Tightrope walkers and solidarity sisters: critical workplace educators in the garment industry

Abstract: This article focuses on the complex negotiations of critical workplace educators positioned amongst contradictory agendas and discourses in the workplace. While philosophically aligned with critical pedagogical agendas of transformation and collective action for workplace change, these educators perform an array of pedagogic articulations in everyday practice to secure their continued presence in the workplace. What becomes evident in these seemingly opposing articulations are various strategic political positionings of educators alongside their juggling of demands, attachments and inter-identifications with both learners and managers. The pedagogy that emerges challenges conventional binaries of ‘transformative’ and ‘reproductive’ learning. Dynamics of transformation and liberation as well as reproduction and subjugation appear to be interlinked, along with expanding nets of social relations that blur power hierarchies and spatial boundaries, in a pedagogy that ultimately appears to mobilise hope and agency among workers. The workplace educator works a delicate balance of these dynamics to survive. The argument is based on a case study of a garment factory in Canada in which an adult education programme managed to thrive for 17 years: both workers and educators were interviewed in depth

Excavation of an early 17th-century glassmaking site at Glasshouse, Shinrone, Co. Offaly, Ireland

An archaeological research excavation was conducted in the area immediately surrounding an upstanding glassmaking furnace near Shinrone, Co. Offaly, Ireland. It dates to the early to mid 17th century and was built and operated by French Huguenots, probably de Hennezells (de Hennezel/Henzeys/Hensie) who had settled in this region as part of the Crown plantation of King’s County (now Co. Offaly). This furnace, which employed wood rather than coal as a fuel, is a very rare survival, with no other upstanding examples known in Ireland, Britain or the Lorraine region of France where the form probably originated

The Cholecystectomy As A Day Case (CAAD) Score: A Validated Score of Preoperative Predictors of Successful Day-Case Cholecystectomy Using the CholeS Data Set

Background Day-case surgery is associated with significant patient and cost benefits. However, only 43% of cholecystectomy patients are discharged home the same day. One hypothesis is day-case cholecystectomy rates, defined as patients discharged the same day as their operation, may be improved by better assessment of patients using standard preoperative variables. Methods Data were extracted from a prospectively collected data set of cholecystectomy patients from 166 UK and Irish hospitals (CholeS). Cholecystectomies performed as elective procedures were divided into main (75%) and validation (25%) data sets. Preoperative predictors were identified, and a risk score of failed day case was devised using multivariate logistic regression. Receiver operating curve analysis was used to validate the score in the validation data set. Results Of the 7426 elective cholecystectomies performed, 49% of these were discharged home the same day. Same-day discharge following cholecystectomy was less likely with older patients (OR 0.18, 95% CI 0.15–0.23), higher ASA scores (OR 0.19, 95% CI 0.15–0.23), complicated cholelithiasis (OR 0.38, 95% CI 0.31 to 0.48), male gender (OR 0.66, 95% CI 0.58–0.74), previous acute gallstone-related admissions (OR 0.54, 95% CI 0.48–0.60) and preoperative endoscopic intervention (OR 0.40, 95% CI 0.34–0.47). The CAAD score was developed using these variables. When applied to the validation subgroup, a CAAD score of ≤5 was associated with 80.8% successful day-case cholecystectomy compared with 19.2% associated with a CAAD score >5 (p < 0.001). Conclusions The CAAD score which utilises data readily available from clinic letters and electronic sources can predict same-day discharges following cholecystectomy