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Selected AbstractsRhetoric and Practice in English TeachingENGLISH IN EDUCATION, Issue 1 2000Mary Bousted Abstract The empirical data collected for this article are derived from an analysis of the ideology and practice of English teachers working in three contrasting secondary schools. The analysis of the data reveals the following findings. The concept of personal growth, expressed in the pedagogy advocated by the London School, retains its ability to provide, for contemporary teachers of English, an underpinning rationale for their work. The pedagogical practices advocated by the London School writers - the use of oracy, the reading of contemporary children's literature and the drafting process - are supported by the respondents. Observation of lessons reveals that the respondents, through their use of mediating practices, are able to ,deliver' the cultural products of standard English and the literary canon in ways which retain elements of the process-based pedagogy advocated by the London School writers. The respondents do not, however, recognise this aspect of their classroom practice in their rhetorical representation of their work. The article concludes with the argument that the demand, by powerful external agencies, for the subject of English to furnish each new generation with icons of cultural stability in the form of spoken and written standard English and a knowledge of the literary heritage, has not declined. A less oppositional response on the part of English teachers to the demand that the subject deliver the cultural products outlined above, based upon a recognition of their use of mediating practices, may, it is argued, provide a means whereby the practitioners of the subject gain more control over its present condition and its future direction. [source] Cultures of Childhood and Psychosocial Characteristics: Self-Esteem and Social Comparison in Two Distinct CommunitiesETHOS, Issue 1 2007Andrew M. Guest This mixed-methods study investigated self-esteem and social comparison during middle childhood in two distinct communities: a Chicago public-housing development and a group of refugee camps near Luanda, capital of the Republic of Angola. Building on separate bodies of existing research about childhood in marginalized communities, self-esteem, and social comparison, I present an interpretive account of how conceptions of childhood associate with psychosocial characteristics in these two communities. In the Chicago community, an intense emphasis on accelerating childhood toward adult characteristics corresponded with accentuating high self-esteem and extremely competitive social comparison. In contrast, the Angolan community conceptualized childhood as distinct from adulthood in ways that prioritized role achievement above self-esteem and encouraged integrative social comparison. The comparison of the cultures of childhood in these two communities, which shared relative poverty and were regularly targeted by external agencies for interventions, has implications for understanding child development and psychological adaptation in marginalized communities. [source] Consociational Theory, Northern Ireland's Conflict, and its Agreement.GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 1 2006Part 1:, What Consociationalists Can Learn from Northern Ireland In the first of two articles the authors show what consociational theory may learn from the case of Northern Ireland, namely, the importance of external agencies in making and implementing consociational settlements, the relations between consociational and self-determination settlements, the ,complexity' of internal settlements, the merits of STV (PR) in electoral arrangements, innovations in using proportional representation decision rules to allocate ministerial portfolios, and conceptual modifications. A second article addresses what anti-consociationalists may learn from the same case. [source] The Origins, Forms and Effects of Modularisation and Semesterisation in Ten UK-Based Business SchoolsHIGHER EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2000Huw Morris This paper examines the introduction of modularisation and semesterisation at ten UK-based business schools. Using this case study evidence, it is argued that the main reasons for the introduction of these schemes were the personal ambitions of senior managers, pressure from external regulatory agencies and a desire to emulate initiatives undertaken by competitor institutions. In addition, it is suggested that the form of these schemes varied between institutions as a consequence of the negotiations which accompanied the introduction of these new arrangements, and constraints imposed by the legacy of earlier degree structures, regulations from external agencies, institutional geography, limits on financial resources and the organization of internal management systems. The paper concludes by arguing that these constraints have meant that modularity has had limited effects on the experiences of staff and students, but that semesterisation has significantly increased costs without any accompanying benefits. [source] Testing Community Empowerment Strategies in Zimbabwe: Examples from Nutrition Supplementation, and Water Supply and Sanitation ProgrammesIDS BULLETIN, Issue 1 2000Mungai Lenneiye Summary This article provides a brief overview and examples of how communities were involved in feeding programmes during years of drought in Zimbabwe, and in the management of rural water supply and sanitation programmes throughout the 1980s. The balance between political and technical demands in the implementation of these programmes indicates that they started off with community interests at the centre, but gradually gave way to the needs of the bureaucracy (both political and administrative). The main lessons to be learnt from these programmes is that information on entitlements and obligations (on the part of communities and external agencies) is a prerequisite for successful community development projects. Furthermore, the extent of accountability to communities is directly proportional to progress made towards the devolution of power to democratic development structures, be they directly or indirectly elected. [source] Agriculture and ,Improvement' in Early Colonial India: A Pre-History of DevelopmentJOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 4 2005DAVID ARNOLD The doctrine of ,improvement' has often been identified with the introduction , and presumed failure , of the Permanent Settlement in Bengal in 1793. Although recognized as central to British agrarian policies in India, its wider impact and significance have been insufficiently explored. Aesthetic taste, moral judgement and botanical enthusiasm combined with more strictly economic criteria to give an authority to the idea of improvement that endured into the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Concern for improvement also reflected dissatisfaction with India's apparent poverty and deficient material environment; it helped stimulate data-collection and ambitious schemes of agrarian transformation. A precursor of later concepts of development, not least in its negative presumptions about India and the search for external agencies of change, improvement yet shows many of the false starts and intrinsic limitations early attempts to transform rural India entailed. This article reassesses the significance of improvement in the first half of the nineteenth century in India, especially as illustrated through contemporary travel literature and through the aims and activities of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India. [source] Changing Organizational Forms and the Employment RelationshipJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 5 2002Jill Rubery This paper draws upon new research in the UK into the relationship between changing organizational forms and the reshaping of work in order to consider the changing nature of the employment relationship. The development of more complex organizational forms , such as cross organization networking, partnerships, alliances, use of external agencies for core as well as peripheral activities, multi-employer sites and the blurring of public/private sector divide , has implications for both the legal and the socially constituted nature of the employment relationship. The notion of a clearly defined employer,employee relationship becomes difficult to uphold under conditions where employees are working in project teams or on-site beside employees from other organizations, where responsibilities for performance and for health and safety are not clearly defined, or involve more than one organization. This blurring of the relationship affects not only legal responsibilities, grievance and disciplinary issues and the extent of transparency and equity in employment conditions, but also the definition, constitution and implementation of the employment contract defined in psychological and social terms. Do employees perceive their responsibilities at work to lie with the direct employer or with the wider enterprise or network organization? And do these perceptions affect, for example, how work is managed and carried out and how far learning and incremental knowledge at work is integrated in the development of the production or service process? So far the investigation of both conflicts and complementarities in the workplace have focused primarily on the dynamic interactions between the single employer and that organization's employees. The development of simultaneously more fragmented and more networked organizational forms raises new issues of how to understand potential conflicts and contradictions around the ,employer' dimension to the employment relationship in addition to more widely recognized conflicts located on the employer,employee axis. [source] Power over, power to, power with: Shifting perceptions of power for local economic development in the PhilippinesASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 3 2008Amanda Cahill Abstract Power has long been recognised as crucial to the sustainability of community development interventions; however, the way in which space affects power relations within such interventions has remained relatively under-theorised in the development literature. Many practitioners continue to regard power as located centrally and as embedded in particular institutions, networks, knowledge and resources. According to this logic, processes of empowerment involve the redistribution of these resources to marginalised groups through their participation in development interventions such as microfinance and sustainable livelihood initiatives. The danger inherent in such development approaches is that they can discourage the potential for participants to use their own agency by overemphasising an existing lack of resources locally and inadvertently feeding a sense of dependency on formal development interventions initiated by external agencies. This paper suggests that a post-structural conceptualisation of power as dynamic, multiple and mediated at the local level offers a more productive starting point for thinking about approaches to empowerment. Drawing on data from an action research project designed to initiate community enterprises in a small rural municipality in the Philippines, I suggest how a post-structural approach to power can be enacted by building on the existing local resources and practices of everyday life. [source] Social workers in multidisciplinary teams: issues and dilemmas for professional practiceCHILD & FAMILY SOCIAL WORK, Issue 3 2005Nick Frost ABSTRACT This paper draws on the findings of a project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, examining how child and family multidisciplinary teams learn and work together. It outlines the approach taken by the research team before going on to explore New Labour policy around ,joined-up thinking'. The paper focuses on the role of social workers in the teams and uses qualitative data to explore the experience of social workers in relation to four key issues: models of professional practice, status and power, confidentiality and information sharing, and relations with external agencies. We argue that these are complex and contested issues that are challenging for the workers concerned. We conclude that whilst joined-up working is complex and demanding, social work is well situated to meet the challenge, and that social workers in multidisciplinary teams are committed to making them work. [source] | |||||||||||||