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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Norwegian parental leave policy for fathers, the father’s quota, which has reached a mature age of 26 years, asking how gender equality has been affected in working life.

Based on interviews with 28 fathers who have used the father’s quota, the paper analyzes the connection between leave design, its use and impacts by using the design elements of individualization, generosity and non-transferability.

Findings show that in granting fathers an individual, earmarked and non-transferable right, the welfare state has contributed to turning leave taking into a norm for modern fathering. The generosity in terms of length and full wage compensation strengthens it as a right in working life. Fathers being paid their full wages for staying at home taking care of their child emphasize the dual-carer norm. The analyses show that the collision between fatherhood and the ideal of the unencumbered employee has weakened in many types of organizations.

The paper addresses the request put forward by Lewis and Stumbitz (2017) and Moss and Deven (2015) where they state that there has been little research addressing how parental leave is implemented in working life.

This paper aims to analyse the different requirements of Practice Direction 15.10 (which governs the process of family mediation in Hong Kong) and Practice Direction 31 (which governs the process of general mediation in Hong Kong), and to highlight the need to incorporate the spirit of family mediation into legislation to better protect children’s interest in a family dispute.

The paper reviews and compares the content on Practice Direction 15.10 and Practice Direction 31 issued by Chief Justice of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, and adopts interpretative and analytical approaches to evaluate their impact.

In an effort to promote parental responsibility-based negotiation in divorce proceeding, a missed opportunity in enacting the Children Proceedings (Parental Responsibility) Bill in 2015 might be a blessing in disguise as it offers another chance for policy makers to consider how to direct parties to negotiate and communicate, to seek and benefit from professional guidance on a continuous basis, and to seek alternative channels to resolve disputes other than the court room. The policy and the law advocating a switch from a “rights-based” to “responsibility-based” approach in handling children’s matters should be revisited by incorporating the spirit of family mediation into legislation.

Analyses are conducted through direct contextual review and documentary research. This paper conducts literal analysis of court guidance and unveils policy implications for the general public. It would be of interest to judicial officers, scholars and government officials concerning children’s rights and parental responsibility in divorce proceedings.

Since the 1980s, public policy developments have promoted the role of the voluntary sector in a variety of UK settings. In parallel, there has been a growing interest in the impacts of employment relations regulation. This paper combines these themes by exploring the impact of the Employment Relations Act (1999) on the Scottish voluntary sector. Provides evidence, based on data from larger voluntary organisations, that the legislation has potential impacts, particularly regarding unfair dismissals, trade union recognition and parental leave. An underlying issue is the emergence of personnel management capability in conditions of increasingly complex labour market regulation.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the relationships of parental attachment and psychological separation to the career development process of secondary school adolescents.

An ex post facto survey research design was adopted. The sample comprised 242 (males=121, females=121) senior secondary school II students randomly selected. Parental attachment, psychological separation, and career development scales were administered on the students. The data collected were analysed using hierarchical multiple regression analysis treating parental attachment and psychological separation as predictors and career development as a criterion variable. Parental attachment and psychological separation (mother scales) separately and significantly predicted career information‐seeking behaviour of participants. However, combined attachment and separation (father scale) could not significantly predict any of the career development variables.

The study utilised cross‐sectional and self‐report measures.

The cultural environment and type of family in which the study was carried out should be considered. Counsellors in Nigeria should assess views of students' parents and peers on career development.

Most previous studies have linked familial factors like parental educational, financial and modelling opportunities with career development. This study reported the relationship of parental attachment and psychological separation with the career development process. Results from this study may enlighten career counsellors, parents and students on the need to assess the relationship between the students and their parents when dealing with their career development problems.

Over the past decades, there has been an intensifying movement to privatize education in Western nations, with equal concern about the quality of education for all. This article adds to a global understanding of school inspections as a governance mechanism to promote educational quality in an entirely open K-12 educational marketplace.

The role of school inspections as a quality assurance device is examined from a market accountability perspective. The Emirate of Dubai is used as an illustrative example of market accountability, where the educational landscape constitutes primarily a private open market.

Dubai proves that market accountability can address the needs of all families, assuring the provision of a sufficient quality standard of education, while allowing for competition to drive improvement. There are two lessons that Dubai offers a global audience that has been debating the merits of privatizing education: a fully free unregulated market does not promote an education system that provides a minimum standard of education for all; and a private education system can address stakeholder concerns and operate successfully in parallel to a public sector.

The idiosyncratic United Arab Emirates (UAE) education sector calls for a balance between flexibility and quality assurance across semi-independent jurisdictions. Hosting a majority of non-Emirati resident families, Dubai has developed a public inspection system for a private education market for quality assurance across 17 curricula offered in 215 private schools with diverse profit models. That most Dubai school-aged children are in private schools demanded accommodating an atypical landscape for K-12 education that affords insights into how a free market can operate. The authors encourage future research that may build a more comprehensive framework for better understanding the public–private education debate.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a graduate human resource management (HRM) curriculum for a university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The curriculum reflects the core knowledge areas identified by the two major professional bodies in the HRM discipline.

The paper employs literature to justify the importance generally of education in the HRM discipline and specifically in the UAE context. It then summarizes a program development approach that synthesizes core areas defined by the US Society for Human Resource Management and the UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

The curriculum resulting from the program development process arguably constitutes a model curriculum for graduate studies in HRM. This proposition is tested with reference to focused survey of UAE HRM practitioners and is further explored with reference to the Syrian environment.

More work has to be done to confirm the relevance of the curriculum to other contexts. Furthermore, there needs to be research on desirable components of an undergraduate curriculum.

In regions of the world where the HRM discipline is in its infancy, the curriculum describes in this paper can provide a useful blueprint for the development of education, training, and academic programs in HRM.

The value of this paper is in the identification of a set of core modules or subject areas that reflect current best practice in HRM. It is unique in attempting an initial confirmation of the relevance of these core modules in a Middle Eastern setting.

This paper seeks to consider the inter‐connections between law and child development, particularly in the areas of child custody and child protection, in both the USA and the UK.

The paper is based on analysis of US and UK legal systems and child developmental research.

Although the two legal systems have much in common in their approach to safeguarding children's welfare, there are also notable differences between them in terminology and in concept. Whereas the USA places a greater emphasis on the rights, particularly autonomy rights, of both parents and children, the UK justifies its laws affecting children largely in terms of parental responsibility and child need.

The paper argues that each of these legal regimes has something to learn from the other and a reader interested in thinking about the relationship between child welfare and law will profit from considering the distinctions, as well as the commonalities, between the two regimes.

This paper will consider the notion of “parental responsibility” in British policy in relation to two major pieces of legislation, the Children Act 1989 and the Child Support Act 1991. These have considerable impact on the shape of policy in relation to families with children in the 1990s. These two Acts originate in different processes and address different areas of the family‐ state interaction — in the case of the Children Act, public and private law concerning who should care for children in case of dispute or problems; in the case of the Child Support Act, the question of how children should be financially maintained. But both embody a notion of greater parental responsibilities (as opposed to rights) which cannot be lightly surrendered or neglected. The differences and similarities between these two Acts will be examined, and the underlying theme of Conservative “family policy”, and its long‐term intentions and implications, will be addressed.

Earlier Nordic comparative studies show variation between countries in child welfare practice, reflecting cultural differences, and that case workers share the norms, values and attitudes of their society. Can cultural factors be concretised for discussion? Child welfare workers in Denmark, Iceland and Norway were presented with five child care stories (vignettes) that focused on the ‘threshold’ between preventive measures and out‐of‐home care (consensual or compulsory). Vignette themes included parental neglect, maternal alcohol misuse and youth problems. Study participants gave written answers to the vignettes and took part in group discussions with colleagues. The results showed significant differences between countries in case workers' responses. Variations in arguments, decisions, use of compulsion and working style reflected national views and priorities. A central dimension was how case workers balanced parental interests with children's needs: in Denmark they were reluctant to intervene with parental rights, whereas the Norwegians were more accepting of compulsory decisions to protect children.

Considers the exclusionary processes arising from the way in which fathers are excluded from childcare activities. Outlines the parental leave provisions in the UK and explores the nature of the assumptions made about fatherhood. Compares the take up of parental leave by both men and women in other European countries. Concludes that whilst the current system supports a balanced work and home life but the significant gender differences in take‐up of parental leave between men and women means that legislation may be making gender division with respect to early childcare more marked rather than reduced.