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The rise of a performativity discourse in education in England emanates from the importation of an economic ‘market’ structure for schools in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the outputs of learning and to increase the opportunity of choice for the ‘consumers’ of education (Ball, 1998). Institutions focus their policies and practice, on improving performance and survival to maintain and develop their market share. This is due to the competitive nature of a market structure. The performativity criterion of efficiency and effectiveness is an optimisation of the relationship between input and output (Lyotard, 1979). In the case of education this means both ensuring a favourable qualitative award from a national inspection service and raising the achievement levels of pupils in national tests to ensure a high position in published tables of educational performance. High ratings on these two performativity indicators improve a school’s attraction to parents and students in the educational market place. This results in improved resources, increasing the opportunity for the school to be more selective about the students it accepts and the quality of the teachers it employs.

In this chapter, we discuss menopause transition in the workplace and its implications for workplace well-being. This is an important work-life interface topic, given the increasing number of women who will work during transition. It is also a topic that we currently know relatively little about, particularly in relation to well-being. We present findings that demonstrate both that many women experience symptoms that are bothersome at work and that these frequently have negative effects for two elements of workplace well-being, job satisfaction and health well-being. We evidence that individual/job characteristics and workplace context can either improve or worsen experiences of transition symptoms and make recommendations on how organization and HR practice can be designed to support women in menopause transition. We argue that working with line managers to create a more supportive context is one of the most important strategies to implement. Our research is situated in the UK police service and has wider relevance across the Global North, where similar demographic patterns are experienced, and in other male-dominated organizations and sectors.

Research has established a connection between industrially-produced food and negative health outcomes. Scholars have also shown a significant link between poor food environments and health. This paper explores the experiences of university extension program agents in order to initiate greater dialogue about the role of extension in lessening the deleterious health impacts of unequal access to high quality and sufficient quantity foods. Specifically, we consider the role of food self-provisioning instruction (e.g., food gardening, preservation).

The paper draws on semi-structured interviews with 20 university extension program officers in the state of Washington.

Although our participants report that demand for education in food production skills is on the rise across Washington, there are barriers to the equitable distribution of self-provisioning skills.

There is considerable promise for extension programs to have positive implications for health and nutrition for communities struggling to access quality foods. To meet this progress, extension must be more aware of serving the entire public either through hiring agents mirror their constituencies or funding a more diverse array of programming.

Little existing research examines or evaluates using university extension programs as a vehicle for teaching food self-production, though these topics have been taught since the founding of extension.

Upcycling was introduced in The Archers by Fallon Rogers, who created a business from selling furniture she had upcycled. The author cites other examples from Archers episodes: Bert Fry’s egg mobile was originally an old caravan. Eddie Grundy built Lynda Snell’s shepherd’s hut from farmyard scrap. Josh Archer expanded his online farm equipment sales to include old items refurbished and sold for profit. Definitions of upcycling imply that the original item has become worthless. The author, however, includes examples of nostalgic value placed on relics of a bygone age and suggests a dichotomy between the values of older versus younger Ambridge residents. Upcycling can also be viewed in a metaphorical sense: Lilian Bellamy, for example, regularly upcycled herself with cosmetic assistance. The most sinister example is that of Rob Titchener, who used coercive control to upcycle Helen (then) Titchener into the image he wanted. The author concludes that while motives may take several forms, it is Fallon Rogers who consistently uses both creativity and business sense in her upcycling endeavours.