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The purpose of this paper is to provide concrete examples of what leadership behaviors and strategies look like in high-poverty urban schools in Chicago that are successful at improving student outcomes. The authors compared the strategies used by principals who were rated by their teachers on annual surveys as being strong instructional leaders but had varying success in improving student outcomes for comparison.

This paper is part of a larger mixed-methods study exploring the link between leadership and student learning. For the qualitative portion of the study, the authors utilized a contrasting case study design (Merriam, 1998) to distinguish leadership practices in schools with improvements in student achievement from practices in schools with stagnating or declining student achievement. The authors conducted case studies in a total of 12 schools–6 schools with improving student achievement and 6 schools with stagnating or declining student achievement. For brevity, the authors chose 4 schools to highlight in this manuscript that best illustrate the findings found across the full sample of 12 schools. The authors coded each interview using both inductive and deductive coding techniques.

The study findings indicate that there are subtle but important differences between the strategies principals in improving and contrast schools use to lead school improvement efforts. Principals in improving schools were able to create learning environments where staff were open to new ideas and work together towards goals. Principals in improving schools were also more likely to create structures that facilitated organizational learning than principals in contrast schools.

This study is unique because the authors provide concrete examples of what principals do in their schools to help create strong learning climates that foster organizational learning and improvement. The authors also identify differences in leader practices and structures in schools that are having a harder time making improvements for comparison. The study findings can be used by principals and other educators to better understand which of their various efforts may result in stronger school cultures conducive to organizational learning as outlined in Louis' and colleagues' work.

Purpose – This study focuses on seventh grade teachers’ constructions of students’ civic awareness as they planned for and enacted a civic engagement project with urban youth of color.Approach – Drawing on critical and interpretive paradigms, I analyze the teachers’ dialogues during colloquia on youth civic engagement and their pedagogy as observed in the classroom.Findings – At the start of the project, the teachers hoped to involve students in critical thought and action on a local social problem. Yet, they doubted the depth of students’ knowledge about injustices in their neighborhood. As the students shared their thoughts about budget cuts affecting a local park, the teachers expanded their constructs of the students’ civic knowledge.Value – The paper argues that teachers’ views of student knowledge are malleable and in the context of a learner-centered curriculum, they can position students as aware activists.

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of assisted desistance from the perspective of women involved in the criminal justice system. It focusses on two community projects set up in the aftermath of the 2007 Corston Report, Northshire Women’s Centres (WCs) and the Housing for Northshire project.

Through analysis of a year of observation in these settings and 23 narrative interviews with staff and service users, the paper notes the differences between risk-focussed and desistance-focussed justice for women.

Neither projects are a panacea; however, they offer an insight into desistance-focussed practice. The findings would suggest that the projects provide social justice as opposed to criminal justice, particularly because of their flexible approach and awareness of the relational elements involved in female desistance.

The in-depth, qualitative data provided challenges the “payment by results” rhetoric which demands positivist research that promotes an understanding of desistance as a binary outcome. Implications for policy are considered.

When scientific information is unclear about the health benefits of foods, people choose to react in different ways. Using a posttest-only control group design, the authors tested how balanced and nonfactual information available on YouTube influences public perception of organic foods.

The authors randomly assigned participants (N = 640) from a southern US land grant university to watch one video: balanced news, nonfactual news, or control. All participants indicated changes in perception about organic foods immediately after the video. The authors analyzed the data using one-way and two-way ANOVA.

The nonfactual news video had the most influence on public perception of organic foods. Results confirmed that the effect of nonfactual information was more for individuals with preexisting beliefs consistent with the message communicated and individuals exposed to average to high levels of health and diet news.

The authors recommend regulatory changes in marketing strategies related to organic foods in the US that encourage balanced information about organic foods rather than promoting credence attributes of organic foods using persuasive information.

The authors findings suggest that, when scientific information about the health benefits of foods is unclear, communication activities should aim to increase healthy skepticism considering the audience's preexisting beliefs and frequency of health and diet news exposure.

While some libraries have done their best over the years to inform the public as to what they are doing and can do as regards helping readers, others seem to move along without making any special effort to publicise their facilities. In the old days modesty was a virtue, but now it is its own reward. Government departments, which used to shun the limelight, now employ public relations officers in large numbers, and professional bodies and big business houses constantly seek publicity. Times have changed, and the battle is to the strong; and it is unfortunately generally felt that the institution or service that does not speak for itself has little to speak about. It may frankly be said that if a service is in a position to enlarge its sphere of influence and esteem it should do so to the utmost of its endeavour. But it will be granted that if its publicity is not justified by performance, there will likely be an unhappy reaction.

Chester Whitney Wright (1879–1966) received his A.B. in 1901, A.M. in 1902 and Ph.D. in 1906, all from Harvard University. After teaching at Cornell University during 1906–1907, he taught at the University of Chicago from 1907 to 1944. Wright was the author of Economic History of the United States (1941, 1949); editor of Economic Problems of War and Its Aftermath (1942), to which he contributed a chapter on economic lessons from previous wars, and other chapters were authored by John U. Nef (war and the early industrial revolution) and by Frank H. Knight (the war and the crisis of individualism); and co-editor of Materials for the Study of Elementary Economics (1913). Wright’s Wool-Growing and the Tariff received the David Ames Wells Prize for 1907–1908, and was volume 5 in the Harvard Economic Studies. I am indebted to Holly Flynn for assistance in preparing Wright’s biography and in tracking down incomplete references; to Marianne Johnson in preparing many tables and charts; and to F. Taylor Ostrander, as usual, for help in transcribing and proofreading.

The chapter intervenes in the debate among scholars of legal impact about the extent to which law can change society. Reformers, aims are frustrated when targets of law respond with resistance to court decisions, especially where mechanisms to enforce case law are weak (Hall, 2010; Klarman, 2006; Rosenberg, 1991). Even when law’s targets abide by a law, however, other important studies have demonstrated that organizations can leverage ambiguous language to craft policies in compliance that further their aims (Barnes & Burke, 2006; Edelman, 2016; Lipson, 2001). This chapter examines a case in which a state constitutional provision banning affirmative action was written in relatively unambiguous language and one of its targets announced its intention to comply. Through extensive interviews with University officials, this chapter examines the University of Michigan’s use of financial, technological, and political resources to follow the language of the law while still blunting its impact. These findings suggest that to understand law’s impact on society, we need to reconceive compliance and not only take the clarity of the law and its enforcement mechanisms into account but also attend to the goals, resources, and practices of the groups it targets.

Feminist legal activists in law schools developed what we call critical community tactics beginning in the late 1960s to bring about important cultural change in the legal educational arena. These feminist activists challenged the male-dominant culture and succeeded in making law schools and legal scholarship more gender inclusive. Here, we develop the critical community tactics concept and show how these tactics produce cultural products which ultimately, as they are integrated into the broader culture, change the cultural landscape. Our work then is a study of how social movement activists can bring about cultural change. The feminist legal activists’ cultural products and the integration of them into the legal academy provide evidence of feminist legal activist success in shifting the legal institutional culture. We conclude that critical community tactics provide an important means for social movement activists to bring about cultural change, and scholars examining social movement efforts in other institutional settings may benefit from considering the role of critical community tactics.