Metaphor use in a specific genre of engineering discourse

Mental spaces are the domains that discourse builds up to provide a cognitive substrate for reasoning and for interfacing with the world (Fauconnier, 1997 Fauconnier, G. 1997. Mappings in Thought and Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] [Google Scholar], p. 34)     

‘A Glance from God’: Zadie Smith's On Beauty and Zora Neale Hurston1

Zadie Smith's most recent novel, On Beauty (2005 Smith, Z. 2005. On Beauty, London and New York: Penguin.  [Google Scholar]), declares its connection to E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910 Forster, E. M. 1910. Howards End, London: Edward Arnold.  [Google Scholar]) with its first line, while the novel's title comes from Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just (1999 Scarry, E. 1999. On Beauty and Being Just, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.  [Google Scholar]). At least as important for understanding Smith's central vision are the novel's allusions to Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937 Hurston, Z. N. 1987. Their Eyes Were Watching God, London: Virago Modern Classics.  [Google Scholar]) and Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (1938 Hurston, Z. N. 1990. Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica, New York: Perennial Library.  [Google Scholar]).     

Validation and development of norms for the Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language‐Revised (TACL‐R) in Lebanon

Assessment of auditory comprehension is necessary for therapeutic clinical intervention as well as remedial and special education services. In this study, the Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language‐Revised (TACL‐R), developed by Elizabeth Carrow‐Woolfolk in 1985 Carrow‐Woolfolk, E. 1985. Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language‐Revised, Allen, TX: DLM Teaching Resources.  [Google Scholar], was translated and adapted for use in the Lebanese culture. The adapted test was administered to 350 Lebanese children aged 3:0–9:11 selected on the basis of grade and school type. Norms were reported for each age and grade level. Reliability analysis showed that the adapted test provides consistent, stable and precise estimates of auditory comprehension ability. The test's construct validity was examined using several indices. In addition, evidence for concurrent validity was provided by examining the relationship between scores on the adapted test and teachers' ratings of students' language abilities. Obtained results were compared with those on the TACL‐R and were discussed in terms of their practical implications. Recommendations for further research were proposed.     

Exploring the ‘digital disconnect’ between net‐savvy students and their schools

Educational commentators have long feared a ‘digital disconnection’ between emerging generations of technology‐rich students accustomed to high levels of Internet use and their technology‐poor schools. Yet few studies have empirically examined the existence and potential implications of such a disconnect from the students' perspective. The present paper replicates Levin and Arafeh's (2002 Levin, D. and Arafeh, S. 2002. The digital disconnect: the widening gap between internet‐savvy students and their schools, Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project.  [Google Scholar]) US study which solicited online stories from students detailing how they used the Internet for school. Responses from 84 UK secondary school students show that just over half felt restricted in their Internet use at school. Unlike the original US study, the primary disconnect between UK Internet‐using students and their schools was not one of physical access but the restriction of their Internet use through school rules and content filters, firewalls and other technologies of control. Whilst some students displayed frustration and disenchantment, most gave measured and sometimes sympathetic views of their schools' less‐than‐perfect information technology provision. As such, many of our students were well aware of a digital disconnect but displayed a pragmatic acceptance rather than the outright alienation from school that some commentators would suggest.     

An Evaluation of the Use of the Behaviour Questionnaire

Effective and efficient assessment is essential to support school improvement, the progress of individual pupils and teachers’ classroom management. A group of educational psychologists used the items for measuring pupils’ emotional and behavioural development found in Supporting school improvement: Emotional and behavioural development (2001 Department for Education and Skills. 2001. Supporting school improvement: Emotional and behavioural development, Sudbury: QCA.  [Google Scholar]) to develop a questionnaire for use in their schools. Following the introduction of the Behaviour Questionnaire (BQ) its usefulness, ease of completion and potential as a tool to monitor intervention were evaluated. Most users found the Behaviour Questionnaire useful and easy to complete. Changes in the behaviour of pupils were identified indicating that the Behaviour Questionnaire has potential for use in monitoring and evaluating interventions.     

‘There's a war against our children’: black educational underachievement revisited

This paper focuses on the educational experiences of a group of African Caribbean and mixed ‘race’ young people from the perspectives of their parents. The discussion is set within a national context where children of African Caribbean origin are one of the lowest achieving minority ethnic groups in the UK and are disproportionately one of the highest ethnic groups of children excluded from school. The parents recount a pattern of cumulative negative experiences which for many of the children results in academic underachievement and becoming demotivated to learn, by a system that they feel has rejected them, or imposed exclusion. The story is hardly new but it provides important further evidence that schools need to tackle head‐on factors such as low teacher expectations and negative stereotyping of young black people and their contribution to black underachievement.

I dread to see my children grow. I know not their fate. Where the white girl has one temptation, mine will have many. Where the white boy has every opportunity and protection, mine will have few opportunities and no protection. It does not matter how good or wise my children may be, they are colored. When I have said that, all is said … (Lerner, 1972 Lerner, G., ed. 1972. Black women in white America: a documentary history, New York: Vintage.  [Google Scholar], p. 158, cited in Hill‐Collins, 2000 Hill‐Collins, P. 2000. Black feminist thought , (2nd edn), London and New York: Routledge.  [Google Scholar], p. 196)

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. (Martin Luther King, Jr, 28 August 1963, cited in Ladson‐Billings, 1994 Ladson‐Billings, G. 1994. The dreamkeepers, San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass Publishers.  [Google Scholar], p. 30)     

Shaping the field: the role of academic journal editors in the construction of education as a field of study

In a previous British Journal of Sociology of Education article (Nixon & Wellington, 2005 Nixon, J. and Wellington, J. 2005. ‘Good books’: is there a future for academic writing within the educational publishing industry?. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 26(1): 91–103. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) we examined current trends in book publishing and how these have influenced and will influence the construction of the field of educational studies. (The latter study was a follow‐up to an earlier study reported in Nixon [1999 Nixon, J. 1999. Teachers, writers and professionals. Is there anybody out there?. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(2): 207–221. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]].) The present article focuses on journals and their editors and, to a lesser extent, the role that the peer review process plays in shaping the field of educational studies. We use (critically rather than deferentially) notions drawn from the work of Bourdieu (1996 Bourdieu, P. 1996. The rules of art: genesis and the structure of the literary field, Cambridge: Polity Press. (Trans. S. Emanuel) [Google Scholar])—the ‘field of power’, defining boundaries, systems of dispositions, right of entry and the ‘illusio’—to consider and conceptualise data from interviews with 12 journal editors. Our own position in writing this article is as academic practitioners involved in reading, peer‐reviewing and editing academic journals within the field of educational studies.

The plea is to recognise that the pen is a mighty sword. We are of course embedded in practices and constrained by them. But these practices owe their dominance in part to the power of a normative language to hold them in place, and it is always open to us to employ the resources of our language to undermine as well as to underpin the practices. We may be freer than we sometimes suppose. (Skinner, 2002 Skinner, Q. 2002. Visions of politics. Volume 1: regarding method, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  [Google Scholar], p. 7)     

Work stressors,health and sense of coherence in UK academic employees

This cross‐sectional study examined relationships between job‐specific stressors and psychological and physical health symptoms in academic employees working in UK universities. The study also tests the main and moderating role played by sense of coherence (SOC: Antonovsky, 1987 Antonovsky, A. 1987. Unravelling the mystery of health: How people manage stress and stay well, San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.  [Google Scholar] in work stress process). SOC is described as a generalised resistance resource for coping with environmental stressors and remaining healthy. Four hundred and sixty‐five academic employees (60% male) completed measures of work stressors, physical and psychological ill health and SOC. Significant inter‐relationships were found between job stressors, health outcomes and SOC. Stressors relating to time constraints, support and influence and work–home interface demands had the strongest associations with health outcomes. Employees with a weaker SOC tended to be in poorer physical and psychological health, thus supporting a main effect for SOC. Some evidence for a moderating role for SOC was found, with the strongest effect observed for stressors experienced at the work–home interface.     

The Passion of Alice Laidlaw1

This article discusses Alice Munro's latest book, The View from Castle Rock, Munro, A. 2006. The View from Castle Rock, London: Chatto & Windus.  [Google Scholar] and the use it makes of her family's origins in the Scottish Borders in order to create a work of history, fiction and autobiography. Miller sets this discussion alongside an account of a trip he made last summer with two other writers, Andrew O'Hagan and Seamus Heaney, to some of the places Munro invokes, including the grave of James Hogg. In linking the two themes, Miller weighs the claims of ‘country’ writers.     

Grotesque Encounters with Adolescence: Reading Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding

This paper takes the grotesque as a model of subjectivity that offers compelling inroads to understanding adolescence. Bakhtin notes that the grotesque ‘seeks to grasp in its imagery the very act of becoming and growth, the eternal, incomplete, unfinished nature of being’. I argue that Carson McCullers' novel, The Member of the Wedding (1946 McCullers, C. 1946/1987. Collected Stories of Carson McCullers, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.  [Google Scholar]), is largely about this ‘act of becoming’ in its heightened form, at the time of early adolescence, and I explore the ways in which puberty estranges 12‐year‐old Frankie Adam from her old body and her old self, resulting in encounters with the uncanny.     

Assessing Preservice Leaders' Beliefs,Attitudes, and Values Regarding Issues of Diversity,Social Justice,and Equity: A Review of Existing Measures

While convincing research suggests that beliefs are the best predictors of individual behavior and that educators' beliefs influence their perceptions, judgments, and practices, research also states that beliefs are hardy and highly resistant to change (Bandura, 1986 Bandura, A. 1986. Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.  [Google Scholar]; Dewey, 1933 Dewey, J. 1933. How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process, Boston: D.C. Heath. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Pajares, 1992 Pajares, F. 1992. Teachers' beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62(3): 307–332. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Rokeach, 1968 Rokeach, M. 1968. Beliefs, attitudes, and values: A theory of organization and change, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.  [Google Scholar]). Understanding the nature of beliefs, attitudes, and values is essential to understanding future administrators' choices, decisions, and effectiveness regarding issues of diversity, social justice, and equity. This article provides a review of quantitative measures, instruments, inventories, and studies that assess educators' personal and professional beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and preconceptions. The literature review briefly describes related studies and the discussion section highlights in detail the design, piloting, and results of two fairly recent measures that broadly define diversity, that report validity and reliability data, and that are relatively easy to administer and score.     

The positioning of adult learners: appropriating learner experience on the continuum of empowerment to emancipation

This article offers a critical analysis of discourses and power structures and the ways they operate in two instructors’ adult education and ESOL classrooms. The instructors defined learner experience in specific ways and subsequently used those definitions and drew on their learners’ experiences to define their curricula and pedagogy. They conceptualized learner experiences in ways that potentially empowered or emancipated learners from existing power structures. The data presented are part of a two‐year study of different lifelong learning and adult education contexts in the north‐eastern and mid‐western USA. Data sources included survey, interview, artifact collection, and observation methods. Data analysis was guided by a sociocultural theory of literacy development (The New London Group 1996 New London Group. 1996. A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66: 60–92. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Gee 1996 Gee, J. 1996. Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in discourses , (2nd edn), London: Falmer.  [Google Scholar], 2003 Gee, J. 2003. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, New York: Macmillan. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Barton and Hamilton 1998 Barton, D. and Hamilton, M. 1998. Local Literacies: Reading and writing in one community, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Holland et al.'s (1998 Holland, D., Lachicotte, W. Jr., Skinner, D. and Cain, C. 1998. Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  [Google Scholar]) theories of figured worlds and identity development, Bakhtin’s (1963 Bakhtin, M. M. 1963. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Edited by: Emerson, C. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 1994 [Google Scholar], 1975 Bakhtin, M. M. 1975. The Dialogic Imagination, Edited by: Emerson, C. and Holquist, M. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. 1998 [Google Scholar], 1979 Bakhtin, M. M. 1979. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, Edited by: Mcgee, V. W. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. 1994 [Google Scholar], 1986 Bakhtin, M. M. 1986. Toward a Philosophy of the Act, Edited by: Liapunov, V. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. 1993 [Google Scholar]) theory of dialogism, and Foucault’s (1963 Foucault, M. 1963. The Birth of the Clinic: An archaeology of medical perception, Edited by: Sheridan‐Smith, A. New York: Vintage. 1975[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 1980 Foucault, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected interviews & other writings, 1972–1977, Edited by: Gordon, C., Marshall, L., Mepham, J. and Soper, K. New York: Pantheon. 1980 [Google Scholar]) conceptualization of power. One instructor offered her learners a chance to empower themselves, that is, to find gratification by learning to appropriate mainstream ways of acting, thinking, believing, and using text. The discourse that promotes such instructional efforts is predominant in lifelong learning and adult education. In this discourse, referred to at the outset as one of coherence, learner experience, as a resource for language and literacy development, is essentialized as dispositional, meaning that correct or proper attitudes and beliefs are necessary for empowerment. The other instructor practised a reverse discourse, or what Gee (1996 Gee, J. 1996. Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in discourses , (2nd edn), London: Falmer.  [Google Scholar]) referred to as a liberatory literacy. She positioned learners to critique the Discourses they encountered, including those they participated in, as movement toward emancipation, toward communicative competence or a critical stance in the world. In effect, learners reversed the panoptic framework and turned the gaze back upon existing power structures. In this case, learner experience was valued for the experiential positioning it offered learners.     

A framework for evidencing assessment validity in large-scale,high-stakes international examinations

It is important for educational assessment bodies to demonstrate how they are seeking to meet the demands of validity. The approach to validity taken here assumes a ‘consequentialist’ view where the appropriacy of the inferences made on the basis of assessment results is seen as central. This paper describes the development of a systematic approach to the collection of evidence that can support claims about validity for general qualifications. An operational framework was developed drawing on Kane (2006 Kane, M.T. 2006. “Validation”. In Educational measurement, 4th ed., Edited by: Brennan, R.L. 17–64. Westport, CT: Praeger.  [Google Scholar]). The framework involves a list of inferences to be justified as indicated by a number of linked validation questions. For each question various data would be gathered to provide ‘evidence for validity’ and to identify any ‘threats to validity’. The structure is designed to be accessible for operational users. This paper describes the development of the proposed framework and the types of methods to be used to gather relevant evidence.     

‘Revisiting’ the South Pacific approaches to learning: a confirmatory factor analysis study

There has been substantial research evidence concerning the learning approaches of students in Western and non‐Western contexts. Nonetheless, it has been a decade since research in the South Pacific was conducted on the learning approaches of tertiary students. The present research examined the learning approaches of Fijian and other Pacific Islands students enrolling in a professional‐based education course at the University of the South Pacific. Biggs’ (1987 Biggs, J. 1987. Student approaches to learning and studying, Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.  [Google Scholar]) Study Process Questionnaire was revised to suit the social and cultural contexts before it was distributed among 159 undergraduate students. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis did not support the theoretical framework of a three‐factor model (Biggs, 1987 Biggs, J. 1987. Student approaches to learning and studying, Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.  [Google Scholar]) and, instead, indicated the existence of a two first‐factor model, emphasising two major types of learning approach – reproducing and meaning (Richardson, 1994 Richardson, J.T.E. 1994. Cultural specificity of approaches to studying in higher education. Higher Education, 27: 449–468. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]). The study’s findings suggest that educators should ensure that assessment and other teaching learning components are aligned constructively to promote the appropriate approach of learning.     

Interrogating global flows in higher education

The paper critically reviews the concept of ‘global flows’, beginning with the discussions of flows and networks in Appadurai (1996 Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalisation, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  [Google Scholar]), Castells (2000 Castells, M. 2000. The rise of the network society, Oxford: Blackwell. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]) and Held et al. (1999 Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D. and Perraton, J. 1999. Global transformations: politics, economics and culture, Stanford: Stanford University Press.  [Google Scholar]). Emphasising the need to embed ‘global flows’ in agency and history, and to explore global connectedness in terms of situated cases, the paper develops an analytical framework for analysing global flows in higher education. It then applies that framework in an examination of global ‘scapes’, impacts, transformations, situatedness and relations of power in two national universities, research leaders in their nations but located in contrasting nations: Universitas Indnesia and the Australian National University.     

‘At least I'm the type of teacher I want to be’: Second-career English language teachers' identity formation in Hong Kong secondary schools

A teacher shortage in Hong Kong in core subjects, such as English, has led to interest in the recruitment and retention of second-career teachers. Drawing upon Wenger's (1998 Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]) theory of identity formation and using data from interviews with eight second-career English language teachers in Hong Kong, this paper explores how second-career teachers may be better supported in their professional development. The study found that second-career teachers' skills and experiences were not valued within their schools and that this was reflected in a rigid division the participants drew between the institutionally endorsed identity positions made available to them and the type of teachers they wanted to be. In response to this antagonism, second-career teachers used their position of non-participation to establish identity territories that connected aspects of their first-career identities, such as engineers and managers, to their emerging teacher identities. It is suggested that non-participation, a potentially negative experience in Wenger's (1998 Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]) framework, was deployed by this group of teachers to create the space they needed to enact their own preferred teacher identities. Implications for attracting and retaining second-career teachers are discussed.     

Schooling Ophelia: hysteria,memory and adolescent femininity

In this paper, I analyze the theorization of adolescent femininity within three popular cultural texts about girls and schooling written by women and published in the United States during the 1990s. The books, referred to as Ophelia narratives, include Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan’s (1992 Brown, L. M. and Gilligan, C. 1992. Meeting at the crossroads: women’s psychology and girls’ development, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]) Meeting at the Crossroads, Mary Pipher’s (1994 Pipher, M. 1994. Reviving Ophelia: saving the selves of adolescent girls, New York: Putnam.  [Google Scholar]) Reviving Ophelia, and Peggy Orenstein’s (1994 Orenstein, P. and American Association of University Women. 1994. Schoolgirls: young women, self‐esteem, and the confidence gap, New York: Doubleday.  [Google Scholar]) Schoolgirls. Drawing on feminist and literary theories informed by poststructuralism, I read the Ophelia narratives as alternative educative texts in which adult women use the figure of the hysterical adolescent girl to engage with knowledge about gender and sexuality. I argue that the adolescent girl, central to debates about gender and education in the 1990s, serves as a site of displaced self‐representation, where women challenge as well as reaffirm adolescent femininity as a state of injury. In this way, the Ophelia narratives provide an archive from which to examine the contradictory discourses of femininity that position the adolescent girl within curricular representations.     

“I Went by Twos,He Went by One”: Multiple Interpretations of Inscriptions as Resources for Mathematical Discussions

This article examines a classroom discussion of multiple interpretations of the scales on two distance versus time graphs. The analysis describes how two students and a teacher used multiple meanings for phrases of the form “I went by” and coordinated these meanings with different views of the scales. Students' ambiguous and shifting meanings did not prove to be obstacles to this discussion. Instead, this teacher used student interpretations as resources, built on them, and connected them to canonical mathematical concepts—in particular by highlighting (Goodwin, 1994 Goodwin, C. 1994. Professional vision.. American Anthropologist, 96: 606–633. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) a “unitized” (Lamon, 1994 Lamon, S. 1994. “Ratio and proportion: Cognitive foundations in unitizing and norming.”. In The development of multiplicative reasoning in the learning of mathematics, Edited by: Harel, G. and Confrey, J. 89–120. New York: State University of New York Press..  [Google Scholar], 1996 Lamon, S. 1996. The development of unitizing: Its role in children's partitioning strategies.. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 27(2): 170–193. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2007 Lamon, S. 2007. “Rational number and proportional reasoning: Toward a theoretical framework.”. In Second handbook of research in mathematics teaching and learning, Edited by: Lester, F. Jr. 629–667. Charlotte, NC: Information Age..  [Google Scholar]) view of the scales. Research in mathematics education describes teaching that promotes conceptual development as having two central features: One is that teachers and students attend explicitly to concepts, and the other is that students wrestle with important mathematics (Hiebert & Grouws, 2007 Hiebert, J. and Grouws, D. 2007. “The effects of classroom mathematics teaching on students' learning.”. In Second handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning, Edited by: Lester, F. 371–404. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics..  [Google Scholar]). Not only does this classroom discussion provide an example that it is possible to balance these two features, but the analysis provides the details of how instruction can simultaneously provide explicit attention to concepts while allowing students to wrestle with these concepts.     

Hierarchy and Happiness: The Influence of Emotion on Administrative Job Satisfaction

Administrative job satisfaction in higher education is influenced by intrinsic and interpersonal factors (Volkwein & Zhou, 2002 Volkwein , J. F. & Zhou , Y. ( 2002 , June ). Testing a model of administrative job satisfaction . Paper presented at the Annual Forum for the Association for Institutional Research , Toronto , Ontario , Canada . (ERIC Document Reproduction Service Number ED473108)  [Google Scholar], 2003 Volkwein , J. F. & Zhou , Y. ( 2003 ). Testing a model of administrative job satisfaction . Research in Higher Education , 44 ( 2 ), 149 – 171 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Pioneers of the “affect as information” hypothesis of emotion postulate that emotions provide value-laden information regarding whether goals, standards, and attitudes are impacted positively or negatively by events, agents, or objects (Clore, 1992 Clore , G. ( 1992 ). Cognitive phenomenology: Feelings and the construction of judgment . In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 133 – 163 ). Hillsdale , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates . [Google Scholar], 1994 Clore , G. ( 1994 ). Why emotions require cognition . In P. Ekman & R. J. Davidson (Eds.), The nature of emotion: Fundamental questions . New York : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar]; Clore & Ortony, 1988 Clore , G. & Ortony , A. ( 1988 ). The semantics of the affective lexicon . In V. Hamilton & G. H. Bower (Eds.), Cognitive perspectives on emotion and motivation NATO ASI series D: Behavioural and social sciences ( Vol. 44 , pp. 367 – 397 ). Dordrecht , Germany : Kluwer .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988 Ortony , A. , Clore , G. , & Collins , A. ( 1988 ). The cognitive structure of emotions . New York : Cambridge University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Schwarz & Clore, 1988 Clore , G. & Ortony , A. ( 1988 ). The semantics of the affective lexicon . In V. Hamilton & G. H. Bower (Eds.), Cognitive perspectives on emotion and motivation NATO ASI series D: Behavioural and social sciences ( Vol. 44 , pp. 367 – 397 ). Dordrecht , Germany : Kluwer .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). This study explored the relationship between emotion and job satisfaction among community college administrators. Elevated satisfaction scores were associated with positive emotional temperaments and elevated emotional intelligence. Optimistic administrators in good moods were more satisfied than pessimistic administrators in bad moods.     

Do we give them a fair chance? Attrition among first-year tertiary students

International research suggests that government policy, institutional culture and learner characteristics influence the attrition rate of first-year tertiary education students. These variables were investigated in relation to a cohort of 21 New Zealand students who failed a core literacy paper. The research utilised questionnaires, interviews with staff and students and observations around a series of workshops designed to review the literacy course. Results align with international findings, but also differ because of site-specific institutional, and student socio-cultural factors. The workshops improved students’ course content knowledge, but did not address deep-seated, literacy and culturally-based impediments that contribute to attrition. Principles of social justice and social contract theory described by Rawls (1958 Rawls, J. 1958. Justice as fairness. Philosophical Review, 67: 164–193. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Sen (2009 Sen, A. 2009. The idea of justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and London: Allen Lane. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) are used to critique policy and pedagogical and learner characteristics. Based on this critique, the research concluded that some aspects of policy and institutional, cultural and student behaviour were unjust.