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COVID-19’s influence on the teaching profession will be felt for many years as teachers faced experiences that they have never encountered. The pandemic forced already taxed teachers to assume additional responsibilities, many of which they were not prepared to deal with. The result was an exodus of teachers from the profession, and those who remained reported challenges that impacted their personal and professional lives. The authors describe the effects on teachers and the impact that this had on them, including reasons why many departed from teaching. In closing, the authors offer recommendations to teacher preparation programs, districts, and schools.

Although we have achieved a greater understanding of cryptomarket specifics, evidence on the consumer side of cryptomarkets is still needed – not only regarding the role of cryptomarkets on individual drug-using careers but also on the motives for buying illicit drugs from cryptomarkets. Moreover, research has indicated that national differences exist regarding different variables relating to cryptomarket use and prevalence, as well as to why users are drawn to these markets. In this chapter, the author presents the results of a Belgian case study focusing on drug cryptomarket buyers. Using an online quantitative survey (N = 99) and semi-structured interviews (N = 10), we gain exploratory insight into the motives of Belgian buyers sourcing illicit drugs from cryptomarkets and how they believe these cryptomarkets affect their drug-using careers. Results indicate that most of the respondents had bought drugs offline before buying them from cryptomarkets and that the frequency of their drug use did not change once cryptomarkets were accessed. Almost 60% of our respondents, however, consumed different drugs or a wider range of drugs following their cryptomarket use. Furthermore, most of the respondents purchased from cryptomarkets for their personal consumption, and some of them also shared their supply with friends, that is, social supply. The alternative drug offer was the principal reason why they were using cryptomarkets, followed by curiosity and the price and the quality of the drugs. Although the respondents in this study were well aware of different risks related to market vendors, market administrators, and law enforcement, these risks were considered to be minimal and part of the cryptomarket environment. The results of this case study are informative and highlight areas requiring further research.

This chapter explores the role of entrepreneurship within the careers of fine artists. This is positioned within the context of the discourse of cultural value. How artists manage their artistic and, sometimes conflicting, entrepreneurial identities is explored. The fields of entrepreneurship, and more recently the creative industries, have received much attention from both policy makers and researchers. Fine artists are perhaps one of the least employable, and arguably most entrepreneurial (by necessity), as Higgs et al. suggest ‘some occupations naturally have substantially higher numbers of self-employed people such as “Artists” with 91% self-employment’ (Higgs, Cunningham, & Bakhshi, 2008, p. 94).

The study captures the career histories of a cohort of fine art graduates, all of whom had graduated at the same time (1994), from the same institution. Taking a narrative approach, detailed career stories were obtained. The relationship to and tensions surrounding entrepreneurship and artistic practice were explored in detail. While artistic identity emerges as a strong force for this group, artistic identity and entrepreneurial identity are sometimes at odds with each other. The practicalities of making a living as an artist, arguably, call for entrepreneurial activity. However, the findings suggest that this presents a conflict for some artists, both aesthetically and emotionally. This chapter explores what this means in the context of cultural value, and cultural value as a ‘lens’ for understanding an artist's career.

Using two years of ethnographic fieldwork and 17 in-depth interviews, I examine a college gaming group's identity work. Stigmatized as social isolates, gamers employed oppositional identity work to construct themselves as “communal gamers.” Gaming Council members signified an identity counter to prevailing stereotypes by collaboratively coding “communal” to promote member interaction, affirming communality through joking and member recognition, and policing to enforce proper identity presentations. This study contributes to identity work research by furthering our understanding of identity work as group process and how groups manage identity dilemmas.

The chapter establishes the rationale for the development of an online professional development course in designing culturally responsive assessment for faculty of the Institute of Education in Dublin City University. As the literature on which the course is based is from several countries, the course may be considered relevant for faculty in various countries and can be accessed as the course is online. The course of about 3.5 hours in duration begins with a definition of culturally responsive assessment before emphasizing the desirability of culturally responsive assessment based mainly on the obligation to design tests that are fair to all test takers. Key elements of the program are the concepts of multicultural validity, construct validity, language issues, dimensions of cultural difference impacting on learning and assessment, and the lecturer/supervisor as researcher of their own students as well as of their own enculturation. The focus is on the implications of these concepts for professional practice. The course synthesizes several sources to posit eight criteria for the preparation, process, and outcomes of culturally responsive assessment before presenting several assessment modes that have potential to be culturally fair. Finally, the course provides the opportunity for participants to design culturally responsive assessment in their own disciplines and then requests the participants to evaluate their designs in light of the criteria. Twelve respondents to a pilot study were essentially very positive about the value of the online course.

Issues related to disability and childhood are frequently examined across the social sciences and humanities. Many researchers conduct studies with disabled children as the focus of study, as research participants and/or as research drivers. Disabled children represent two categories of identified vulnerability, thus, requiring stringent ethical boundaries in terms of recruitment, consent, research methods, analysis, disclosure and knowledge mobilisation. Although many safeguards apply to research with all children, the focus on disability and disabled childhoods initiates further ethical scrutiny. In this chapter, the authors examine a number of ethical dilemmas that have emerged when conducting research with, and in relation to, disabled children. In particular, the authors will examine the roles of disabled children and youth in advancing research on policy and practice within education and care sectors. The authors query the possibilities and limitations that emerge when employing institutional ethnographic, participatory action and phenomenological research. The chapter unpacks some of the tricky tensions around asking children to speak about disability and share their experiences of disablement when disability is so frequently stigmatised. The authors examine the impacts of predetermined categories of impairment within quantitative research. Across methodologies, data collection based on assumptions of impairment can skew analyses towards a medicalised framework of disability, leaving little room for socio-cultural perspectives on disablement, including how these approaches trigger ethical issues around notions of representation and agency in research with disabled children.