A study of applicants for the Master of Education degree at the School of Education, Boston University, from 1947 to 1957

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Flexible Workplace Practices in Small IT Firms: A Multiple Case Study

Flexible workplace practices (FWPs), such as flex-time and working from home, facilitate employees’ work-life balance or integration and enhance their quality of work. Yet, their use is constrained by time-oriented and gendered workplace cultures. Typically past research involves either a quantitative analysis of individual-level data or a qualitative examination of a single large firm. Meanwhile inCanada, small businesses (with less than 100 employees) employ 48 percent of the total labour force in the private sector (IndustryCanada, 2010). In this dissertation, I investigate the FWPs available and used at small information technology (IT) firms. Cross-firm comparisons are made with respect to this flexibility and the working time aspect of workplace culture. I then examine potential individual and structural factors that may influence the availability and use of FWPs, as well as the working time rules and behaviours of small firms. How employees experience FWPs is also explored. This research is guided by a theoretical orientation that is multi-levelled and multi-directional and incorporates the life course perspective. A multiple case study is utilized here to compare 17 small firms located in the IT industry. Data sources include 103 quantitative web-surveys, 136 in-depth interview transcripts, and 17 case study reports and snapshots, as well as eight human resource (HR) policies that existed among these firms. These data come from a larger project, Workforce Aging in the New Economy (WANE). Findings reveal three patterns among firms regarding their FWPs and working time behaviours and rules. These firms vary along gender, class, and age lines. The small business owners’ recent employment transitions and past employment experiences shaped how they ran their firms. Employees’ experiences differ accordingly. This research adds sociological knowledge to literature on FWPs. Findings indicate variation among knowledge-intensive firms regarding the managerial control strategies used and implications for employees. Results also suggest that similar and different processes occur in large and small firms. In order for greater flexibility to be available in small firms, both structural and individual changes need to occur

Interactive Gaming Reduces Experimental Pain With or Without a Head Mounted Display

While virtual reality environments have been shown to reduce pain, the precise mechanism that produces the pain attenuating effect has not been established. It has been suggested that it may be the ability to command attentional resources with the use of head mounted displays (HMDs) or the interactivity of the environment. Two experiments compared participants’ pain ratings to high and low levels of electrical stimulation while engaging in interactive gaming with an HMD. In the first, gaming with the HMD was compared to a positive emotion induction condition; and in the second experiment the HMD was compared to a condition in which the game was projected onto a wall. Interactive gaming significantly reduced numerical ratings of painful stimuli when compared to the baseline and affect condition. However, when the two gaming conditions were directly compared, they equally reduced participants’ pain ratings. These data are consistent with past research showing that interactive gaming can attenuate experimentally induced pain and its effects are comparable whether presented in a head mounted display or projected on a wall

Rural non-farm activities and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa (NRI Policy Series 14)

This publication is about rural non-farm (RNF) activity in sub-Saharan Africa and the determinants of differential access to RNF incomes. Growing interest in RNF incomes reflects increasing evidence that rural people’s livelihoods are derived from diverse sources and are not as overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture as previously assumed. Moreover, policy-makers are looking to the wider rural economy, to reduce persistent rural poverty and stem urban migration. The determinants of access to RNF activities, or capacity to engage in such activities are discussed. In the ‘growth with equity’ equation, the focus here is on the equity factors

From Human Rights to A Politics of Care

Responding to claims that human rights have for too long dominated the imaginative space of emancipation, in this paper we aim to center stage the politics of care. After demonstrating the inadequacy of the so-called "subject of human rights" which has been construed in binary terms as either independent or dependent, we highlight the contribution of feminist ethics of care scholars in underscoring interdependency as an essential component of the human condition. We then draw on the work of Audre Lorde and Judith Butler to offer a new conceptualization of interdependency, one unmoored from the liberal subject. By way of conclusion, we interweave this new understanding of interdependency with insights drawn from The Care Manifesto and abolitionist care scholars to offer an alternative political framework, one that offers a collaborative utopian counter-narrative for the 21st century

Nurturing global collaboration and networked learning in higher education

We consider the principles of communities of practice (CoP) and networked learning in higher education, illustrated with a case study. iCollab has grown from an international community of practice connecting students and lecturers in seven modules across seven higher education institutions in six countries, to a global network supporting the exploration and evaluation of mobile web tools to engage in participatory curriculum development and supporting students in developing international collaboration and cooperation skills. This article explores the interplay of collaboration and cooperation, CoP and networked learning; describes how this interplay has operated in iCollab; and highlights opportunities and challenges of learning, teaching and interacting with students in networked publics in higher education

The ambiguity of mutuality:Discourse and power in corporate value regimes

Corporate values offer a means for consecrating alternative regimes of worth within businesses, explicitly orienting firms around more than the pursuit of profits. This paper examines how corporate values come to be constructed and diffused as a framework for interpretation and action through analysis of Food Co.’s flagship principle: ‘mutuality’. Tracing the deployment of mutuality through Food Co.’s internal processes (within the embodied practice and narratives of employees) and external relationships (within Food Co.’s bottom of the pyramid project in Kenya), the paper illustrates how the ambiguity of mutuality forms a strategic resource for the company by (i) sheltering multiple meanings and interpretations, thus enabling resonance among different situations and subject positions; (ii) allowing for syncretism between seemingly opposing and categorically different forms; and (iii) generating a space for negotiation and dealing with uncertainty. Employing these three themes of ambiguity as an organizing frame for our discussion, we highlight how the ambiguity of corporate values absorbs the contradictions emblematic of the ‘heterarchical firm’ (Stark 2000), while obscuring the obligations and expectations the concept entails as it moves beyond Food Co. to outsourced ‘entrepreneurs’ in Kenya. Language generates the appearance of equivalence and benevolence while seeking new spaces for accumulation and legitimizing the incorporation of labor on precarious terms