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This chapter focuses on the school placement element of Initial Teacher Education provision. It opens with an examination of a range of issues characterising research and writing about placement at global level before considering the vernacular nuances of the Scottish context. The chapter then turns to the problematic matter of quality in teaching practice and argues against reifying school placement as something that exists separate or apart from the student teachers who participate in it. It challenges simplistic analyses of the quality of the placement in terms of external provision through supportive mentoring relationships within a welcoming organisational culture. Drawing on data from the author's recent research, the relational nature of the school placement is emphasised and an argument promoted that individual student teachers make significant contributions to the nature of the support they experience on placement. Implications for further research are considered in the conclusion.

We analyze how institutional persistence unfolds. Building on an historical analysis of 3,307 bottle labels in the Bordeaux wine community, France, between 1924 and 2005, we find that the persistence of a chateau tradition requires considerable effort at maintenance. Instead of greater compression and taken-for-grantedness, we propose that expansion along multimodal carriers provides a marker of a deepening institutionalization. We underscore the role of community organizations in enabling a wine tradition to persist. The implications of our findings for institutional theory and multimodality research are discussed.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate that, contrary to prevailing opinion in the social sciences, people are not driven by pure selfishness. Behavioral studies demonstrate that human beings have an inherent sense of fairness in the sharing of resources. What this should mean to leaders when distributing wealth will be discussed.

Approach – Anthropological and archaeological work indicates how this sense of fairness evolved and how the expectation of fair play provides a model of government that will work not only for the people but also for the leaders. It also demonstrates what happens when the model is not followed.

Findings – Recent events in the Middle East demonstrate how not following the model results in revolution and several examples are briefly discussed. The current situation in Russia is also discussed as another volatile hotspot. Finally, a worldview is taken arguing that corporate manipulation of governments has resulted in a global situation that does not take into account the underlying human sense of fair play, and, therefore, is setting up a worldwide situation for revolutions.

Value – Evolved human behavior has been overlooked by classical economics and social science theory. However, looking at the recent revolutions and current world economic situation from this behaviorist point of view provides a means of solving the situation.

This paper investigates why mothers are losing to fathers in contested child custody battles that have occurred between 1980 and 2003. It employs quantitative, qualitative, and contextual strategies to understand the complex set of forces involved. The findings suggest that single mothers and children are increasingly trapped in a war zone between cost conscious policymakers ideologically opposed to the welfare state, angry fathers shouldering the burden of a shift from public to private transfers of funding in the form of child support, religious zealots intent on turning back the clock to a mythical patriarchal Eden, and the legal doctrine of gender neutrality reflecting these political forces.

Laurel Richardson's academic autobiography from preschool to Professor Emerita.