Search results

The content of ethics education courses is still generally shaped around the presentation of the traditional ethical theories of Western moral philosophy, complemented by case studies and discussion of ethical decision-making models. The purpose of courses is still largely geared towards the development of skills in ethical reasoning. Yet developments in surrounding fields, from psychology to learning and leadership development, raise numerous questions about the traditional curriculum. Ethics courses need to be more responsive to psychological factors and to the social realities of workplace contexts, and cognisant of a wider spectrum of ethical concepts. The perspective of virtue ethics remains pertinent, as the broader agenda of ethics courses is to enable students to develop a personal ethical outlook. But ethics courses should also be exploring and incorporating concepts from non-Western philosophies, and incorporating developments in fields such as leadership development.

The recent wave of protests on courts and fields all over the world has brought increased attention to the potential of sport to address social justice. Basketball in particular has been the subject of both celebration and outrage. Building off the theorizing of sport as a contested space, we examine the work of three artists/artist collectives; Abigail Smithson, Maria Molteni and New Craft Artists in Action, and Noah Cohan and John Early of Whereas Hoops, who have all directly engaged with the basketball court as a site filled with cultural meaning and struggle. All three of the respective bodies of work were developed in the past 10 years and emerge from the heightened social and racial tension of the time, as well as the increasingly apparent link between sports, politics, and race within our larger society. Examining the work reveals the importance of the basketball court as a site simultaneously of celebration, play, surveillance, policing, community, history, cultural exchange, and racialization. We explore the potential for artists to engage with and transform sport spaces through an edited group interview, giving the artists the chance to reflect on their practices as well as the limitations of working as an activist and artist in the realm of sports in their own words. Through conversation, the chapter focuses not just on finished pieces of art but also on the process of making the work in the ever familiar and culturally rich environment of the basketball court.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the interplay between fathers’ perceptions of the workplace and how they enact fatherhood. Data were derived from qualitative in-depth interviews with seven elite, professional fathers employed at multinational manufacturing corporations in Detroit, Michigan. Fathers are highly educated, have a significant income and all but one have wives in the paid labour market. This study shows how the persistence of the ideal worker norm and penalties for using work-family policies (WFP) perpetuate the gendered division of paid and unpaid work. First, fathers who are ideal workers are rewarded; fathers who do not face criticism and obstacles to promotions. Second, management and supervisor’s discretion results in uneven access to WFP, penalizing fathers for asking and preventing most from using them. Third, fathers express desire to be ‘involved’, but their engagement is largely visible fatherhood.

This study extends our theoretical understandings of work, WFP and fatherhood from a distinct departure point – the elite fathers highlighted here have been parenting for at least three years, and live and work in circumstances that seemingly would allow them to disrupt normative expectations of work and family. The United States provides a unique backdrop to examine the navigation of competing work and family demands because reconciliation is largely left to employees and their families. Public and individual company policies are not enough; there must be a corresponding supportive family-friendly culture – supervisor support and penalty-free WFP – to disrupt gendered work and family.

This chapter documents an innovative pedagogical application of a service-learning oriented approach, pioneered by academics at a University in the North of England (UNEUK). Referred to as directed experiential learning, the core ethos of this approach connected forms of close-to-practice research, critical reflection, and community engagement and as such brought about a radical reworking of the final year of study for an existing undergraduate program – a BA (Hons) Education Studies. Responding to a broadening professional context within UK schools, this program prepared nascent professional educators and through their studies, invited them to engage in university–community partnerships where their learning and contributions to practice were inextricably conjoined.

Policy entrepreneurs often experience thorny dilemmas, finding themselves between the “rock and a hard place” or, as the Italian equivalent idiom would have it, between the “hammer and the anvil.” Crisis and the associated problems that arise often bring changes in politics and policy in its wake, and this begs the question of what are the resources and assets required to operate successfully as a place-based public policy entrepreneur. The role of policy entrepreneurs has been studied over many years with one of the most influential theories being the multiple streams approach (MSA) originally devised in the 1980s which sought to counter perceptions of the random or “garbage can” nature of policymaking and implementation. MSA describes a more rational process where policy entrepreneurs shape “windows” of opportunity where streams of problem, policy, and politics are brought together to create innovative responses to situations in society. The authors explore these ideas through the lens of a longitudinal case study of Labor Market policy interventions (including the role of a personal budget system for education and training called “Dote”) in the Lombardy Region, Italy, using MSA as an analytical framework. This case suggests that the pressing need to move away from short-term structural responses to complex social issues is potentially addressed by an emerging approach for the parallel deployment of sociotechnical platform infrastructure resources and superstructure. Adoption of the approaches outlined here afford streaming opportunities on which policy entrepreneurs can dynamically bring the multiple streams of problem–policy–politics together across political cycles in a more persistent and sustainable way.

Purpose – This chapter examines the interactions among wholesale betel nut traders within Papua New Guinea’s (PNG’s) flourishing, contemporary, and indigenous betel nut trade. It explores the nature of the “social embeddedness” of the trade and how particular “place-based” practices and ideas shape people’s engagements with markets.Methodology/approach – Multisited ethnographic research focused on betel nut traders.Findings – This chapter highlights how local ideas about sociality and exchange shape the copresent rivalry and companionship that characterize interactions among Mt. Hagen’s betel nut traders. Traders travel long distances and take great risks to buy betel nut. They travel together, share resources, and trade in the same places, and through this they become part of one another’s social networks. This creates the expectation that traders will cooperate, consider other traders in their actions, contribute to each other’s safe-keeping, and act collectively in their interactions with producers. This does not preclude competition, however. Traders compete for profits, but the competiveness of their interactions is also influenced by a concern for status. This copresence of companionship and rivalry, which pervades Hagen sociality more broadly, is central to shaping the trade as a whole.Originality/value of the chapter – Betel nut is the most important domestic cash crop in PNG, and selling betel nut is a prominent livelihood activity for rural and urban people. This chapter reports some of the findings of the first detailed study of the betel nut trade in PNG.