Knowing a world in common: The role of workplace educators in the global production of working knowledge

In this paper I am concerned with the challenge workplace learners and educators face, as they engage with global economies, to create ‘a world in common as … known in common’ (Smith 1999). I focus first on why global companies need their geographically dispersed workers to engage with a world ‘in common’, and how they go about constructing such a world. I pay particular attention to the role of written texts in connecting individual local sites with global discourses of knowledge production. Next, I explore the roles that workplace educators play in producing and interpreting the written texts of contemporary workplaces to produce ‘working knowledge’. I develop the argument that a critical dimension of the work of many workplace educators is the standardisation of language practice across institutions on a global scale, mediating local and global discourses to produce and use working knowledge. Finally, I discuss the political implications of the textual work that workplace educators undertake.     

Spinoza,Deep Ecology and Education Informed by a (Post)human Sensibility

Abstract

This article explores the influence of Spinozism on the deep ecology movement (DEM) and on new materialism. It questions the stance of supporters of the DEM because their ecosophies unwittingly anthropomorphise the more-than-human-world. It suggests that instead of humanising the ‘natural’ world, morality should be naturalised, that is, that the object of human expression of ethics should be the more-than-human world. Moreover, the article discusses Deleuze’s Spinozism that informs new materialism and argues that stripping the human of its ontological privilege does not deprive the human animal from its ethico-normative distinctiveness. Implications of the discussion for an education aimed at cultivating (post)human sensibilities are explored.     

Stressful Effects of a University Faculty Strike on Students: Implications for Coping

This study examines university students' psychological reactions to a two-month faculty strike at a large Canadian university. Of particular interest were relationships between students' experience of angry feelings (state anger) about the strike and perceptions of the extent to which the strike had affected their plans involving important planned life experiences such as graduation, travel, and employment. The role of social support from the internet during the strike in alleviating the intensity of angry feelings was also investigated. Data were collected using an anonymous self-report questionnaire administered a few days after the labour dispute was settled. A total of 289 college students completed the questionnaire. Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted with variables entered as blocks and with state anger and anxiety as dependent variables. The first block of variables entered were individual variables such as age and year of study. The second block included average ratings of the extent to which plans were affected by the strike and how fairly students felt they had been treated. The third block of variables included social support from the internet and self-efficacy. The fourth block was the interaction between internet support and sex. With anger as the dependent variable, results showed that the more unfairly students felt they were treated during the strike and the more their plans had been affected by the strike, the greater their anger. Support provided to students from the internet predicted to lower anger. Further regression results indicated that the more students' plans had been affected by the strike, the greater their anxiety. Higher self-efficacy in students contributed to lower anxiety. Implications of the results are discussed within a social context, particularly the importance of studying how individual and social resources can reduce distress resulting from an interruption of students' academic plans due to a strike.     

State literacies and inequality: Managing Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic

For decades, Haitians have immigrated to the Dominican Republic in search of a better life, yet such hopes have been elusive for many. Since the 1980s, in the midst of shifting economic and political conditions, changing interpretations of the Constitution have increasingly denied Dominican citizenship to children born to Haitians in the Dominican Republic. Drawing on qualitative interviews with people of Haitian descent, the article demonstrates how citizenship claims are textually mediated, and it examines how agents of the Dominican state exert authority over Haitian- and Dominican-born people of Haitian descent through literacy events and literacy practices. Specifically, we consider not only how the withholding of documents shaped immigrants’ lives but also how state agents selectively and arbitrarily interpreted documents, such as passports, visas, birth certificates, and national identity cards, based upon various factors, including witnesses to the social interaction, whether bribes were forthcoming, and the state agent's determination of the social and economic value of the document bearer. While dominant development discourses routinely suggest that literacy skills provide a protective factor and potentially redress inequality, we demonstrate that literacy events are yet another social interaction in which authorities with power easily impose their interpretations on vulnerable populations.     

Confidence and Expectations About Caring for Older People With Dementia: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Student Nurses

Older people who are living with dementia often need healthcare, including hospital admissions, due to additional health conditions. Caring for older people who are living with dementia is, therefore, a core nursing role. This study investigated student nurses’ expectations of, and confidence about, caring for older people with dementia and the effect of students’ age, precourse experience, and their academic year. The design was a cross-sectional survey using questionnaires to collect data. The participants (n = 328), based at one university in England, had all had at least one practice learning placement. Most student nurses (n = 202; 62%) had precourse contact with older people with dementia and had cared for them during the course (n = 291; 89%). The student's academic year significantly affected confidence about caring for older people with dementia (p = .006), but still only 52% (n = 26) of third-year students felt “generally confident.” Precourse contact with older people with dementia had a significant impact on expectations (p = .001) and confidence in caring for people with dementia (p = .002). Students who were >25 years were significantly more likely to have had precourse contact with older people with dementia (p = < .001). Nurse educators should ensure that students entering nurse education appreciate that caring for older people who are living with dementia will be a core part of their role. They must proactively prepare nursing students to care for people with dementia, recognizing that some students have no previous contact, which may affect their confidence and experiences.     

Bringing universities to account? Exploring some global and local policy tensions

Increased accountability is at the centre of widespread educational reforms which feature the rhetoric of deregulation in many countries across the globe. Not only have educational systems, institutions and practitioners been required to be more accountable, but arguably the nature of accountability has also changed from professional and democratic to managerial and market forms. In particular, within the hegemonic discourses of the market ideology associated with globalization, market accountability to paying customers (both within a nation-state and internationally) has been foregrounded. However, the hegemony is not complete. Governments have often positioned themselves as ‘market managers’, creating a complex and often contradictory relationship between new forms of market and managerial accountability, layered on top of more traditional notions of professional and democratic accountability. This paper explores the changing nature of accountability in Australian and English higher education, and makes comparisons between them. As we enter the twenty-first century, central higher education authorities in both countries are conducting major reviews and revisionings of mechanisms to enhance the accountability of universities in the new global knowledge-based economy. While the analysis finds convergence of policy objectives and discourses, it also finds divergences in the particular structures and processes employed. Further, it finds a disjunction between macro-level policy intent and institutional-level reactions and practices in both countries. We argue that with globalization ‘talk’, it is important not to gloss over policy differences between individual nation-states, and to problematize potentially globalizing concepts such as accountability within policy debates at both national and global levels.     

Who or What is School 'Self'-Evaluation for?

Schools' own capacity and responsibility for reflection and evaluation is now at the forefront of UK policy. This article posits an identifiable 'English model' of school self-evaluation, which can be contrasted with the model derived from a recent CIDREE project on school self-evaluation involving 7 other European countries. The 'English model' has various strengths, which can be characterised as instrumentalist, action-oriented, rationalistic and managerial; what seems to be missing from it are what the article calls 'the ethical, affective, non-rational and democratic modes of thinking'. The article argues that, since these are crucial dimensions in the process of education, they should also figure as key aspects or modes of evaluation. What might be the implications of this for current policy and practice?