Action Learning Projects For Management Development

The origins and characteristics of Action Learning together with some of its uses in business/industry and education are described. Methods of assessment for Action Learning projects in education are suggested. The approach to Action Learning in courses at the Middlesex University Business School are used to illustrate the wealth creating aspects of the Action Learning process.     

Do teachers’ own learning behaviors influence their classroom goal orientation and control ideology?

This study explored the relationship between teachers’ own learning behaviors and their teaching practices. Experienced teachers taking graduate courses responded to an instrument measuring their self-regulated learning as students and their teaching practices as indicated by how they conveyed the purpose of engaging in academic work (i.e., goal orientation) and their approach toward discipline (i.e., control ideology). The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that teachers own self-regulated learning behaviors influence the extent to which teachers convey a mastery goal orientation, which in turn leads to a more humanistic control ideology. Implications for teacher education programs are discussed.     

Making ‘right’ choices? An ethnographic account of creativity,performativity and personalised learning policy,concepts and practices

This article uses ethnographic research from two Year 8 classes in two middle‐sized secondary schools about a kilometre apart in a Swedish west‐coast town to examine how new policies for personalised learning have developed in practice, in the performative cultures of modern schools in a commodity society. One school stands in a predominantly middle‐class area of privately owned ‘low‐rise’ houses. The other is in an area of ‘high‐rise’ rented accommodation, where the first language of many homes is not Swedish. The differences are important. According to the article, personalised learning mobilises material and social resources in these schools that support new forms of individualistic, selfish and private accumulations of education goods from public provision and a valorisation of self‐interest and private value as the common basis for educational culture. The article describes this cultural production in school and links it to processes of cultural and social reproduction.     

Cognitive-Training Programs for Older Adults: What Are they and Can they Enhance Mental Fitness?

ABSTRACT

People are living longer, and in better physical health, than at any other time in history. But what of their mental health? Does it decline with age, offsetting the gains made in physical health and longevity? Can it be maintained? Can it improve? A review of the literature suggests that cognitive decline is not universal, pervasive, or irreversible. It also demonstrates that older adults can benefit from cognitive training. The challenge, however, is to provide such training in ways that are acceptable to older adults. The answer is to be found, firstly, in research that identifies best practices for cognitive skill development in ecologically valid activities involving older adults, psychologists, and adult educators. These best practices can then serve to assist educators to design continuing education programs and other activities that are readily accessible, affordable, and enjoyable.     

Conceptualizing Stress and Coping Strategies of Korean Social Work Students in the United States: A Concept Mapping Application

The number of Asian international students pursuing graduate degrees in social work in the U.S. has increased dramatically in recent years, especially among Koreans. Despite the growth and the need for culturally competent practices in higher education, no research has been devoted to the adjustment problems of this population. This study is the first of its kind in exploring stress and coping strategies of Korean international students in graduate social work education. Concept mapping revealed five major clusters of stressors: academic problems, financial difficulties, cultural barriers, psychological problems, and family concerns. Five major coping strategies emerged as well: psychological coping, physical coping, problem solving, social support, and entertainment. Social work schools and departments should demonstrate cultural competence with this population by providing support services to help these students cope successfully with their new environment.     

Changing higher education: converging policy-packages and experiences of changing academic work in Sweden

The past two decades of international higher education reform are often described by researchers as having produced new managerial and neoliberal policy turns that have brought about a fundamental global shift in the way institutions of higher education are defined, run and justify their institutional existence and practices. Universities in Sweden were felt able to offer some possible resistance and based on ethnographic research at three Swedish universities this idea is explored in the present article. The article suggests however that resistance has been circumscribed through a coordinated collection of policies and that as elsewhere, the proliferation of competition based on quasi-markets and the standardisation of quality assurance through new accountability systems predominates, with significant effects on universities, their interactions and agents, and the relative social positions, influence, status and relationships of these agents.     

Book reviews

SPECTACULAR NATURE: CORPORATE CULTURE AND THE SEA WORLD EXPERIENCE. By Susan G. Davis. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1997; pp. xii + 313. paper $18.95.

FEMINISM AND DOCUMENTARY. By Diane Waldman and Janet Walker. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999; pp. xvi + 365. $49.95 cloth; $19.95 paper.

FASHIONABLE NONSENSE: POSTMODERN INTELLECTUAL'S ABUSE OF SCIENCE. By Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont. New York: Picador USA, 1998; pp. xiv + 300. $16.10 cloth; $11.20 paper.     

Folklore as an instrument of education among the Chewa people of Zambia

This article considers the folklore of the Chewa people of Zambia as an instrument of education. It suggests that there is only a fine distinction between Chewa culture [mwambo wa a Chewa] and Chewa education [maphunziro ya Uchewa]. The former comprises tribal “truths” to be imposed on the minds of the younger generation. The latter comprises stages in the development of the young through training and some formalised learning. However, by and large, the former dominates the latter. The strongest features of an African Indigenous Knowledge System (AIKS) such as that of the Chewa people are best expressed in terms of Jakayo Peter Ocitti’s five philosophical principles of African indigenous education, namely preparationism, functionalism, communalism, perennialism and holisticism. They build on one another and are, therefore, related. The authors of this article demonstrate how Chewa culture and education use folklore to influence the minds of the young. They give examples of how various components of Chewa folklore are used to criticise, commend, dislike, admire, discard and adapt various traits in people. This paper does not present folklore as an educational panacea; there are weaknesses in Chewa traditional education which are also discussed. Rather, folklore is considered here as a valuable supplementary element in education. What the authors propose is to integrate folklore and informal learning as practised by the community in the formal curriculum to enhance the quality of the education provided for all and to maintain cultural identity.