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We are the midst of accelerated change in the academic workforce. Academic roles, being a resilient mixture of research and education, are differentiating. An education-focused academic role, rather than one solely focused on disciplinary research, is gaining credibility and value. With the rise of the education-focused academic roles, questions are being raised about whether this new form of education-focused academic will continue to be overly represented by women in a new form of “women's work.” In the next decade, as academic roles continue to differentiate, care needs to be taken not to repeat the practice of the last 100 years which has seen gender bias continue. We will present four profiles of education-focused women academics, the snakes and ladders in their careers, and the strategies needed to ensure that women progress with equal recognition in these complex but exciting times.

While the university as an institution is a great success story, one hears the constant chatter of the crises in higher education usually associated with the organizational transformation of universities. Regardless of one’s normative assessment of these observations, the institutional success of the university has been accompanied by the emergence of universities as organizational actors. I reflect on how these changes could alter the university as an institution, using the Australian higher education sector as an example. In doing so, I explore how universities as organizational actors, in responding to the demands of their external environment, set in motion a series of changes that redefine highly institutionalized categories, and, in doing so, radically remake the university as an institution.

Occupational therapists working in mental health services in the UK are under increasing scrutiny to provide both clinically and cost-effective services. The profession has indicated that a stronger evidence base would help promote the unique contribution of occupational therapy when influencing service managers and government bodies. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT) and its Specialist Section – Mental Health carried out a survey to gauge recent research capacity among occupational therapists working in mental health services in the UK and to seek their views about how to further increase research capacity and partnerships.

Of the 145 participants approximately half had been involved in research in the past five years, and most had involved research partnerships. A number had successfully applied for funding and about half of the research carried out had been disseminated. The participants felt that methods to increase research capacity and partnerships should continue to include improving research leadership and networks; promoting research skills through formal studies and increasing research dissemination.

A variety of methods will continue to be required to expand the evidence base. RCOT and its Specialist Sections continue to have an important role developing research capacity and partnerships.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative academic effectiveness of vocational education in three countries with early tracking systems: Austria, Croatia, and Hungary.

The authors use an instrumental variables approach to estimate vocational education’s relative academic effectiveness in terms of achievement on an international test, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program of International Student Assessment (PISA), and two possible indicators of non-cognitive outcomes – self-efficacy in mathematics and intrinsic motivation in mathematics, both also available from the PISA student survey.

The results show few, if any, differences in student gains from attending the vocational track in secondary school as opposed to the academic track. Specifically, the results show that attending the vocational or academic track results in similar achievement gains in the tenth grade and generally similar gains in self-efficacy and motivation in mathematics.

The study is unique because in the three countries, the authors can use a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach based on school systems’ age entrance date rules to estimate the gain in test scores over an academic year and to compare the gain for students in the vocational and academic tracks. The results contradict almost all other studies by showing that in these countries student academic gains in vocational education are about the same as in the academic track.

The term intellectual disability is broad and encompassing. Regardless of the severity of a child’s intellectual disability, early education is important. This chapter discusses educational considerations of young learners with intellectual disability. Specially, the chapter focuses on academics, life skills, social skills and social development, and behavior. Instructional content and instructional strategies are shared for these areas considering young children, although particular attention in paid to preschool and early elementary age students.

The purpose of this paper is to apply critical legal analysis to laws, policies and reforms focused on special educational needs (SEN) and equality in England and to suggest a Neurodiversity spectrum statement.

The paper reviews current legal and policy initiatives in SEN, together with recent reforms in equality law.

While past and current policies may have laudable aims, tensions such as a lack of integration of education, health and social services have had prejudicial outcomes for children with SEN, their families/carers, and the professionals involved.

Legal reforms promise to remedy some problems, but must be underpinned by adequate resourcing, appeal procedures, and remedies which foster the enforcement of legal duties. Some resources for families with children with SEN are noted.

This article aims to investigate young people's opinions and attitudes towards companies' engagement and communication about corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The study employs a survey designed to uncover the underlying attitudes and values guiding young consumers' perception and evaluation of companies' engagement in and communication about CSR. The respondents are Danish students enrolled in eight different types of further or higher education.

The survey shows that consumers are interested in and expect more explicit CSR communication than currently assumed by corporations and academics alike. They favour communication that is personally relevant and factually based, and consumer scepticism is not as high as suggested by current literature. The findings reflect that the value system guiding CSR evaluation and perception is not based on moral aspects and social, society‐centred values. On the contrary, consumers' focus tends to be on competence and personal, self‐centred values, which has implications for the challenge of communicating CSR.

The findings provide new insights that can inform corporations in their planning and execution of CSR communication aimed at young consumers.

This paper provides empirical evidence that corporations communicating CSR should have a much more externally oriented and explicit approach focusing on competence and self‐centred values instead of on morality and society‐centred values. This will allow them to create a healthy balance between what they can offer and what consumers demand.