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Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to consider the historical context of the gradual release model as it emerged following the early twentieth century emphasis on behaviorism as psychologists (and reading researchers) increasingly focused on cognition in the reading process. This “cognitive turn” in educational psychology was followed closely by a “social turn” with its focus on the socially constructed nature of texts, learning, and reading, particularly influenced by Vygotsky and work on scaffolding.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter uses literature from the field to contextualize the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) model and to discuss research or practice chapters included in this edited volume.

Findings – This chapter described the transition from behaviorism to cognition to social construction as it applies to the reading process generally and to GRR in particular. It noted that this transition has required teachers to be more nimble and flexible than ever before, cautioned that the complexity of classroom life and the pressures on teachers can cause techniques such as GRR to be misused, and suggested ways to manage the group work which is central to social cultural approaches to literacy. And along the way it spotlighted the ever-widening range of applications of the GRR documented in the earlier chapters of the book.

Practical implications – The section in this chapter with most immediate practical implication is clearly the section on misuses of the GRR model. This section discusses some misuses of the model: neglecting explicit teaching; missing the middle (i.e., jump from explicit teaching directly to independent practice); and applying in an overly rigid manner.

Originality/value of paper – This chapter makes an original contribution to the field in providing a historical context for the gradual release model and for addressing the chapters in this edited collection. The authors also point to some areas for next steps forward as reminders to those applying the model.

On many occasions, organizational science research has been referred to as fragmented and disjointed, resulting in a literature that is, in the opinion of many, difficult to navigate and comprehend. One potential explanation is that scholars have failed to comprehend that organizations are complex and intricate systems. In order to move us past this morass, we recommend that researchers extend beyond traditional rational, mechanistic, and variable-centered approaches to research and integrate a more advantageous pattern-oriented approach within their research program. Pattern-oriented methods approximate real-life phenomena by adopting a holistic, integrative approach to research wherein individual- and organizational-systems are viewed as non-decomposable organized wholes. We argue that the pattern-oriented approach has the potential to overcome a number of breakdowns faced by alternate approaches, while offering a novel and more representative lens from which to view organizational- and HRM-related issues. The proposed incorporation of the pattern-oriented approach is framed within a review and evaluation of current approaches to organizational research and is supplemented with a discussion of methodological and theoretical implications as well as potential applications of the pattern-oriented approach.

Colleges and universities in the United States are common sites of social movement activism, yet we know little about the conditions under which campus-based movements are likely to meet with success or failure. In this study, I develop the concept of educational opportunity structures, and I highlight several dimensions of colleges and universities' educational opportunity structures – specifically, schools' statuses as public or private, secular or religious, highly or lowly ranked, and more or less wealthy – that can affect the outcomes of campus-based movements. Analyzing a religious freedom movement at Vanderbilt University, which mobilized from 2010 to 2012 to demand the ability of religious student organizations to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and religious belief, I argue that Vanderbilt's status as a private, secular, elite, and wealthy university ensured that conservative Christian activism at that school was highly unlikely to succeed. The findings hold important theoretical implications for the burgeoning literature on student activism.

The chapter Technological Advances in Special Education provides information on advances of technology and how such technological advances have influenced students with disabilities and special education across the globe. The chapter presents technological advances that benefited students with disabilities in developed countries as well as potential technologies to support students with disabilities in developing countries. The scant exiting literature on developing countries suggests some universal themes regarding technology for students with disabilities including access and training. Additional attention and research is needed on assistive technology to support students with disabilities in both developed and developing countries, with recognition that what works is developed counties may not work in developing.

All too frequently training has been described in terms of the organisational level at which it is aimed. Thus we have artificial divisions between operator, craft, clerical, supervisory and management training. The fact is however that changes cannot be made at one level without affecting behaviour at other levels. Developing the role of the supervisor, for example, necessarily involves modifying the role of managers, specialists and operators. Furthermore the aim of the training function should be to develop the performance of the organisation as a whole. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the advantages and pay‐offs of adopting an integrated approach to training and organisation change. This is done by means of a description of our recent experiences in designing and running such a programme in the Warehousing and Distribution Function of The Boots Company Limited.