One of the most contentious issues in management is participatory decision‐making (PDM). While studies abound centred on hypothetical benefits, characteristics of involved…
Abstract
One of the most contentious issues in management is participatory decision‐making (PDM). While studies abound centred on hypothetical benefits, characteristics of involved individuals, its moral foundation and other aspects, few have investigated the pattern of utilization of avenues for PDM. This study investigates the relationship between nine avenues for teacher involvement, and the degree of actual and desired participation, plus decisional deprivation experienced by the respondents on a 30 item Critical Decision Inventory. Teachers' biographical characteristics; level of instruction, sex, teaching experience, academic qualifications and size of district of employment were also correlated with the utilization of avenues for participation. The major findings were (i) a high correlation between sex, level of instruction and avenues used; (ii) teaching experience was not supportive of earlier research; (iii) district size did not support previous studies; (iv) academic qualifications did not produce conclusive results.
Dan Riley, Deirdre J. Duncan and John Edwards
The purpose of this paper is to estimate the prevalence of staff bullying in Australian schools, to identify bullies and targets and to examine some implications for school…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to estimate the prevalence of staff bullying in Australian schools, to identify bullies and targets and to examine some implications for school leaders in dealing with staff bullying.
Design/methodology/approach
The quantitative research design survey instrument contained 11 demographic items, 44 questions of bullying experience, two lists of possible bullies and targets, plus three open‐ended questions.
Findings
Data revealed that 99.6 per cent of respondents had experienced some form of bullying during their employment. Half the respondents experienced 32 or more of the 44 listed survey items, while their health was adversely affected by persistent and frequent bullying.
Practical implications
The research revealed the existence of workplace bullying in Australian schools and some obvious implications for leadership. It profiled the experiences of respondents and identified strategies to eliminate or reduce bullying in Australian schools.
Originality/value
The exploratory study was the first national online survey into staff bullying in Australian schools.
Abstract
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this article is to critique the strengths and weaknesses of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL). The primary purpose of the NCSL is to improve student…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to critique the strengths and weaknesses of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL). The primary purpose of the NCSL is to improve student attainment levels through enhancement of leadership capacity within England's government schools. The critique aims to include the issues of strategic rethinking, definition of terms, leadership competencies, core competencies, selection criteria, and research needs.
Design/methodology/approach
This article provides a review of literature related to leadership capacity building and challenges to the NCSL enhancement of student attainment levels in England's government schools.
Findings
The article indicates that the NCSL had numerous strengths adequate for the initial core activities of headteacher development. Subsequent broadening of those responsibilities to include all leadership development in government schools is a challenging task. The continued increase in expectations necessitates a strategic rethinking of NCSL capability.
Practical implications
The number of potential school leaders warrants reflection on current practice. The “demographic time‐bomb” of the teaching profession has implications for succession planning and professional development. The NCSL has endeavoured to prepare additional school leaders. The increase in NCSL responsibilities regarding school leadership necessitates a sharing of responsibility with other providers.
Originality/value
The article is among the first to critique the NCSL and to identify lessons to be learned by educational leaders from the NCSL experience.
Details
Keywords
This chapter focuses on the conservative Heritage Foundation's “Project 2025” and especially its comprehensive Mandate for Leadership, which provides a detailed plan for…
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the conservative Heritage Foundation's “Project 2025” and especially its comprehensive Mandate for Leadership, which provides a detailed plan for fundamental policy and administrative changes to be instituted in a Trump second term. It advocates an unparalleled concentration of executive power, elimination of the independence of the civil service and Department of Justice from the office of the president, and institution of permanent dominance of Trumpian conservatism. The specific focus is on the Mandate's proposed antienvironmental policies, which are weaved throughout the document and are designed to roll back sweepingly previous climate-change and environmental protection policies. Stressing maximal usage, production, and export of fossil fuel, the Trumpian “energy dominance agenda” is in polar contradiction to climate science policy aimed at decarbonizing the economy and society and averting catastrophic climate change and a “Hothouse Earth.” The Mandate's postfactual discourse combined with its advocacy of an all-powerful president and conspiratorial vision of the “woke” left as public enemy has definite protofascist overtones.
Details
Keywords
Saulo Monteiro Martinho de Matos
The central thesis developed during this study is the idea that human dignity must be understood as the right to be recognised as a participant in the institutional practice of…
Abstract
The central thesis developed during this study is the idea that human dignity must be understood as the right to be recognised as a participant in the institutional practice of human and fundamental rights. This form of association between human dignity and human rights is a response to the various barbarities of the twentieth century, whether by fascist, Nazi, and socialist regimes in Europe, either by South African apartheid or by military dictatorships in Latin America. Human dignity after Auschwitz is the foundation for the construction of a post-metaphysical institutional morality, independent of an idealised concept of rational subjective personality and closer to the historical and material conditions to guarantee the political personality of every human being. In order to defend this thesis, the study is conducted in two steps. First, two conceptions of dignity will be discussed, namely dignity of man and human dignity. Second, it is intended to discuss how the modern conception was incorporated into the practice of human rights after Auschwitz as a way of responding to a crisis in the modern model of the practice of rights.
Details
Keywords
Maria Siemushyna and Andrea S. Young
Being a parent supposes an important number of language interactions with children and other social actors, in order to realize “parental functions”, such as everyday…
Abstract
Being a parent supposes an important number of language interactions with children and other social actors, in order to realize “parental functions”, such as everyday communication with children, transmission of knowledge, expression of emotions, communication with school and others. As for parents with migrant backgrounds, some realize their parenting functions while using only the language of the country of origin, whilst others use only the language of the host country, and some parents use both of these languages. The aim of this paper is to discuss which of these language practices enables parents to more fully realize their parental functions. The paper is based on a thematic analysis of non-directive narrative interviews of parents and children with migrant backgrounds in Strasbourg (France) and Frankfurt-am-Main (Germany). We come to the conclusion that “fuller” or “more partial” realization of parenting functions depends on parents’ subjective perceptions. For instance, in similar language use situations, some parents believed their language practices had allowed them to realize their parenting functions “more fully” while others considered that they had only been able to “partially” do so. This paper opens up a new avenue of reflexion while analysing the concept of “partial parenting” regarding the use of languages by migrant parents. We hope that it will be be of interest to migrant and also non-migrant parents and their children, as well as to researchers and professionals working with immigrant families and that it will contribute to raising awareness about the role of languages in parenting.
Details
Keywords
Discussions about the dignity of human beings often focus on violations of a person’s dignity that are performed by other persons. However, human beings can also violate their own…
Abstract
Discussions about the dignity of human beings often focus on violations of a person’s dignity that are performed by other persons. However, human beings can also violate their own dignity or at least they can expose it to a violation by others thoughtlessly or intentionally. In his Metaphysics of Morals, Kant states that ‘[o]ne who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him’. Kant presupposes that persons can infringe or even forfeit their own dignity – for instance through servile behaviour – and that violating one’s own dignity is a violation of a duty towards oneself. Starting from the tension between dignity in terms of honour and worth in current debates and in Kant’s own thinking, as well as between understanding dignity as absolute or relational, I develop a comprehensive account of dignity as a duty to oneself. The author argues for a twofold obligation towards oneself to respect one’s own dignity: (i) a duty (as the necessity of an action done out of respect for the moral law) to respect one’s authority as an autonomous person in the Kantian sense; and (ii) beyond the Kantian framework – an obligation arising from the practical necessity that follows from one’s self-understanding as a self-determined, self-expressive individual personality in a socio-cultural context. Finally, the author outlines the consequences of the idea of ‘making oneself a worm’ for the concept of dignity in the realm of rights by discussing why, even though persons can behave like worms, others ought not to step on them.
Details
Keywords
Daniel Briggs, Sébastien Tutenges, Rebecca Armitage and Dimitar Panchev
This article aims to offer an ethnographic account of substances and sex and how they are interrelated in the context of one holiday destination popular among British youth…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to offer an ethnographic account of substances and sex and how they are interrelated in the context of one holiday destination popular among British youth. Current research on British youth abroad and their use of substances is based almost exclusively on survey methods. Similarly, the same research works do not explore, in sufficient detail, sexual relations outside of those purely between British tourists.
Design/methodology/approach
The article is based on 38 focus groups, observations, and informal conversations undertaken in San Antonio, Ibiza during the summers of 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Findings
The paper complements current knowledge on sex and substances abroad by discussing the role of promotion representatives, strippers and prostitutes, and the use of drugs and alcohol, emphasising how substances feature in the promotion of sex. Bakhtin's concept of the “carnivalesque” is adopted to understand these behaviours.
Originality/value
Current research is almost exclusively based on sex between tourists; therefore, sexual encounters with other social players in holiday resorts have been largely neglected.