Logics of business education for sustainability

This paper explores various kinds of logics of ‘business education for sustainability’ and how these ‘logics’ position the subject business person, based on eight teachers’ reasoning of their own practices. The concept of logics developed within a discourse theoretical framework is employed to analyse the teachers’ reasoning. The analysis takes its starting point in different approaches to how a business ought to or could take responsibility for sustainable development. Different approaches to business ethical responsibilities, in combination with assumptions about how educational content is legitimised and presupposed purposes of education, are used to construct logics of business education for sustainability. In the paper, the results of this analysis are presented as: the logic of profit-, social- or radical-oriented business education. Our results also show how the different logics position the subject business person differently, as one who adapts to, adds or creates ethical values. The results are first discussed in terms of how environmental and social challenges could be dealt with in the future and secondly, considering the risk of de-subjectification with regard to profit-oriented business education, the implications this may have for the educational quality itself.     

Evaluating Groupware Support for Software Engineering Students

Software engineering tasks, during both development and maintenance, typically involve teamwork using computers. Team members rarely work on isolated computers. An underlying assumption of our research is that software engineering teams will work more effectively if adequately supported by network-based groupware technology. Experience of working with groupware and evaluating groupware systems will also give software engineering students a direct appreciation of the requirements of engineering such systems.     

Gender theory as a tool for analyzing science teaching

This study examines to what extent experienced teachers are aware of gender issues in the science classroom. It also explores how an introduction to gender theory might alter this awareness. Teachers wrote their reflections about a real classroom situation. They were then asked to analyse the same situation after having read texts that discussed gender theory concepts. The fourteen teachers' understanding about gender and society were challenged. Some teachers were able to analyse the case differently by applying gender theory, others discussed the case on a more general level, while one teacher showed signs of resistance regarding gender theory.     

Educating for the real world: an illustration of John Dewey’s principles of continuity and interaction

The principles of interaction and continuity (intersection between experience and education) form a major part of John Dewey’s philosophical discourse. According to Dewey, these principles determine the quality of educative experience for meaningful life‐long learning. In this article, I argue that nowhere is the relationship between experience and education better illustrated than in Carter G. Woodson’s work, The mis‐education of the Negro, and in Malcolm X’s intrinsic life experiences.     

Actions and Conceptions: Exploring Initial Literacy Teaching Practice for Adults

Given that it is a delicate task to meet the educational needs of adult emergent readers in a second language setting, this study serves to explore the teaching practice of teachers working with learners of initial literacy and second language. Based on a situated learning perspective, data from 16 lesson observations of nine teachers is analysed. The findings show that teachers initiate and negotiate learning activities, strive to get the students to understand words and other symbols, facilitate participation within and outside the classroom and negotiate the acceptable student behaviour. These findings suggest that Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults (LESLLA) teaching and learning is a particular practice, where the teachers’ actions are intertwined with those of the learners and with the teachers’ conceptions of the learners. In that way, the teachers’ actions do not only speak of the learners, but also of their own professional identity.     

Number magnitude processing and basic cognitive functions in children with mathematical learning disabilities

The study sought out to extend our knowledge regarding the origin of mathematical learning disabilities (MLD) in children by testing different hypotheses in the same samples of children. Different aspects of cognitive functions and number processing were assessed in fifth- and sixth-graders (11–13 years old) with MLD and compared to controls. The MLD group displayed weaknesses with most aspects of number processing (e.g., subitizing, symbolic number comparison, number-line estimation) and two cognitive functions (e.g., visual–spatial working memory). These findings favor the defective approximate number system (ANS) hypothesis, but do not fit well with the access deficit hypothesis. Support is also provided for the defective object-tracking system (OTS) hypothesis, the domain general cognitive deficit hypothesis and to some extent the defective numerosity-coding hypothesis. The study suggests that MLD might be caused by multiple deficits and not a single core deficit.     

Positioning in Market Space: The Evaluation of Swedish Universities' Online Brand Personalities

The paper extends Aaker's previous empirical work on brand personality by exploring whether Swedish Universities communicate distinctive brand personalities in cyberspace. Employing a multistage methodology, data are drawn from the English Web sites of 17 Swedish universities and analyzed by using a combination of computerized content and correspondence analyses. Results indicate that some universities appear to have clear brand personalities, others take on a new face with regard to the obvious personality one would have initially associated them with, while others fail to communicate their brand personalities in any distinct manner. While illustrating a powerful but simple and relatively inexpensive way for institutions for higher education and brand researchers to study communicated brand personalities, this study also highlights the growing importance of brand positioning issues in internationalization and globalization of higher educational institutions.