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Following education’s recent and abrupt reliance on technology-mediated pedagogies, the novel coronavirus pandemic has, in many instances, highlighted the unpreparedness of learning institutions worldwide to implement effective online instruction. While practical quality considerations include content delivery, teacher training, equipment provision, and networked infrastructure, the situated and enculturated means by which online language education occurs represents a learner-focused factor that language educators may inadvertently neglect as they struggle to accommodate an emerging digital frontier. With this issue in mind, this paper aims to contribute to quality assurance in digital foreign language instruction by providing a sociocultural interpretation of CALL as learners and instructors alike continue to struggle within the boundaries of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In focussing on learner equity, identity and interaction, the current conceptual paper draws attention to potential affective factors driving computer-assisted language learning (CALL) participation structures, providing sociological consideration of the potential impacts of digital language education and, in doing so, confront the deterministic notion that online language learning represents a general equaliser of hierarchical participation structures.

Although CALL’s dynamic nature does provide users with openings to revise linguistic, semiotic and social practices, a growing body of research contests the broad depiction of digital language learning as automatically strengthening learner equity and interaction. Euphoric visions of technology inexorably engendering positive outcomes thereby risk obscuring those sociocultural pressures that impact user identity and, thus, how diverse social actors interact within unfamiliar learning communities.

This conceptual study is among a select few that focusses on CALL quality assurance during COVID-induced online education.

This paper aims to examine housing need for older people and people with dementia, with reference to Scotland. This paper also examines policy responses and tensions arising from such need and looks critically at the evidence of care needs and what older people want in relation to later life conditions, including dementia.

Taking the Being Home: Housing and Dementia in Scotland report (2017) as a baseline descriptor, the authors have collated evidence from a range of sources to help them examine what has changed in terms of policy, practice and population ageing. Set against this backdrop, using desk-based analytical methods, the authors interrogate existing planning processes and systems in Scotland.

Scottish Spatial Planning has a policy blindness on the overwhelming evidence of the housing needs derived from an ageing population. Policy focus is geared towards the amount of housing supplied, rather than appropriate types of housing, leaving older people with little choice of suitable accommodation. A key area to improve is in establishing greater co-operation and policy synthesis between health, social, housing and planning functions. Broad policy ambition must be transferred into detailed reality for older people and people with dementia to benefit.

The integrated approach and in-depth analysis, linked to planning policy and housing need, is highly original and much needed.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a contemporary review of the research on racial disparities in police decision making.

State of the art literature review.

The findings are mixed on racial disparities in the primary policing domains of stops, arrests, use of force, and neighborhood deployment. While minorities are often overrepresented among those subjected to police enforcement actions, these findings vary considerably. Almost all of the current studies that have reported racial disparities in the exercise of police authority lack the methodological rigor or statistical precision to draw cause and effect inferences.

Efforts underway to document the impact of body-worn cameras on citizen complaints and force used by police could be extended to examine the impact of cameras on racial disparities in other enforcement-related outcomes such as arrests, stops and frisks, or searches. In addition, evaluating the effects of police training, such as anti-bias training or training on police legitimacy, on reducing racial disparities in police enforcement outcomes is another promising line of research inquiry.

This paper provides a concise review of the current state of the literature on a topic that is dominating the national conversation currently underway about the role of the police in American society.

Consistent with dual-process models of behaviour, Miles (2015) has shown that Schwartz’ basic values can provide a valuable framework for empirically analysing the role of values and cultural contexts in driving human behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this line of research by distinguishing individual values from macro-level values, as well as from other micro- and macro-conditions, in order to test whether individual values shape women’s work-family orientations in ways predicted by Hakim’s preference theory.

The authors make use of the second round of the European Social Survey (ESS) collected in 2004, where a battery of questions on human values and work-family preferences were posed, and apply a multilevel approach to take into account national cultural and economic conditions across 25 European countries.

In line with the dual-process model and preference theory, the authors show that internalised values, particularly conservatism, shape work-family orientations much more than national social and cultural conditions; in addition, the effect of women’s education on work-value orientations is stronger in countries with more conservative national cultures, suggesting that education may help women overcome social barriers in the choice of their work-career preference.

While values may shape work-family orientations differently in non-European or less affluent cultures, these findings reveal the importance of bringing values back into the analysis of individual preferences and behaviours towards the labour market.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the difficulties in identifying adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to illustrate the consequences of late diagnoses in forensic settings.

This paper presents an overview of the literature relevant to the topic and presents the details of three clinical cases.

Delayed diagnosis is not uncommon in forensic services. Cases may remain unidentified for considerable periods despite being under evaluation from clinical teams. Diagnosis in forensic settings is challenged by case complexity. Barriers to prompt diagnosis include time, resources and clinical competency. Timely diagnosis may lessen the risk of future offences, improves clinical risk management and can bring direct benefits to those with the condition.

This is the first case series which explores the issue of late diagnosis in forensic settings. The illustration of the extent to which a diagnosis can be missed may prompt clinicians to review and identify missed cases. The discussion of the issue may also support services to review their approach to screening and diagnosis of ASD.

The purpose of this paper is to review the post-harvest loss experience of several Asia-Pacific economies to analyse the potential impacts of reduction of such losses using a range of remedial measures.

A conceptual framework has been developed and then applied to a case study based on several Asia-Pacific economies to provide an empirical basis for the analysis in the paper.

Limited access to vital farm inputs and credit, poor infrastructure and lack of technical and market information are some of the critical challenges confronting many small farmers in developing economies including those in the selected case-study countries. The estimated “food savings” are considerable if Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s pledge to reduce food losses and waste by 10 per cent by 2020, relative to the 2011-2012 levels is realised in the case-study economies.

Further work is urgently required to collect more up-to-date data on food losses along the food supply chain, including post-harvest losses, in many economies across the world, including the Asia-Pacific region.

The analysis of post-harvest losses is underpinned by a conceptual framework that has been developed and applied to several Asia-Pacific economies.

This study aims to explore the authentic questioning practices of English Language Arts teachers. Although language arts (LA) education emphasizes the value of authentic questions in discussions about literature, teachers still tend to ask known-answer questions that guide students toward one literary interpretation. However, outside their classrooms, teachers talk about literary texts from stances of openness and curiosity. Helping teachers recognize and draw on their out-of-school literary practices might help them disrupt entrenched known-answer discourses. The authors studied how the same teachers asked questions about literature in different settings. The authors asked: To what degree and in what ways did teachers’ questions about literature change when they took on different roles in discussions of literature?

Drawing on theories of classroom discourses and everyday practices, this study compared and analyzed types of questions asked by high school teachers as they took on three roles: teacher in the high school classroom, discussion leader in a professional development and everyday reader in discussion.

Analysis showed that as participants moved further away from their teacher role, they were more likely to ask authentic, curiosity-driven questions that engaged fellow readers in exploratory, dialogic interpretation. They were less likely to attempt to maintain authority over students’ interpretations.

The authors hope researchers will build on these explorations of teacher stances and language in different roles, so we can work toward disrupt entrenched known-answer discourses in the classroom.

Drawing on this study’s findings about questioning practices of participants in their role as reader (as opposed to discussion leader or classroom teacher), the authors suggest that teachers and teacher educators consider the following: First, teachers need to understand the power of interpretive authority and known-answer discourses and compare them explicitly to their own everyday practices through rehearsals and reflection. Second, teachers might focus less on theme and more on exploration of individual lines, patterns and unusual authorial moves. Finally, when preparing to teach, if teachers can reconnect with the stance and language of uncertainty and curiosity, they are likely to ask more authentic questions.

These findings suggest both the power of entrenched known-answer discourses to constrain and the potential power of making visible and drawing on teachers’ literary reading practices in out-of-school contexts.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no studies have made an empirical comparison of the relationship between the role a teacher takes on during discussion and the kinds of questions they ask about literature. This study offers insight into the value of everyday curiosity and other out-of-school resources that teachers could – but often do not – bring to their facilitations of classroom discussions. The findings suggest that teachers, teacher educators and researchers must recognize and recruit teachers’ everyday practices to the LA classroom.

Currently, the global hotel industry is faced with the challenge of a growing skills gap. Contrary to expectations, the shortage of skilled employees persists despite improved access to training. This implies that the cause of the shortage is not the lack of training, but a general lack of understanding of how training is transferred to practice. Therefore, this study aims to use an empirical approach to test a transfer of training (TOT) model that can be applied to the hotel sector.

The setting of the study is the Sultanate of Oman, and 302 questionnaires were collected from 24 hotel properties, of four- and five-star categories.

The findings reveal, to a high and significant degree, that the antecedents of TOT are the opportunity to perform (OTP) and motivation to transfer (MTT), while supervisor support is a significant moderator. In addition, motivation to learn (MTL) is the most important predictor of MTT, while accountability is the leading predictor of OTP. Results also indicated that perceived organizational support (OS) has the strongest impact on MTL.

The proposed model needs to be tested under different contexts, especially different countries and with different hotel categories, to determine if the relationships between the factors remain similarly valid. Other factors that can predict the TOT need to be investigated.

Practical recommendations for hotel operators have been presented, equipping industry practitioners with the tools they need to develop the competencies of their employees, thereby improving the performance of individual properties.

The current study emphasized the validity of the proposed training transfer framework which was adapted from the learning transfer system inventory model, highlighting the particular importance of factors such as perceived OS and accountability.

It has been more than 20 years since the idea of binding multinational corporations directly to international law was abandoned. Since then, concerned actors have sought to manage corporate conduct through voluntary regulation. However, little is known about the instruments produced in this regard. This study aims to understand the properties of the instruments that govern or regulate corporate social responsibility at the international level.

Systematic literature review and content analysis methods were combined to compile a list of 229 international corporate social responsibility instruments (ICSRIs) produced by intergovernmental (IGOs) and international nongovernmental (INGOs) organizations. These instruments were categorized according to an adapted classification framework.

The majority of instruments from our sample are produced by INGOs, focus on management activities and are applicable to specific industries. The most common issues addressed by the instruments are related to worker protection, human rights, governance and the environment. A limited number of instruments specify stakeholders’ involvement or feature an external orientation. Instruments rarely address issues related to product quality and safety, economic contribution or social performance.

Without a comprehensive overview, it has been difficult to develop broad-based understandings about voluntary regulation as a mechanism for controlling corporate conduct internationally. This study’s findings offer valuable insights, allowing policymakers and industry practitioners to understand the effectiveness of, and make appropriate enhancements to, ICSRIs.

By enhancing ICSRIs to address the limitations highlighted in the current study, multinational corporations can be induced into contributing more productively to the sustainable development of the societies they impact and play a greater role in the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Previous research has largely concentrated on analyzing small numbers of carefully selected instruments in a conceptual or descriptive approach. In contrast, this study represents a novel approach of systematic compilation and quantitative classification for a comprehensive list of ICSRIs.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the inability of the Japanese higher education system to adapt to widespread unexpected disruption. The limited metrics available to assess Japanese higher education’s response in the wake of the pandemic indicate several areas where the system needs to be strengthened. This paper aims to harness the ecological perspective to explore the procedures by which higher education in Japan can mitigate extant digital shortcomings.

Leveraging Zhao and Frank’s ecological perspective as its theoretical model, this paper proposes practical solutions to remedy deficiencies highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic rooted in existing literature both within and outside of Japanese higher education research.

The paper suggests pragmatic ideas to embolden each of the three strata encompassing the educational “ecosystem”: institutions, faculty and students. The paper identifies measures for strengthening institutions to become more adaptive and improve leadership capacity. At the faculty level, meanwhile, an increase in professional development opportunities and the bolstering of support systems may function to bridge an intergenerational digital divide. Finally, for students, the authors argue for mobile-assisted language learning in an effort to cultivate stronger learner outcomes, and prescribe how to integrate this method into formal IT platforms.

The current paper is among a select few that use the ecological perspective in the field of educational research in Japan. The authors contend that the model, while effective, offers an incomplete view of education, suggesting that the ecological perspective must be expanded to include students as a distinct species.