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This study aims to present the experiences with self-determination and taking ownership of life in Sudbury model schools that allow students true choice.

For this qualitative study we used a thematic analysis (TA) methodology. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with 14 adult participants from eight different Sudbury model and comparable schools in the Netherlands, Israel and the US. These schools offered students real choice in the curriculum program. Transcripts were analyzed and corresponding meanings thematized. Self-determination theory (SDT) is used as a lens to interpret the findings.

The findings suggest that an organizational structure that supports own responsibility in an absence of an imposed program and a culture of no-interference creates conditions for taking ownership of life and choices (self-determination) and encompasses taking ownership of learning, education and one’s future. Taking ownership of one’s life seems to be related to strongly internally oriented processes with an internal locus of causality, to find their own motivation and taking responsibility for choices, behavior and consequences in a SDT need supportive social context.

This study is part of a larger research that addressed multiple facets of their experiences with their schools to understand the longer-term effects these schools had on the adult lives of participants. This limits the scope of this paper to only explore the conditions that led to the mental state of “taking ownership of one’s life.”

Conditions that can lead to long-term self-determination of one's life and future in a school setting is an unexplored area of research.

The University of York Library, part of its Information Directorate, has successfully run an annual user survey using LibQUAL+ since 2008. The tool has proven invaluable in understanding user needs and measuring improvements. The ability to benchmark performance has been well received by university senior managers. Following this positive experience, the Directorate piloted the TechQual+ survey to assess its technology services. TechQual+ is a total market-survey tool developed on the same principles as LibQUAL+. York was the first university in the UK to do this. The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the experience and its relevance to information services.

A team was established to co-ordinate the distribution of the survey, which was e-mailed to all university members. The survey was conducted over a period of three weeks in December 2011 using their web-based tool. The team worked with the survey providers to make amendments in order to comply with UK Data Protection legislation.

The TechQual+ tool provided a rich set of data on the IT needs of University of York students and staff, including a wealth of comments. As the first use of the tool in the UK, a number of outcomes arose from the pilot: methods for running the survey in order to meet UK data protection requirements; feedback on the tool itself, with some questions not understood from a UK context; a rich set of results data, with some similarities (and several differences) to those available through LibQUAL+.

The paper presents the first application of the TechQual+ survey in UK and discusses the issues faced when implementing it in a UK context. The case study will be of interest to libraries or converged services interested in assessing their IT provision.

This chapter explores the topic of supporting young people to become innovators for societal change in terms of equity and renewal from the perspective of school principals in Northern Ireland, a post-conflict society. We examine how school principals can be empowered in their role in providing this support and the challenges and turbulence that they face in their work. The chapter provides contextual information about education in what is still largely a divided society in Northern Ireland. The principals who were interviewed as part of this research were working within school partnerships as part of ‘shared education’ projects. In Northern Ireland, the Shared Education Act (2016) provides a legislative basis for two or more local schools from different educational sectors to work in partnership to provide an opportunity for sustained shared learning activities with the aim of improving both educational and reconciliation outcomes for young people. The challenges for school leadership of working in partnership in societies emerging from conflict has not been given the attention it deserves in the literature, so this work is significant in that it brings together a focus on school leadership in a ‘shared education’ context, drawing on theories of collaboration and turbulence to examine how principals can best be empowered to be agents of change, so that pupils in Northern Ireland can also become empowered to make society there more equitable and peaceful. While the focus is on Northern Ireland, the learnings from this study will be of wider interest and significance as similar challenges are faced by school leaders internationally.

This case teaches students the importance of maintaining a strong FICO score by illustrating the consequences of paying bills late or not at all. The protagonist is David Molina, a waiter at a struggling Italian restaurant located down the block from where he lives. Money is tight for Molina right now—his limited income means he lives paycheck to paycheck. However, Molina knows things will be looking up for him soon because he recently accepted a job as a bank teller across town—his first desk job.

Molina has been putting off paying two of his bills: a cable bill and his Bank of America credit card bill, both of which are late and have been issued, this time, in the form of threats to impact Molina's credit score if he doesn't pay them. He has just enough money to afford the minimum payments on each overdue bill. But then he receives a phone call from his friend, Jim Lindsey, reminding him about an invitation to go to Myrtle Beach for the upcoming weekend. Molina knows he cannot afford it, but a woman he's attracted to, Jessica, will be there too. Should Molina put off the bills yet again, and if so, how exactly will being late on them hurt his credit score?

Carers of people with eating disorders (EDs) experience high levels of burden which can lead to clinical levels of depression and anxiety, high levels of expressed emotion and can lead to a non-conducive environment to support recovery. The Maudsley Method skills-based workshops can empower carers to support people with ED to move towards recovery, reduce carer burden and high levels of distress. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Adaptations have been made to the Maudsley Method skills based workshops to include evidence based approaches from cognitive remediation therapy; mindfulness and acceptance commitment therapy. The adapted workshops were assessed via a pilot study with ten carers of people with ED using a mixed method design. The Experience of Caregiving Inventory and SF-36 were used to assess aspects of caregiving and carer wellbeing, respectively pre and post intervention. Thematic analysis was used to evaluate carers’ views on the intervention.

Results indicated that carers reduced their level of burden particularly in their experience of stigma, dependency and loss. Furthermore, positive aspects of the relationship with the person with the ED improved. Thematic analysis was used to obtain feedback from carers of the workshops. Qualitative data identified that carers improved their self-awareness, understanding of ED and the techniques they could use, and increased their social support.

Further research is required to compare the original workshops with this adapted intervention.

Although this is a pilot study, the results suggest that further evidence based interventions could be added to the Maudsley Method approach to support carers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate narcissism in relation to consumer identity projects. Narcissism is rarely the focus of consumer culture studies, though it resonates with theories of individualistic, consumption-driven identities, and is argued to be a pervasive social trend within a hegemonic consumer culture that places the individual center stage. We explore these themes in the context of emerging adult identity projects given arguments about increasing narcissism in younger generations.

Identifying eight participants using the Narcissistic Personality Inventory – four with high and four with low scores – we conduct in-depth interviews to explore their identity projects, narcissistic traits, and brand relationships.

Through idiographic analysis, we find that those with lower narcissistic tendencies seem to have a communal orientation to both people and brands, whilst those with greater narcissistic tendencies tend to be individualistic and agentic. We relate the narcissistic consumer to Fromm’s “marketing character,” proposing four themes that emerge from the analysis: liquidity; an other-directed sense of self; conformity; and the commodification of self.

This paper discusses the societal implications of individualistic consumer identity projects, highlighting narcissism, a concept relatively neglected within consumer culture theory. Narcissism carries with it a host of societal implications, not least of which is a focus on the self and a lack of concern with the wellbeing of others.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the importance of redesigning, reusing, remanufacturing, recovering, recycling and reducing (6R) to sustainable manufacturing and discuss the general procedure to reconfigure robots. Two critical challenges in adopting industrial robots in small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) are flexibility and cost, as the number of tasks of the same type can be limited because of the size of an SME. The challenges can be alleviated by 6R. The 6R processes allow a robot to adopt new tasks, increase its utilization rate and reduce unit costs of products.

There is no shortcut to implement sustainable manufacturing. All of the manufacturing resources in a system should be planned optimally to reduce waste and maximize the utilization rates of resources. In this paper, modularization and reconfiguration are emphasized to implement 6R processes in sustainable manufacturing; robots are especially taken into consideration as core functional modules in the system. Modular architecture makes it feasible to integrate robots with low-cost customized modules for various tasks for the high utilization rates. A case study is provided to show the feasibility.

Finding the ways to reuse manufacturing resources could bring significant competitiveness to an SME, in the sense that sophisticated machines and tools, such as robots, can be highly utilized even in a manufacturing environment with low or medium product volumes. The concepts of modularization and 6R processes can be synergized to achieve this goal.

The authors propose the strategy to enhance the utilization rates of core manufacturing resources using modular architecture and 6R practice. The axiomatic design theory can be applied as the theoretical fundamental to guide the 6R processes; however, a universal solution in the implementation is not available. The solutions have to be tailored to specific SMEs, and the solutions should vary with respect to time.

To operate a sustainable manufacturing system, a continuous design effort is required to reconfigure existing resources and enhance their capabilities to fulfill new tasks in the dynamic environment.

The authors focus on the importance of sustainable manufacturing to modern society, and they achieve this goal by reusing robots as system components in different applications.

Sustainable manufacturing has attracted a great deal of attention, although the operable guidance for system implementation is scarce. The presented work has thrown some light in this research area. The 6R concept has been introduced in a modular system to maximize the utilizations of critical manufacturing resources. It is particularly advantageous for SMEs to adopt sophisticated robots cost-effectively.

This study assesses the factors influencing customers’ intention to adopt e-banking in the context of the technology acceptance model and the moderation role of cybercrime.

The variables in the study are measured using a five-point Likert scale with measures adopted from existing literature. The independent variables are perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and security and privacy. These are postulated to be moderated by the perceived risk of cybercrime and to influence e-banking adoption intentions. A quantitative approach is used. Primary data are collected from a sample of 209 randomly selected bank customers. The study uses a two-step (measurement model and structural model) approach to data analysis.

The key findings in this study are that perceived risk of cybercrime strengthens the positive relationship between perceived ease of use and e-banking adoption intentions but dampens or weakens the positive relationship between perceived usefulness and customers’ e-banking adoption intentions. The study makes several recommendations to inform scholarship, policy and practice.

Unlike existing literature, the study makes a unique contribution by including perceived risk of cybercrime as a moderating variable of theoretical significance in the relationship between adoption of e-banking and its determinants.