of cochlear implants in Australia.

We present findings from an oral history study in which parents were invited to recall how they planned for the education of their deaf children.

We propose that these oral histories shed light on how the concept, early intervention – a child development principle that became axiomatic from about the 1960s – significantly shaped the conduct of parents of deaf children, constituting both hope and burden, and intensifying a focus on early decision-making. They also illustrate ways in which parenting was shaped by two key structural shifts, one, being the increasing enrolment of deaf children in mainstream rather than separate classrooms and the other being the transformation of deafness itself by developments in hearing assistance technology.

The paper contributes to a sociological/historical literature of “parenting for education” that almost entirely lacks deaf perspectives and a specialist literature of parental decision-making for deaf children that is almost entirely focussed on the post cochlear implant generation. The paper is distinctive in its treatment of the concept of “early intervention” as a historical phenomenon rather than a “common sense” truth, and proposes that parents of deaf children were at the leading edge of late-20th and early-21st century parenting intensification.

Taken in its entirety, this edited volume presents broad, sweeping perspectives on race culture, society, socialization and education. The topics are expansive and the analyses incisive. Various contributors to the volume earned doctoral degrees in education, human development, psychology, social work and sociology across four decades (1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s). Despite the variety of disciplines, theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches and conclusions, there is an underlying coherence. This coherence derives in part from the authors' shared commitment to an holistic approach, which examines questions around educational achievement in relation to ecological, cultural, historical, political, economic, social and psychological contexts. In a word, these chapters embody an holistic approach to educational research, theory, practice and policy that is very much consistent with the Chicago School Tradition.To be sure, the studies in this volume raise far more questions than provide definitive answers concerning the perplexing problems of race, culture, inequality and education in America. The central importance of these studies and this volume may reside in their very ability to challenge established orthodoxies. By doing so, the studies published here provide a vital heuristic function. Certainly, there continues to be a pressing need for concerted efforts on research, theory, teaching/learning and policy fronts in order to achieve educational equity for African Americans and for other disenfranchised groups. To the extent that this volume fuels the dialogue and continues the quest, then our purpose of honoring Professor Edgar G. Epps, consummate scholar and important contributor to the Chicago School Tradition, has been well served.

This paper explores the results of applying a diagnostic questionnaire for measuring the dimensions of a learning organisation in a resource squeezed service organisation. The questionnaire was conducted as the first stage of an ethnographic study of workplace learning in an aged care organization. It was distributed to the 600 employees in nine facilities to provide baseline information to be complemented by qualitative data collected in the second stage. Strengths in the dimensions of leadership and systemic connection and weaknesses in the areas of dialogue and inquiry, team learning and empowering people were revealed. Preliminary qualitative data support the findings and add to the meaning of the questionnaire results. Subsequent discussions with the organisation about the questionnaire suggest that it was a useful tool to enhance workplace learning.