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We review the interventions that promote motivation in academic contexts, with a focus on two primary questions: How can we motivate students to take more STEM courses? Once in those STEM courses, how can we keep students motivated and promote their academic achievement?

We have approached these two motivational questions from several perspectives, examining the theoretical issues with basic laboratory research, conducting longitudinal questionnaire studies in classrooms, and developing interventions implemented in different STEM contexts. Our research is grounded in three theories that we believe are complementary: expectancy-value theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002), interest theory (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), and self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988). As social psychologists, we have focused on motivational theory and used experimental methods, with an emphasis on values – students’ perceptions of the value of academic tasks and students’ personal values that shape their experiences in academic contexts.

We review the experimental field studies in high-school science and college psychology classes, in which utility-value interventions promoted interest and performance for high-school students in science classes and for undergraduate students in psychology courses. We also review a randomized intervention in which parents received information about the utility value of math and science for their teens in high school; this intervention led students to take nearly one semester more of science and mathematics, compared with the control group. Finally, we review an experimental study of values affirmation in a college biology course and found that the intervention improved performance and retention for first-generation college students, closing the social-class achievement gap by 50%. We conclude by discussing the mechanisms through which these interventions work.

These interventions are exciting for their broad applicability in improving students’ academic choices and performance, they are also exciting regarding their potential for contributions to basic science. The combination of laboratory experiments and field experiments is advancing our understanding of the motivational principles and almost certainly will continue to do so. At the same time, interventions may benefit from becoming increasingly targeted at specific motivational processes that are effective with particular groups or in particular contexts.

This research draws on social identity literature and intersectionality to examine the social construction of race, gender, and sexuality within hip-hop music and how this shapes the identity development of college students. Data were collected from 26 college students through semi-structured interviews. Participants described men as being portrayed as hyper-masculine and identified lyrics that supported toxic masculinity. Participants reported that the dominant theme in hip-hop today centered on “trappin” or selling drugs and glamorized that life. African American men, in particular, described how this theme in music shaped the narrative around race and masculinity, how others saw them as Black men, and how they had to counter that image and stereotype as college students. Participants described the negative portrayal of women in hip-hop. However, women participants were more conflicted in their perception of women in hip-hop and said that when women were the artists this illustrated more agency and was liberating even if the images and lyrics were sexualized. Participants were adamant that constructions of gender and sexuality within hip-hop music and videos shaped expectations within relationships. Despite the criticisms of hip-hop, participants described how raising consciousness through hip-hop affected their own identities. This research contextualizes the findings with a discussion of how popular culture shapes identity around race, gender, and sexuality and shapes the expectations within relationships. Further, the research concludes with a discussion of intersectionality and how this provides a better understanding of the effects of identity development among marginalized groups.

Organizational researchers studying well-being – as well as organizations themselves – often place much of the burden on employees to manage and preserve their own well-being. Missing from this discussion is how – from a human resources management (HRM) perspective – organizations and managers can directly and positively shape the well-being of their employees. The authors use this review to paint a picture of what organizations could be like if they valued people holistically and embraced the full experience of employees’ lives to promote well-being at work. In so doing, the authors tackle five challenges that managers may have to help their employees navigate, but to date have received more limited empirical and theoretical attention from an HRM perspective: (1) recovery at work; (2) women’s health; (3) concealable stigmas; (4) caregiving; and (5) coping with socio-environmental jolts. In each section, the authors highlight how past research has treated managerial or organizational support on these topics, and pave the way for where research needs to advance from an HRM perspective. The authors conclude with ideas for tackling these issues methodologically and analytically, highlighting ways to recruit and support more vulnerable samples that are encapsulated within these topics, as well as analytic approaches to study employee experiences more holistically. In sum, this review represents a call for organizations to now – more than ever – build thriving organizations.

Corporate crime is prevalent and imposes enormous costs on society, yet our understanding of its antecedents remains poor, especially in relation to executive characteristics. In this study, we examine the influence of CEO childhood social class on corporate crime. Using a unique data set of CEOs at the largest US corporations, we consider CEO childhood background and develop the argument individuals raised in middle-class families have a greater disposition to commit wrongdoing within the corporations they lead. Specifically, growing up middle-class leaves a lasting status-anxiety imprint, which increases the tendency to engage in corporate crime to preserve or enhance social status. Furthermore, we show two status-anxiety-minimizing factors – Ivy League education and membership in a prominent golf club – weaken the effect of middle-class upbringing on corporate crime. Our findings suggest childhood social class has significant explanatory power for executive behavior and corporate outcomes.

This chapter draws on feminist theorizing on rape culture and victim blaming, and proposes a concept, racialized victim blaming, as a useful tool for understanding discourse on state violence.

The concept of racialized victim blaming is applied to historically analyze the genesis of the carceral state, and deconstruct public debates on police shootings and immigration crises.

This chapter argues that racialized victim blaming is used as a discursive tool to legitimize and mystify state violence projects. Officials and the media use racialized logics and narratives to blame the victims of state violence for their own suffering, justifying continued or increased state violence.

The concept of victim blaming is most often associated with violence against women. Here I demonstrate that victim blaming is also a useful tool for understanding state violence, particularly when attention is given to the place of racializing narratives.

Most companies focus on using outsourcing to achieve cost cutting. This article urges them instead to consider outsorcings potential for capability enhancement.

Reports on a handful of companies that place outsourcing – onshore or off – in a strategic context.

Leading companies start by analyzing not just where they can outsource to lower costs and improve quality, but which capabilities are vital to their core business.

A recent Bain survey of large and medium‐sized companies reports that only 10 percent are highly satisfied with the costs they're saving, and a mere 6 percent are “highly satisfied” with offshore outsourcing overall.

Outsourcing has become so sophisticated that even functions like engineering, R&D, manufacturing, and marketing can be moved outside.

The authors show that it's no longer a company's ownership of capabilities that matters, but rather its ability to control and make the most of critical capabilities. In other words, capability sourcing has become strategic.

In contrast to the ‘bell-curve thinking’ which can shape many teachers’ assumptions of student ability (Fendler, L., & Muzaffar, I. (2008). The history of the bell curve: Sorting and the idea of normal. Educational Theory, 58(1), 63–82.; Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2011; Thomas, G., & Loxley, A. (2007). Deconstructing special education and constructing inclusion. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill International.), some researchers have been examining the ways in which teachers can shift their deterministic understandings of student capacities (see, Graham, A. (2014). Embodiment of knowledge and inclusive pedagogy.; Spratt, J., & Florian, L. (2014). Developing and using a framework for gauging the use of inclusive pedagogy by new and experienced teachers. In C. Forlin, T. Loreman (Eds.), Measuring inclusive education (Vol. 3, pp. 263–278). International Perspectives on Inclusive Education. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.). Despite the adverse effects on student self-efficacy and performance (Fraser, S. (1995). The bell curve wars: Race, intelligence, and the future of America. New York, NY: Basic Books.) that can result from teachers’ assumptions about students’ ability, evidence of teachers’ inclusive education practices can be difficult to find (Forlin, C. (2010). Teacher education for inclusion: Changing paradigms and innovative approaches. London: Routledge.; Jones, P. (2013). Bringing insider perspectives into inclusive teacher learning: Potentials and challenges for educational professionals. London: Routledge.). This chapter begins to address the lack of evidence of inclusive educational practices in some Geography classrooms. The chapter begins by providing an overview of literature which outlines how the development and sharing of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) can enhance effective inclusive practices in Geography classrooms. In contrast to many previous considerations of PCK as a teacher-focussed, individual attribute, this chapter presents an argument that the development of communal or distributed PCK in Geography classrooms can not only enhance creative ways for all students to participate in classroom life but also creates a sense of interdependence between teachers and students to create new knowledge, which in turn links to notions of identity development and inclusive practices. Finally, this chapter presents examples of ways in which Geography teachers can enact inclusive pedagogical approaches in both primary and secondary school contexts.

THIS is the time of the year when, with the strong opening of the Spring publishing season, librarians take a review of matters which definitely concern books. There is a cant saying amongst certain eager librarians that their colleagues are too concerned with technical matters and too little, if at all, concerned with books. There may have been isolated cases of this kind, but it is merely untrue to say that the average librarian is not concerned, deeply and continuously, with the literary activity of his day. It is well that men should live in their own time and be thoroughly interested in the work of new writers. There is danger that exclusive occupation with them may lead to an unbalanced view of the book world. If one judged from the criticisms that occasionally appear in our contemporaries, one would suppose that the only books that mattered were the authentic fiction of the day, and by authentic is meant the books which go beyond average contemporary thought and conventions. Librarianship, however, is concerned with all books of all subjects and of all time. This note is merely a prelude to a number of THE LIBRARY WORLD which deals mainly with literature and with reading. Here we return again to the perennial fiction question.

When evaluating the worthiness of field guides to trees, there are several criteria which might be considered; perhaps the first should be geographic coverage. If one is attempting to identify a tree in Iowa, one should not be using a guide covering only trees of the Pacific Slope. Although this may seem obvious, problems can occur in guide selection due to geographically misleading titles. Some guides may imply a geographic coverage which is in fact quite different from the actual coverage.