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This case study is based on the Women in Agri-Tech programme, a teacher professional development programme that aimed to build teachers’ capabilities to use Agri-Tech in their agriculture/STEM classes to increase student awareness of agriculture technology and its associated career paths. Teachers and agriculture industry partners co-created Agri-Tech modules, which were implemented and evaluated from teachers’ and students’ perspectives. This paper demonstrates how work-related learning that emphasises technology can increase the visibility of career pathways and how multi-stakeholder benefits can evolve from teacher–industry partnerships.

An action research design using quantitative and qualitative methods was used to construct this case study. Data collection methods included surveys, interviews, peer evaluation and teacher reflections.

Teacher professional development that incorporates teacher-industry partnerships can increase teachers’ self-efficacy and build confidence to support authentic work-related learning in their classes. Integrating technology into agriculture/STEM classes can increase the visibility of agriculture career paths for students, which is critical given the serious skills shortage in this sector.

This study is limited in that the Women in Agri-Tech professional development programme was one standalone programme tailored specifically for women agriculture/STEM teachers through a competitive process. However, the beneficial implications of such programmes that support teacher–industry engagement have far-reaching benefits. Teacher professional development programmes that provide opportunities to partner with industry can support improvements in integrating career-aligned learning into the curriculum and can specifically address industry skills and knowledge gaps by addressing school-based learning requirements for the future workforce.

This paper contributes to the literature on education–industry partnerships and considers how teachers can contribute to an early intervention sector workforce development strategy for future industry sustainability.

Increasing government regulation of educational practice with public accountability through a national curriculum and external testing, the establishment of professional teaching standards and associated teacher accreditation requirements are strong forces in contemporary Australian education. This paper aims to identify and examine some of the current governmental policies and the associated institutionalised requirements for initial teacher education within this particular context.

It focuses particularly on preservice English teachers, and in addressing these issues, there is an exploration of the contested territory of the subject English, the key factors affecting initial teacher education students and the effects of professional standards on educators.

It is argued that there is a need for a much broader vision of educational purpose, a richer construction of subject English than is defined by the testing of traditional literacy skills and productivity outcomes, with a greater empowerment of teachers whose achievements are increasingly limited by narrow accountability measures.

Formal accreditation demands appear to constrain the various multimodal practices and creative, collaborative pedagogies that enhance educational experiences in the twenty-first century. The challenge ahead for educators is to find a balance between the contemporary pressures of a global society, external expectations, professional aspirations and personal values.

American sociology has long been concerned with the social conditioning of American character, particularly with regard to caring for others. This interest can be traced to Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1899[1838]) in which he reflected on how democratic participation in government and voluntary associations in the 1830s shaped the American character. Tocqueville believed that participation in social institutions, and especially voluntary societies, balanced the potentially excessive individualism he observed in the United States. David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd: A Study of Changing American Character (1950) picked up similar themes in an exploration of the isolation of the individual within modern society. These concerns reached a broad audience more recently in Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton's Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (1985) in which the authors argued that the scale had swung in favor of individualism at the expense of commitment to the social good. Robert Wuthnow (1991) addressed these issues again in Acts of Compassion: Caring for Others and Helping Ourselves, in which he explored how in volunteer work, Americans attempted to reconcile compassion with individualism. These studies, primarily focusing on white, middle‐class Americans, have laid the groundwork for an exploration of the social nature of the American character within the context of caring for others.

In February 1840, Māori co-signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the British Crown. Partnership, protection, and participation are the fundamental principles provided in the Treaty. In April 2010, the New Zealand government endorsed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These two instruments provide indigenous peoples with the right to participate fully in decision-making that will affect their legal, social, economic, cultural, and political rights. Having endorsed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the New Zealand government is morally obliged to comply with the intent of the Declaration. The focus of this chapter is on the right of Māori to participate and be represented on the governing councils of local government. It will be demonstrated that the refusal by the New Zealand government in 2010 to provide dedicated Māori wards on the Auckland Council is contrary to the intent of the Declaration. The principles of the Treaty of Waitangi require the government to act with integrity toward the indigenous people of New Zealand. It will be argued that the failure of local government to utilize electoral options that will enhance Māori representation in local government breach obligations inherent in both the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Treaty of Waitangi.

This chapter offers a speculative essay regarding how religion may foster intellectual humility in public life, drawing on case studies from faith-based community organizing in the United States. and liberation theology in Latin America. Despite a plethora of religious teaching about the virtue of humility across a variety of traditions, I do not think there is anything inherent in religious belief – in any tradition – that predisposes believers toward authentic humility in their personal or public lives. I argue instead that religious conviction – when embodied in particular kinds of religious practice – does help drive us toward the balance of confidence and intellectual humility required for vigorous engagement in democratic public life. My argument draws on the concept of focal practices and insights from philosophy, theology, and social theory as I consider religious practices, religious conversion, and the nature of human passions as they relate to democratic life.

To improve understanding of mentoring and other leadership development practices in health care organizations, focusing on three questions: What has been done? What is being done? What should be done?

First, 160 key informant interviews explored mentoring and leadership development practices in health care between September 2003 and December 2004. Second, all US hospital chief executives were surveyed between August‐December 2004 (844 respondents) and asked about mentoring and leadership development.

No interviewed executives and fewer than one‐quarter of chief executive respondents reported participating in formal mentoring programs as a protégé. Nearly one in three executives surveyed reported that a formal mentoring program was available within their organizations; however, only three key informants described programs in existence longer than five years. Issues such as assuring senior leadership support, sustaining budgetary commitment, and dedicating qualified personnel were all reportedly important for health care organizations striving to design and implement mentoring and other leadership development practices.

While limited by a modest response rate within a chief executive population, survey results highlight the importance of mentoring in framing perceptions about leadership development. Future research should attempt to better understand how perspectives guide program development decisions.

By considering opportunities to use mentoring to help employees advance, organizations can build investments in leadership development, ideally helping under‐represented groups to attain higher management ranks.

This paper is among the first to combine qualitative and quantitative methods to explore mentoring and leadership development in health care organizations.

This paper considers the implications of the liberalization of the New Zealand economy for entrepreneurial development by indigenous New Zealand Maori tribal organizations. Since 1984 the economic objective of the State has been to create a modern market economy free of price distortions, bureaucratic management and government protectionism. One of the State’s responses to enabling tribal organizations to provide for increased self‐determination and to lessen Maori State dependency was to seriously address the issue of compensation to Maori of resources that had been expropriated or confiscated during the past 150 years. While there have been difficulties in reaching agreement on appropriate or adequate allocations of Crown‐owned resources or compensation, the transferal of resources to private (but collective) Maori ownership is now providing a substantial economic base to build corporate and other entrepreneurial activities. It is argued that such willingness and commitment to transfer resources from the State back to the original owners was a manifest outcome of government’s adoption of liberal economic policies.