Report on representation and development of women for top leadership roles in the New Zealand public service

New Zealand has an enviable international reputation as a country where it is relatively common for women to hold top leadership roles in government and in organisations. Of 36 OECD countries, in 2003 New Zealand had the 4th highest representation of women in senior management with 31% of such positions held by women. However, by 2009 New Zealand had slipped to 17th position with 27% representation. The New Zealand Public Service in particular has traditionally had higher representation levels of women in senior management with 34% in 2001 climbing to a new high 40% in 2010. The proportion of women in public service chief executive roles averaged 23% per year for the years 2001 to 2006. However, it has declined from a high of 26% (9 out of 35) in 2005 to 14% (5 out of 35) in late 2010. This paper focuses on appointments to CE positions in the New Zealand Public Service and in particular it examines: - the extent to which women are applying for, being shortlisted for and being appointed to Public Service chief executive positions over the last decade - the extent to which women are represented in the potential pool for CE appointments and the previous roles of CE appointees  - what can be done to increase the number of women who apply for and are appointed to Public Service chief executive positions

Towards a Pedagogy of Intergenerational Learning

Based on innovative global practice, Intergenerational Learning in Practice presents a unique contribution to the field of intergenerational learning. Drawing on the Together Old and Young (TOY) programme, this book provides a comprehensive background to intergenerational learning, along with tools and resources to help develop and improve your own intergenerational practice. Experienced international authors from Europe, North America and Australia provide a broad array of perspectives on intergenerational learning, ranging from pedagogy to planning and community development

Tea and Friends - Celebrating 21 Years of Home-Start, Blanchardstown.

Poster showing Home-Start which is a voluntary organization working with under fives in Blanchardstown.https://arrow.tudublin.ie/civpostbk/1032/thumbnail.jp

Intergenerational Learning: An Exploratory Study of the Concept, Role and Potential of Intergenerational Learning (IGL) as a Pedagogical Strategy in Irish Early Childhood Education (ECE) Services

This study investigates the concept, role and potential of intergenerational learning (IGL) as a pedagogical strategy in Irish early childhood education (ECE) services. It explores the perspectives on IGL of educators(5), children(70) and their parents(43) in five Irish ECE services in city, town and suburban locations. The theoretical and conceptual framework was informed by socio-cultural theories of learning aligned to key principles of IGL. A qualitative methodological approach was adopted to access these perspectives.Specifically, the methods used to gather data were semi-structured interviews with educators, draw and talk strategies with children and informal written feedback with parents. Educators played a key role in the study as they gathered data with children over time, enhancing the richness and authenticity of the children’s data (Sommer et al., 2013). Key findings demonstrated that children’s happiness, socio-emotional competences and executive functions, all key elements of successful learning and living,were strongly supported through IGL, reinforcing its potential as a relational pedagogy(Papatheodorou & Moyles, 2009).Additionally, IGL, by drawing on the resources of the community created rich opportunities for children’s participationand contribution as citizens in communities, underscoring the potential of IGL as a transformative pedagogy(Sánchez et al., 2018).The contribution of accessing young children’s experiences of IGL and the invaluable role which educators can play in facilitating children’s participation in research is also foregrounded in the study findings.The study concluded that IGL offers a strong pedagogical strategy for Irish ECE services and, significantly, highlighted the potential of IGL to enrich and expand the principles and aims underpinning Irish ECE policy frameworks (CECDE, 2006; NCCA, 2009). While the frameworks provide an enabling context for IGL, the success of IGL depends to a considerable extent on the commitment and expertise of educators. Furthermore, for IGL to become embedded as a pedagogical strategy in Irish ECE services would require that the concept be reflected in ECE policy and specifically aligned with principles, aims and goals of the curricular and quality frameworks

Working with Families: Theory and Practice Hand-in-Hand

Final year students of the DIT BA Early Childhood Education (ECE) programme worked with the home visitors from the NCI’s Early Learning Initiative - Parent Child Home Programme – to review the content of the guide sheets they use with parents. A Professional Design Practice MA student designed a new template for the guide sheets, for her major project.https://arrow.tudublin.ie/civpostbk/1001/thumbnail.jp

Speciation Analysis of Arsenic and Selenium by HPLC and Mass Spectrometry

New methodologies have been developed for the determination of arsenic and selenium species in a variety of environmentally important matrices. A simple liquid chromatographic separation technique based upon mini-column technology was developed to obtain a simultaneous, fast, efficient and reliable separation of relatively toxic from relatively non-toxic arsenic and selenium species. The relatively toxic arsenic and selenium species studied were inorganic Asv, AsIII, SeVI and SeIV. The relatively non-toxic species of arsenic and selenium studied were AsBet, DMA and Se Met. Optimum conditions were found to be the use of a Hamilton PRP X100 12-20 µm anion-exchange resin with column dimensions of 100 x 3 mm. The mobile phase utilized a 10 mM K2S04 solution at pH 10.2 with a flow rate of 1 ml minˉ¹ and a sample injection loop of 100 µ1. Total analysis time was under 7 minutes with limits of detection in the range of 2.0 - 10 µg kgˉ¹ for arsenic and selenium species, respectively. Work was undertaken, using HPLC-ICP-MS instrumentation, as part of a feasibility study, into the production and certification of six new reference materials; these being analyzed for the species of arsenic, in chicken, fish, rice and soil samples, and selenium, in wheat and yeast samples. Enzyme extraction techniques were used throughout, except for soil where a microwave H3P04 extraction was used. Efficiencies were in the range 90-100%. The results obtained provided speciation information as well as total elemental concentrations with no operationally defined limits. Speciation analysis requires that the endogenous species are extracted without modification of their chemical form or disturbance to the equilibrium existing between the various species present. Work was undertaken to identify and quantify the selenium species present in two samples of novel, previously unstudied, bio-natured nutrients, these nutrients being: i) a selenized yeast from a new process and: ii) a probiotic bacteria-based dried milk sample (Biogurt®). Specific interest was directed towards enzyme, MeOH and KOH and TMAH extraction efficiencies together with retention of species information. Selenium speciation was performed using ion-exchange HPLC-ICP-MS. It was found that the selenium content, in the form of SeMet, was adequately extracted from the yeast (Pharma Nord) that was used for method validation using protease, which yielding 90% of the total selenium. However, the determination of selenium and selenium species in the bionatured nutrients proved to be quite problematic. Methods that avoided species conversion with the highest extraction efficiencies were found to be: i) the use of protease for the yeast sample (19%) and; ii) the use of 0.01 M HCl for the Biogurt® (71%). Information obtained from speciation of these samples by anion and cation-exchange HPLC-ICP-MS was limited due to the low extraction efficiencies of any procedure undertaken for the samples, by the retention of the analyte on-column and by the lack of standards available for matching of retention times. HPLC-ICP-MS has proved an efficient tool for the identification and determination of arsenic and selenium species providing detection limits at µg kgˉ¹ levels. However, a major concern with this instrumentation is the unambiguous assignment of peaks which relies on the chromatographic purity of the signal and the availability of standards. Anion-exchange chromatography employing Hamilton PRP X100 resin with NH4HC03 (10 mM, pH 10.2 for arsenic and 10-50 mM, pH 5 for selenium species) with methanol (10 %, v/v) as the mobile phase allowed separation of the arsenic and selenium species investigated under conditions that were compatible for both HPLC-ICP-MS and HPLC-ESMS. Molecular ions and structural fragmentation patterns of these by tandem MS have facilitated the identification of chromatographic peaks obtained using HPLC-ICP-MS. In the analysis of marine algae, arsenosugars were the major species found, and in yeast the dominant species was found to be selenomethionine.European Community 'Competitive and Sustainable Growth' Programm

Three Essays in Health and Development.

The quality of healthcare is low in developing countries. In this dissertation, I examine two different proposals to improve healthcare quality: improve customer information regarding healthcare choices, or enroll individuals in health insurance. In Chapter 1, I present results from an audit study conducted in Uganda. I compare the price paid and the drug quality received between shoppers in the same village who either ask for a diagnosis (or declare the patient has malaria) or ask for a drug recommendation (or ask for a specific product. I find that shoppers who present information about either the diagnosis or recommended treatment pay approximately $0.18 (5 percent) less. Counter-intuitively, I find that customers who present information about either the diagnosis or the recommended treatment are 3.4 percentage points more likely to be sold a substandard drug. I develop a conceptual model to justify my findings and conclude that improved information will not improve quality in a market if information and detection of low quality are not sufficiently related. In Chapter 2, coauthored with Esther Atukunda, we present descriptive analyses from the same data collected in Uganda. We combine data from drug outlets, covert shoppers, and real customers to test hypotheses of how low quality drugs enter a market. We estimate that only 3.4 percent of purchased drugs are substandard: a much higher drug quality than found in previous studies. We develop three stylized facts: substandard medicines are typically diluted high-quality medicines; customers cannot tell which drugs are low quality; and vendors are complicit in the sale. We end with a discussion of policy interventions. In Chapter 3, coauthored with Rebecca Thornton, I present results from an experiment conducted in Nicaragua that randomly allocated health insurance subsidies to parents. We specifically examine differential effects among children who were part of an insured household, but ineligible for health insurance themselves due to an age restriction. Our results indicate that the health insurance significantly increases access to higher-quality providers and altered the entire family’s health demands. In particular, eligible and insured children substantially increase healthcare utilization, while ineligible children in insured households decrease healthcare visits.PhDPublic Policy and EconomicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113579/1/fitza_1.pd

\u27\u27It’s a Win-Win Situation” – Intergenerational Learning in Preschool and Elder Care Settings: An Irish Perspective

This paper explores the level and sustainability of intergenerational practice in early years and elder care settings in Ireland. The paper is based on a small-scale research study involving interviews with sta in ve organizations and builds on ndings from previous research conducted for the TOY project (http://www.toyproject.net). The paper examines the pedagogies involved as well as the community context of intergenerational practice in early years and elder care settings. The ndings highlight that sustainable intergenerational practice is facilitated by strong pedagogies that support active and relational learning across the life course and by being embedded in robust community networks

International Human Rights Law in United States Courts: A Comparative Perspective

This article will catalogue the various contexts in which United States courts have agreed or refused to follow international human rights law, treating separately the larger number of cases concerning customary norms, the relatively small group of cases relating to human rights treaties, and the cases in which international norms are referenced without regard to their status as binding law. In each of these sections we will analyze areas of confusion, disagreement, or under-development in international legal doctrine that impede the productive use of human rights norms by domestic courts. We will also compare the approaches of United States courts with the attitudes taken by courts in other democracies that share a common English legal heritage. The experience of Canada and the United Kingdom indicates that greater acceptance of international human rights standards by the political branches of government, as manifested both by ratification of human rights treaties and by the adjudication of individual complaints by treaty implementation bodies, does not necessarily translate into greater and more principled acceptance of international human rights norms by domestic courts. Finally, we will confront directly the underlying factor debilitating the judicial use of international human rights law - namely, the countermajoritarian issue