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Research has shown that pre-service and in-service teachers who exhibit science anxiety are less likely to teach it effectively. It is therefore critical to gauge the science anxiety levels of student teachers early while there are still possibilities, perhaps, to prevent serious issues occurring later on as a result. This study takes place in the United Arab Emirates, where Emirati science teachers are already in the vast minority. Since this is the case and teacher attrition rates are high, it is important to offer as much support to student teachers as possible. We surveyed 113 student elementary school teachers to explore their science anxiety levels. Whilst some studies have shown that science anxiety can decrease as students take science content courses, thereby theoretically gaining confidence in science knowledge, this effect was not observed in our study except for a few aspects and only in those who had studied in the ‘science track’ at school. We also found that students educated in arts tracks in high schools had significantly higher science anxiety levels compared with those who followed science tracks.

و ةمدخلا لبق ام يملعم نأ ثوحبلا ترهظأ دق نورهظي نيذلا و ةمدخلا يف نيملعملا نم ً اقلق مولعلا ةدام مه ميلعتل ًﻻامتحإ لقأ قلقلا تايوتسم سايق ةيمهﻷا نمف كلذلو .ةيلاعفب مولعلا ةدام نم مولعلا ةدام ﻻ نيح يف ركبم تقو يف ةمدخلا لبق ام يملعمل ي مبر لامتحا كانه لاز ةيبرعلا تارامﻹا ةلود يف ةساردلا هذه يرجتو .كلذل ةجيتن قحﻻ تقو يف لكاشم يأ ثودح عنمل ا ميدقت مهملا نمف ،ةعفترم نيملعملا صقانت تﻻدعمو لاحلا وه اذه نأ امبو .ةيلقأ مه نييتارامﻹا مولعلا يملعم ثيح ،ةدحتملا مب انمق .ةمدخلا لبق ام يملعمل معدلا نم نكمم ردق ربكأ ﺢس 113 نم مهقلق تايوتسم فاشكتسﻻ ةمدخلا لبق ام يملعم نم مولعلا ةدام قلقلا نأ تاساردلا ضعب ترهظأ نيح يف . نم مولعلا ةدام ضفخني نأ نكمي ىوتحملا تاقاسم ةبلطلاا لامكتسا عم ُي مل ،ةيملعلا ةفرعملا يف ةقثلا باستكا يلاتلابو ،يملعلا َحﻼ ساب انتسارد يف ريثأتلا اذه ظ نيذلا كئلوﻷ طقفو بناوجلا ضعب ءانثت يف ةيبدﻷا و ةينفلا تاراسملا اوذختا نيذلا ةمدخلا لبق ام يملعم نأ اضيأ اندجوو .ةسردملا يف ةيملعلا تاراسملا اوذختا قلقلا تايوتسم مهيدل ناك ةيوناثلا سرادملا نم مولعلا ةدام .ةيملعلا تاراسملا اوعبتا نيذلا كئلوأ نم ريثكب ىلعأ

Within any vocational university degree, a placement in a workplace normally forms an integral part of developing professional skills and provides an opportunity for students to put into practice theoretical knowledge they have acquired through academic courses. For student mothers, keeping up with their studies whilst juggling their domestic responsibilities can become even more challenging than usual during work placements. This paper aims to document the narratives of ten student mothers who have been carrying out workplace internships in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

This paper uses qualitative methodology to explore, by interview, the experiences of student mothers undertaking a 12-week teaching internship during their final degree year. The study aimed to document the factors which have allowed the students to successfully complete their internships, as well as their comparative thoughts on the differences between college and workplace settings. An additional aim was to find out the student mothers’ own suggestions and advice to institutions, and to others in their situations, to optimize support and preparation prior to work placements.

It was found that while the student mothers experienced stresses such as arranging childcare, coping with different commutes and working schedule patterns, peers and school mentor teachers were an enormous source of support and empathy for the students. Supportive school mentors often influenced the students’ outcomes. Personal emotional reserves and intrinsic motivation were also key to success. Ways in which student mothers can be supported and retained by both workplaces and educational institutions are discussed.

The study of student mothers is unique both in its geographical context and in that the study looks specifically at both how they cope with the challenges of the workplace and how this is experienced differently to their normal lives at university.

The purpose of this research is to explore the effect of internship experience on final-year pre-service teachers (PSTs) studying for a Bachelor of Education in Abu Dhabi. The UAE is undergoing a period of rapid education reform with a strong emphasis on use of student-centered learning strategies in the classroom. Teacher-training colleges, such as the one in which this research took place, have had to customize their programs to prepare and train teachers who can effectively implement this new approach.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten PSTs to explore the usefulness of the college science courses during their internship experience, and the challenges they faced during their internship. We also looked at how these experiences have influenced their confidence levels and the type of science teachers they want to be in the future.

Results have shown that PSTs have variable opinions on the usefulness of the college courses. A perceived lack of emphasis placed by mentor teachers upon science may have long-term effects on the PSTs’ eventual use of teaching strategies. It was also shown that some of the PSTs still lacked confidence in science teaching.

This research may provide national guidelines for teacher-training colleges in the UAE or in countries undergoing educational reform and moving towards student-centered approaches to learning.

Research studies on the effect of internship on PSTs have been conducted in different countries but such studies have great novelty in the UAE.

The purpose was to find out the experiences of student mothers on internships and assess how best to make the process go as well as possible.

The author interviewed student mothers in the UAE enrolled on full-time four-year degree courses. The 12-week internships in local schools were part of their final year and had just been completed. The interviews lasted 30 minutes and were transcribed, then analysed for common themes.

The biggest factor in a successful experience was time management, which allowed mothers to balance work and home life demands. All 10 students found work placements to be more challenging than college life because of the less relaxed atmosphere, greater accountability and lack of familiarity. The study also highlighted the importance of both mentoring and peer support.

The research was important because successful internships improve retention rates. In the UAE, especially, national teachers are highly sought after for their similar cultural backgrounds, religious understanding and ability to role-model bilingualism.

Of all the major, global professional sports where women have made inroads, striving toward equality in terms of status, earnings and media attention, tennis stands at the forefront. This chapter traces this historical development, outlining the sport's earliest socio-cultural features that afforded the inclusion of female players and charting the progress of notable women who thrust tennis into the limelight and turned themselves into commodities – the essence of professionalisation. Suzanne Lenglen blazed the trail by becoming, in 1926, the principal attraction in the sport's inaugural professional tour. Female players were encouraged to cast aside the shackles of restrained femininity and chart their own courses in a sport still dominated by men and played according to male standards. The rise of ‘Open Tennis’ in 1968 removed the playing restrictions and stigma of professionalism, but by opening up to the male-dominated corporate world, unsurprisingly it was the male players who initially competed for the lion's share of new money. Billie Jean King's efforts to galvanise her fellow female professionals to compete on a rogue tour sponsored by Virginia Slims left them ousted by the sport's main officials, but the tour's commercial success propelled them toward equality in terms of prize money and status. Still more or less a white, middle-class-dominated pursuit, the arrival of Venus and Serena Williams in the late 1990s turned tennis toward new markets, and the sport's significance for women remains apparent in the fact that its leading players are the most recognisable and well-paid of all professional female athletes.

Fair trade has made paying producers in poorer countries a “just” price one of its central aims, with the issue constantly in its public communiqués, from the print media to social networking sites. As most research has looked at fair trade in the South, where small producers and craft makers live, discussions of the fair price have centered on whether the wholesale prices paid to them are alleviating poverty. However, circumscribing the issue of the fair price only to its impact in the South impedes our understanding of how fair trade operates in the North, on which the system relies for its existence. Looking at fair trade from a Northern perspective, this paper sees the fair price as a partial illustration of the social processes that characterize reflexive modernity, particularly the ethical dilemmas that surround the composition of prices. But rather than focusing exclusively on activist discourse, the paper uses practice theory to build a more nuanced picture of the diverse beliefs and behaviors that the fair price is entangled with. Drawing on ethnography with people who consume and sell fair trade in the Italian city of Palermo, the paper shows how understanding what a fair price is appears to be an enigma that conceals different aspects of the fair trade network. Specifically, it reveals that the fair price is not a single but a double entity, comprising the wholesale price paid to producers, where “political” emphasis usually lies, and the fair retail price, an entity discussed far less often.

This paper aims to examine the impact of human and social capital of CEOs of internationally active small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Czech Republic on their firms’ approach to technological innovation.

The study sample was drawn from data collected from the population of Czech manufacturing firms. The final sample included 153 SMEs that met the criteria for inclusion in the study. The authors employed robust regression analysis to test their specific hypotheses.

This study found that human capital (in the form of CEOs’ professional background and foreign customer knowledge) and social capital (conceptualized as embeddedness in the international markets) of CEOs in the Czech Republic impacted their firms’ approach to technological innovation. Specifically, firms headed by CEOs with professional background in output functions (R&D and marketing) are more likely to invest in technological innovation. The same was found true for firms led by CEOs who possessed a strong knowledge of international customers and were socially embedded in international markets.

This study makes a twofold contribution to the extant literature. First, it develops and tests the theoretical link between human and social capital and technological innovation among internationally active firms. Second, it highlights factors that positively influence technological innovation in the context of a small Central European economy, a setting that has been generally viewed as unfavorable to such innovation.