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Academic Work (academic + work)
Selected AbstractsTexts, Tensions, Subtexts, and Implied Agendas: My Quest for Cultural Pluralism in a Decade of WritingCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 2 2004Carola Conle ABSTRACT Scanning my own academic work to discover hidden agendas revealed underlying issues that seemed important in cultural pluralism. They included the need for recognition and for public spaces in culturally pluralistic environments where the experiences of individuals from very different background are listened to and valued. It was particularly interesting that such settings seemed to be highly conducive to inquiry. The differences among people's experiences intensified an implicit inquiry dynamic when narrative was the medium of choice rather than argumentative discussion. In those settings, as well as in the reexamination of my own writing, becoming clearer about what was only indirectly expressed earlier brought greater clarity about important issues. [source] Academic Careers and Gender Equity: Lessons Learned from MIT1GENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 2 2003Lotte Bailyn This article describes the experience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after the publication of its report A Study on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT. It starts by describing aspects of the academic career that make it difficult for women, or anyone with responsibilities outside of their academic work. It then outlines three definitions of gender equity based on equality, fairness, and integration, and probes the reasons behind persisting inequities. The MIT results fit well into the first two definitions of gender equity, but fall short on the last. Finally, the article analyses the factors that came together at MIT to produce the outcome described and indicates the lessons learned and those still to be learned. [source] Fifty Years of Refugee Studies: From Theory to PolicyINTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW, Issue 1 2001Richard Black This article reviews the growth of the field of refugee studies, focusing on its links with, and impact on, refugee policy. The last fifty years, and especially the last two decades, have witnessed both a dramatic increase in academic work on refugees and significant institutional development in the field. It is argued that these institutions have developed strong links with policymakers, although this has often failed to translate into significant policy impacts. Areas in which future policy-orientated work might be developed are considered. [source] Testing of a measurement model for baccalaureate nursing students' self-evaluation of core competenciesJOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING, Issue 11 2009Li-Ling Hsu Abstract Title.,Testing of a measurement model for baccalaureate nursing students' self-evaluation of core competencies. Aim. This paper is a report of a study to test the psychometric properties of the Self-Evaluated Core Competencies Scale for baccalaureate nursing students. Background. Baccalaureate nursing students receive basic nursing education and continue to build competency in practice settings after graduation. Nursing students today face great challenges. Society demands analytic, critical, reflective and transformative attitudes from graduates. It also demands that institutions of higher education take the responsibility to encourage students, through academic work, to acquire knowledge and skills that meet the needs of the modern workplace, which favours highly skilled and qualified workers. Methods. A survey of 802 senior nursing students in their last semester at college or university was conducted in Taiwan in 2007 using the Self-Evaluated Core Competencies Scale. Half of the participants were randomly assigned either to principal components analysis with varimax rotation or confirmatory factor analysis. Results. Principal components analysis revealed two components of core competencies that were named as humanity/responsibility and cognitive/performance. The initial model of confirmatory factor analysis was then converged to an acceptable solution but did not show a good fit; however, the final model of confirmatory factor analysis was converged to an acceptable solution with acceptable fit. The final model has two components, namely humanity/responsibility and cognitive/performance. Both components have four indicators. In addition, six indicators have their correlated measurement errors. Conclusion. Self-Evaluated Core Competencies Scale could be used to assess the core competencies of undergraduate nursing students. In addition, it should be used as a teaching guide to increase students' competencies to ensure quality patient care in hospitals. [source] Protective factors related to antisocial behavior trajectoriesJOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2002Gale M. Morrison A group of 115 fifth- and sixth-grade Latino students were surveyed at the beginning and the end of the school year before their transition to middle or junior-high school about their engagement in antisocial behaviors and about individual, social, and behavioral protective factors. The best predictors of decreases in antisocial behavior for these students, above and beyond variance for initial ratings and gender, were student perceptions of social support, parent supervision, and classroom participation. The importance of keeping students engaged in school academic work as a protection against antisocial behavior is emphasized as well as the need to help students gain skills necessary to access support for this academic work. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 58: 277,290, 2002. [source] Consuming the authentic Gettysburg: How a tourist landscape becomes an authentic experienceJOURNAL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Issue 2 2008Athinodoros Chronis While authenticity pervades everyday consumption in museums, restaurants, theme parks, gift shops, and heritage attractions, among other commercial milieus, academic work on the concept of authenticity remains vague both in terms of its definition and its marketing relevance. In this study, we unpack the concept of authenticity in a Civil War battlefield and we provide insight as to its theoretical relevance for consumption. Our findings elucidate the distinction between authenticity as a product feature and authenticity as an experience. We show that consumer perceptions of a site's authenticity are articulated in five distinct ways: object related, factual, locational, personage, and contextual. We also point out the contribution of each notion of perceived authenticity in sparking consumer imagination and connecting them with the Civil War narrative. We suggest avenues that marketing managers can use to stage authenticity in a commercial environments at both substantive communicative levels. Our study reveals consumers as active agents who participate in the marketplace construction of authenticity in multiple ways. It is also shown that authenticity partakes in the construction of a national imaginary as a negotiated, collective act. We also provide insight as to the distinction between "authentic" and "inauthentic" commercial sites and the way in which even fictitious sites can be perceived as authentic. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Christianity and Indigenous Peoples: A Personal OverviewJOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY, Issue 3 2003Terence Ranger This article summarizes its author's response over more than 30 years to the various arguments advanced against the possibility of the appropriation of Christianity by indigenous peoples. It sets out the intellectual and evidential reasons for rejecting these arguments. However, it admits that while indigenous appropriation of Christianity is always possible, under some circumstances it has been improbable. Many indigenous peoples have made use of Christianity but in the past there has been comparatively little appropriation by Native Americans or Australian Aborigines. This article explores the reasons for this. When the factors that have accounted for resistance and rejection rather than adaption no longer exist, it may be expected that Aborigines will indeed appropriate Christianity. The article concludes with a brief examination of academic work on African appropriations and suggests that new developments in Aboriginal Christianity will reveal how far comparisons can be made. [source] Cognitive economy and satisficing in information seeking: A longitudinal study of undergraduate information behaviorJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 12 2009Claire Warwick This article reports on a longitudinal study of information seeking by undergraduate information management students. It describes how they found and used information, and explores their motivation and decision making. We employed a use-in-context approach where students were observed conducting, and were interviewed about, information-seeking tasks carried out during their academic work. We found that participants were reluctant to engage with a complex range of information sources, preferring to use the Internet. The main driver for progress in information seeking was the immediate demands of their work (e.g., assignments). Students used their growing expertise to justify a conservative information strategy, retaining established strategies as far as possible and completing tasks with minimum information-seeking effort. The time cost of using library material limited the uptake of such resources. New methods for discovering and selecting information were adopted only when immediately relevant to the task at hand, and tasks were generally chosen or interpreted in ways that minimized the need to develop new strategies. Students were driven by the demands of the task to use different types of information resources, but remained reluctant to move beyond keyword searches, even when they proved ineffective. They also lacked confidence in evaluating the relative usefulness of resources. Whereas existing literature on satisficing has focused on stopping conditions, this work has highlighted a richer repertoire of satisficing behaviors. [source] Casaubon's ghosts: the haunting of legal scholarshipLEGAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2001Allan C Hutchinson Much academic work continues to operate within the cramping and pervasive spirit of a black-letter mentality that encourages scholars and jurists to maintain legal study as an inward-looking and self-contained discipline. There is still a marked tendency to treat law as somehow a world of its own that is separate from the society within which it operates and purports to serve. This is a disheartening and disabling state of affairs. Accordingly, this article will offer both a critique of the present situation and suggest an alternative way of proceeding. The writer recommends a shift from philosophy to democracy so that legal academics will be less obsessed with abstraction and formalism and more concerned with relevance and practicality. In contrast to the hubristic and occasionally mystical aspirations of mainstream scholars, it presents a more humble depiction of the worth and efficacy of the jurisprudential and scholarly project in which ,usefulness' is given pride of place. Of course, these fundamental charges are not applicable to all legal scholars. Many scholars are engaged in work that not only challenges the prevailing paradigm of legal scholarship, but also explores exciting new directions for legal study. It will be part of the essay to acknowledge those contributions. [source] Impact of UK academic foundation programmes on aspirations to pursue a career in academiaMEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 10 2010Oliver T A Lyons Medical Education 2010: 44: 996,1005 Objectives, This study aimed to determine the role played by academic foundation programmes in influencing junior doctors' desire to pursue a career in academic medicine. Methods, We conducted an online questionnaire-based study of doctors who were enrolled on or had completed academic foundation programmes in the UK. There were 92 respondents (44 men, 48 women). Of these, 32 (35%) possessed a higher degree and 73 (79%) had undertaken a 4-month academic placement during Foundation Year 2. Outcomes were measured using Likert scale-based ordinal response data. Results, From a cohort of 115 academic foundation trainees directly contacted, 46 replies were obtained (40% response rate). A further 46 responses were obtained via indirect notification through local programme directors. From the combined responses, the majority (77%) wished to pursue a career in academia at the end of the academic Foundation Year (acFY) programme. Feeling well informed about academic careers (odds ratio [OR] 16.9, p = 0.005) and possessing a higher degree (OR 31.1, p = 0.013) were independently associated with an increased desire to continue in academia. Concern about reduced clinical experience whilst in academic training dissuaded from continuing in academia (OR 0.15, p = 0.026). Many respondents expressed concerns about autonomy, the organisation of the programme and the quantity and quality of academic teaching received. However, choice of work carried out during the academic block was the only variable independently associated with increasing the desire of respondents to pursue a career in academia following their experiences in the acFY programme (OR 6.3, p = 0.007). Conclusions, The results support the provision of well-organised academic training programmes that assist junior clinical academics in achieving clinical competencies whilst providing protected academic time, information about further academic training pathways and autonomy in their choice of academic work. [source] The double helix of activity and scholarship: building a medical education career with limited resourcesMEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 1 2008Page S Morahan Context, Creating respected scholarship from educational and clinical activities is challenging for medical school faculty members. In the USA and Europe, criteria for ,scholarship' has broadened and enriched. However, in developing countries, promotion systems generally continue to emphasise traditional laboratory or clinical research. Objective, This paper sets forth a broad conception of scholarship and provides international distribution venues that reinforce the importance of scholarly activity corresponding to clinical and educational work. Methods, Information sources about non-traditional scholarship included 50 medical school faculty from 20 economically developing nations plus senior faculty from throughout the USA. Resources for distribution venues were drawn from a citation index search, a literature search and Google. Results, The authors provide resources for faculty advancement, including examples of non-traditional scholarship that meet rigorous criteria, and a comprehensive list of venues for the dissemination of educational materials and studies. They give a relative value process for academic work to assist faculty in developing educational scholarship. Finally, they propose a double helix model for academic advancement, consisting of 2 congruent helices with the same axis, 1 representing educational, service or clinical activity and the other scholarly achievement. Conclusions, These materials and the double helix model will support faculty and promotion committees, especially those from schools that have not yet broadened their view of scholarship, to envisage a realistic starting point and see how educational and clinical activities can generate internationally recognised, high-quality scholarship. [source] Interdisciplinary collaboration and academic work: A case study of a university-community partnershipNEW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING & LEARNING, Issue 102 2005Marilyn J. Amey The authors propose a model of the stages of interdisciplinary collaboration grounded in their experiences as external evaluators of a university-community partnership. [source] Working with concepts in the fuzzy front end: exploring the context for innovation for different types of concepts at Volvo CarsR & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2007Maria Backman Automotive firms are balancing the increasing needs for cost and time efficiency with the necessity of developing more innovative products to stand out on in a competitive market. The strive for efficiency has led to an increasingly structured development process with limited allowances for deviations. Previous academic work has pointed out the importance and embedded potential of the fuzzy front end, where new concepts still have the possibility to impact the new product development (NPD) process. However, most research has focused on the transfer of new technologies, while concepts based on e.g. customer or market knowledge have been more or less neglected. This paper discusses the need for alternative and contingent approaches in the front end of NPD to also consider the transfer of other types of concepts. More specifically, it addresses the need to distinguish between different types of concepts and to explore their different prerequisites in NPD. It is argued that customer- and market-based concepts experience certain difficulties due to the history and power of technology in research and development (R&D) domains in the automotive context as well as a lack of support from the existing, formal processes. In this paper, we argue that all new concepts need to be conceptualized before being introduced to the NPD process, but that does not always suffice. Concepts other than technology concepts also need a contingent package to enable an evaluation in the context of the R&D process , they need to be contextualized. This paper draws on an in-depth case study of Volvo Cars within a long-lasting collaborative research setup. It is based on an interview study with key persons in the areas of concept work and NPD, and uses an insider/outsider approach. [source] Safe place or ,catastrophic society'?THE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 4 2000Perspectives on hazards, disasters in Canada The essay introduces public risk and destructive events in Canada, their conceptual and policy implications. The discussion is developed in four main steps. First, some widely held, if contradictory, perceptions of public security are identified. A relatively high level of personal safety for most Canadians is attributed to large government and private investments. But these have not prevented recurring disasters, nor singular vulnerability for certain groups and parts of the country. Meanwhile, some novel dangers of modern living compromise the safety of all Canadians. The second section examines evidence of losses from a broad range of hazards, and related, risk-averting investments. The national geography of dangers is shown to have been transformed and reorganized by post-World War II developments. Losses, even from natural hazards, are identified with common, nationwide behaviours and infrastructure, especially motorised mobility and consumer products. A fourth section looks at some appropriate conceptual frameworks. Charles Perrow's idea of ,organizational society' is considered, and Ulrich Beck's of ,risk society', including his view that late modern societies shift towards a ,catastrophic' condition. In general, the Canadian scene and these ideas support a human ecological view of modernity, but challenge an agent-specific and extreme event approach that had prevailed in hazards geography. ,Manufactured' vulnerability is a neglected but decisive element. The social space of risks is shown to be recast around changing priorities for, and social justice in, public security and emerging crises of personal safety. Risk aversion turns upon questions of the acceptability of risks, acceptance for and by whom, and how it is achieved. For academic work, this suggests a reexamination of risk knowledge and its ,social construction'. La dissertation aborde le sujet des évènements destructifs et du risque public au Canada, leurs implications conceptuels et de principe. La discussion est développée en quatre étapes principales. Premièrement, certaines perceptions de la sécurité publique tenues par beaucoup, non sans être contradictoires, sont identifiées. Un niveau relativement élevé de sécurité personnelle pour la plupart des canadiens est attribuéà un gouvernement de grande taille et aux investissements privés mais ceux-ci n'ont pas empêché des désastres de se reproduire, ni une vulnérabilité singulière pour certains groupes et certains endroits du pays. Entretemps, de nouveaux dangers de la vie moderne compromettent la sécurité de tous les canadiens. La deuxième section examine la preuve d'une perte à partir d'une gamme étendue de risques et d'investissement risqués et apparentés. II est montré que la géographie nationale des dangers a été transformée et réorganisée par des développements de l'après seconde guerre mondiale. Les pertes, même provenant de risques naturels, sont identifiées avec des comportements et infrastructures en commun et dans tout le pays, spécialement la mobilité motorisée et les produits de consommation. Une quatrième section examine les supports de travail conceptuels appropriés. L'idée de Charles Perrow d'une ,société structurelle' est prise en considération, et celle d'Ulrich Beck d'une ,sociétéà risque' comprenant sa vue que les dernières sociétés modernes s'accélèrent vers une condition ,catastrophique'. En général, le monde canadien et ces idées soutiennent une vue humaine et écologique de la modernité, mais défie un agent spécifique et une approche extrême des évènements qui avait prévalu dans la géographie des risques. La vulnérabilité,fabriquée' est un élément négligé mais décisif. II est démontré que le rôle de l'espace de risques social est redistribué selon des priorités qui changent pour, et la justice sociale dans, la sécurité publique et les crises qui émergent dans la sécurité personnelle. L'aversion des risques révolve autour des questions d'acceptabilité des risques, risques acceptés pour et par qui, et la façon dont cela est accompli. En ce qui concerne un travail théorique, cela suggère une réexamination de la connaissance des risques et de sa ,construction sociale'. [source] Class, Agency and Resistance in the Old Industrial CityANTIPODE, Issue 1 2010Andrew Cumbers Abstract:, Recent left academic work on the consequences of economic restructuring and local labour market change in old industrial cities has been important in emphasising the role of local context and contingency in the shaping of labour market outcomes. However, in such accounts agency is often limited to capital and state actors, albeit working across scales from the local upwards. There is little sense of agency for individuals and communities in the midst of economic restructuring. Instead, they are usually treated as passive victims of deeper underlying processes. In this paper, our purpose is to highlight the autonomy and agency of workers, people and communities in old industrial cities. Rather than starting from the perspective of capital, our starting point is to emphasise how those experiencing economic change forge strategies and practices for "getting by". This leads us to call for a re-theorisation of labour agency, drawing upon the Autonomous Marxist tradition and the more recent work of Cindi Katz, in order to offer fresh insight into the agency of labour and the prospect for recovering a class politics based upon lived experience over reified abstractions. [source] Asset mapping and Whanau action research: ,New' subjects negotiating the politics of knowledge in Te RarawaASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 3 2008Yvonne Underhill-Sem Abstract Te Runanga o Te Rarawa is the tribal council representing the interests of the marae (tribal commons) and hapu (a subtribal kin group) that make up the iwi (a Maori tribe) of Te Rarawa in the far north of Aotearoa/New Zealand. In April 2005, officials approached us to help them secure a valuable funding stream tagged to marshalling resources for material development in the area. They sought curriculum vitae and assistance in reframing the funding specifications. Intrigued, armed with a conceptual toolkit drawn from Gibson-Graham's ideas of post-development and asset-based community mapping, and confident that we could add value, we agreed to help. This paper examines the complex politics of our involvement and our changing positioning as researcher subjects. We argue that negotiating a politics of knowledge for projects of this nature requires engagement in complex representational politics of place and divisive identity politics that rage around it. There are no easy protocols for outside researchers, but with appropriate humility and sensitivity to these politics, we can rely on, and should stand up for, the value of our work, which lies in commitments to excellence in scholarship. We cannot and should not seek to control these politics, which will chew us up and spit us out , humanely and with good grace or otherwise. However, good academic work will recognise and adapt to them. In our particular case, we argue that our work had significant value; and in this paper, we trace the production of this value. [source] Sufism in West AfricaRELIGION COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 10 2010Rüdiger Seesemann Sufism had a decisive influence on the development and spread of Islam in West Africa. Although it has been the subject of a considerable number of academic works, Sufism in West Africa remains understudied and often misunderstood. French and British colonial views of Islam had a lasting impact on the perception of Sufism in Africa, resulting in its depreciation as a kind of "popular" Islam of the ignorant masses. A closer look at eminent West African Sufi leaders and their movements, including the Qadiriyya, the Tijaniyya, and the Muridiyya, reveals that Sufism articulated itself in a variety of ways over the past three centuries, and that it continues to be a formidable spiritual, intellectual, and social force in many countries in the Western parts of the African continent. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||