From Bohemia to Britart – art students over 50 years

In the mid-1980s, Frith and Horne (1987) were describing the experience of British arts schools as, “an anachronism, with students desperately clinging on to attitudes to work and play, which had otherwise vanished” (p. 12). Among these attitudes were the importance of freedom and experimentation in one's work, the status of the artist as an outsider, and the superiority of art over other forms of activity, such as design. Despite huge social changes and contemporary concerns about the “instrumentalization” of arts policy and education (Singerman, 1999; Wilson, 2007), the article argues that the Romantic ideology of the artist is remarkably persistent, and continues to shape graduates' attitudes to their working lives. This in turn feeds into contemporary debates about the nature of cultural labour (Ross, 2003) and the role of the “artistic critique” (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2005), and, crucially, provides an empirically based view of these debates from the perspective of cultural workers themselves.     

Coping strategies and the influence of perceived parental support in junior national age swimmers

This study examines how national junior age group swimmers cope with poor performance and explores whether coping strategy use changes with perceptions of parental support. One hundred and four junior age group swimmers (mean age 14.2 years) completed a modified version of the COPE scale (Crocker & Issack, 1997) and the perceptions of Perceived Parental Support Scale (Van Yperen, 1995). Results showed that the swimmers in this sample used a mixture of behavioural and cognitive strategies with an emphasis upon individual or internally focused approaches. When analysing coping strategies and perceptions of parental support (high, medium and low), significant differences were found in the use of behavioural and cognitively orientated approaches. When perception of parental support was low, swimmers reported using less active and training-orientated mechanisms and a tendency to use strategies such as self-blame and venting of emotion. These findings suggest that the effectiveness and ability of coping strategies to adapt to differing situations may be contingent upon perceptions of perceived support for junior swimmers. This highlights an area for future research.     

Gaining from interactions with universities: Multiple methods for nurturing absorptive capacity

This paper examines the various methods through which firms benefit from interactions with universities, arguing that such benefits are instrumental in nurturing the multiple facets of a firm's absorptive capacity. We bring together data collected from a survey of UK firms that collaborated with universities, and firm-level data on past partnerships with universities. The results show that benefits from interactions with universities are multifaceted, including enhancement of the firm's explorative and exploitative capabilities. Results also indicate that firms’ R&D commitments, geographical proximity to and research quality of university partners have a distinct impact on the different types of benefits from interactions with universities. We find geographical proximity is crucial for assessing problem-solving as an important benefit, while interactions with top quality universities have a positive influence on the benefits associated with firms’ downstream activities. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and policy.     

Cetacean Frustration: The Representation of Whales and Dolphins in Picture Books for Young Children

To enable children to develop towards becoming part of the solution to environmental problems, it is essential that they are given the opportunity to become familiar with the natural world from early childhood. Familiarity is required to develop understanding of, care for and, ultimately, action in terms of protecting the natural world. As adult-led reading of picture books is a common form of indirect exposure to the natural world for young children, this study examines the biological accuracy of the representation of whales and dolphins in the images and text of picture books. Of the total of 116 books examined, 74 (63.8?%) had errors in the representation of cetaceans in the images and/or text. Errors were identified in both fictional (mean?=?8.0 errors/book, SD?=?11.1, n?=?55) and non-fictional (mean?=?2.3 errors/book, SD?=?4.9, n?=?61) books. The potential impact of the errors is discussed, and suggestions are made as to how the impact could be reduced and how the biological accuracy of picture books could be improved.     

Teacher learning communities and educational change in Scotland: The Highland experience

This article discusses the issue of the sustainability of educational change in the light of findings from research undertaken in tandem with a development project initiated by a Scottish Education Authority, The Highland Council. The paper reviews some of the key themes that have emerged from recent literature on educational change, before drawing on the project data to address two key issues: the factors that have helped to promote and sustain changes within the schools; and the barriers to innovation experienced in these schools. We conclude the article by identifying a range of considerations that should be taken into account by those seeking to innovate and we suggest that, while the Highland model for change has enjoyed a degree of success in inculcating change, more needs to be done to address systemic issues, such as the pervasive influence of a narrow attainment agenda in shaping classroom practice.     

Similarities and differences in collegiality/managerialism in Irish and Australian universities

In the collegial model the basis for appointment to senior management in the collegial model is nomination by a community of scholars, whereas it is by line management in the managerial one. This article focuses on the basis of appointments in universities and the gendering of such structures. Data are drawn from qualitative interviews with both men and women senior manager-academics at Dean level and above in Ireland and Australia (N = 44). In both countries the power of the President/Vice-Chancellor (VC) was very much as a Chief Executive Officer in the managerialist model, rather than the ‘primus inter pares’ of the collegial model. Moreover, Presidents/VCs controlled the appointments of Vice-Presidents/Deputy VCs and Deans and were seen as being able to affect the gender profile of senior management. However, in the Australian system (in contrast to the Irish one) there was no ambivalence about the VC actively rectifying gender inequalities in management. In a context where hybrid forms of management are emerging, this article questions the relevance of collegial/managerialist models in understanding the gendering of universities.     

A cross‐cultural examination of the impact of social,organisational and individual factors on educational technology acceptance between British and Lebanese university students

This paper examines the social, organisational and individual factors that may affect students' acceptance of e‐learning systems in higher education in a cross‐cultural context. A questionnaire was developed based on an extended technology acceptance model (TAM). A total sample of 1173 university students from two private universities in Lebanon and one university in England participated in this study. After performing the satisfactory reliability and validity checks, the hypothesised model was estimated using structural equation modeling. The findings of this study revealed that perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), social norms (SNs), perceived quality of work life (QWL), computer self‐efficacy (SE) and facilitating conditions (FC) are significant determinants of behavioural intentions (BIs) and usage of e‐learning system for the Lebanese and British students. QWL, the newly added variable, was found the most important construct in explaining the causal process in the model for both samples. Differences were found between Lebanese and British students with regard to PEOU, SN, QWL, FC, SE and actual usage; however, no differences were detected in terms of PU and BI. Overall, the proposed model achieves acceptable fit and explains for 69% of the British sample and 57% of the Lebanese sample of its variance which is higher than that of the original TAM. Our findings suggest that individual, social and organisational factors are important to consider in explaining students' BI and usage of e‐learning environments.