Marilyn Von Seggern and Nancy J. Young
Focus groups are becoming more widely used in libraries as a means of gathering data from the users’ point‐of‐view about how they find and use information. This article discusses…
Abstract
Focus groups are becoming more widely used in libraries as a means of gathering data from the users’ point‐of‐view about how they find and use information. This article discusses the major issues in planning a focus group project and describes the use of a computer assisted qualitative data analysis software package, The Ethnograph, for data analysis. An annotated bibliography of useful focus group literature accompanies the article.
Details
Keywords
Ramirose Attebury, Nancy Sprague and Nancy J. Young
The University of Idaho Library's Research Assistance Program has offered personalized research consultations to more than 1,150 students over ten years. This article aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
The University of Idaho Library's Research Assistance Program has offered personalized research consultations to more than 1,150 students over ten years. This article aims to study the usage data compiled over the past decade to determine if the service still meets the needs of users effectively.
Design/methodology/approach
Ten years' worth of quantitative and qualitative data were examined, using Excel to generate comparative figures/tables and to categorize user comments.
Findings
Issues explored include consistencies in usage patterns (e.g. female to male ratio, undergraduate to graduate student ratio, on‐campus to off‐campus users), the average amount of librarian time spent in preparation for and in discussion with the RAP users, the point in the research process that RAP was requested, the types of assignments and sources, and challenges such as “no‐shows” and communication problems. The assessment revealed that students from a wide range of departments and classes continue to benefit from this program, and it is sustainable.
Practical implications
Other libraries can use this study to realistically estimate staff time and effort involved in individual appointments with a librarian in order to decide if they can offer such a service.
Originality/value
No other study of individual research assistance programs in academic libraries has studied ten years' worth of continuous data.
Details
Keywords
Young people are widely known to have poorer outcomes, social status and political representation than older adults. These disadvantages, which have come to be largely normalized…
Abstract
Young people are widely known to have poorer outcomes, social status and political representation than older adults. These disadvantages, which have come to be largely normalized in the contemporary context, can be further compounded by other factors, however, and are particularly amplified by coming from a lower social class background. An additional challenge for young people is associated with place, with youth who live in more remote and less urban areas at a higher risk of being socially excluded (Alston & Kent, 2009; Shucksmith, 2004) and/or to face complex and multiple barriers to employment and education than their urban-dwelling peers (Cartmel & Furlong, 2000). Drawing upon interviews and focus groups in a qualitative project with 16 young people and five practitioners, and using Nancy Fraser’s tripartite theory of social justice, this paper highlights the various and interlocking disadvantages experienced by working-class young people moving into and through adulthood in Clackmannanshire, mainland Scotland’s smallest council area.
Details
Keywords
Women are, in increasing numbers, participating in the labour market and are an important part of an organisation’s human resource pool. Nevertheless, women still face…
Abstract
Women are, in increasing numbers, participating in the labour market and are an important part of an organisation’s human resource pool. Nevertheless, women still face inappropriate treatment at work. One cause of this is family‐related issues. In particular, pregnancy and child birth present special challenges for working women. Discrimination towards pregnant women is commonplace in work settings. Problems are often related to individual work relationships, for example, the one between the pregnant follower and her manager. It is important to understand problems that impact on women in working life that can disturb their job satisfaction, their performance and willingness to give their best for the organisation. Therefore, for the benefit of both employer and employee, existing practices in leader follower relationships during pregnancy are worth studying in more depth. In leadership studies, the Leader‐Member Exchange (LMX) theory is focused on dyadic leader‐follower relationships and is thus used here to understand this phenomenon. In the present article, the literature on pregnancy and work as well as on LMX is re viewed. On the basis of these reviews, a future research agenda is offered.
Details
Keywords
Because teacher training is an important component of high-quality early care and education (ECE), states are employing various efforts to increase the credentials of teachers in…
Abstract
Because teacher training is an important component of high-quality early care and education (ECE), states are employing various efforts to increase the credentials of teachers in private ECE centers. In New Jersey, teachers who serve disadvantaged students in the state’s community-based Abbott preschools are under a court mandate to obtain a Bachelor’s degree and Preschool – Grade 3 certification by September 2004 or lose their jobs. This chapter describes a phenomenological study of five teachers’ experiences in attempting to meet that mandate, and offers implications for policymakers to consider when evaluating the overall success of this reform effort.
In this interview, Dr. Nancy J. Adler describes her career trajectory, motivation, and the passion that have guided her interests and choices. Asking big questions that matter in…
Abstract
In this interview, Dr. Nancy J. Adler describes her career trajectory, motivation, and the passion that have guided her interests and choices. Asking big questions that matter in her own research and encouraging others in the field of international management to do the same is one of her guiding principles. Dr. Adler details the startling career impact that resulted from her pioneering research on women who are global leaders in the 1990s. Given her groundbreaking research, her attempts to influence what scholars study and how they are evaluated, and her calls to action as a global consultant, speaker, and thought leader, she is one of academe's most well-known and respected global leaders.
Dr. Adler is the S. Bronfman Professor Emerita in Management at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), having received her BA in Economics, MBA, and PhD in Management. As one of the most widely cited international management scholars, she has authored more than 175 publications and received numerous teaching and research awards, including the Academy of Management's (AMLE) Outstanding Article Award and Decade Award and the Sage Award for Scholarly Contributions in Management. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, the Academy of Management, and the International Academy of Management. In addition, she was honored as one of Canada's top university professors and inducted into the Royal Society of Canada.
Her work has also been widely recognized beyond academia. She received the Prix du Quebec, Doctor Honoris Causa from Slovenia's IEDC Bled, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, Center for Creative Leadership's Applied Research Award, the World Federation of People Management Associations' Georges Petitpas Award, ASTD's International Leadership Award, SIETAR's Outstanding Senior Interculturalist Award, the International Leadership Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, and the YWCA's Femme de Mérite Award.
Although retired from the university setting after 40 years at McGill, Dr. Adler continues to consult and speak around the world. However, she now devotes more time to her art. She is a visual artist known for her paintings, monotype prints, and ceramic artworks. Her “Serendipity Suite” and “Reality in Translation: Art Transforming Apathy into Action” exhibitions were held at the Banff Centre, and her “Going Beyond the Dehydrated Language of Management” exhibition opened in Montreal in conjunction with the Academy of Management Meeting. Dr. Adler's artwork is held in private collections worldwide.
Details
Keywords
This chapter considers the mobilities of families subject to child protection involvement at the threshold of the birth of a new baby. The author presents data arising from an…
Abstract
This chapter considers the mobilities of families subject to child protection involvement at the threshold of the birth of a new baby. The author presents data arising from an ethnographic study of child protection social work with unborn babies. This study aimed to draw near to social work practice within the Scottish context through mobile research methods and included non-participant observations of a range of child protection meetings with expectant families. Research interviews were sought with expectant mothers and fathers, social workers and the chair persons of Pre-birth Child Protection Case Conferences. Case conferences are formal administrative meetings designed to consider the risks to children, including unborn children. This chapter focusses on the experiences of expectant parents of navigating the child protection involvement with their as yet unborn infant. The strategies that parents adopted to steer a course through the multiple possibilities in relation to the future care of their infant are explored here. Three major strategies: resistance, defeatism and holding on are considered. These emerged as means by which expectant parents responded to social work involvement and which enabled their continued forwards motion towards an uncertain future.
Details
Keywords
Seán Kerins and Kirrily Jordan
The historian Patrick Wolfe reminds us that the settler colonial logic of eliminating native societies to gain unrestricted access to their territory is not a phenomenon confined…
Abstract
The historian Patrick Wolfe reminds us that the settler colonial logic of eliminating native societies to gain unrestricted access to their territory is not a phenomenon confined to the distant past. As Wolfe (2006, p. 388) writes, “settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event.” In the Gulf of Carpentaria region in Australia’s Northern Territory this settler colonial “logic of elimination” continues through mining projects that extract capital for transnational corporations while contaminating Indigenous land, overriding Indigenous law and custom and undermining Indigenous livelihoods. However, some Garawa, Gudanji, Marra, and Yanyuwa peoples are using creative ways to fight back, exhibiting “story paintings” to show how their people experience the destructive impacts of mining. We cannot know yet the full impact of this creative activism. But their body of work suggests it has the potential to challenge colonial institutions from below, inspiring growing networks of resistance and a collective meaning-making through storytelling that is led by Indigenous peoples on behalf of the living world.
Details
Keywords
This chapter explores the emergence, growth, and current status of the sociology of sport in Canada. Such an endeavour includes acknowledging the work and efforts of Canadian…
Abstract
This chapter explores the emergence, growth, and current status of the sociology of sport in Canada. Such an endeavour includes acknowledging the work and efforts of Canadian scholars – whether Canadian by birth or naturalization or just as a result of their geographic location – who have contributed to the vibrant and robust academic discipline that is the sociology of sport in Canadian institutions coast-to-coast, and who have advanced the socio-cultural study of sport globally in substantial ways. This chapter does not provide an exhaustive description and analysis of the past and present states of the sociology of sport in Canada; in fact, it is important to note that an in-depth, critical and comprehensive analysis of our field in Canada is sorely lacking. Rather, this chapter aims to highlight the major historical drivers (both in terms of people and trends) of the field in Canada; provide a snapshot of the sociology of sport in Canada currently; and put forth some ideas as to future opportunities and challenges for the field in Canada.