Addressing violence against teachers: A social-ecological analysis of teachers' perspectives

Much research has been dedicated to supporting school communities in combating the problem of school violence. However, violence directed toward teachers is under-investigated, and knowledge of how to support teachers is limited. This qualitative study used conventional content analysis to assess teachers' recommendations for preventing and improving the response to teacher-directed violence. The sample included 245 prekindergarten through 12th grade teachers, all of whom experienced school violence and participated in a larger national survey study on violence against teachers. Using a social-ecological framework and conventional content analysis, teacher recommendations for addressing teacher victimization were identified and organized at the individual, school, community, and society levels. Themes around conflict resolution strategies; improving policies, resources, and relationships with administrators; increasing parental involvement; and changing culture and laws were highlighted. Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed.     

Exploring the Future: a missing dimension in environmental education

There is considerable current interest in the need for a more ecologically sustainable future. If environmental educators wish to make a significant contribution to this debate, two prior and interrelated areas of concern need addressing. The first is recognition that teaching about global issues can sometimes be counterproductive and lead to feelings of despair. The second, explored in more detail here, is the need to know how young people conceptualise the future in the first place. A recent study of pupils’ views of the future is described which provides important information about their attitudes to the local and global environment.     

An approach for the capture of context-dependent document relationships extracted from Bayesian analysis of users' interactions with information

A number of technologies exist which enable the unobtrusive capture of computer interface interactions in the background of a user's working environment. The resulting data can be used in a variety of ways to model aspects of search activity and the general use of electronic documents in normal working routines. In this paper we present an approach for using captured data to identify relationships between documents used by an individual or group, representing their value in a given context—that may relate to specific information need or activity. The approach employs the use of a naïve Bayesian classifier to evaluate possible relationships that are derived implicitly from the data. It is intended that the relationships established be stored within an information retrieval (IR) system to aid in the retrieval of related documents where future users arrive at a similar context. In the evaluation of the approach over 70 hours of data from computer users in industrial and academic settings are collected to assess its overall feasibility. The results indicate that the approach provides a useful method for the establishment of identifiable relationships between documents based on the context of their usage, rather than their content.     

The problem with women? Challenges posed by gender for career guidance practice

Institutionalised discrimination continues to perpetuate deep rooted social divisions, with gender inequality persisting as a pervasive feature of labour markets across the world. Despite the depth and breadth of gender inequality, there is limited acknowledgement in career theory that the career support needs of women are distinctive. A qualitative international comparative study into the career trajectories of older women (aged 45–65) has been conducted across six countries (Australia, Argentina, Germany, Italy, England and South Africa). The results provide an international understanding of women’s careers and offer insight into career theory and practice for women that are culturally relevant.     

Story crafting: strategies for facilitating narrative career counselling

Narrative career counselling is a growing force in career guidance and counselling that offers a direction for the field to respond to the needs of increasingly diverse client groups. In this article, we review established and emerging approaches to narrative career counselling, then focus on the emerging story telling approach. We offer examples of how career counsellors may facilitate narrative career counselling through three levels of story crafting questions, as well as mapping and scaffolding, which are illustrated by a case example.