Peter Grootenboer and Kevin Larkin
The authors argue that middle leaders are the key educators in school-based educational development. Schools often secure small-scale funding to engage in government or systemic…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors argue that middle leaders are the key educators in school-based educational development. Schools often secure small-scale funding to engage in government or systemic initiatives, and these projects require a leadership “close to the classroom” if they are to realise sustainable educational gains. This leadership often comes from the middle leaders – those who practice their leading in and around classrooms. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
A single case study methodology is used to investigate two middle leaders, leading a small-scale project. Their leading practices are examined using the “theory of practice architectures”, to identify how these practices were enacted within their educational context.
Findings
While principals play a crucial role in enacting change, it is the middle leaders who are closer to the classroom than most principals, and whose practices more directly impact teaching and learning as they are best placed to ensure that meagre resources are well used to improve student learning. They do this by ensuring that development is collegial and a response to evidence-based needs.
Practical implications
First, middle leaders need support in facilitating educational development. Second, their leading practice is crucial for sustainable school-based development. Third, site-based educational development occurs most effectively when it is evidence-based. Finally, this form of educational development requires high-level collegiality.
Originality/value
This paper is original in two key ways: first, it addresses the under-researched practices of middle leaders; and, second it employs the practice theory to understand school leadership and development.
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Margaret O'Connor, Jennifer Watts, Melissa Bloomer and Kevin Larkins
The purpose of this paper is to determine how Australian workplaces, their managers and employees respond to those who are grieving at work, as a result of chronic or terminal…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine how Australian workplaces, their managers and employees respond to those who are grieving at work, as a result of chronic or terminal illness, or caring for those with chronic or terminal illness. The review draws on Australian and relevant international literature and seeks to answer this question.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review was undertaken in preparation for an Australian study examining workplace supports for people who are grieving – because they are carers, have experienced a death, or are balancing their own illness with their work. Using a range of search terms, the literature was searched for relevant work between 1980 and 2010. The search found examples of workplace supports throughout the world and some developing Australian literature.
Findings
Despite illness and death occurring at any stage of a person's life, there is little research that identifies workplace issues associated with grief and loss. And while workplace legislation allows for minimal supports, there was evidence that some workplaces have begun to offer flexibility for work life balance.
Practical implications
Effective workplace supports will involve individual and workplace responses, but also require legislative approaches in order to effect broad‐based system change.
Originality/value
The paper compares Australian and international literature about workplace supports and provides an overview of the issues arising.
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Alice Bows-Larkin and Kevin Anderson
Despite the high profile of climate change rhetoric and the carbon intensive nature of flying, policies for controlling CO2 from aviation remain at odds with global commitments on…
Abstract
Purpose/approach
Despite the high profile of climate change rhetoric and the carbon intensive nature of flying, policies for controlling CO2 from aviation remain at odds with global commitments on climate change. Taking a carbon budgeting approach to compare future aviation scenarios with the scale of necessary emission reductions demonstrates the extent of this contradiction. The significant potential for ongoing aviation growth contrasts with the need to curb substantially global CO2 emissions across all sectors. For even a 50:50 chance of staying within the 2°C threshold, emission pathways imply around a 75% cut in absolute emissions by 2050 (from 1990 levels). Set against this, aviation’s CO2 emissions are expected to grow by between 170% and 480% over the same period, and they could feasibly be higher still.
Originality/findings
For the international community to be serious about its climate change commitments, moral and ethical concerns need to be considered alongside technical and economic issues. It is timely to question whether expansion of an industry with few technological options for decarbonisation is a reasonable way to gamble with our future.
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Lucy Budd, Steven Griggs and David Howarth
This chapter examines the torsions and blind spots that structure the contemporary debate on the politics and policy of aviation. It also generates different scenarios for the…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter examines the torsions and blind spots that structure the contemporary debate on the politics and policy of aviation. It also generates different scenarios for the future of air travel, which can help to unblock the current impasse about the perceived costs and benefits of aviation and its attendant infrastructural needs.
Originality
This chapter characterises and evaluates the competing frames that organise the contested realities of air transport. By mapping out the current fault lines of aviation politics and policy, the chapter is also able to delineate four main scenarios regarding the future of aviation, which we name the ‘post-carbon’, ‘high-modernist’, ‘market regulation’ and ‘demand management’ projections respectively.
Methodology/approach
The chapter problematises and criticises the existing literature, policy reports and stakeholder briefings that inform the contemporary standoff in UK aviation policy. It uses the definition of sustainable development as a heuristic device to map and identify the fault lines structuring contemporary debates on aviation futures. It then builds upon this analysis to delimit four different scenarios for the future of flying.
Findings
The chapter analyses the contested realities of aviation politics. It re-affirms the political nature of such divisions, which in turn structure the rival understandings of aviation. The analysis suggests that the identified fault lines are constantly reiterated by competing appeals to ambiguous and contradictory evidence-bases or policy frames. Ultimately, the chapter claims that any significant reframing of aviation policy and politics rests on the outcome of political negotiations and persuasion. But it also depends on the broader views of citizens and stakeholders about the future challenges facing society, as well as the way in which governments and affected agents put in place and coordinate the multiple arenas in which a dialogue over the future of aviation can be held. Aviation futures cannot be reduced to the narrow confines of the technical merits or claims surrounding the feasibility of policy instruments.
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As business communicators, we seek the ‘holy grail’ of our industry — a way to contribute to the bottom line, and demonstrate that contribution in hard business terms. We want the…
Abstract
As business communicators, we seek the ‘holy grail’ of our industry — a way to contribute to the bottom line, and demonstrate that contribution in hard business terms. We want the hard evidence to support our belief that internal communication is more than a fashionable ‘nice to have’, but also a critical element of business performance. It will be this ability to measure the impact of our work on the top and bottom lines of our businesses that will win us a seat at the boardroom table. This will give the role of the corporate communicator the credibility and influence it deserves. This paper offers not only the latest thinking in using internal communication and marketing as an effective business tool, but also the rationale and measures for communicators to develop their role and the arena in which they work. It introduces the concept of emotional capital, and explains the impact this has on an organisation. More importantly, it demonstrates how it can be measured as a tangible element of the balanced scorecard, increasing quality, profitability and shareholder return.
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Zack P. Pedersen, Kyungyeol (Anthony) Kim, Kevin K. Byon and Antonio S. Williams
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the perceived enjoyment that is derived from spectators observing other spectators’ dysfunctional behavior during a game.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the perceived enjoyment that is derived from spectators observing other spectators’ dysfunctional behavior during a game.
Design/methodology/approach
Using four forms (i.e. fighting, verbal assault, disrupting play and throwing missiles) of spectators dysfunctional behavior (SDB), two experiments (N = 252 for Study 1 and N = 92 for Study 2) were conducted in which video clips corresponding to the four types of SDB were used as experimental stimuli.
Findings
The findings indicate that participants enjoyed viewing spectators running onto the field of play significantly more than the other forms of SDB (i.e. fighting, verbal assaults and throwing missiles). The results also show no significant difference between how much spectators enjoyed the actions of fighting, verbal assault and throwing missiles.
Originality/value
The novelty of this study include the usage of a multidimensional approach to the concept of SDB and testing for a positive outcome pertaining to SDB that has largely, if not fully, been examined using negative inputs and outputs.
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Michael Daffern, James Ogloff and Kevin Howells
There is a considerable body of research on the assessment and prediction of aggression in psychiatric hospitals. A range of clinical and demographic characteristics associated…
Abstract
There is a considerable body of research on the assessment and prediction of aggression in psychiatric hospitals. A range of clinical and demographic characteristics associated with aggressive inpatients, such as young age and active symptoms of psychosis, have repeatedly been shown to contribute to aggression. Environmental factors have also been shown to be important. The study examined aggressive behaviours in an Australian forensic psychiatric hospital, using aggression‐specific recording instrumentation developed for the study. The purpose of the study was to compare results using aggression specific‐recording instrumentation with a previous study using retrospective methods relying on standard hospital incident forms, and to examine the relationship between type, direction and severity of aggression with the use of seclusion.In contrast with the results obtained in a previous study, staff rather than patients were more often the victims of both verbal and physical aggression, although patients were more frequently the victims of more severe forms of aggression. Patients were verbally and physically aggressive towards other patients at similar rates, although they were more frequently verbally, rather than physically, aggressive to staff. Acute wards recorded more aggression than rehabilitation wards. Males and females were aggressive at similar rates. A reduction in reported incidents of verbal and physical aggression, particularly against staff, occurred over the course of the study. Patients were secluded and incident forms were completed following approximately 30% of aggressive behaviours. Whether or not a patient was secluded and whether or not an incident form was completed depended on a range of factors, including the nature of the victim and the type and severity of the aggression.
This paper aims to provide a selection of poetry titles from the Poets House Showcase of 2005.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a selection of poetry titles from the Poets House Showcase of 2005.
Design/methodology/approach
This article gives a review of the 2005 Poetry Publication Showcase.
Findings
This review represents a wide‐ranging selection of contemporary poetry collections and anthologies.
Originality/value
This list documents the tremendous range of poetry publishing from commercial, independent and university presses as well as letterpress chapbooks, art books and CDs in 2004 and early 2005.
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Kevin O'Farrell, Nick Garner and Matt Symes
This paper aims to explore using the children’s accelerated trauma technique (CATT) in an adult intellectual disability population, with the aim of reducing symptoms of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore using the children’s accelerated trauma technique (CATT) in an adult intellectual disability population, with the aim of reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Design/methodology/approach
A service evaluation was completed to investigate differences between pre- and post-CATT trauma scores.
Findings
Scores on a measure of PTSD decreased significantly following CATT.
Practical implications
The findings support continued use of CATT in adults with intellectual disabilities, and they highlight the need to evaluate effectiveness in a larger sample.
Originality/value
This paper evaluates the novel application of a trauma treatment – developed for use with children – in an adult intellectual disability population and adds to the existing evidence base.