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This study examines the experiences of five teachers working in two English secondary school subject departments after being given the opportunity to engage with Lesson Study (LS) to increase student performance in their subject areas. This study aimed to reveal the drivers for the teachers' engagement in LS, and how this experience of Joint Professional Development (JPD) might be contributing to their learning as teachers.

This study applies an analytic approach to evidencing teacher learning, based on the work of Knud Illeris, offering this as a methodological contribution to the field of professional development literature.

Findings reveal that, despite all the teachers developing a passion for learning through LS, there are constraints on its sustainability and impact which can be attributed to the teachers' broader contexts and which affected them differently. The constraints centre on tensions between priorities and agendas within and beyond the school, related largely to budgets and visions of staff development.

This focused study on two subject departments engaging in LS limits its generalisability in terms of findings. However, the study offers a practical research application of a model of learning for analysis of teacher reflections on collaborative learning experiences.

Understanding individual teacher reflections on LS experiences is under-represented in the literature, in particular studies providing insights into conditions conducive and constraining to JPD.

The purpose of this study is to explore home care nurses' experience of learning in a multicultural environment.

The study was based on qualitative research design. Data were collected through repeated interviews with registered home care nurses working in a multicultural area. The data were analyzed through a qualitative content analysis with a direct approach.

Six categories describing nurses' experiences of learning were developed in order to define which components were determinative in facilitating or constraining home care in a multicultural environment. The findings show that home care demands high individual nursing skills and also offers many opportunities for further learning. The most important sources of learning were the challenges presented in the daily experience of encountering diversity of patients and families, by informal social interactions and exchange of knowledge with colleagues.

The strength of this study is that data are collected by two different methods with time for reflection in between. Limitations are that only female nurses participate in the study and from one team of nurses.

The findings can be used by nurses to create an awareness of the opportunities that exist in everyday work. For managers, this study highlights learning and constraints that exist on the organisation level.

This article adds to existing research by describing the learning environment for home care nurses in relation to the theoretical framework that examines the factors which either facilitate or constrain learning at work.

The purpose of this paper is to understand, from principals’ points of view, how a teacher registration reform is enacted by examining the potential changes in the relationships between principals and newly qualified teachers (NQTs). The reform entailed principals performing an aptitude assessment of new teachers in their probationary year.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five principals from two Swedish municipalities on three occasions in one academic year. A third follow-up interview was conducted one year later with four of the principals, the fifth no longer being in post.

The assessment appears to be downplayed by the principals, whereas the supportive dimension and the facilitation of NQTs’ professional development seem to be acknowledged and made explicit. For some of the principals, their creative translation of the reform’s intentions transformed these relations and strengthened their leadership.

The study is small-scale and was carried out in a specific period of policy implementation from the principals’ perspectives. Future studies would benefit from involving both principals’ and teachers’ perspectives.

Policymakers appear to have underestimated the structural aspects of the reform, even though in general the reform enactments had some kind of positive effect on these relations.

For some principals, their creative translation of the reform’s intentions transformed relations and strengthened their leadership.

The data are from a unique period when a reform was implemented and later partly withdrawn. The study deepens the understanding on how principals tries to enact and balance their roles as evaluators of NQTs and pedagogical and instructional leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative approach to the decision‐ and policymaking that has been practiced in most developed countries for more than a quarter of a century. Such policies followed, to a greater or lesser degree, the policies adopted in the UK and the USA since the period of the Thatcher and Reagan administrations, respectively. These policies proclaimed the supremacy of the market and downplayed government intervention in the marketplace.

This paper draws upon earlier research by the authors as well as upon published works of other researchers.

Self‐interest governed the way policies are formed and through a process of extreme capitalism financial leaders took ever‐increasing risks for which executives received lucrative incentive salaries. The recent crash suggests a failure in such policies and this paper proposes an alternative way of operating – the way of altruism. Selfishness and egoism are argued as endemic in economic rationalism and extreme capitalism, replacing selflessness that engenders policies more aligned to altruism.

The research is limited by the ability to examine all the research literature in the field at greater depth. However, the examination that has been possibly indicated that self‐interest and greed, endemic in extreme capitalism and economic rationalism, have made significant contributions to the recent subprime and global financial crises.

This paper provides government and corporate policymakers with an understanding of an alternative value – selflessness as aligned to altruism – than the values of selfishness and greed that are endemic in economic rationalism and extreme capitalism guiding policies that led to the global financial crisis.

The paper fulfils an identified need and supports policymakers seeking to achieve just outcomes for all stakeholders across the globe.

We have on many occasions drawn attention to the all too prevalent fallacy of judging the nutritive and dietetic value of foods solely by their chemical composition without regard to the digestibility of the foods, and to the more or less prevalent idiosyncrasies of the public in connection with such foods. In an excellent article in The Times, Sir Wyndham Dunstan observes that “it has to be remembered that, however desirable the constituents of a given material may seem, in order to be of real value that material must be digestible— capable of assimilation within the body. In this matter of digestion people differ greatly and there must be latitude in the choice of food. While consumption in quantity of uncooked green and other vegetables is widely advocated, many are unable easily to digest some vegetables unless cooked, and not always then except in very moderate amount. Many other factors have to be taken into account in planning a common dietary. There are different tastes and preferences. The appeal a particular food makes to the individual and the appetite it stimulates are important points. The psychological factor plays a significant part and must be met by providing as wide a selection of palatable food as possible. These are a few truisms often overlooked.” With regard to the kind of bread we should eat and ought to be made to eat in war‐time, the writer observes that “there is unanimity in regarding a wholemeal bread (not always the same thing as “brown” bread) as that which should be generally eaten and readily procured. This is not at present the rule. Should it be made so? The constituents of wholemeal bread supply not only nourishment for the body but protection against ill‐health. Some of the more valuable constituents are absent from the white bread, so long the staple of this country, because they have been removed in the conversion of the wheat into white flour, which is now often further whitened and further deteriorated by a chemical bleaching agent. White bread is therefore a sophisticated and inferior food to which we have grown so accustomed that its use has become an ingrained habit. The obvious course in the circumstances, especially in war‐time, would be to compel the use of wholemeal bread and prohibit white bread. But, though such a course would be for the good of the nation, a sudden change of the kind, however beneficial, is bound to be inconvenient, if not distasteful, to many who are attached to white bread, and particularly to those who do not, or cannot, understand the need for change. There are people who say they can digest white bread more easily than “brown.” Thus it happens that the Ministry of Food, advised by numerous experts and confronted with numerous objectors, is apparently in favour of the evasive alternative of restoring artificially to white bread one at least of the valuable constituents it has lost in manufacture without impairing its whiteness. At first it was intended to do this by adding to white flour suitable quantities of two chemically prepared substances, one a vitamin and the other a calcium compound. Recently the synthetic vitamin only has been indicated as the proposed addition. This seems a clumsy and unnecessary concession to sentiment, involving considerable expenditure. It has been widely critised and regarded as “faking” bread. An eminent physician, Sir Ernest Graham Little, while condemning the proposal on general grounds, also questions its efficacy. Why first remove a natural constituent of wheat in making flour and then afterwards, at a cost, add to the flour this constituent artificially manufactured: He presents a convincing case for the use of wholemeal bread. With regard to the argument that some people dislike wholemeal bread and find it less easy to digest, it may be doubted whether many of them have eaten true wholemeal. “Brown” breads, including bread made with coarse ground wheat or bran and also several varieties of “brown” bread sold under largely advertised names, are almost everywhere procurable at higher prices than white bread. Fine wholemeal bread as well as flour is less easy to find. Large numbers of people eat very little bread, and it is therefore of small importance to them whether it is wholemeal or white. They consume far less than the three‐quarters of a pound a day included in Sir William Bragg's basal diet and make up for it with other foods which they can afford to buy. A really nutritious bread chiefly concerns the poorer classes, who eat much more bread than those better off. For the poor the substitution of wholemeal bread for white is a matter of far‐reaching importance. It has been stated that in many places wholemeal is dearer than white, but inquiries in the trade suggest that this is not as it should be, apart from “fancy” brown breads. As has been pointed out, the Ministry of Food, confronted with alternatives, apparently favour the introduction of “faked” white bread rather than the adoption of wholemeal. There is, however, a medium course. In this country we have come to recognise the “inevitability of gradualness,” and the medium course would meet present needs and might lead to the voluntary adoption of all that is desired.— It has been found that the admixture with fine ground wholemeal flour of about 10 per cent. of white flour makes a light coloured, very palatable, and digestible bread of good texture. Its nutritive value is very little less than that of full wholemeal bread; in fact a rather larger proportion of white flour would be permissible. The mixed flour is quite satisfactory for rolls, scones and cakes.” If an admixture of the kind suggested would overcome the prejudice against wholemeal bread and render it palatable to those people who dislike the ordinary wholemeal bread, there would seem to be a very strong case for adopting such a suggestion rather than first to remove a natural constituent of wheat and subsequently, at a cost, artificially add to the flour the constituent which has been removed in the manufacture of the flour.

Empirical studies regarding the impact of the real exchange rate (RER) on economic growth are extensively available. However, the literature as a whole appears to report varying results, while the causes of such differences have not been analyzed systematically. The present study aims to fill the gap in the literature.

In this paper, the authors compile 543 empirical estimates from 51 studies of the exchange rate-growth nexus in order to meta-analyze its relationship. Meta-analysis allows the authors to quantitatively synthesize previous empirical studies and explain the variation in the results. This method also enables us to investigate the possibility of publication bias, as there is a tendency in research only to report results that are both statistically significant and show the expected signs.

After addressing publication bias and heterogeneity in the estimates, the meta-regression results show that RER depreciation (or undervaluation) genuinely favors economic growth. On average, RER depreciation has a greater impact on economic growth in developing countries than the developed ones. The study’s results imply that maintaining an undervalued RER could be favorable to spur economic growth, especially in developing countries.

Initially predominant in the medical literature, meta-analysis has been on a rising edge in economics. This progress has produced many systematic quantitative review analyses with continuously improved statistical-econometric practices related to economic variables. However, to the authors’ knowledge, no comprehensive meta-regression analysis of the relationship between exchange rate and economic growth has been conducted and published in any publicly accessible academic outlet. Therefore, this study aims to fill this gap in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate borrowing motivation, credit access barriers and their impacts on income of smallholder farmers engaging in cinnamon value chain development in Northwestern Vietnam.

A multistage sampling technique using a structural questionnaire and in-depth interviews was applied for collecting primary data from farmers and relevant stakeholders. The Propensity Score Matching was employed to analyze access barriers and examine whether relaxing these barriers can improve farmer income. To deal with the issue of model uncertainty and further increase the robustness of results, Bayesian model average and the bootstrapping approach were applied.

To fulfill the certain quality standards of cinnamon products which are later used in the medicinal and food industry, farmers as primary producers need credit for intensive investment to increase the value of their products. Still, there are 25.36 percent of farmers who have access constraints to formal credit. In the credit received group, 24.56 percent have not received full credit as demanded. Access problems are relevant to lack of collateral, lack of bank account holdings, inconvenient access to roads, weak chain linkage and limited organic farming. Removing credit access barriers can improve the income for farmers from cinnamon farming activities.

More detailed information on the conditions under which credit serves a more important role in creating value addition for cinnamon products can help the government establish more effective credit policies.

Great attention should be paid to smallholder farmers as primary producers in the chain for sustainable value chain development in developing and emerging economies. Policy interventions should facilitate access to bank accounts, speed up the process of granting residential land use certificates, certify organic farming and upgrade the road system. Strengthening the chain linkage can enhance smallholder farmers’ capacity to obtain credit through value chain lending development.

Empirical studies on agricultural credit from the perspective of value chain development remain scarce. A better understanding of credit access constraints allows for the positing of recommendations for policy makers to facilitate value chain lending and a medicinal plant-based agro-forestry system in similar situations.