Emotion Work Revealed by Job Loss Discourse: Backgrounding-Foregrounding of Feelings, Construction of Normalcy, and (Re)instituting of Traditional Masculinities

Three emotion work themes were displayed in the discourse of individuals who lost their jobs and of their family members. Foregrounding-backgrounding of emotions indicated not only how some individuals and family members exerted effort to express positive emotions, but also why they would do so (for deep authenticity). In the construction of normalcy, respondents made an effort to portray and enact their lives as similar to the way things were before the job loss. By (re)instituting traditional masculinities, the men who lost their jobs were able to be "real" men in an emasculating situation. Taken together, these findings offer possibilities for further theoretical development and for communication interventions that can be applied by human resource professionals, career and outplacement counselors, family members, friends, and the individuals themselves.     

Book Reviews

Serial Publications: Guidelines for Good Practice in Publishing Printed and Electronic Journals, 2nd edition, by Diane Brown, Elaine Stott and Anthony Watkinson Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers 2003, £27 (members), £30 (non‐members), 108 pp., paperback. ISBN 0‐907341‐22‐5. Available from http://www.alpsp.org/pub3.htm The Case for Institutional Repositories: A SPARC Position Paper prepared by Raym Crow, SPARC Senior Consultant Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, Washington DC. Release 1.0, 2002. Available at: www.arl.org/sparc The Case for Institutional Repositories: A SPARC Position Paper prepared by Raym Crow, SPARC Senior Consultant Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, Washington, DC. Release 1.0, 2002. Available at: www.arl.org/sparc Internet Law: Text and Materials by Chris Reed Butterworths Tolley, 2000, £24.95, paperback. ISBN 0406981418 Intellectual Property Law by Lionel Bently and Brad Sherman Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, £32.99 (paperback), 1136 pp. ISBN 0‐19‐876343‐3 Clearing the Way: Copyright Clearance in UK Libraries by Elizabeth Gadd LISU Occasional Paper no. 31, Library & Information Statistics Unit (LISU), Department of Information Science, Loughborough University. ISBN 1 901786 51 X Electronic Journals and User Behaviour: Learning for the Future from the SuperJournal Project by David Pullinger and Christine Baldwin Deedot Press, 2002, £14.95. ISBN 0‐954‐2924‐0‐5 Electronic Ecology: A Case Study of Electronic Journals in Context by Karla L. Hahn Association of Research Libraries, 79 pp., 2001, $45. ISBN 0‐918006‐46‐1 The Transition from Paper: Where Are We Going and How Will We Get There edited by R. Stephen Berry and Anne Simon Moffat American Academy of Arts and Sciences, published online (2001): www.amacad.org/publications/trans.htm The Transition from Paper: Where Are We Going and How Will We Get There edited by R. Stephen Berry and Anne Simon Moffat American Academy of Arts and Sciences, published online (2001): www.amacad.org/publications/trans.htm E‐Serials, Publishers, Libraries, Users and Standards, 2nd edn, edited by Wayne Jones The Haworth Press Inc., 2003, 294 pp. paperback ISBN 0789012294     

Brownjohn,Hughes, Pirrie,and Rosen: What Rhymes with Oral Writing?

This article looks at the work of four writers who have had considerable influence on the teaching of poetry writing to primary school children. Each writer is considered in terms of their merits as a contributor to wider questions about writing, and in comparative terms with each other. Links are made between these writers' explicit and implicit philosophies and approaches. Finally, the article considers how far discussions about voice and form within children's writing are necessarily exclusive of each other.     

Evaluating academic development in the higher education sector: academic developers’ reflections on using a toolkit resource

The professionalisation of teaching is of increasing importance in UK higher education due to converging processes including the proliferation of managerialism, increasing quality agendas and changes to student fee structures. These have brought into sharp relief the need for greater understanding of how quality teaching evolves in university settings. One key element of this involves academic development and its impacts on teaching and learning. Current literature suggests that a plethora of ideas, frameworks and instruments claiming best practice exist but that take-up of these is inconsistent. This prompted a UK national research project which produced an evidence-based toolkit for evaluating academic development. As part of the toolkit augmentation, academic development representatives from across the sector were asked to create, review and test uniquely tailored evaluation instruments. These instruments were then piloted on university teachers who had participated in teaching-related continuing professional development activities. This paper reports on these individuals’ reflections of using the toolkit. It suggests that academic developers are interested in evaluating the impact of their work on teachers, students and on the wider institutional culture but that confidence and expertise varies. Using the toolkit generated ‘traditional’ evaluation data including satisfaction with the development activity and changes to lecturers’ conceptions and behaviours. However, it also prompted critical discussions around current evaluation practice. This included the need for transformational reform of institutional culture to support links between evaluation and good standing; and making explicit the thorny issue of evidencing student learning. This paper will be of interest to those with an interest or responsibility for evaluating teaching in higher education. The paper offers an important contribution to the international literature at a time when global higher education is faced with questions about teaching, learning and quality. Evaluation, and how to do it well, is timely and important business.     

Critical action learning: a method or strategy for peer supervision of coaching practice

This paper deals with the on-going practice of a critical action learning set who come together to meet their needs for coaching supervision as a group of executive coaches working from, and within, the University sector in South Wales. The reasons for the successes of, and the challenges around, this practice of four years standing have been articulated using an academic backdrop. The use of multi-factorial supervision has been heralded as being able to give a more rounded form of supervision which, despite its challenges, has, in this example, stood the test of time. Further data are required to try to understand if this form of supervision provides better coaching to the executive field in South Wales and beyond, and what can be learnt from the practice of supervision in general.     

Leveraging Sunken Investments in Communications Infrastructure: A Policy Perspective From the United States

Bridging the digital divide between information and technology haves and have-nots has waned from the top of the national policy agenda in the United States during a time in which the sunken investments of the 1990s need to be leveraged. A national information network now exists yet this infrastructure--largely hardware--needs to be continually modernized and parlayed with commitments to building human capacity, developing relevant content, and scaling socially beneficial technology applications, such as telemedicine, in order to optimize these initial multi-billion-dollar outlays. This article makes the case that sidestepping public-private initiatives aimed at accelerating digital opportunity is imprudent, given the mounting empirical evidence highlighting the payoffs of information and communications technologies, when properly integrated and applied, especially in enhancing the life chances of underserved Americans. Policy next steps should advance the goals of expanding universal service initiatives, including hastening broadband deployment to homes and learning institutions, and deepening programs which leverage the utility of the existing infrastructure, such as expanding human-capital development, producing relevant content, and innovating socially beneficial technology applications.     

Pre-service teachers’ attempts at debating contemporary issues in science education: A case study from Botswana

This paper constitutes an attempt to explore trends, issues and challenges that emerge when three different cohorts of pre-service teachers debate contemporary issues in science education at the University of Botswana. Apart from the author's experience of teaching the course, the impetus for this study also comes from a growing interest in the contemporary literature in the need for teachers who, in the context of globalization and knowledge economy, are ‘self-reforming’ through continually addressing the key issues of their profession. Unfortunately, the current situation is such that this burden of interrogation falls heaviest on teachers, despite their lack of skills in undertaking the task.     

The power of the ‘object’ to influence teacher induction outcomes

In this paper we explore newly qualified New Zealand secondary teachers’ varied accounts of induction. We claim that multiple interpretations of objectives for induction programs are a significant source of this variation. With reference to an activity system framework, we identify four primary objects of induction that were represented in the induction accounts as follows: ‘orientation to learning about the context’, ‘fitting into the school’, ‘completing registration requirements’, and ‘becoming a professional inquirer’. Whilst teachers would be expected to experience all of these objects within their induction experiences, the balance and emphases of these objects within programs varied considerably.     

An experimental study evaluating professional development activities within a state funded pre-kindergarten program

This paper describes the implementation and evaluation for scaling up a comprehensive early childhood teacher professional development program into 11 communities across 2 years with funding through state legislative actions. The comprehensive program had four major components based on results from a previous multi-condition random assignment study across four states. The previous results demonstrated that the most optimum approach for supporting children??s school readiness included: (1) teacher on-line professional development with facilitation, (2) classroom mentoring, (3) implementation of a research-based curriculum, and (4) technology-driven progress monitoring that informed instruction. The comprehensive professional development program was evaluated in a new state program designed to bring childcare, Head Start, and public school pre-kindergarten together into integrated partnerships. In Year 1, 220 teachers serving 3834 children were randomly assigned to either receive the comprehensive program or not. Teachers who served as controls in Year 1 received the program in Year 2, and those who received the program in Year 1 participated for an additional year in Year 2, allowing for examination of the effects of one versus 2 years of participation. The program improved teachers instructional practices relative to controls, and a second year of participation resulted in greater gains in children??s language and literacy. Results support the need for well-integrated, comprehensive professional development for early childhood educators.