Kyle Ingle, Stacey Rutledge and Jennifer Bishop
School principals make sense of multiple messages, policies, and contexts within their school environments. The purpose of this paper is to examine specifically how school leaders…
Abstract
Purpose
School principals make sense of multiple messages, policies, and contexts within their school environments. The purpose of this paper is to examine specifically how school leaders make sense of hiring and subjective evaluation of on‐the‐job teacher performance.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study drew from 42 interviews with 21 principals from a mid‐sized Florida school district. Two rounds of semi‐structured interviews (one to two hours each) were conducted with the informants over two summers (2005‐2006). The multi‐year study allows the authors to assess the consistency across principal participants.
Findings
Principals' personal beliefs, background, and experiences were found to shape their conceptions and preferences for teacher characteristics. School type (e.g. elementary, secondary, levels of poverty) also influenced principals' perceptions of and preferences for specific applicant and teacher characteristics. Principals in the sample, however, showed surprising consistency towards certain characteristics (caring, subject matter knowledge, strong teaching skills) and job fit (person‐job). Sampled principals reported that each vacancy is different and is highly dependent on the position, team, and individuals. Regardless of the position or school setting, federal, state, and district mandates strongly influenced how principals made sense of the hiring process and on‐the‐job performance.
Practical implications
The findings underscore the complexity of the human resource functions in education and raise important questions of how school leaders reconcile personal preferences and building‐level needs with demands from the district, state, and federal levels.
Originality/value
The authors' findings offer important insight into the complex conceptualizations that principals hold and the balances that must be struck in the face of policy and hiring constraints. How principals make sense of teacher quality, however, has not been examined. This study contributes to the extant research and makes a theoretical contribution to studies using a cognitive frame to understand school leadership.
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Michael Kompf and Frances O’Connell Rust
The first part of this chapter addresses the history and development of the International Study Association of Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) and its engagement with the global…
Abstract
The first part of this chapter addresses the history and development of the International Study Association of Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) and its engagement with the global educational community. We provide an account of the context and background against which ISATT developed as well as information about the founders’ orientations and the actions that led to ISATT’s birth. The second part of the chapter uses patterns of topic focus as graphic indicators of the evolution of ISATT’s research interests expressed through publication titles.
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Albert Postma and Peter C. Bishop
As the Journal of Tourism Futures celebrates its tenth anniversary, Dr Albert Postma interviews Dr Peter Bishop, an expert on teaching the future. The interview was held on July…
Abstract
Purpose
As the Journal of Tourism Futures celebrates its tenth anniversary, Dr Albert Postma interviews Dr Peter Bishop, an expert on teaching the future. The interview was held on July 25, 2024.
Design/methodology/approach
A personal interview.
Findings
The interview provides insights into the importance of teaching the future, the evolution in teaching the future, competencies and skills that the teaching focuses on, challenges of teaching the future in the current era and the role of AI.
Originality/value
Bishop shares his expertise on the development of teaching the future, its key features and its challenges in the current era.
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Abstract
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Sebastian J. Lowe, Lily George and Jennifer Deger
This chapter looks at what it means to set out to do anthropological research with tangata whenua (New Zealanders of Māori descent; literally, ‘people of the land’), from the…
Abstract
This chapter looks at what it means to set out to do anthropological research with tangata whenua (New Zealanders of Māori descent; literally, ‘people of the land’), from the particular perspective of a Pākehā (New Zealander of non-Māori descent – usually European) musical anthropologist with an interest in sound-made worlds. In late 2017, Lowe was awarded funding for a conjoint PhD scholarship in anthropology at James Cook University, Australia, and Aarhus University, Denmark. However, following advice from several colleagues in Aotearoa New Zealand, Lowe decided to assess the viability of the project with his prospective Māori and non-Māori collaborators prior to officially starting his PhD candidature. Throughout this process of pre-ethics (Barrett, 2016), Lowe met with both Māori and non-Māori to discuss the proposed PhD project; a ‘listening in’ to his own socio-historical positioning as a Pākehā anthropologist within contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand. This approach to anthropological research is in response to George (2017), who argues for a new politically and ethnically aware mode of anthropology that aims to (re)establish relationships of true meaning between anthropology and Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand.
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Rebecca Mutebi Kalibwani, Jennifer Twebaze, Rick Kamugisha, Medard Kakuru, Moses Sabiiti, Irene Kugonza, Moses Tenywa and Sospeter Nyamwaro
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that agricultural commodity value chain development using multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) can fast-track improvement in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that agricultural commodity value chain development using multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) can fast-track improvement in the livelihoods of rural farming households. With the view that such partnerships can raise farmers’ incomes, the study uses the case of the organic pineapple (OP) value chain in Ntungamo, Western Uganda, to understand the governance features that hold the value chain partners together, to analyse the costs and margins to the participating farmers, to identify opportunities for demand-driven upgrading of the farmers’ skills and knowledge, and the role that partnerships play in such upgrading.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses the qualitative tools of value chain analysis: value chain maps of stakeholders, processes and support services of the OP value chain, and a quantitative tool to analyse costs and margins to the participating farmers. Interviews were conducted with key informants from the OP innovation platform, and survey data collected for the planting season, February–July, 2014, across three farmer categories of certified organic, conventional, and farmers not participating in the innovation platform.
Findings
Careful selection of partnerships to develop the value chain is found to be critical. Partners to involve should be those that enable the upgrading of farmers’ knowledge, skills and technologies to position them for better markets. Partners should also include those that enable the improvement of margins to the farmers and efficiency of the value chain. The strategic MSPs should be bound by formal contracts, to ensure stable relationships in the value chain and hence sustainable market access for the farmers.
Research limitations/implications
Although carried out on a specific value chain in a specific local context, this is not likely to limit the applicability of the findings to commodity value chains in a range of local contexts.
Originality/value
The study fulfils the need to highlight the role that stakeholder partnerships can play in value chain development and how they can be sustained by governance and institutional arrangements.
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Elizabeth McCall Bemiss, Jennifer L. Doyle and Mary Elizabeth Styslinger
This paper aims to explore alternative literacy instruction with incarcerated youth, add to the body of existing literature documenting the literacy of those incarcerated and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore alternative literacy instruction with incarcerated youth, add to the body of existing literature documenting the literacy of those incarcerated and investigate the construction of book clubs through a critical lens.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative case study answered the following research questions: What can a critical book club reveal about the literacy lives of these incarcerated youth? What can we learn from incarcerated youth through a critical book club? Data were collected through participant observation and in-depth interviews and analyzed using a critical literacy framework.
Findings
Findings indicate students used text connections to critically reflect on selves and schools. They questioned issues of power, particularly the power of literacy in their own lives as well as the power of schools, teachers and curriculum. The paper concludes with the authors’ critical reflection on both the findings and process which results in implications for future book clubs in settings with incarcerated youth.
Social implications
As educators, administrators and community members living in the “age of incarceration” (Hill, 2013), there is a social responsibility to design curriculum and pedagogy that expands instruction in correctional facilities.
Originality/value
The need for expanded literacy instruction in juvenile detention centers has been widely documented and supported; however, conventional methods of teaching literacy are not always successful for youth who may not have had positive experiences with traditional schooling. This study expands and explores literacy instruction with incarcerated youth through book clubs, an alternative literacy structure which challenges traditional curricula, pedagogical practices and culturally irrelevant texts which often contribute to the alienation and disempowerment of many students. Book clubs can facilitate new understandings through a critical lens.
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Jennifer Dineen, Mark D. Robbins and Bill Simonsen
Fiscal conditions and budget constraints in the United States have placed solutions to budget deficit problems at the center of the public policy debate. Preferences for deficit…
Abstract
Fiscal conditions and budget constraints in the United States have placed solutions to budget deficit problems at the center of the public policy debate. Preferences for deficit reduction strategies are likely to be heavily associated with particular ideologies and other demographic and economic variables. Therefore, since this study is a true randomized experiment, it provides strong evidence about the influence of question wording on deficit reduction preferences, and therefore the likelihood it is susceptible to manipulation. We find clear evidence that using the word ‘tax’ significantly and substantially influences respondents’ choices. This result is robust over two experimental trials about a year apart and whether or not control variables are included.