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The person of the teacher is an essential element in what constitutes professional teaching and therefore needs careful conceptualisation. In this chapter the author argues for this central thesis, presenting a wrap up of his theoretical and empirical work on the issue over the past decade. These studies have been inspired – both conceptually and methodologically – by teacher thinking-research as well as the narrative-biographical approach to teaching and teacher development. The result is an empirically grounded conceptual framework on teacher development and teacher professionalism. Central concepts are ‘professional self-understanding’ and ‘subjective educational theory’ as components of the personal interpretative framework every individual teacher develops throughout his/her career. This personal framework results from the reflective and meaningful interactions between the individual teacher and the social, cultural and structural working conditions constituting his/her job context(s). As such the framework is the dynamic outcome of an ongoing process of professional learning (development). Furthermore, it is argued that the particular professionalism or scholarship of teachers is fundamentally characterised by personal commitment and vulnerability, which eventually have consequences for the kind of reflective attitudes and skills professional teachers should master.

The phenomenon of teachers taking on leadership tasks beyond their classroom duties has become widespread internationally. Although presented as a catalyst for school improvement and professional development, the practices and experiences of teacher leaders are more complex than that. The change in roles blurs the traditional division between teaching and leading and therefore challenges the conventional professional relationships in schools. We conducted semi-structured interviews of 28 ‘teacher leaders’ in Flemish primary and secondary schools. We explored their perceptions and evaluation of their position in schools as well as the way their position and role as teacher leaders affected their professional relations with teacher colleagues and school leaders. The results demonstrate how the introduction of new positions and roles in the school as an organisation affects the professional relationships and collegiality. From a micro-political perspective, we show that the new positions also create emotional labour for the teacher leaders, since they find themselves juggling two different agendas of professional interests: on the one hand, receiving recognition by others of their position as teacher leaders, while on the other hand maintaining their former social–professional relationships as teachers with their former colleagues.

The contribution draws upon the protests against a proposed trade deal between the European Union (EU) and the United States as an example of the potential to identify as European citizens. It is relevant given the multiple challenges the EU is currently facing, particularly a crisis of democratic legitimacy. While trust in EU institutions is at a historic low, some citizens – such as the Anti-Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) protestors – want to have a say in EU decision-making. The resulting conflicts should not be misunderstood as a threat. Instead, the author’s suggestion here is that democratic conflict has the potential to contribute to the politicisation and the identification of citizens with the European project. Following this line of thought, the potential of the Anti-TTIP protests lies in a civic democratisation of the EU through conflict. The author focusses on protestors’ participation experiences and their self-understanding processes as European citizens. The author explores the different ways in which protestors experience themselves as European citizens which aims to open up the discourse about the multiplicity of European citizenship. This variety of meanings ascribed to European citizenship is not regarded as a danger, but as the potential to enrich Europe with new ways of being and acting as European citizens.

Narrative-biographical perspectives have taken on a very prominent role in both the research on and practices of teacher education (both preservice and in-service) over the past decades. This chapter briefly situates and explains this “narrative turn,” and continues with the presentation and discussion of concrete pedagogical applications of narrative-biographical approaches. A storied example of one approach is followed by a general discussion of its educational rationale and the necessary conditions for its use. References are made to narrative language as a genre, its contextualized nature as well as the connection with (student) teachers’ developing sense of self.

This chapter highlights inquiry-based learning in action in a first-year Social Sciences inquiry course. Focusing on the continued development of this course over eight years, we present a practical example of fostering an inquiry-based teaching and learning environment grounded in metacognitive practice. Woven throughout the course is a thoughtful and deliberate incorporation of skill-building based on two types of metacognitive expertise; self-understanding and self-regulation with a goal to encourage and support students in developing effective learning strategies necessary for university study. We have found that scaffolding the inquiry learning process with metacognition further enhances the first-year learning experience and promotes a deeper level of learning, where students become aware of their own thinking practice and process. These skills include critical thinking, self-directed learning, clear communication and openness to learning. The chapter presents a series of strategies for introducing and linking metacognitive practice and the inquiry-based approach to learning. Presenting the five stages of inquiry learning: exploration, question and problem identification, methods of investigation, collection and analysis of data, development of conclusions and creative communication of results we describe how we work to develop a more distinct, personalized, engaging and sustainable undergraduate learning experience.

Introduction: Human values serve as the foundation for human society. To establish and safeguard our family and community, we practice values such as friendship, love, wisdom, self-control, responsibility, forgiveness and so on. The philosophies of society and life are guided by values. They are necessary for the establishment of social bonds and norms for acceptable behaviour. Values are drawn from socio-cultural and prophetic ideologies. However, the meaning of values varies from person to person, whereas institutional values are more strict and less malleable in nature. Person’s values are shaped by their experiences in a variety of fields, and those values change through time and from different perspectives. Children are growing up in a world that is used to frivolous spending and impulsive purchases as the result of consumerism. Parents in a nuclear family are preoccupied with their jobs and often do not spend quality time with their children. As a result, they try to make up for it by giving their children expensive gifts; children are receiving abundant luxury before asking for it, so they begin to place value on material things and develop little or no emotional bonds. On top of that, these young minds are becoming exposed and addicted to the cell phones and other technological devices. The young children are becoming numb to their surroundings and relationships, and as a result, they are being immersed in a fantasy world of their own makings. The upshot is that these young people build their own universe that is nonrealistic and disconnected from the rest of the world. When these children grow up, they continue to live in their own make-belief world. They become egotistical, with little emotional attachment, loyalty, respect, sensitivity or devotion to other people or things. They are becoming increasingly distant, anxious, troubled and unstable in their personal life due to their high ambitions, thirst for more, attachment to luxury, lack of commitment to relationships, contempt for standards and conventions and separation from other connections. This impacts their personal and professional lives. Research says that the majority of professionals and teachers in Management Schools feel stressed due to target pressure, fear of failure, managing their work-life balance, etc. and often succumb to depression as well as death due to this. The goal of modern management education is to help students develop holistically. However, the challenge is do the teachers themselves believe in the Life Values that they are supposed to inculcate among students. Many good B-Schools are developing programs to teach their students these ‘life-skills’. Are they, however, truly fruitful? Is it possible to create a sustainable young generation that is psychologically robust and capable of overcoming life’s challenges?

Purpose of the Study: The chapter follows the Rokeach Values (instrumental and terminal values) system as a framework for study. The study has examined the (i) pattern of the locus of control (LOC) of professionals and teachers and (ii) relation between LOC and work value and its’ importance in two occupational groups, viz. teachers and professionals of a company and tries to understand their importance to build a sustainable career. The purpose of the study is to realise the perspectives of different stakeholders in society, such as corporate and academicians, about the life values needed to be developed among young budding managers, which will result in a sustainable business.

Research Methodology: A mixed method approach of research methodology will be followed to understand the role of the value system in creating a sustainable young generation. This chapter will administer a questionnaire to gauge professionals and teachers who have grown up in the modern environment of getting ‘anything, anywhere, anytime’, and through some in-depth interviews, it will try to understand their perspectives about the importance of values in their life.

Scope of the Study: This chapter will focus on the young professionals and young teachers and the influencers in their life, as they will be molding the business decisions and decision makers, respectively, of the future.

Originality and Values: The chapter is original in nature, and it will attempt to define ‘life skills’ differently through the lens of sustainable values that must be acquired in order to produce a sustainable future.

Outcome: Work values are culture-specific. The chapter suggests that by changing the importance of path values and terminal values of their human resources towards more internal control can help the organisation to solve some human resource problems as well as improve the organisational performance to achieve sustainable behaviour. This research will help to provide an insight into the difference between skills and values. The aim is to highlight that skills pursued without values can never attain the sustainable world which is the urgent need of the hour. It will also serve as a guide for the management of colleges in terms of which values and skills should be instilled in their teachers to build a sustainable future so that they can disseminate the same to the students and how this might be accomplished.

Our aim in this chapter is twofold: first, to review briefly the history of the hermeneutic traditions; second, to examine its influence in organization studies. We begin with a review of hermeneutic philosophy including ancient Greek origins and Biblical hermeneutics. We then delve more deeply into the work of 20th-century hermeneutic philosophy, particularly Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur, to demonstrate how hermeneutics became a field that is concerned not only with texts but also with verbal and nonverbal forms of action and the preunderstanding that makes any interpretation possible. Finally, we explore how hermeneutic philosophers claim that interpretation is the mode by which we live and carry on with one another. In the third section, we suggest that the field of organizational studies has discovered the relevance of hermeneutic theory, a rarely explicitly acknowledged debt. In particular, we outline the influence of hermeneutic theory on several figural areas, including culture, sensemaking, identity, situated learning, and organizational dialogue.