Occupational (Im)mobility in the Global Care Economy: The Case of Foreign-Trained Nurses in the Canadian Context

The twenty-first century has witnessed a number of significant demographic and political shifts that have resulted in a care crisis. Addressing the deficit of care provision has led many nations to actively recruit migrant care labour, often under temporary forms of migration. The emergence of this phenomenon has resulted in a rich field of analysis using the lens of care, including the idea of the Global Care Chain. Revisions to this conceptualization have pushed for its extension beyond domestic workers in the home to include skilled workers in other institutional settings, particularly nurses in hospitals and long-term care settings. Reviewing relevant literature on migrant nurses, this article explores the labour market experiences of internationally educated nurses in Canada. The article reviews research on the barriers facing migrant nurses as they transfer their credentials to the Canadian context. Analysis of this literature suggests that internationally trained nurses experience a form of occupational (im)mobility, paradoxical, ambiguous and contingent processes that exploit global mobility, and results in the stratified incorporation of skilled migrant women into healthcare workplaces

Thinking and acting both locally and globally: new issues for school development planning

No abstract available

In the eye of the beholder: mutual obligations and areas of ambiguity in the hospital-physician relationship

Internationally, many countries are increasing provider accountability for cost and quality of the delivered care. In this challenging environment hospital executives struggle to build effective hospital-physician relations. However, despite the importance of the hospital-physician relationship there has been little research which has examined how physicians and hospital executives describe the terms of their working relationship. This paper seeks to fill this gap by reporting findings of a qualitative study in which we explored the psychological contract between physicians and the hospital they practice at. In-depth interviews with physicians and executives (n=30) of three Belgian hospitals were performed. Our analysis of the transcribed interviews yielded a rich understanding of how physicians and hospital executives interpret and experience mutual obligations and areas of ambiguity within their psychological contract. We found that a distinction should be made between on the one hand administrative obligations (adequate operational support, responsive decision making processes and attractive facilities) and on the other hand professional obligations (clinical excellence and physician autonomous medical decision making). In addition, two areas of ambiguity could be identified reflecting both dimensions of the psychological contract. Firstly, physicians act as independent caregivers generating professional fees. A trade-off exists in their day-to-day interaction with the hospital. Therefore the interpretation about the way the care should be organized differs between executives and physicians. Secondly, hospital prospective financing systems lay the accent on cost-effective care from a societal perspective. In contrast, physicians are remunerated mainly by fee-for-service. The extent to which physicians should take into account the impact that their medical decisions have on the hospital bottom line varies. Our aspiration is that the findings of this study will assist in supporting hospital executives and physicians to build cooperative relationships needed to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of current health care delivery

Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories

This paper outlines some enablers and barriers in the use of learning object repositories (LORs) to support learning within a range of communities. Key dimensions of use of LORs as well as relationships between LORs and the learning communities that they aim to support are discussed. The LORs and communities analysed in the paper are SIESWE Learning Exchange (formerly Stor Curam), JORUM, IVIMEDS, and DIDET. Guided by the Activity Theory perspective, the LORs and the communities are analysed as sociocultural activity systems. Based on this analysis, some initial barriers and enablers for the use of LORs to support learning are outlined and implications for the future use of LORs are discussed

Accented Body and Beyond: a Model for Practice-Led Research with Multiple Theory/Practice Outcomes

Dance has always been a collaborative or interdisciplinary practice normally associated with music or sound and visual arts/design. Recent developments with technology have introduced additional layers of interdisciplinary work to include live and virtual forms in the expansion of what Fraleigh (1999:11) terms ‘the dancer oriented in time/space, somatically alive to the experience of moving’. This already multi-sensory experience and knowledge of the dancer is now layered with other kinds of space/time and kinetic awarenesses, both present and distant, through telematic presence, generative systems and/or sensors. In this world of altered perceptions and ways of being, the field of dance research is further opened up to alternative processes of inquiry, both theoretically and in practice, and importantly in the spaces between the two

A framework to study learning in a complex learning environment

This paper presents a framework for analysing variations in the ways in which students experience learning in complex, computer-supported environments. It involves an application of phenomenography extended to encompass the content of the learning as well as its context. Concepts from activity theory are drawn upon to enlarge the scope of phenomenography. By applying this framework, researchers, as well as course organisers, may gain insights into how courses are experienced by the participants and can thus develop these in a way that will be perceived as improvement by the course participants. Within this predominantly phenomenographic approach, the focus is upon the content of the learning experience, giving the ability to relate learning outcomes to the experience of the learning environment. Hence, insights can be gained that can help to improve learning environments and thereby outcomes. A case study illustrating the kinds of results than can be obtained when using the framework is provided

On Evidence-based Risk Management in Requirements Engineering

Background: The sensitivity of Requirements Engineering (RE) to the context makes it difficult to efficiently control problems therein, thus, hampering an effective risk management devoted to allow for early corrective or even preventive measures. Problem: There is still little empirical knowledge about context-specific RE phenomena which would be necessary for an effective context- sensitive risk management in RE. Goal: We propose and validate an evidence-based approach to assess risks in RE using cross-company data about problems, causes and effects. Research Method: We use survey data from 228 companies and build a probabilistic network that supports the forecast of context-specific RE phenomena. We implement this approach using spreadsheets to support a light-weight risk assessment. Results: Our results from an initial validation in 6 companies strengthen our confidence that the approach increases the awareness for individual risk factors in RE, and the feedback further allows for disseminating our approach into practice.Comment: 20 pages, submitted to 10th Software Quality Days conference, 201

Creative Gardens: Towards Digital Commons

date-added: 2015-03-04 03:12:21 +0000 date-modified: 2015-04-01 06:49:53 +0000date-added: 2015-03-04 03:12:21 +0000 date-modified: 2015-04-01 06:49:53 +0000This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, CreativeWorks London Hub, grant AH/J005142/1, and the European Regional Development Fund, London Creative and Digital Fusion

Complexity and leadership in teacher professional development : the case of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics

There has been considerable interest in the teaching of mathematics over the last two decades, both internationally and in the UK. This has led to a number of government sponsored interventions in both curriculum and teacher professional development. The establishment of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) in 2006, arguably, represented a departure from previous policy and initiatives related to professional development for teachers of mathematics. This paper looks at what was distinctive about the NCETM approach (2006-2010) and the impact of its work, as well as exploring a number of theoretical issues that arise when describing these. The paper draws on data from a study of the impact of the NCETM that was informed by interview and case studies. Telephone interviews were conducted with 89 teachers and others with differing levels of involvement with the NCETM. In addition, 10 school-based case studies of different NCETM-supported activity were conducted. This material was analysed using a CPD evaluation model (Coldwell and Simkins, 2011) and more generally in relation to literature on school and teacher change. In this paper, we explore ways in which theoretical tools drawn from complexity theory - complex adaptive systems and formal and informal systems - can be used to describe the nature and consequences of the NCETM's actions. Further, in understanding and assessing the impact of the NCETM intervention on subject leadership and teacher identity we suggest that parallels can be made with analyses of identity in social movements. Finally, we examine the concepts of dispersed and distributed leadership in relation to their applicability to the organic development of mathematics teacher leadership that the NCETM promotes. The paper outlines both the type of outcomes of the NCETM's activity and the factors that supported these. Many of these are similar to those previously identified in relation to professional development that focuses on and supports school-based leadership and can be analysed in terms of theoretical concepts such as distributed and dispersed leadership. However, the NCETM's approach had some distinctive impacts and features that, we contend, are particular to the complex interrelationship of the different forms of NCETM activity