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The scale and nature of acknowledgement behaviour was investigated in four academic disciplines: history, philosophy, psychology and sociology. Data were derived from four high‐ranking scholarly journals over a twenty‐year period. More than 5,600 acknowledgements were classified using a six‐part typology. Cross‐disciplinary similarities and differences were observed. Populations of highly acknowledged individuals were identified for each discipline. The frequency distributions of acknowledgements exhibited high levels of concentration. Authors' acknowledgement behaviours were highly consistent.

Personal acknowledgements are commonplace in the scholarly communication process. The scale and significance of the phenomenon vary from field to field, and from journal to journal. Variation in practice is revealed in a twenty‐year analysis of acknowledgements in four of the top‐ranked information/library science journals (1971–1990). A small number of individuals are highly acknowledged; a majority are mentioned infrequently, if ever. The concentration is similar to that found in citation analyses of research productivity. There is a positive rank order correlation between frequency of acknowledgement and citation frequency. The implications for both institutional and individual evaluation are discussed.

Describes the fate of 101 manuscripts rejected by the Journal of Documentation during the years 1981–1989. More than a quarter were subsequently traced in the literature. The majority of re‐submitted articles appeared in journals with a lower impact factor. The limitations of the study and the methodology are acknowledged.

Women‘s studies has emerged as a recognised academic specialty in recent years. We explored the social structure of the field by analysing bibliometrically all scholarly articles (n = 1,302) and acknowledgements (n = 595) appearing in three pioneering journals over a twenty year period. We analysed authors (n = 1,504) and acknowledgees (n = 3,252) in terms of gender. We also conducted a content analysis of all editorial statements (n = 135) published by the three journals. Our results demonstrate the highly gendered nature of the field and the incompatibility of its publicly stated objectives.

A recurrent criticism of commercial citation indexes is their failure to cover citations found in monographic literature. There exists the possibility that citation‐based surveys of scholarly communication and influence which ignore references in monographs may produce partial results. The study examined the scholarly literature of sociology. Tens of thousands of references from monographs and leading academic journals were analysed. The relative rankings of authors who were highly cited in the monographic literature did not change in the journal literature of the same period. There is, however, only a small overlap between the most highly cited authors based on the journal sample and those based on the monograph sample. The lack of correlation suggests that there may be two distinct populations of highly cited authors.

This chapter briefly summaries research over the past four decades (and prior) associated with black men and mental health in the UK. The chapter also examines some responses to the research. This is because we unfortunately remain in a situation where black men in Britain are 17 times more likely than white counterparts to be diagnosed with a psychotic illness. Research into the mental health needs of black men has been conducted repeatedly in the UK, with each new generation hopeful for change. By briefly exploring some policies that have emerged to address this inequality, this chapter highlights the barriers to change.

Reports on a study designed to analyse the effectiveness of real and created spokespersons in advertisements. Compares male and female spokespersons′ effectiveness by audience gender. Concludes that celebrities can be used to gain attention and maintain sales, while created spokespersons′ effectiveness is in establishing a lifelong link with the product.

The purpose of this paper is to report on an exploratory study designed to illuminate the complexity of outsourcing extra-curricular activities (ECAs) in primary schools in a time of neoliberal influence and to examine the views of teaching professionals on the reasons, issues and considerations of outsourcing ECAs such as the dynamic relations between ECA coordinators and service providers, and between teachers and parents.

The qualitative research that informs this paper is conceptualized within the interpretive paradigm since it aims at understanding the thoughts of 20 teaching professionals including 16 teachers and four principals with regard to the outsourcing of ECRs in times of promoting other learning experiences in schools. This interpretive paradigm emphasizes naturalistic methods of inquiry.

Two major themes which demonstrated the driving forces for outsourcing educational activities as well as the dynamic relationship between teaching professionals and service providers arising in the process of outsourcing emerged from the interview data. This paper illustrates that the neoliberal impact on the implementation and quality of ECAs needs to be understood as a much more complicated process shaped by the local context.

A major limitation is the small number of samples in primary schools in this qualitative study. Another area of possible investigation is the noticeable extension of the study area to the sectors of kindergartens and secondary schools.

From management perspectives the finding carries the implication that outsourcing must be carefully planned have explicit goals and systematically implemented.

The finding enriches the understanding of how neoliberal thinking creeps into management of outsourcing ECAs in schools.

The study does not aim at generalization of the findings but it attempts to illuminate the phenomenon of outsourcing ECAs in primary schools in Hong Kong. To support the empirical findings of the present qualitative study, it is recommended that follow-up quantitative studies be conducted, with larger sample sizes and more diverse sample groups included in the population.

This chapter uses the pandemic crisis to explore the social processes that structure happiness and shape fantasies of living a happy life. Considered herein are issues of human potential, gendered and classed possibility and people's differing chances in cultivating a sense of satisfaction in ‘being happy’, despite living through COVID-19. Interviews with 40 Australian women living during lockdown restrictions with varying levels of social, cultural and economic capital are utilised to make sense of women's happiness. Vastly different avenues for achieving a happiness fantasy outside of drinking alcohol were possible for more privileged women than for those in middle and working classes. The classed differences in women's gendered roles in managing emotions (their own and other people's) and their chances to be happy are exemplified in how the changes to the structure of the day that resulted from COVID-19 restrictions did not devastate or cause stress (as we heard from working-class women) or need to be filtered or blocked out using alcohol in order to retain balanced emotions (as we heard from middle-class women) but rather provided an opportunity to celebrate the achievement of their happiness fantasy. We deduce that for those with less agency available to control their chances of living a happy life, prevailing COVID-19 discourse that places happiness within individual responsibility and focuses on personal resilience rather than tending to the conditions for flourishing, is problematic.