Three pathways to support the professional and career development of casual academics

Almost half of current academic staff will need to be replaced within three years in the Australian academic workforce. Literature suggests that casual academics are a potential solution, yet they are frequently excluded from the career development opportunities that would allow them to fulfil an ongoing academic role. Most academic development programmes designed for and delivered to casual academics are constructed by academic developers with little or no input from casual academics themselves. This paper documents what casual academics determine to be their academic development needs and how they could be addressed using three pathways of professional and career development.     

Positioning Mentoring as a Coach Development Tool: Recommendations for Future Practice and Research

Current thinking in coach education advocates mentoring as a development tool to connect theory and practice. However, little empirical evidence exists to evaluate the effectiveness of mentoring as a coach development tool. Business, education, and nursing precede the coaching industry in their mentoring practice, and research findings offered in these domains could be drawn upon to position mentoring as sports coaching development tool. Given the remote basis of some of mentor–coach relationships in sports coaching, additional learning can be drawn from mentoring conducted by virtual or electronic mediums. This article concludes with a series of reflective questions arising from research findings in other domains, designed to engage the potential coaching organization with the mentoring process.     

On Two Critiques of the Marxist Sociology of Education

Marxist sociology of education has been criticised in recent papers by Hickox and Hargreaves. It is argued that these writers largely misunderstand and misrepresent the work they criticise. Hickox attributes a position to Marxist sociologists of education which few, if any, now hold. Hargreaves makes a more powerful case, but is insufficiently familiar with Marxist scholarship to grasp the nature of the Marxist project.     

Numbers and Narratives: Further reflections in the sociology of education

A realist framework, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods, is advocated for the sociology of education. The case for a 'numbers and narratives' approach is supported by an analysis of several fundamental problems. Realist forms of sociological explanation require specification of properties at the three distinct levels of social structure, individual disposition, and action within social practice. It is argued that the quantification of these properties is most satisfactorily achieved within a materialist theory of measurement. Many of the problems that arise with quantitative work are shown to have their origin in an inadequate theory of measurement and to be sustained by an unsound concept of 'statistical explanation'. It is concluded that the most satisfactory response to these problems, however, lies not in the celebration of qualitative work, situated in a relationship of opposition, but in the development of an integrated structure-disposition-practice explanatory scheme for the sociology of education.     

Controlling for ‘ability’: a conceptual and empirical study of primary and secondary effects

Although Boudon’s distinction between primary and secondary effects, and its associated rational action models of inequality of educational opportunity, have been more influential in the field of social stratification and mobility than in the sociology of education, there is good reason to reconsider the theoretical and practical implications of this approach. The investigation brings conceptual analysis and empirical research to bear on Boudon’s arguments in a manner that may be somewhat unorthodox. The theoretical arguments are developed in the context of a detailed empirical investigation of three transitions—age 10 to O‐level, O‐level to A‐level, and A‐level to degree—using the extensive 1970 British Cohort Study. It is concluded that primary and secondary effects should be recognised as methodological rather than theoretical concepts, that the techniques used to identify them are independent of rational action theory and that, contrary to an influential position, the evidence suggests that primary effects are more important than secondary effects in the generation of social disparities in access to education     

Contributing factors to long‐term citation count in marine and freshwater biology articles

Researchers have investigated factors thought to affect the total number of citations in various academic disciplines, and some general trends have emerged. However, there are still limited data for many fields, including aquatic sciences. Using papers published in 2003–2005 (n = 785), we investigated marine and freshwater biology articles to identify factors that may contribute to the probability of citation and for cumulative citation counts over 10 years. We found no relationships with probability of citation; however, we found evidence that for those that were cited at least once, cumulative citations were related to several factors. Articles cited by books received more citations than those never cited by books, which we hypothesized to be indicative of the impact an article may have in the field. We also found that articles first cited within 2 years of publication received more cumulative citations than those first cited after 2 years. We found no evidence that self‐citation (as the first citation) had a significant effect on total citations. Our findings were compared with previous studies in other disciplines, and it was found that aquatic science citation patterns are comparable to fields in science and technology but less so to humanities and social sciences.     

Crossover pedagogy: The collaborative search for meaning

Robert Nash describes his cross-pedagogical approach to co-teaching with student affairs colleagues and shares a provocative classroom discussion that illustrates how it can help students create meaning for their lives.     

Rubrics as a Tool for Learning and Assessment: What Do Baccalaureate Students Think?

Rubrics are increasingly used as tools to evaluate student work. This study examined BSW students' perceptions of the benefits and challenges of using rubrics. Pre- and posttest questionnaires were administered to 35 students in two sections of a diversity course. Students judged the use of rubrics favorably. Rubrics communicated the instructors' expectations, clarified how to write course assignments, explained grade and point deductions and, in general, made course expectations clearer. Students suggested that the rubric design should be self-explanatory and easy to follow. If carefully developed, rubrics may be a useful tool for advancing student learning in social work programs.