Educational change, inertia and potential futures

The point of departure of the paper is that there are profound social, cultural, technological, scientific and environmental changes which occur at most local but also at global levels of the modern world. From these will stem huge challenges in all spheres of life. These demand changes in education, not necessarily in the system or how it operates, but perhaps in its aims, and most certainly in its content. Knowledge that was once powerful to understand the world, to develop as a person and address the challenges of life, should be replaced with new knowledge which may often be outside the traditional disciplines. Moreover, a host of new skills may be relevant for the world of tomorrow. There are, however, many obstacles to change, both reasonable and unreasonable ones. The thrust of the paper is to provide a discussion of nine categories of inertia or constraints that are seen to stifle change, in particular, as it relates to the content of education. The categories are discussed under the headings of general conservativism, system stability, standards, fuzziness of new ideas, the strength of old ideas, vested interests, teacher education, lack of space and motivation for initiative, and lack of consequence of no change. Added to this there are serious logistic problems for those who want to foster change. It is argued that very little change in content will be seen if these inertial constraints are not recognised. Assuming there is a will to change, the institutional infrastructures that should facilitate sustained change must be scutinised and it must be ensured that the teachers, i.e. the professionals that operate the system, are involved.Peer Reviewe

Consumer purchasing behaviour towards fish and seafood products: patterns and insights from a sample of international studies

The present systematic review was performed to assess consumer purchasing behaviour towards fish and seafood products in the wide context of developed countries. Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar engines were used to search the existing literature and a total of 49 studies were identified for inclusion. These studies investigated consumer purchasing behaviour towards a variety of fish and seafood products, in different countries and by means of different methodological approaches. In particular, the review identifies and discusses the main drivers and barriers of fish consumption as well as consumers’ preferences about the most relevant attributes of fish and seafood products providing useful insights for both practitioners and policy makers. Finally, main gaps of the existing literature and possible trajectories for future research are also discussed

The Working Class Promise: A Communicative Account of Mobility-Based Ambivalences

In-depth interviews with 62 people with working class ties (blue-collar workers and adult sons and daughters of blue-collar workers) reveal a social construction of working class that imbues it with four core, positively valenced values: strong work ethic, provider orientation, the dignity of all work and workers, and humility. This constellation of values is communicated through a ubiquitous macrolevel discourse—which I coin the Working Class Promise—that elevates working class to the highest position in the social class hierarchy and fosters a strong commitment to maintain a working class value system and identity. However, this social construction is only a partial social construction. That is, these individuals do not question material, socioeconomic-based delineations of class boundaries (e.g., income, education level, occupational prestige). Consequently, their acceptance of structural class boundaries, combined with their high regard of working class values, positions social classes in ways that make the goals of the American Dream (i.e., class mobility) and the Working Class Promise (i.e., class maintenance) paradoxical. I argue that the paradox of social mobility that results from this partial social construction is the root of mobility-based ambivalences