Executive power and scaled-up gender subtexts in Australian entrepreneurial universities

Deputy Vice Chancellor and Pro Vice Chancellor positions have proliferated in response to the global, corporatised university landscape [Scott, G., S. Bell, H. Coates, and L. Grebennikov. 2010. “Australian Higher Education Leaders in Times of Change: The Role of Pro Vice Chancellor and Deputy Vice Chancellor.” Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 32 (4): 401–418]. Senior leadership is the sphere where academic and management identities are negotiated and values around the role of the university are decided. This paper examines the changing and gendered nature of the senior leadership setting and its implications for diversity in and of university leadership. The analysis draws from a three-year empirical study funded by the Australian Research Council on leadership in Australian universities. It focuses on executive leaders in three universities – one which is research-intensive, the second, in a regional site, and the third, university of technology. The article argues that the university landscape and its management systems are being restructured in gendered ways. It utilises the notion of organisational gender subtexts to make explicit how gender works through structural and cultural reform.     

Effects of school choice on the margin: The cream is already skimmed

Critics of school choice argue that cream-skimming will worsen outcomes for those left behind in public schools. Since “high ability” families may have already sorted themselves out of the schools in question, this paper will examine whether existing within-school heterogeneity leaves any scope for cream-skimming to operate. It asks, “given the current level of within-school heterogeneity, how strong would peer effects have to be to significantly worsen outcomes for those left behind?” In order for cream-skimming to lower math test scores by one half-year's progress, the peer effect would have to be as strong as increasing class sizes by 8–20 students, or cutting per-student funding by $400–2000. These results indicate that current levels of within-school heterogeneity are so low that peer effects would have to be unrealistically strong to give cream-skimming any bite.     

Effective conditioning of female soccer players

We compared the efficacy of three physical conditioning programmes provided over a 12 week period (24 h in total) on selected anthropometric and physical fitness parameters in female soccer players. Two of the groups received physical conditioning training in accordance with speed, agility and quickness (SAQ); one group used specialized resistance and speed development SAQ equipment (equipment group; n = 12), while the other group used traditional soccer coaching equipment (non-equipment group; n = 12). A third group received their regular fitness sessions (active control group; n = 12). All three interventions decreased (P < 0.001) the participants' body mass index (-3.7%) and fat percentage (-1.7%), and increased their flexibility (+14.7%) and maximal aerobic capacity (VO2max) (+18.4%). The participants in the equipment and non-equipment conditioning groups showed significantly (P < 0.005) greater benefits from their training programme than those in the active control group by performing significantly better on the sprint to fatigue (-11.6% for both the equipment and non-equipment groups versus -6.2% for the active control group), 25 m sprint (-4.4% vs -0.7%), left (-4.5% vs -1.0%) and right (-4.0% vs -1.4%) side agility, and vertical (+18.5% vs +4.8%) and horizontal (+7.7% vs +1.6%) power tests. Some of these differences in improvements in physical fitness between the equipment and non-equipment conditioning groups on the one hand and the active control group on the other hand were probably due to the specificity of the training programmes. It was concluded that SAQ training principles appear to be effective in the physical conditioning of female soccer players. Moreover, these principles can be implemented during whole team training sessions without the need for specialized SAQ equipment. Finally, more research is required to establish the relationship between physical fitness and soccer performance as well as the principles underlying the improvements seen through the implementation of SAQ training programmes.     

Towards a general modeling framework of resource competition in cognitive development

The current paper presents an integrated formal model of typical and atypical development based on the mechanisms of mutualism and resource competition. The mutualistic network model is extended with the dynamics of competition for limited resources, such as time and environmental factors. The proposed model generates patterns that resemble established phenomena in cognitive development: the positive manifold, developmental phases, developmental delays and lack of early indicators in atypical development, developmental regression, and “quasi-autism” caused by extreme environmental deprivation. The presented modeling framework fits a general movement towards formal theory construction in psychology. The model is easy to replicate and develop further, and we offer several avenues for future work.     

Secondary Schools for Norwich Girls, 1850-1910: Demanded or benevolently supplied?

This article uses archival material from the city of Norwich to trace the development of girls' secondary education from 1860 to 1900. It examines the provision of differentiated education for girls of differing social status in the context of national legislation and the local labour market for women. Also considered is the issue of causality in the supply-demand equation for girls' education, relating this to issues of gender-determined access to education that underlie the study of developing education systems both past and present. I conclude that the growth in the provision and use of education for girls in Norwich during this period mirrors that of other parts of the nation, seeming to have been little influenced by local economic and political forces, or an initial local demand. Instead, a national campaign carried on by women activists at the national level for the improvement of education for girls, together with the provision of schools offering an extended and higher quality academic education for girls by the Girls' Day School Trust, the Norwich School Board, and private individuals, appears to have overcome local disincentives to educate girls and created a demand for secondary schooling for them.     

Contingency in innovation and the role of national systems: taxol and taxotère in the USA and France

A very rich collection of archival material is used to compare two anticancer drugs commercialised by multinationals collaborating with public sector research, one in the USA and one in France. The framework of national innovation systems is used to compare the innovative environments for each development (different institutional structures, research programmes, financing, industry-academic-government relationships, environmental concern, and intellectual property regimes). The empirical work was able to bring out the nuances and subtleties of each environment, the way in which innovation took place in practice, and some striking differences from what stereotypical accounts of innovation in each country would have suggested.