Co-working communities: Sustainability citizenship at work

The aim of this chapter is to explore coworking as an alternative form of citizen-based organisation in shared member-based spaces, which enable peer-to-peer interactions that engender camaraderie and a collective sense of achievement that enhances individual sociality and productivity as a form of socially and economically sustainable work. Hence, I focus this chapter on the spaces of organisation and their cultures of sustainability. Under this broad definition, coworking takes various spatial forms, from ad hoc meet-ups at cafés to low-rent shared office and maker spaces to high-fee architecturally designed workspaces

'Shoe-Horned And Sidelined'? Challenges For Part-Time Learners In The New HE Landscape

This research, undertaken by the Open University, set out to investigate the part-time student experience of higher education across the UK, in the context of a well-publicised contraction in the sector, and increasing divergence between policies affecting part-time study in the four nations

Book review: <i>Museums and Design Education: Looking to Learn, Learning to See</i>

This timely book, exploring a range of conceptual connections between HE learning and museum settings, is edited by three colleagues (two Research Fellows and an HE Officer) from the Centre for Excellence in Design (CELTD). Based at the University of Brighton and the Victoria and Albert Museum, this CETL was (like the 73 others in the UK) set up to promote excellent teaching across institutions – in this case through collection-based learning. Unfortunately, while much of the reported drive for collaboration between museums and HE in the UK has come from the CETL itself (through research and conferences), future funding for all CETLs is being wound down and this book feels a little like an epitaph for a moment of possibility. I hope the institutions involved will find the resources to sustain some of the work which, tantalisingly, has begun to raise important questions for innovative learning collaborations

Green in Your Wallet or a Green Planet: Views on Government Spending and Climate Change

The scientific community is a near consensus that climate change is not only anthropogenic but is also a major threat to people around the world. Despite the alarm bells from the scientific community many people in the United States simply deny the science of climate change. Many studies have targeted level of education, party membership, and gender in their role in influencing how individuals perceive climate change. This study showed that views on government spending plays a very important role in the importance of the environment. Individuals who supported decreased government spending tend to view jobs as more important than the environment when compared to individuals who supported increased government spending, this is true among both Republicans and non-Republicans. Generally speaking, the Republican platform typically involves the economy over the environment, and the Democratic platform typically involves more environmentally friendly action. This study posits Republicans that believed the government should increase spending in 2012 were indistinguishable from non-Republicans who supported reductions in government spending. The inability to distinguish between republicans who believe in increased spending and non-republicans who believe in increased spending suggests that views on the environment may be more than simply a partisan issue they may simply have to do with willingness to spend money on the environment