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1 – 10 of 13Maria Waling and Cecilia Olsson
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore to what extent teachers eat together with pupils during school lunches and their attitudes toward using these lunches to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore to what extent teachers eat together with pupils during school lunches and their attitudes toward using these lunches to reach the educational goals stated in the Swedish compulsory school curriculum; and second, to study to what degree teachers see themselves and school meal personnel as role models during school lunches.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire was completed by 3,629 teachers in Swedish schools.
Findings
In total, 90 percent of the teachers ate lunch together with the pupils one or more days per week. The majority reported that meals were fully (54 percent), or partially (40 percent) subsidized when they were eating with pupils. In total, 72 percent thought that school lunches should be considered part of the school’s educational activities while 28 percent thought that it should be a time to get a break from educational activities. Most teachers thought that school lunches could be useful for learning about the issues of food waste and healthy eating while there were more diverse views on using lunches for learning about fundamental values. A majority of the teachers considered themselves to be role models in the school meal situation.
Practical implications
The authors suggest that the educational component of the school meal per se should be regulated in the Educational Act together with guidelines from the Swedish National Agency for Education.
Originality/value
This study is unique since it covers a previously little studied area; teachers’ attitudes toward using the school lunch situation for educational purposes.
Linda Berggren, Sanna Talvia, Eldbjørg Fossgard, Unnur Björk Arnfjörð, Agneta Hörnell, Anna Sigríður Ólafsdóttir, Ingibjörg Gunnarsdóttir, Hege Wergedahl, Hanna Lagström, Maria Waling and Cecilia Olsson
Pupils’ perspective should be better taken into account when developing nutrition education at school. The purpose of this paper is to explore Nordic children’s perspectives on…
Abstract
Purpose
Pupils’ perspective should be better taken into account when developing nutrition education at school. The purpose of this paper is to explore Nordic children’s perspectives on the healthiness of meals in the context of school lunches.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 78 focus group discussions were conducted with 10-11-year-old girls and boys (n=457) from schools in Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, which were participating in the Nordic school meal project ProMeal during the school year 2013-2014. A flexible discussion guide and stimulus material in the form of 14 photographs displaying different school lunch contexts were used. The discussions were analyzed using thematic analysis.
Findings
These Nordic children seem to share the adult-set aim of healthy eating in the school context as a socio-cultural norm. Although healthy eating was constructed as a rational, normative and acceptable way to eat at school, unhealthy eating was emphasized as negotiably acceptable when eaten occasionally and under certain circumstances (e.g. at special occasions). Unhealthy eating also comprised emotionally laden descriptions such as enjoyment and disgust.
Practical implications
Children’s conceptualizations of healthy eating are connected to nutritional, socio-cultural, emotional and normative dimensions, which should be reflected also when developing nutrition education in school.
Originality/value
The need for research exploring children’s experiences of, and understandings about, school lunch motivated this unique multicenter study with a large number of participating children. In the focus groups a child-oriented, photo-elicitation method was used.
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Yolanda Muñoz-Martínez, Cecilia Simon Rueda and MªLuz M. Fernández-Blázquez
This study analyses the barriers and facilitators for the educational inclusion of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from the perspective of their teachers.
Abstract
Purpose
This study analyses the barriers and facilitators for the educational inclusion of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from the perspective of their teachers.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative methodology was applied, specifically a multiple case study from which 24 in-depth interviews were conducted with teachers who had worked previously with students with ASD. The participants were Spanish teachers from different educational stages (from early childhood education to baccalaureate) and with different roles (ordinary classroom teachers and support teachers).
Findings
The results show that collaboration amongst teachers, their attitudes, the way of understanding the supports, the creation of collaboration between students and the organisation of both the school and the classroom are important for the inclusion of students with ASD. The analyses and discussion of the facilitators for the inclusion of these students are especially relevant, since they provide useful guidance for teachers who want to respond to the right of these students to an inclusive education.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations and future research lines of this study are related to the logic of amplitude and depth, respectively. Regarding amplitude, the authors highlighted the importance of gathering the voices of professionals committed to the development of more inclusive practices; however, the authors also identified the need to expand the listening to the voices of teachers who do not have such experience. This raises a possible future research line: to explore how to reach teachers with no experience in inclusive education in order to contribute to the transformation of their practice.
Practical implications
There is extensive knowledge within the classrooms, which the authors aimed to demonstrate in this study, with the hope that others can learn from it. The obtained results are useful to every teacher who wishes to create an inclusive school. In agreement with the consideration of inclusive education as a process, this investigation identified strategies and resources that facilitate the learning and participation of students with ASD, as well as barriers that must be tackled to advance in this regard.
Originality/value
The authors aimed to contribute to understanding the advances in the development of the right to inclusive education. To this end, the authors gathered the voices of teachers (those from the ordinary classroom and those considered “support teachers”) from regular schools that welcome students with ASD and which had a history of commitment to the development of more inclusive education. There is extensive knowledge within the classrooms, which the authors aimed to demonstrate in this study, with the hope that others can learn from it. The obtained results are useful to every teacher who wishes to create an inclusive school.
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Ann Svensson, Ulrika Lundh Snis and Irene Cecilia Bernhard
Jens Sjöberg, Cecilia Cassinger and Renira Rampazzo Gambarato
The research aim of this article is to generate novel insights into how public sector organizations (PSOs) strategically communicate with the public about critical issues on…
Abstract
Purpose
The research aim of this article is to generate novel insights into how public sector organizations (PSOs) strategically communicate with the public about critical issues on social media. To this end, the study explores the public's experiences of the Swedish Police's sense of safety communication on Instagram in the third largest city in Sweden, where the lack of a sense of public safety is a main societal challenge.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was designed as a case study employing photo-elicitation interviews as a method to collect the empirical material. A phenomenography approach was used to analyze public experiences of the Swedish Police's Instagram communication in Malmö, Sweden.
Findings
Findings show that the police's strategic communication of safety on Instagram is experienced along the dimensions of a sense of protection, a sense of proximity and a sense of ambiguity. Taken together, these dimensions broaden and develop the knowledge of what communicating a sense of safety in the public sphere entails.
Originality/value
This study adds to previous research on strategic communication in public sector organizations by demonstrating what strategic communication accomplishes at the receiving end outside of the organization.
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Cecilia Bjursell and Lisa Bäckvall
Writings in the media have the potential to influence our standpoint and, thereby, our actions. In this paper, the authors analyze how women in family business are represented in…
Abstract
Purpose
Writings in the media have the potential to influence our standpoint and, thereby, our actions. In this paper, the authors analyze how women in family business are represented in media to understand the frames set by this discourse in terms of women owning and leading family businesses. The aim of the paper is to explore how the counterposed roles of business person and mother are presented in media and what implications this might have for role enactment.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper opted for an exploratory study of 308 articles about women in family business over a 15‐year period. In the interpretative, qualitative analysis of media texts, the discursive construction of the mother role and the business role are explored.
Findings
The paper provides empirical insights into how the mother role is taken for granted while the business role is approached as problematic in portrayals of women in family business. The authors discuss whether the media discourse reinforces traditional roles or stimulates role innovation.
Practical implications
Understanding role as something separate from the individual provides a means to critically review expectations of women in business and how these expectations hinder business activities.
Originality/value
The study examines data over a 15‐year period in the Swedish media setting and describes changes in attitudes about women's roles in family business. Regarding the family business as an arena for performative acts provides a perspective that can highlight the intertwinement of the private and professional arenas in family business.
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Cecília Rendeiro Carmo, José António Cardoso Moreira and Maria Cristina Souto Miranda
The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between earnings quality and the cost of debt for private companies in a “code-law” country (Ball et al., 2000). The analysis…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between earnings quality and the cost of debt for private companies in a “code-law” country (Ball et al., 2000). The analysis controls for company size, debt level and audited information.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses the ordinary least squares regression technique to test the relationship between earnings quality and the cost of debt.
Findings
The collected empirical evidence shows a negative relationship between earnings quality and the cost of debt and controls for company size and debt level. Such a relationship is stronger when the company information is audited.
Research limitations/implications
Similar to other studies, this paper has two main limitations. There was no access to specific data on the interest rates charged on bank loans, implying that the cost of debt is measured by the ratio of the interest expense to interest-bearing debt. The research only uses earnings quality measures based on abnormal accruals.
Practical implications
The collected evidence suggests that earnings quality have economic consequences for private companies by affecting their cost of debt, similar to those observed in previous studies for listed companies. This evidence can be seen as an incentive for private companies to increase their financial information quality. For debt providers, namely, financial institutions, the findings can be of interest to help them price properly the loans they make available to private companies. In general, the findings of this research can be of interest for company managers and financial institutions in countries with an institutional environment similar to that of Portugal.
Originality/value
The relation between earnings quality and the cost of debt has been so far studied for listed companies in “common law” countries. This paper provides new and complementary evidence about such relation for private companies and “code-law” country.
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