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In decades since the Rio Summit, freshwater has become an increasingly prominent issue in the global arena and attention has turned to the role of the corporate sector. Various (predominantly voluntary) corporate water accounting standards currently exist, from water-related components in wide-ranging sustainability standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative through to standards specifically focused on water and/or a particular industry. While academic research on adoption of these standards is sparse, initial findings reveal generally poor water reporting in terms of both quality and quantity. In future, the major areas where reporting (and standards) could be improved are the provision of site-level water information and the assessment of water risk throughout the supply chain.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

This paper begins by framing the concept of historical agency as a complex relationship between structural forces and individual actions. We then describe general features of historical fiction and consider ways of using this type of text in classrooms. Using the concept of historical agency, we examine three historical fiction texts for upper elementary or middle level readers (Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Fighting Ground, and Dragon's Gate). The analysis reveals the similarities and differences in the ways the authors construct historical agency. The paper concludes with a set of four key questions that teachers and students can apply to historical fiction to help students refigure the ways in which they construct knowledge about the past.

Anna Julia Cooper and Septima Poinsette Clark were two prominent late 19th- and early 20th-century educators. Cooper and Clark taught African American students in federally sanctioned, segregated schools in the South. Drawing on womanist thought as a theoretical lens, this chapter argues that Cooper and Clark’s intellectual thoughts on race, racism, education, and pedagogy informed their teaching practices. Influenced by their socio-cultural, historical, familial, and education, they implemented antioppressionist pedagogical practices as a way to empower their students and address the educational inequalities their students were subjected to in a highly racialized, violent, and repressive social order. Historical African American women educators’ social critiques on race and racism are rarely examined, particularly as they pertain to how their critiques influence their teaching practices. Cooper and Clark’s critiques about race and racism are pertinent to the story of education and racial empowerment during the Jim Crow era.

This article examines the ways in which the authors of a text set of children’s literature constructed the United States government’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Analysis of this text set reveals the ways agency is mostly absent, displaced, or obscured through the grammatical devices of nominalization and passivization. Nominalization refers to an author’s use of verbs as nouns, and passivization refers to an author’s use of passive verbs without the presence of agents. To support teachers and students toward investigations of how authors use nominalization and passivization to construct historical events in different ways, five guiding questions about agency are presented. Grappling with these kinds of questions can engender critical reading practices of which readers can more actively enact their own agency as readers of history and as citizens in a democracy.

This chapter provides a contemporary view of state-of-the science research and thinking done in the areas of selection and classification. It takes as a starting point the observation that the world of work is undergoing important changes that are likely to result in different occupational and organizational structures. In this context, we review recent research on criteria, especially models of job performance, followed by sections on predictors, including ability, personality, vocational interests, biodata, and situational judgment tests. The paper also discusses person-organization fit models, as alternatives or complements to the traditional person-job fit paradigm.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the use of commercial‐in‐confidence arrangements within the public sector allows the deliberate manipulation of accounting figures to generate support for the privatisation agenda.

A case study is presented of an Australian power entity, United Energy, where the privatisation was subject to commercial‐in‐confidence restrictions and differing opinions as to the accuracy of the entity's financial accounts during the privatisation process. It examines many of the key “commercial‐in‐confidence” documents, which are now available through parliamentary and official document sources, together with pre‐ and post‐privatisation financial statements.

The accounting figures were shaped to support a privatisation agenda and this was obscured by the commercial‐in‐confidence provision. Some attempts were made to use accounting arrangements to reduce federal taxes but this failed. A substantial element of the reported sale price represented internal transfers between the state‐owned entity and the government with the actual price paid by the purchaser being substantially lower than the reported price. The price paid was based on the financial statements which were openly challenged by the Auditor‐General. The paper strongly supports the contention that manipulation of accounting figures occurs under commercial‐in‐confidence privatisations.

This was limited to one example at one time. Further work is needed on other settings.

The paper challenges the success claimed for the privatisation process and for the social benefits of privatisation by tender.

There was little evidence of a substantial improvement in financial performance following privatisation or that the pre‐privatisation performance was substantially boosted to support the privatisation agenda. It did show that the accounting served political ends.

This article reports the outcomes of a study on communication support, commissioned to develop a borough‐wide strategy in 2003 by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.The research stems from a recognition of communication as a key to successful delivery of public services and enhancement of a multicultural community.The focus is on ‘communication’ (rather than ‘language’), since it captures issues beyond the exchange of information through words: interpersonal interactions and relationships, techniques and modes of organising information exchange. Language is a key component within the broad ambit of communication mechanism and skills. Hence interpretation and translation are perceived as models of communications support alongside advocacy, integrated team, multilingual professional team, family/friends and minors, supported language, symbols and signs, and Plain English.While engaging in the debate and highlighting some of the broader issues concerning communication support services, the focus is on the following main issues:• policy frameworks and guiding principles in communication support• methods and techniques for needs assessment, monitoring and evaluation of communication support• communication support provision in Tower Hamlets including quantifying need, actual state of provision and users' perceptions.Probably among the first of its kind, the strategy draws on existing knowledge and good practice to develop a common framework for public services in Tower Hamlets. It is believed that it will serve a pioneering role in co‐ordinated existing and developing coherent approaches to communication support.