The relation to time in the family business and in the start-up company: A comparative study

The “relation to time” refers to the way time is apprehended. Despite calls to further integrate the time variable in family business research, studies remain few and do not compare with other organizational forms. This conceptual study highlights the largely antithetical relation to time of family businesses and start-up companies to deduct proposals in terms of governance, investment, innovation and socioemotional wealth. The discussion looks at the positive and negative impacts of these two types of relation to time and suggests that leaders develop the absorptive capacity of their businesses to enrich their practices with approaches proven in other forms of organizations.     

Everyday life and everyday learning: the ways in which pre-service teacher education curriculum can encourage personal dimensions of teacher identity

This article presents and discusses the findings of a research project, the main objective of which is to identify curriculum components that promote personal development as a nuclear part of teacher professional identity formation through pre-service teacher education. Curriculum is viewed as an ecological scenario with different subsystems and both as formal and informal. Identity formation is conceived as an ever-provisional result of a double transaction: the biographical one and the relational one. The curricula of four different historical periods of pre-service teacher education in Portugal and the professional identity of teachers trained within them were characterised through collection and analysis of documents and biographical narratives. Crossing results from the four periods, the quality of school climate emerges as an important variable to the quality of the teachers’ identity. The lifelong learning ethos seems to emerge when the training curriculum connects everyday learning with everyday life, namely by urging the students’ involvement in school life, peer learning activities and peer and teacher educators’ informal learning activities.     

Commercial ethnicity: Language,class and race in the marketing of the hispanic audience

This essay examines the historical construction of the Hispanic audience and analyzes how contemporary Hispanic audience researchers/marketers have disrupted that unitary, essentialist construction by segmenting the Hispanic audience by class. The principal tool in this effort is language: the Spanish language is proxy for the “mass” of lower socioeconomic class Hispanic audience; English language usage by Hispanics is the sign of a higher class of Hispanic audience. The clearly defined panethnic conceptualization of the Hispanic audience, the nexus of which is the Spanish language, has been blurred. The study draws on interviews with Hispanic media marketers and audience researchers and on analysis of Hispanic market research reports.     

How to promote conservation behaviours: the combined role of environmental education and commitment

This study tested the influence of both environmental education (EE) and commitment interventions among teenagers for promoting energy and water conservation at home. Conservation behaviours were measured in two ways – directly and through questionnaires – prior to and after the interventions. Results indicate (1) EE participants may have saved more energy than non-participants and (2) those signing a public commitment saved more energy and water than those who did not. Results from the questionnaire measures demonstrated the importance of EE for promoting ecological self-identity and a personal norm for energy conservation. Based on these results the use of commitment interventions in EE initiatives for promoting conservation behaviours among teenagers is proposed.     

Bologna 2010. The Moment of Truth?

Government policies are central factors shaping the environment of higher education institutions. European governments have included in their higher education political strategies the principal goal of implementing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The perceptions that key actors of higher education institutions (HEIs) have about political developments are important as they may influence the achievement of government policy. The Bologna Process is at the heart of policy coordination, the instrument selected at European and national levels to establish EHEA. This article seeks to discuss empirically the views of institutional actors about the Bologna Process, taking into consideration the achievement of EHEA. The discussion is based on the analysis of the EHEA implementation in seven HEIs located in four higher education systems — Germany, Italy, Norway and Portugal. This paper draws on the theoretic-methodological approach of the policy cycle to analyse the perceptions of HEIs' constituencies about Bologna.     

Language policy provisions and curriculum issues： The challenges for secondary schools in Nigeria

Language, language policy and curriculum issues occupy very important and strategic places in educational planning in any society. In a multilingual Nigerian society as well as in similar countries like Australia, India or even in seemingly homogenous linguistic societies like Britain, language planning, development and policies are sin qua non. In this paper, the author has tried to look from the perspectives of the provisions of the National Policy on Education （1981） and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria （1979）, and examine the curriculum issues arising from the language and policy aspects in achieving the national educational aims, goals, objectives and development. This paper takes a cursory look at the constitutional and policy documents as well as the realities on ground in the secondary schools. It is discovered that, this sub-sector of education is characterized with language implementation crisis. The disturbing issue is that, since the language of instruction is bedeviled with crisis, the whole educational system itself becomes a failure. The paper recommends that, Nigeria should carry out a language policy reforms that will be acceptable and effective bearing in mind the role of language and language policy in education.     

The open method of coordination and the implementation of the Bologna process

In this paper the authors argue that the use of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) in the implementation of the Bologna process presents coordination problems that do not allow for the full coherence of the results. As the process is quite complex, involving three different levels (European, national and local) and as the final actors in the implementation process higher education institutions (HEIs) have considerable degree of autonomy, assuming that the implementation of Bologna is a top–down linear policy implementation process does not account for the developments taking place, which produce implementation difficulties at several different levels. Constraints resulting from economic concerns at European and national levels may be an obstacle for the Bologna’s contribution to a social Europe.     

The role of the teacher's culture in classroom management: A case study of primary schools in French Polynesia

Polynesian Languages and Culture (PLC) lessons in primary schools focus on, among other things, passing on Tahitian legends and linguistic content that is specific to the Polynesian languages (Reo mā'ohi). A co-analysis of the PLC teachers' culture of origin conducted with the teachers to identify the dimensions of their actual activity revealed a strong connivance between the teaching object and the teacher/pupils relationship (notably through gestures, postures and proxemics). This relationship was representative of the 'rapports de place' (relationships of place) found in particular in the non-school sphere. Respect for the roles and statuses of 'elders' and 'magisters', the importance of a commitment to learning, the valorisation of speaking up and the benevolence of encouraging pupils to persevere in their learning were all fundamental values of belonging in the Tahitian community. Beyond the Polynesian context, this research contributes to a conceptual enlargement of the theoretical field of 'didactique professionnelle' because it demonstrates that taking into account the influence of the context and its inherent values better identifies the resources that teachers implicitly draw on and that they refer or do not refer to in an interactive situation with learners.     

Teaching to address diverse learning needs: development and validation of a Differentiated Instruction Scale

In the province of Quebec, Canada, a trend towards full inclusion has impelled teachers to adapt their instruction to meet the needs of both advanced and weaker learners in regular school settings. The main purpose of the present investigation was to develop and validate the Differentiated Instruction Scale (DIS), which assesses the use of instructional adaptations and academic progress monitoring strategies in general education classrooms. A total of 125 elementary school teachers participated in a cross-sectional study, allowing us to develop and validate the DIS. Overall our results show that the DIS is composed of two factors that are consistent with the predicted constructs (instructional adaptations and academic progress monitoring). Evidence of convergent validity is provided through correlations among DIS' subscales and two criteria: (1) teachers' autonomy support and (2) perceptions of school climate. Results also reveal that teachers tend to use instructional adaptations that do not require much preparation or tailored instruction. The DIS could thus be used in future research to investigate outcomes of differentiated instruction. Moreover, it could provide useful information on optimal strategies for promoting learning in children with different abilities in general education classrooms.