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This study aim was to analyze how lesson study can enhance learning for students with intellectual disability, and how teachers' collaboration affects the design and analysis of the intervention.

Lesson study was used as a methodological framework. Ten special educational needs teachers met the researcher for three collaborative meetings. Between meetings, teachers performed and adjusted a lesson on a particular mathematical issue: quantity and size judgment. To evaluate the lesson design, students completed pre- and post-lesson examinations and attitude tests with Likert-type scales.

Students' knowledge increased during the study. The mean scores for the first group (six students) were 4.3 in the pre-test and 6.5 in the post-test (effect size 0.9). For the second group (four students), the mean score was 3.8 in the pre-test and 4.3 in the post-test (effect size 0.2). Attitude measurement showed split opinions; seven students had a positive experience and three had a predominantly negative experience. Assessment of teacher certainty using transcribed audio recordings of teachers' statements during the collaborative meetings indicated a positive relation between teacher expressions of certainty and student learning. The teacher–researcher collaboration increased teachers' focus on student learning and deepened the researcher's analysis.

There is an urgent need to explore collaborative development in special educational needs teaching. Lesson study is an effective way of examining teachers' collaborative processes using data on teachers' reasoning about teaching and students' learning.

This paper examines the role of various boundaries in giving both professional groups and individuals a sense of identity that provides both with status and legitimacy. Close attention is paid to the boundaries between personal and professional identities and values. Sociologists working with a discursive approach argue that professional identity and status are achieved through the rhetorical presentation of certain values and responsibilities as personal, and therefore outside the boundaries of professional practice. This paper takes this argument forward, by arguing that in particular contexts, certain kinds of values are consciously articulated as personal and incorporated into the defence of professional legitimacy. Bringing personal claims inside professional boundaries is further evidence of the fluid and negotiated quality of the boundary between personal and professional values and notions of self. The paper consists of a discussion of the construction of professional boundaries, professional involvement in risk, issues raised by antenatal screening and analysis of a study of a group of professionals involved in antenatal screening. The paper explores the circumstances within which even senior professional groups and individuals look to representations of the personal self as a defence against critiques of their professional practice. Where the risks that professionals generate and interpret are medically ambiguous and socially contentious the abstract professional and medical framework is insufficient and other rhetorical values become resources in securing the professional role.

Western societies are not “a-moralized.” We could observe “ethical etiquette” everywhere, in every social institution and concerning every human activity or field of research (codes of ethics, ethics committees, Government ethics laws and so forth). The moralization processes of Western societies appear to be actualized in a dialectical way, and that process involves three patterns of actions undertaken by most of the social groups and institutions: (1) to get rid of an external (heteronomous) morality; (2) to adopt an inner (autonomous) morality; and (3) to safeguard two equivocal attitudes: (a) excluding any moral issue from one's decision-making and paradigmatic beliefs individuals adhere to (in order to explain the systemic reality of their self, world and Nature); and (b) letting to the given social groups and institutions (professions, for instance) the responsibility to provide the moral foundations of social life. In neo-liberalistic societies, where individualism has reached its peak, moral responsibility is more and more considered as a constraint to the “desire to do what we wish to do.” Indeed, such a desire serves to define the meaning of freedom in neo-liberalistic societies, although the meaning expresses a distorted form of freedom: to do whatever we like, except if it tends to reduce others’ freedom. Such a meaning does not imply to serve society or to love each other.

This paper reports on banking and finance professionals' decision making in the context of elder financial abuse. The aim was to identify the case features that influence when abuse is identified and when action is taken.

Banking and finance professionals (n=70) were shown 35 financial abuse case scenarios and were asked to judge how certain they were that the older person was being abused and the likelihood of taking action.

Three case features significantly influenced certainty of financial abuse: the nature of the financial problem presented, the older person's level of mental capacity and who was in charge of the client's money. In cases where the older person was more confused and forgetful, there was increased suspicion that financial abuse was taking place. Finance professionals were less certain that financial abuse was occurring if the older person was in charge of his or her own finances.

The research findings have been used to develop freely available online training resources to promote professionals' decision making capacity (www.elderfinancialabuse.co.uk). The resources have been advocated for use by Building Societies Association as well as CIFAS, the UK's Fraud Prevention Service.

This study investigates the impact of integrating structured assessment protocols within the Japanese lesson study (JLS) framework in Swedish Compulsory School for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (CSSID). The purpose is to explore whether such integration can enhance teachers’ professional certainty in assessing and supporting students with intellectual disability (ID), aligning educational practices with inclusive legislative mandates.

The study utilized structured assessment protocols during lesson study cycles, where teachers observed and discussed research lessons based on predefined learning objectives. Data were collected through questionnaires, assessment protocols and post-lesson discussions, then analyzed using narrative and descriptive statistical methods.

The integration of structured assessment protocols in lesson studies enhanced teachers’ focus and clarity in assessing and supporting students with ID, improving their perceptions of student engagement, interest and understanding. However, challenges in adapting the protocols to varied teaching contexts and student needs limited the overall impact on professional certainty.

This study examines the adaptability of integrating lesson study with assessment protocols in special education settings. It demonstrates that structured assessment protocols used within the lesson study process provide a common focus on academic achievements for students with ID.

This study contributes to the field by demonstrating the potential of modifying traditional lesson study approaches to include structured assessment protocols, particularly in the context of special education. It highlights the need for ongoing professional development and sustainable assessment strategies that support the diverse learning needs of students with ID.

As subjects irrationally perceive probability changes as more impactful when shifting an event from impossible to possible or from possible to certain, compared to increasing the likelihood of an already possible event, this study examines how workers process success probabilities and whether their resource allocation decisions are distorted by bounded subadditivity.

We conduct an online randomized experiment with 3,980 employees.

We detect a certainty effect (upper subadditivity), whereby professionals are willing to devote a disproportionate number of hours to a project when their contribution transforms the success of the initiative from possible to certain rather than increasing the likelihood of success by the same percentage points. We find no evidence of the possibility effect (lower subadditivity), whereby workers would devote a disproportionate effort when their contribution turns a sure failure into a possible success rather than simply increasing the likelihood of success by the same percentage points. We observe a rational tendency to try harder for a greater increase in the probability of success, but only far from the limits of the probability spectrum and not close to the limits.

Attempts to understand bounded subadditivity in management decisions have been incomplete. We disentangle two real-world variables and offer a more refined operationalization.

The remarkable achievements being promoted through inclusive education practices make the deficiencies associated with educational exclusion all the more noticeable. Despite many schools adopting the philosophy of inclusion, avoidable educational exclusion of students with special needs still persists in educational systems worldwide. This is because the preparation of competent teachers to respond to variations in student populations in schools is very difficult to achieve. A major reason for this difficulty is that most student education programs fail to nurture collaborative instructional practice culture in student teachers, which can enable them to work well with others to teach all students. Utilizing the status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness (SCARF) model developed by David Rock, this chapter contributes to existing knowledge on student teacher development by theorizing and offering practical ways to enact collaborative instructional practices in inclusive education. The chapter addresses this issue by reporting student teachers' experiences in a course unit on inclusive education in one Australian university that adopted a collaborative instructional practice, deepening their understanding and practice of inclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the benefits of tasting as a projective technique (PT) in explicating consumers' thoughts and feelings towards food and beverage products.

In total, ten focus groups were conducted with 35 consumers, 14 wine producers, and 13 mediators. The mediator category included those involved in marketing, wholesaling, retailing, and judging wine. Participants in each focus group were given the same four wines to taste. Initially they were invited to discuss their views on wine quality. The participants were then presented with the wines and asked to discuss their responses to them, particularly their perceptions of the quality of the wines.

The primary findings related to: the changes in apparent certainty levels amongst professionals and high‐involvement informants; exposure of real and contradictory preferences; role of cognitive, affective, and sensory responses to wine; and interpretation of the language of tasting.

Tasting as a PT has the potential to generate additional and insightful data that can increase our appreciation of the complexities involved in consumption experiences. In particular, it can reveal the uncertainty that can affect consumers' product evaluations and explicate the multiple evaluation pathways that can be used by consumers of food and beverage products.

The paper is of value in showing that the ability of PTs to yield both stated and actual preferences provides insight into the salient external factors that impact on consumption decisions and gives an indication of where marketers could most effectively focus their product development and promotional attention.

Managing risk and making decisions presents an increasing challenge to doctors as they are encouraged to adopt a partnership approach with patients to dealing with risk, within a “risk society” constructed around individuality, uncertainty, blame and responsibility. In‐depth interviews, stimulated by clinical vignettes, were used to explore the key position of doctors within this risk society. Analysis, sensitised through contemporary texts, revealed unexpected findings that portrayed doctors as reflexive jugglers of risk. Discourses in this study revealed indecision and uncertainty, balanced against needs to preserve professional roles and engage patients in addressing risk, whilst preventing widespread harm and conflict. In concluding, the alternative approaches to risk with older people will suggest a more trusting and positive process that presents a real opportunity for truly sharing risk and decisions that benefit both doctor and patient.

Professional learning networks (PLNs) involve teachers’ collaboration with others outside of their school to improve teaching and learning. PLNs can facilitate teachers’ professional growth and school improvement. This study aims to explore the drivers for participation within PLNs, the enactment process and the impact of PLN participation on teachers, students and schools in Greece.

A descriptive phenomenological study was conducted to explore the lived experience of primary school teachers participating in PLNs.

The findings showed that individuals who were open to change were driving innovation to address a need or a lack in their daily practice that was not satisfied within their usual community of practice. The key element of the participation was peer collaboration with openness of communication without attendant accountability pressures. The change was mainly identified in teacher skills and the school climate. An individual could bring change only if the school is already open to change. In some cases, resistance to change in schools was identified before enactment or during enactment. The transformation of teachers’ and leaders’ stances is discussed, enabling the opportunity to maximise school improvement.

The study examines PLNs as European Union-funded initiatives that are developed by teachers in centralised education systems under the phenomenological research paradigm. It explores the PLNs in a different setting compared to the existing conceptual theory of change for PLNs.