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Utilising data from 18 in‐depth case studies, this study seeks to explore training, development and human resource development (HRD) practices in European call centres. It aims to argue that the complexity and diversity of training, development and HRD practices is best understood by studying the multilayered contexts within which call centres operate. Call centres operate as open systems and training, development and HRD practices are influenced by environmental, strategic, organisational and temporal conditions.

The study utilised a range of research methods, including in‐depth interviews with multiple stakeholders, documentary analysis and observation. The study was conducted over a two‐year period.

The results indicate that normative models of HRD are not particularly valuable and that training, development and HRD in call centres is emergent and highly complex.

This study represents one of the first studies to investigate training and development and HRD practices and systems in European call centres.

Exploring the “How?” and “Why?” of children’s agency through the employment of strategies to listen and to participate within parent interviews, this chapter addresses various “agency routes” children used in the effort to contribute their voices to adult conversations. The generational relationship between children and parents is tempered by children’s ownership claims to shared spaces within the home, which allowed them the room to defy parents’ directives to “Go Away!” Children utilized three different tactics of defiance (overt, quiet, and covert) in the attempt to listen and be heard, and in the process were motivated to participate in five distinct ways, which included: (1) informative, (2) corrective, (3) instructive, (4) investigative, and (5) expressive participation. Concluding with a call to recognize children’s voices as more than merely “background noise” when transcribing interviews, I encourage researchers in childhood studies to potentially revisit data collected in the effort to further theorize children’s agency as situated within generationality, contributing to a recontextualized framework of analysis.

Purpose – Introduces the beginning, acting, telling (BAT) model, designed for use in the elementary school classroom and based on the findings of research into information-seeking behavior and information literacy. The BAT model, by its use of visual cues and mnemonic to present stages and actions of the research process helps students to better conceptualize the research process. The BAT model’s identification of cognitive and affective behaviors, and depiction of features of information literacy instruction including the preparation of students to begin actual research and make effective use of the retrieved information, can help pre-service and in-service teachers be aware of strategic consideration of information literacy in the English Language Arts.

Design – The research design of the two studies that informed the model, each involving two classes of third-grade elementary school students, was qualitative. Data were collected via participant observation, interviews, artifacts produced by the students, pre- and post-questionnaires, and journals.

Findings – The visual presentation of the BAT model along with its use of mnemonic helped students to more easily conceptualize and remember a holistic research process where concrete actions and abstract concepts are related to and influence one another. Use of the BAT model within a project-based inquiry learning environment to teach content helped to reinforce research skills to form a foundation upon which to build in the future.

Practical Implications – By presenting the key aspects of the research process in one visual, the BAT model can help students in the earliest grades of elementary school and forward into high school to better conceptualize and navigate the often iterative and complex nature of the research process.

The purpose of this paper is to address the following assertions: first, the Laboratories of Practice (LoP) promotes professional growth. Second, the LoP enhances understanding of program design and delivery. Finally, the LoP has a financial value both to the organization where the LoP took place and to the university. The paper examines the responses of program candidates from two cohorts and the community partners they served to a survey focussed on the LoPs.

In summer 2012, Cohort 1 students and their mentors completed a survey, a milestone paper, and reflective papers. LoP mentors (critical friends (CF)) were invited to give feedback on the LoP and the program candidate. In summer 2013, data were gathered via online surveys, milestone paper, and reflection papers from two program cohorts who experienced a LoP. In total, 48 students participated in the research.

In relation to assertion no. 1, both the community partners’ and the students’ experiences with respect to the LoP made clear that the fieldwork has yielded positive outcomes. Students have found that they were able to draw from the classroom learnings to address the problems of practice in the real world setting. They reflected on lessons learned about themselves as well as the process itself, which sometimes resulted in redefining the problem at hand. Finally, the goals that were accomplished by the students during the LoP experience provided them with immense satisfaction, next steps, and, in some cases, the affirmation of their choice to participate in a professional practice doctorate. In relation to assertion no. 2, LoP data have been used by faculty to refine and improve the program and the LoP experience itself. In relation to assertion no. 3, while field mentors (CF) indicate that the services provided by the students during their LoP were invaluable and provided significant insights and improvements in their workplace, it was a challenge to assign a specific financial value to the LoP.

In terms of the internal validity of the study, it is possible that the findings are weakened due to the reliance on doctoral candidates and their mentors from one professional practice doctorate, and the potential for recall bias. In the future, a longitudinal or multiple source research study would have a much stronger internal validity. In terms of external validity, the study can only be reasonably generalized to doctoral students in professional practice doctorates grounded by CPED principles.

While each LoP is highly individual, the process does require the candidates to reflect on their professional practice and their professional growth. CF facilitate reflection and conceptual thought, thereby developing professional practice. LoPs appear to be of value both to the individual and to their organizational context.

Students’ and LoP employers’ survey responses, established and/or furthered excellent relationships with many community partners, and provided quantifiable evidence of accomplishments.

Many professional practice doctorates are struggling with what a LoP in the field should and could look like and the benefits of a LoP. This is an innovative paper as it explains the development and learning from one program that is becoming identified with its LoP. It is likely that university faculty will be interested in the design of the LoP and the value of the LoP as indicated by the survey results to the student, mentor, faculty, and program.

An investigation of how secondary history teacher education candidates implemented research-based instructional practices for instruction is described as a model of pre-service teacher preparation for social studies teachers. Cohorts of candidates participated in a five-year project while enrolled in a discipline-specific capstone senior methods course and subsequent student teaching experiences. Candidates were surveyed and interviewed concerning their use of, and feelings about, twelve instructional strategies developed with a focus on authentic history pedagogy. Surveys were administered three times: before the secondary social studies methods course, after the methods course, and after student teaching. A variation on the Concerns-Based Adoption Model was used to measure the levels of use and stages of concern of the candidates. Artifacts of practice, including lesson plans from a model unit plan and actual student teaching, also were analyzed to document use of the strategies. Results indicate an increasingly high level of implementation of and comfort with the strategies, as well as the developmental nature of the process. Implications and recommendations for pre-service activities in history teacher education are presented.

UK care leavers are among society’s most vulnerable groups and were badly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of the crisis on thier daily functioning, relationships and mental health. The primary focus was the coproduction of key messages from care leavers: to services, to facilitate the provision of relevant, accessible post-lockdown support and to their peers, to encourage positive post-lockdown readjustment.

A total of 134 UK care leavers, aged 18–25, responded to an online survey, then 14 care leavers, recruited via local authorities in the South of England, participated in online care leaver expert working groups (CLEWGs) to build on survey findings, draft messages and outputs and disseminate findings at local and national events. The care-experienced Young Person’s Advisory Group of a UK national charity for care leavers (Become) was involved throughout.

Survey results and CLEWG discussions showed major impacts on care leavers’ well-being, daily lives and connectedness. Mental health was identified as the primary post-lockdown support need. CLEWGs recommended peer support to help rebuild confidence and encourage help-seeking post-lockdown. Participants called for social care professionals, especially personal advisors, to be proactive and to offer personalised, flexible, genuine support. The primary message to peers was to “ask for help if you need it”, but several barriers were identified.

The messages to services and care leavers come directly from care leavers, based on personal experience, and should provide valuable building blocks for the development of relevant and accessible post-pandemic support.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of what well-being means to children in the food context and to formulate recommendations about the way food retailers may take actions to promote children’s food well-being (FWB).

A qualitative study based on a child-centric perspective is conducted with 25 French children aged 6–11 years. The data collection and analysis use both verbal and graphic data methods including focus groups and drawings in order to help children express their feelings and thoughts.

The findings put forward that according to children, the concept of FWB relies on five dimensions: sensory taste, health, commensality, empowerment and altruistic behaviours. Their discourses suggest that food practices contributes to objective, hedonic, eudaemonic and social well-being on the short and long term.

Based on children’s intrinsic needs for pleasure and empowerment, our recommendations highlight how food retailers might rethink their own-label offering, retail environment and communication to take into account young consumers’ FWB.

Drawing upon the concept of FWB and positive psychology, the authors do not only examine children’s food representations through a nutritional lens, but enlarge the scope to show how physical, emotional, psychological and social factors, involved in food context, contribute to different aspects of well-being.

This paper aims to investigate how the physical and sensory environmental triggers interact with subjective consumer evaluations in the production of shopping experiences, an under-investigated theme, despite its relevance.

An interpretative multi-method approach was used by combining video observation with camera eyeglasses and in-depth interviews with 30 customers of a department store.

Results offer a holistic framework with four-dimensional axial combination involving physical comfort, psychological comfort, physical product evaluation and sensorial product evaluation. Based on this framework, results highlight the role of comfort and products in producing shopping experience in ordinary store visits.

The findings contribute both to consumer experience studies and to the retail marketing literature in shading a light on experience production in ordinary store visits. Specifically, we detail these visits not as a static response to a given environment stimulus, but as a simultaneous objective and subjective combination able to produce experience.

The results encourage managers to understand the experience production not just as an outcome of managerially influenced elements, like décor or odor. It involves considering subjective elements in the design of consumers’ physical and sensorial retail experiences.

Adopting an innovative method of empirical data collection, results generated a framework that integrates the objective shopping environment and subjective consumer responses. This research considers the role of comfort and product features and quality both physically and sensorially to develop experiences in a holistic manner in ordinary shopping visits.

This study aims to examine how exposure to female models in advertisements can create identity tensions in senior women and how they manage the comparison and develop different adaptation strategies to deal with these tensions.

This research is based on a qualitative approach involving 27 in-depth interviews with French women aged 60 to 79. Photo-elicitation with choice of models as reference points by respondents was used to capture comparison strategies with regard to models.

Interviews with senior women confirm that identity tensions due to appearance arise in the context of ageing, particularly when senior women are faced with advertising models. Three reactions of senior women to identity tensions are described, namely, avoiding comparison to protect the self, engaging in comparison despite its resulting devaluation of the self, proceeding to a positive comparison that reinforces their identity. This paper finds that comparison modalities are specific to each strategy.

This research opens the way to further investigation, especially with regard to understanding social comparison mechanisms in an advertising context for senior women targets.

This paper raises awareness of the effects of senior women’s exposure to advertising on their self-perception in the context of ageing. It provides practical guidance to advertising professionals on the use of models in ads when targeting senior women and helps marketing managers in their communication strategies.

This research reveals pronounced identity tensions in relation to appearance among senior women in the context of advertising exposure. By providing more diverse models, advertising representations could help to improve the identity perceptions of senior women.

Very few studies have hitherto investigated identity effects on senior female consumers of female model usage in advertising.