Communities of leadership in FE

This working paper highlights the significance of multiple communities as crucial conditions, processes and consequences of FE leadership. Our research suggests that in (almost) all their activities FE colleges engage communities. They make important, but frequently under-estimated contributions to the local community and economy. This is the case within colleges (e.g. students and employees), between colleges and their multiple-partners (e.g. in the local community and economy) and between different colleges (e.g. professional networks and associations between Principals). The paper argues that in the FE sector communities and leadership are inextricably-linked, sometimes in mutually-reinforcing, but also in potentially contradictory ways. These communities are not only both internal and external to colleges themselves, they are also multiple and diverse, frequently shifting, interacting and impacting in complex, simultaneous ways. Our working paper: 1. Outlines (some of) the multiple communities served by FE colleges. In particular, we explore the FE college as: a learning community, a socially inclusive community, an inclusive learning community and a provider of adult and community learning. 2. Examines some of the important challenges for those occupying FE leadership positions in seeking to engage with these multiple communities. Our research findings suggest that on-going attempts to engage diverse communities constitute a crucial challenge for effective FE leadership. 3. Suggests a different way of understanding the nature of FE leadership. This indicates that a ‘blended leadership’ (Collinson and Collinson 2005c) approach may be particularly effective in engaging multiple, shifting communities in sustainable ways. 4. Suggests that the community contribution of FE colleges is frequently neglected and/or under-estimated. Many of the staff we have interviewed argue that important aspects of colleges’ community engagements remain invisible or undervalued, particularly by those who evaluate per

''Blended leadership'': employee perspectives on effective leadership in the U.K. FE sector

This paper draws on research into what constitutes ‘effective leadership’ from the perspective of FE employees. It highlights FE staff’s preference for what we term ‘blended leadership’, an approach that combines specific elements of both traditional hierarchical leadership with more contemporary aspects of distributed leadership. FE staff prefer leadership practices that provide structure, clarity and organization as well as team-working, communication and a shared sense of mission, responsibility and accomplishment. Within the literature on both education and on leadership, distributed and hierarchical models are typically seen as opposing polarities. Frequently, distributed leadership is highly valued whilst traditional approaches are criticised as outmoded. By contrast, this working paper suggests that FE employees continue to value important elements of a directive leadership approach combined and integrated with aspects of a distributed style. Our research finds that in the FE sector, such ‘blended leadership’ practices are routinely accomplished in the context of multiple, conflicting, shifting and contradictory demands on FE colleges

Computer simulation of neutral drift among limbal epithelial stem cells of mosaic mice

Acknowledgements We thank Graham West for writing the software that made this study possible and Ronnie Grant for help with some of the figures. Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest The authors indicate no potential conflicts of interest. Funding information This work was supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (grants BB/J015172/1 and BB/J015237/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Spacelike Ricci Inheritance Vectors in a Model of String Cloud and String Fluid Stress Tensor

We study the consequences of the existence of spacelike Ricci inheritance vectors (SpRIVs) parallel to $x^a$ for model of string cloud and string fluid stress tensor in the context of general relativity. Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for a spacetime with a model of string cloud and string fluid stress tensor to admit a SpRIV and a SpRIV which is also a spacelike conformal Killing vector (SpCKV). Also, some results are obtained.Comment: 11 page

Sharing a different voice: Attending to stories in collaborative writing

Through three stories, we hope to reveal how sometimes contradictory or unrecognizable aspects of our lives, selves, and stories can create tensions in the collaborative writing endeavor. We begin with a story that illuminates some of the narrative tensions that surface during a decade of writing collaboratively. In an effort to navigate these tensions, we explore two further stories in dialogue as a way to reveal how dominant narratives shape our lives and the stories we might tell. One aim of sharing these stories is to reveal how problematic ways of being are often inseparable from one’s cultural legacy. Making previously obscured narratives visible paves the way for imaginary leaps that are necessary for change. We hope these insights are useful for other writers and collaborators and those who seek caring, responsive, and nurturing writing relationships yet realize this journey can be problematic

Review of some classical gravitational superenergy tensors using computational techniques

We use computational algorithms recently developed by us to study completely four index divergence free quadratic in Riemann tensor polynomials in GR. Some results are new and some other reproduce and/or correct known ones. The algorithms are part of a Mathematica package called Tools of Tensor Calculus (TTC)[web address: http://baldufa.upc.es/ttc

'Working out’ identity: distance runners and the management of disrupted identity

This article contributes fresh perspectives to the empirical literature on the sociology of the body, and of leisure and identity, by analysing the impact of long-term injury on the identities of two amateur but serious middle/long-distance runners. Employing a symbolic interactionist framework,and utilising data derived from a collaborative autoethnographic project, it explores the role of ‘identity work’ in providing continuity of identity during the liminality of long-term injury and rehabilitation, which poses a fundamental challenge to athletic identity. Specifically, the analysis applies Snow and Anderson’s (1995) and Perinbanayagam’s (2000) theoretical conceptualisations in order to examine the various forms of identity work undertaken by the injured participants, along the dimensions of materialistic, associative and vocabularic identifications. Such identity work was found to be crucial in sustaining a credible sporting identity in the face of disruption to the running self, and in generating momentum towards the goal of restitution to full running fitness and reengagement with a cherished form of leisure. KEYWORDS: identity work, symbolic interactionism, distance running, disrupted identit

Feminist phenomenology and the woman in the running body

Modern phenomenology, with its roots in Husserlian philosophy, has been taken up and utilised in a myriad of ways within different disciplines, but until recently has remained relatively under-used within sports studies. A corpus of sociological-phenomenological work is now beginning to develop in this domain, alongside a longer standing literature in feminist phenomenology. These specific social-phenomenological forms explore the situatedness of lived-body experience within a particular social structure. After providing a brief overview of key strands of phenomenology, this article considers some of the ways in which sociological, and particularly feminist phenomenology, might be used to analyse female sporting embodiment. For illustrative purposes, data from an autophenomenographic project on female distance running are also included, in order briefly to demonstrate the application of phenomenology within sociology, as both theoretical framework and methodological approach

Predicting global usages of resources endowed with local policies

The effective usages of computational resources are a primary concern of up-to-date distributed applications. In this paper, we present a methodology to reason about resource usages (acquisition, release, revision, ...), and therefore the proposed approach enables to predict bad usages of resources. Keeping in mind the interplay between local and global information occurring in the application-resource interactions, we model resources as entities with local policies and global properties governing the overall interactions. Formally, our model takes the shape of an extension of pi-calculus with primitives to manage resources. We develop a Control Flow Analysis computing a static approximation of process behaviour and therefore of the resource usages.Comment: In Proceedings FOCLASA 2011, arXiv:1107.584

Sporting embodiment: sports studies and the (continuing) promise of phenomenology

Whilst in recent years sports studies have addressed the calls ‘to bring the body back in’ to theorisations of sport and physical activity, the ‘promise of phenomenology’ remains largely under-realised with regard to sporting embodiment. Relatively few accounts are grounded in the ‘flesh’ of the lived sporting body, and phenomenology offers a powerful framework for such analysis. A wide-ranging, multi-stranded, and interpretatively contested perspective, phenomenology in general has been taken up and utilised in very different ways within different disciplinary fields. The purpose of this article is to consider some selected phenomenological threads, key qualities of the phenomenological method, and the potential for existentialist phenomenology in particular to contribute fresh perspectives to the sociological study of embodiment in sport and exercise. It offers one way to convey the ‘essences’, corporeal immediacy and textured sensuosity of the lived sporting body. The use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is also critically addressed. Key words: phenomenology; existentialist phenomenology; interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA); sporting embodiment; the lived-body; Merleau-Pont