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The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the Stages of Change (SOC) model can be applied to working with offenders with learning disabilities (LD), and furthermore, to determine if it might be efficacious for this approach to be incorporated into a wider service model for this population.

This paper reports on the results of a consultation to a specialist forensic LD service in the South West of England. A two-pronged approach was taken to consult to the service in relation to the research questions. First, a comprehensive literature review was undertaken, and second, other forensic LD teams and experts in the field were consulted.

There is a dearth of research that has examined the application of the SOC model to working with offenders with LD, and as such, firm conclusions cannot be drawn as to its efficacy in this population. The evidence base for the SOC model in itself is lacking, and has been widely critiqued. However, there are currently no other evidence-based models for understanding motivation to change in offenders with LD.

There is a clear clinical need for more robust theory and research around motivation to change, which can then be applied to clinical work with offenders with LD.

There has been a historical narrative in offender rehabilitation that “nothing works” (Burrowes and Needs, 2009). As such, it is more important than ever for the evidence base to enhance the understanding of motivation to change in offending populations.

As in every state, rapid technological developments have affected the way California libraries deliver their services, and, in turn, have generated new relationships for them with private and public partners. The libraries of California were hit hard by a prolonged and severe recession, yet they could not afford to wait for better economic times before joining the technological revolution.

THE conference opened with the paper by Mr Woodward‐Nutt, which, together with the other papers, is summarized below. After the first session the conference luncheon was held, and the principal speakers were the Mayor of Southampton, Alderman R. E. Edmunds, who welcomed the conference to Southampton, and Sir Edward Boyle, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply, who referred to current concern about delays in fighter deliveries. He said that there had in the last year been setbacks, but the delays were due to difficulties of development rather than of production. The comparison which was often made of deliveries during the last war was not fair, because the aircraft in question had then been developed. The Spitfire took five years to develop, and this did not compare so unfavourably with the development of the Hunter, when the increase in complexity and the aerodynamic difficulties of the transonic region were considered. Flight trials were the only indication of many of these troubles, and modifications were necessary after the tests. It was for this reason that the Ministry had adopted the policy of ordering up to twenty development aircraft, with the intention that by the time the last one had been built it would be in a form suitable for the production version.

Economics and political philosophy tend to lead separate existences in separate university departments. This paper argues that there are gains to be had in the understanding of the teaching of economics if the intellectual divide between these disciplines is bridged. The history of economic thought owes its evolution in part to responses at particular points in time to the enduring questions of political philosophy. A more deep‐seated understanding of economics and of HET is therefore available if considered in conscious alliance with the history of political philosophy (HPP). In short, the argument of this paper ‐ which considers five dimensions of the interdependence of HET and HPP ‐ is the reverse of Scott Gordon’s conclusion that economists have little or nothing to learn from philosophers.

The purpose of this paper is to find out the main factors that influence wearing comfort and how they influence garment-wearing comfort.

Overall, 120 postures were extracted from the activities of daily life and work. Then, the numerical values of clothing pressure of these postures were measured using three-dimension virtual-reality technology. Finally, the data mining technology was applied to analyze the collected data.

The wearing comfort of pants is mainly influenced by four factors – waist-hip factor, knee-shank factor, crotch factor and thigh-calf factor – and their contributions account for 39.17, 16.4, 13.96 and 6.95 percent, respectively. Hip, waist, crotch and knee influence wearing comfort significantly, and the part below the knee and the part of back thigh have no obvious effect on wearing comfort. Furthermore, the wearing comfort is acceptable if the numerical clothing pressures are below 20 kPa at the parts of hip, waist and crotch and below 10 kPa at the parts of back thigh, knee and shank.

The paper demonstrates how different human body parts influence garment-wearing comfort. All of the results in this research facilitate pattern design of pants and quantitative evaluation of garment-wearing comfort.

Presents an analysis of the potential for continuous improvement planning teams to foster organizational learning and professional community in three school district teams. The findings of this three‐year study suggest that carefully orchestrated continuous improvement efforts can succeed in creating conditions responsive to the development of both learning and community. Organizational factors that influence development of both learning and community include: the development of leadership within and among faculty; ongoing focus on data‐driven decision making and the creation of venues for dense interpersonal dialogue related to issues of curriculum and instruction. The findings further suggest that the context of instruction and the work of instruction are important factors in sustaining learning and community.

Many innovations have taken place in the teaching‐learning strategies for organisational behaviour (OB), in the School of Management over the past 18 months. This paper describes the impetus for these changes (i.e. budget pressures) and the search for alternative teaching‐learning strategies suitable for organisational behaviour. It documents the journey of lecturers, part‐time staff and students who took part in this adventure. The change process involved a team of eight full‐time and ten part‐time staff members and over 800 students in a multicultural environment. During the first meeting, students had to negotiate their roles, desirable group norms and the gradations of penalties they would use if these ground rules were not adhered to. Each week the roles of facilitator, facilitator’s buddy, time‐keeper and scribe were rotated. Students learnt to work with “dominators”, “quiet members”, “social loafers”, “poor timekeepers”. Some learnt to confront conflict, others decided to ignore it. Student assignments included a creative learning log and a report describing in depth what they learnt themselves and working in groups and relating their experiences to models and theories of organisational behaviour.

Purpose – The purpose of the chapter is to introduce interviewing as an exploratory research approach for understanding the lived experiences of individuals and groups in sports and physical cultural contexts. The author draws on her own research with snowboarders to illustrate some of the standard and unique issues related to conducting interviews as part of ethnographic fieldwork.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter begins with a brief history of the development of qualitative interviews and their various uses in sport studies. The author then provides a description of her use of ‘postmodern-inspired’ interviews as part of a broader ethnographic study of snowboarding culture. Following this, she adopts an alternative representational approach to illustrate some of the practical, ethical, political and embodied issues for reflexive researchers working in the critical paradigm and conducting interviews in sport and physical cultural fields.

Findings – The chapter illustrates the value of a postmodern approach to interviewing that recognises the interview as more than textual, and gives greater consideration to the affective, sensuous, relational, embodied and socio-spatial dimensions of each interview event.

Research limitations/implications – The chapter examines the strengths and limitations of qualitative interviewing, with particular attention to the potential and perils of interviewing in the sports field.

Originality/value – The chapter provides a succinct introduction to the use of interviewing in sport and physical culture, and makes an innovative contribution by focusing on ethnographic interviews.