Beyond Care?

Care is a feature of all of our lives, all of the time. An analysis of Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence reveals that care and caring permeate complex dimensions of life in and after school and we ask here, if, on some accounts, care can do the work required of it. Acknowledging the significance of her contribution to care, we focus on the work of Nel Noddings suggesting that she pays insufficient attention to other emotions implicated in the work of morally appropriate care. We argue here that Noddings' version of care would benefit from the support of an ethical theory of the emotions, including a moralized form of compassion, if care in schools is to be both better understood and more likely realised.     

Developing University Managers

This article reports the results of a study of the extent of management development programmes for managers of universities. The method used was a postal survey of all UK universities, which produced a response of over 60 per cent of universities. According to the responses received, about half of UK universities provide some organised management development for their managers with the other half doing nothing to develop their managers in any systematic way. On this basis, universities provide less management development for their managers than most other UK organisations. A few universities have achieved, and some are intending to seek, the Investors in People standard. Personnel managers within the universities are convinced of the need for management development for those who manage our universities. However, lack of resources and lack of commitment from vice-chancellors and other senior academics are the main barriers to the successful implementation of systematic management development.     

Evidence‐Based Strategies for Reading Instruction of Older Students with Learning Disabilities

Over a quarter of 8th‐grade students and more than one‐third of 4th graders do not read well enough to understand important concepts and acquire new knowledge from grade‐level text. For students with learning disabilities, the numbers are more troubling. This article describes features of evidence‐based instruction for students who continue to struggle with reading in late elementary, middle, and high school. Recommendations are organized into 5 areas that are critical to the reading improvement of older struggling readers: (1) word study, (2) fluency, (3) vocabulary, (4) comprehension, and (5) motivation. Much of the content in this article reflects our efforts with the Special Education and Reading Strands at the National Center on Instruction, funded by the Office of Special Education Programs and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. Two reports, both available at http://www.centeroninstruction.org/ , have particular relevance—Interventions for Adolescent Struggling Readers: A Meta‐Analysis with Implications for Practice and Academic Literacy Instruction for Adolescents: A Guidance Document from the Center on Instruction.     

‘A kind of exchange’: learning from art and design teaching

This paper analyses pedagogic practices in four fields in art and design higher education. Its purpose is to identify the characteristics that might be called signature pedagogies in these subjects and to identify their role in student centred learning. In a time of growing economic pressure on higher education and in the face of tendencies for normative practices brought about through mechanisms such as quality assurance procedures the authors seek to articulate and recognise the issues relating to spaces and pedagogies from this discipline that might be made to wider debates about learning in the sector.     

Understanding leadership experiences: the need for story sharing and feminist literature as a survival manual for leadership

This paper uses an auto‐ethnographic storytelling approach to connect an individual’s experience in leadership with the literature on women in leadership as a way of further exposing and understanding gendered organisational practices. Whilst the paper details only one women’s experience it was through the connection to the literature that most ‘sense making’ occurred and a realisation (on the part of one of the authors) that the experience was not unique or individualised but, rather, systematic of masculine, gendered, organisational cultures. The paper offers some ‘strategies for survival’ for other women who may find themselves in similar situations. It concludes with a call for programmes and strategies to bring about fundamental change. Although the setting is the higher education sector in Australia the paper’s findings and recommendations have much broader applicability.     

The value and impact of information provided through library services for patient care: developing guidance for best practice

Introduction: Previous impact tool‐kits for UK health libraries required updating to reflect recent evidence and changes in library services. The National Knowledge Service funded development of updated guidance. Methods: Survey tools were developed based on previous impact studies and a systematic review. The resulting draft questionnaire survey was tested at four sites, and the interview schedule was investigated in a fifth area. A literature search in assia , Google Scholar, intute , lisa , lista , scirus , Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Knowledge), and the major UK University and National Libraries Catalogue (copac ), identified ways to improve response rates. Other expert advice contributed to the guidance. Results: The resulting guidance contains evidence‐based advice and a planning pathway for conducting an impact survey as a service audit. The survey tools (critical incident questionnaire and interview schedule) are available online. The evidence‐based advice recommends personalizing the request, assuring confidentiality, and using follow‐up reminders. Questionnaires should be brief, and small incentives, such as a lottery draw should be considered. Bias is minimized if the survey is conducted and analysed by independent researchers. Conclusion: The guidance is a starting point for a pragmatic survey to assess the impact of health library services.     

Inviting Conversations? Dialogic difficulties in the corporate university

The paper experiments with, and reflects on, the limited possibilities for collaboration and communication across disparate groups within the university setting. The authors respond to the strong imperative to bring management, academics and support staff together, and so move beyond the entrenched positions and interests that those groups often display. They highlight the implications that this may have for collaborative academic publication. The text of the paper works as a research exercise in which each author's contribution constitutes data as well as providing reflections upon their own distinct identity and its consequences for communication in universities. The authors argue that attempts to enact ‘better communication’ is in many senses a failed project, but that it is this very fact which makes the experiment instructive. They conclude that calls to collaboration must acknowledge the fact that such relationships will always be relations of power, and are therefore not easily negotiated or understood.