Communication,Relationships, and Religious Difference in the Northern Ireland Workplace: A Study of Private and Public Sector Organizations

Four large organizations, two each from the private and public sectors of the Northern Ireland economy, were selected for this study which, first, explored the effects of religion-based workforce difference on intergroup relationships, second, investigated the contribution of organizational sector to communicative differences, and third, gauged the effects of group-based negativity on the flow and distribution of functional information within the organization. Little evidence of intergroup conflict was found although employees expressed a desire for greater quantity and quality of outgroup contact. Significant differences between the private and public bodies emerged in this respect. Contrasts were consistent with general organizational differences typifying the sectors. Findings are discussed in relation to diversity management and the characteristics of organizational sectors.     

The Unbundling of Legal Services and its Implications for Law Librarianship

This article examines the role of law libraries with respect to free Web-based legal information sites and the lack of access to low-cost legal advice. The legal profession's reaction to these sites and suggestions on how to address professional and ethical concerns are discussed.     

Preparing Australian Teachers to Teach Asian Studies: The importance of in-country experience

In 1997 and 1998 students entering primary and early childhood courses at a rural Australian university were surveyed about their attitudes towards the teaching of Asian Studies. This paper presents the results of this survey. It further considers the extent to which the students' prior study of Asian language, Asian Studies or their personal experience of travel in Asia influenced their views of the importance of teaching Asian Studies and their feelings of competence in teaching Asian Studies. Implications for teacher education institutions and education systems are explored.     

Issues for Higher Education in the Teaching of Ethics

This paper presents a general case for the teaching of ethics in the contemporary Australian university, both across the curriculum generally and within a range of professional preparations specifically. It claims that social ethics has a central place in the mission of the university. Furthermore, recent developments in the Australian community and its universities have created a context which gives the teaching of ethics enhanced priority. Current initiatives in applied ethics are discussed. Vexed questions of implementation (such as who should teach these courses and how they should teach) are also examined.

The author claims that applied ethics courses require interdisciplinary expertise, but demand a sufficient basis in moral philosophy to allow for the critical appraisal essential to ethics, and to go beyond a narrow discourse about professional codes of conduct. The argument supporting this perspective is informed by Habermasian critical theory, which maintains that the ethical should engage the technical and professional reality.     

The novel use of a SenseCam and accelerometer to validate training load and training information in a self-recall training diary

Self-recall training diaries are a frequently used tool to quantify training load and training information. While accelerometers are predominantly used to validate training diaries, they are unable to validate contextual training information. Thus this study aimed to examine the novel use of data fusion from a wearable camera device (SenseCam) and accelerometer to validate a self-recall training diary. Thirty participants filled in a training diary for 1 day while simultaneously wearing a SenseCam and accelerometer. The training diary was validated using Bland–Altman plots, Spearman’s rank-order correlation, percentage agreement and κ measure of agreement between the diary and the SenseCam and accelerometer. The results demonstrated overall agreement, and no bias, between the training diary and the accelerometer for training intensity, and the SenseCam for duration of activity and travel time. A positive correlation was found for duration (r = 0.82, P < 0.001) and intensity (r = 0.67, P < 0.001). Hundred per cent agreement was found between the SenseCam and training diary for activity, training surface and footwear (κ = 1, P < 0.0001), with a lower agreement noted for sports played (97.3%, κ = 0.91, P < 0.0001). The self-recall training diary was found to be a valid measure of capturing training load and training information using the combined wearable camera device and accelerometer.     

Cartoons as visual representations of the development of primary school children’s understanding of bullying behaviours

ABSTRACT

This study adopts a creative methodology to investigate how cartoons can serve as visual representations of primary school children’s understanding of bullying and compares how their understanding develops over time. The study was carried out in Northern Ireland where the Addressing Bullying in Schools (Northern Ireland) Act 2016 will require schools to follow a new statutory definition of bullying. To investigate the behaviours that children associate with bullying, a set of 16 original stick figure cartoons was devised. The cartoons were shown to a sample of Year 3 and Year 7 pupils from two different primary schools in Northern Ireland (N = 90). Pupils were asked to record which scenarios they considered to be bullying or not bullying. They were then invited to write their own definitions of bullying and to creatively illustrate them using stick figures. A total of eight gender-specific pupil focus groups were conducted across the two schools to explore the key elements which the pupils considered significant to their understanding of bullying. The study highlights the value of this creative participatory approach and found a wide range of behaviours which children associate with bullying but also considerable variation among pupils in terms of their understanding. Levels of understanding in Year 7 were more nuanced than those in Year 3, but there were no discernible differences by pupil gender. Conclusions are drawn in terms of the new legislation in Northern Ireland, but also in relation to the benefits of adopting a creative research methodology using cartoons as visual representations with children to explore complex pastoral issues.     

Questions concerning attention and Stiegler’s therapeutics

The article sets out to develop the concept of attention as a key aspect to building the possible therapeutics that Bernard Stiegler’s recent works have pointed to (The Automatic Society, 2016, The Neganthropocene, 2018 and Qu’appelle-t-on Panser, 2018). The therapeutic aspect of pharmacology takes place through processes that are neganthropic; therefore, which attempt to counteract the entropic nature of digital technologies where there is flattening out to the measurable and the calculable of Big Data. The most obvious examples of this flattening out can be seen in relation to the use of natural language processing technologies for text interpretation and the use of text analytics alongside student analytics. However, the process of exosomatisation of knowledge takes place in forms of hypomnesic tertiary retentions or digital technologies. The loss of knowledge is inherent to these processes of exteriorisation, this loss of knowledge takes place through a process proletarianisation which Marx had pointed to in the Grundisse (1939). The therapeutic gesture is, therefore, an intrinsically educational one, where the loss of knowledge of the pharmacological nature of digital technologies is counteracted by other forms of knowledge construction that can be enabled by digital technologies. Hence, there is a profound educational gesture necessary to enable the re-harnessing of technology to enable the therapeutics. This paper will argue that the positive re-harnessing, the therapeutics, can take place through the development of new forms of neganthropic gestures which can be afforded by the development of specific forms of digital technologies. These also enable a contributive research process whereby the rationalisation of the production of knowledge within the university can be challenged by collaborative, interpretative processes of knowledge production.     

Teacher adaptation to flexible learning environments

Learning Environments Research - Teaching practices respond to the prompts, resources and inherent potential of a school’s physical, social and cultural landscape. This study involved how...     

Responsiveness and Affective Processes in the Interactive Construction of Understanding in Mathematics

This paper reports on important learning processes emerging during adult mathematics classes that used a teaching approach compatible with a social constructivist theory of knowing. A cyclical teaching model encouraged much discussion about the mathematical problems presented to paired groups. Whole-class student-led sharing sessions allowed students to continue their interactive constitution of meaning and solutions.Comparisons of pre- and post-course scores on attitude and belief questionnaires indicated significant increases in positive attitudes and beliefs about mathematics and about themselves doing mathematics.The overall positive changes in scores on questionnaires are explained in terms of recurrent patterns in thinking inferred from data obtained by observation, interview, and reflective comments. Changes are explained in terms of the interactive effects of affective and heuristic processing during problem solving. Affective processes precipitated students' responsiveness, modifying the immediate learning context which, in turn, influenced the students' thinking, creating a snowballing effect on learning and affect. Changes were clearly facilitated by the interaction between students and by their shared understandings.     

Contested childhoods across borders and boundaries: Insights from curriculum provisions in Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State in the 1920s

Conceptualisations and constructs of children and childhood are temporally and contextually grounded. Historical documents are rich sources of insight and understanding regarding how children were understood, valued and treated at various times by particular societies. This article explores the conceptualisation of children and childhood in the 26-county Irish Free State (South) and the 6-county Northern Ireland (North) in the 1920s following the partition of Ireland, through the lens of educational documentation, primarily national primary school curricula. The focus on both jurisdictions is interesting in the context of partition, exploring the sometimes divergent and often convergent ways in which children were conceptualised across borders and boundaries. This article reveals, using Sorin and Galloway’s framework as a conceptual and analytical tool, that conceptualisations of children were broadly similar in the North and South but differed in their focus and enactment in both fledgling states. These disparities are largely attributable to the very different political, social and religious orientations of both jurisdictions and the use of education as a vehicle for nation-building, as well as identity and gender formation. The article also explores alternative conceptualisations of children in education policy in the North and South by presenting case study ‘outliers’ of educational provision. A century since partition, conclusions and implications are noted that resonate with contemporary elements of convergence and divergence on educational policy and the conceptualisation of children across the island of Ireland.