Search results

Purpose – This chapter outlines a six-week graduate level writing practicum that fosters collaboration among teachers, elementary school writers, and families.

Design – Through the voices of teachers, students, and families, the authors describe a newly developed writing practicum where teachers engage in the writing process to build communities of writers and develop partnerships with families.

Practical implications – Teacher educators can use the practices presented in this chapter as a springboard to create their own school-based writing practicum.

Originality/value – This approach to teacher education values communities of writers and family partnerships to build on student writers’ strengths and interests.

The purpose of this study was to determine the requirements and guidelines for the disclosure of taxation information in the financial reports of South African companies in order to determine the extent to which leading South African companies comply with these requirements and guidelines. It was determined that there are comprehensive requirements and guidelines in respect of the disclosure of taxation information in the financial reports of South African companies. These requirements and guidelines are regulated by the Companies Act, No. 61 of 1973, as well as the statements of Generally Accepted Accounting Practice that are issued by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants. The analyses undertaken of the financial statements of the selected companies indicate that leading companies in South Africa comply to a large extent with the requirements and guidelines for the disclosure of taxation information in financial reports.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of vocational education for girls, focusing on how curriculum and pedagogy developed to accommodate changing expectations of the role of women in the workplace and the home in mid-twentieth century Australia. As well as describing how pedagogical changes were implemented through curriculum, it examines the way a modern approach to girls’ education was reflected in the built environment of the school site and through its interactions with its changing community.

The paper takes a case study approach, focusing on the example of the J.H. Boyd Domestic College which functioned as a single-sex school for girls from 1932 until its closure in 1985. Oral history testimony, private archives, photographs and government school records provide the material from which an understanding of the school is reconstructed.

This detailed examination of the history of J.H. Boyd Domestic College highlights the highly integrated nature of the school's environment with the surrounding community, which strengthened links between the girls and their community. It also demonstrates how important the school's buildings and facilities were to contemporary ideas about the teaching of girls in a vocational setting.

This is the first history of J.H. Boyd Domestic College to examine the intersections of gendered, classed ideas about pedagogy with ideas about the appropriate built environment for the teaching of domestic science. The contextualized approach sheds new light on domestic science education in Victoria and the unusually high quality of the learning spaces available for girls’ education.

Purpose: This study explored technology-mediated abuse (TMA) by looking at the influence of topic exposure via education (in/formal), media (non/fictional), and personal experiences (self/close others) in shaping public knowledge, understandings, and perceptions of TMA.

Methodology: Community-sampled respondents (N = 551; n = 235 men, 263 women; aged 18–81 years, M = 27.42, SD = 12.31) reported their TMA awareness and topic exposure (n = 110; 20% of the total sample indicated prior exposure).

Findings: Results indicated TMA knowledge, understanding, and perceptions varied by prior sources of topic exposure. This suggests that TMA is a crime varying in public awareness and perceived repercussions.

Research limitations: Open-ended responses, although ideal for exploratory studies such as this one, limit the scope and power of quantitative analyses. Future work should test the current study’s conclusions in a generalizable, random sample via closed-item surveys.

Originality/value: Present findings elucidate which societal forces and education types are best suited for helping people understand TMA in all its complexity. Such understanding allows for practical considerations of the comparative in/effectiveness of formal curriculum and media in shaping cognitions regarding TMA victimization.

Over the past two decades, technology-facilitated communication between brand and consumer has become common. One way in which technology can be used to build brand relationships in the online environment is by using brand avatars. This study considers social aspects of brand avatar communication, with the aim of determining if including an element of “socialness” adds to the impact of the brand avatar.

Specifically, the authors test three outcome variables core to building strong consumer relationships through experimental design comparing an avatar's communication style (transactional vs social) while considering the potential covariate of motivational orientation.

Overall, multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) results indicate that social functions provided by the brand avatar are more likely to facilitate the consumer–brand relationship (CBR) process than transactional functions. This study provides managerial support for using an avatar with social communication capabilities.

As social interaction becomes more expected by consumers in the current media landscape, understanding how to meet those demands on a large scale, through brand avatars, is valuable.

Online retailing is continuing to grow at a time with many fashion brands are closing retail stores. Social media is now an essential component within the purchase journey of a fashion consumer. As social media networks continue to develop transactional capabilities, this has giving rise to the expansion of social shopping. Fashion brands need to consider how best to optimise social shopping opportunities as an extension of the retail shopping experience. Reviewing developments within retailing, a conceptual model of social shopping is proposed, which places mobile technologies as central to the social shopping experience both on social media and in store.

Soil quality is in decline in many parts of the world, in part due to the intensification of agricultural practices. Whilst economic instruments and regulations can help incentivise uptake of more sustainable soil management practices, they rarely motivate long-term behavior change when used alone. There has been increasing attention towards the complex social factors that affect uptake of sustainable soil management practices. To understand why some communities try these practices whilst others do not, we undertook a narrative review to understand how social capital influences adoption in developed nations. We found that the four components of social capital – trust, norms, connectedness and power – can all influence the decision of farmers to change their soil management. Specifically, information flows more effectively across trusted, diverse networks where social norms exist to encourage innovation. Uptake is more limited in homogenous, close-knit farming communities that do not have many links with non-farmers and where there is a strong social norm to adhere to the status quo. Power can enhance or inhibit uptake depending on its characteristics. Future research, policy and practice should consider whether a lack of social capital could hinder uptake of new practices and, if so, which aspects of social capital could be developed to increase adoption of sustainable soil management practices. Enabling diverse, collaborative groups (including farmers, advisers and government officials) to work constructively together could help build social capital, where they can co-define, -develop and -enact measures to sustainably manage soils.