Professionalism: a comparative case study of teachers,nurses, and social workers

While there are numerous calls to enhance the professionalism of teachers, there is little empirical research in the United States that examines educators’ understanding of the concept. This comparative case study compared the conceptualisation of professionalism by faculty and students in a college of education vis-à-vis the conceptualisation of the construct by faculty and students in a college of nursing and a school of social work. Findings revealed that notions of professionalism expressed by educators can be characterised as restricted, by nurses as status professionalism, and by social workers as activist professionalism. The findings suggest that in order to empower teachers to be full professionals, a deliberate attention to the development of their professionalism is needed.     

“Hello,How May I Offend You Today?” NBC's Outsourced and the Discourse of Cultural Authenticity

Cultural authenticity is a fluid construct in an era in which globalization is celebrated and vilified. The author examines how cultural authenticity is discursively ascribed, legitimized, and negotiated among creators and viewers of the short-lived NBC series Outsourced within the overlapping contexts of globalization, outsourcing, and fake Indian accents. Findings indicate that authenticity materialized around country of origin, and the author explores whether cultural artifacts conformed to iconic signifiers. The implications are contextualized within Arjun Appadurai's globalization framework.     

Quality assurance in distance education: The challenges to be addressed

Integration of technology in all forms ofeducation has narrowed down the gap between theon- and off-campus students and has resulted inthe use of the more broad-based term`distributed learning'. Consequently, distancelearning is seen as a subset of distributedlearning, focusing on students who may beseparated in time and space from their peersand the instructor. The new forms and meaningsit is acquiring, its convergence withtraditional learning and its global impact poseseveral challenges. It has caused a seriousconcern to the governments and the qualityassurance agencies all over the world about thesafety of the national systems, legitimacy ofthe providers, protecting the public from fakeproviders, quality of the offerings etc. thecommon element being `concern for quality'.Many quality assurance agencies have respondedto this need and there is considerable dialogueabout ensuring quality in distance education.Some think that quality assurance practices fordistance education are essentially the same asthose used for traditional education. Othersargue that distance education testsconventional assumptions and hence the presentmechanisms of quality assurance are notadequate to ensure the quality of distanceeducation. This paper highlights the aspects ofdistance education that deviate so markedlyfrom what has been practiced for hundreds ofyears and argues that quality assurance ofdistance education has to be approacheddifferently.