Teaching for life? midlife narratives from female classroom teachers who considered leaving the profession

Career decision-making research has focused primarily on occupation change as a discrete event and emphasised occupational mobility. Not all of those who consider changing occupation do so though, and this study explored the narrative accounts of nine female teachers who had considered leaving the profession, but remained teaching at midlife. Narrative plotlines illustrated how this decision-making process evolved across the career span and revealed individual experiences ranging from reconciliation to on-going disaffection with teaching. Thematic analysis identified factors associated with occupational embeddedness in understanding why these women stayed and the potential for embedding issues to constrain women's occupational mobility. Implications for career counselling include exploring occupational decision-making across the career span, recognising the impact of embedding forces on women's teaching careers and supporting those who feel unable to leave this demanding occupation

Refugees’ narratives of career barriers and professional identity

Purpose: This paper examines how refugees from a professional career domain restore a coherent narrative when confronting barriers to recognition of their former career status. It focuses in particular on the identity work in which they engage in order to reconcile tensions between their current status as refugees and their professional identity. Design/method/approach: Fifteen refugees to the UK who were professionally qualified in medicine or teaching in their country of origin took part in interviews or focus groups exploring career barriers, plans and future aspirations. Initial inductive thematic analysis identified recognition of professional identities as a primary concern. Further analytic iterations between theory and empirical material sharpened the focus on identifying the tensions in their professional identity work. Findings: Participants struggled both to restore their former professional identity and to develop alternative identities. Professional identity work limited, but also sustained them in the face of barriers they encountered as refugees. Practical implications: More support for refugee career development would facilitate adaptation to local job markets, thereby addressing gaps in Education and Health services in the UK. Originality value: Highlights the tensions in refugee professional identity work and particularly the challenges and rewards of professional identification in the face of employment barriers

Aesthetic labouring and the female entrepreneur: ‘Entrepreneurship that wouldn’t chip your nails'

Recognising significant interrelations between neoliberal and postfeminist discourses, we advance understandings of constructions of female entrepreneurs by unpacking their visual representation and exploring the role of aesthetic labour. Given the impact of contemporary media, we focus on key images integral to the marketing of Mattel’s Entrepreneur Barbie as a postfeminist ‘cultural motif’ (Duffy et al., 2017: 262) and investigate how these representations of female entrepreneurship are consumed. First, we highlight the practical demands and emotional risks of the aesthetic labour required to achieve such postfeminist glamour. Second,links between conventional femininity and entrepreneurial success are both celebrated andchallenged, highlighting perceived limits to achievement. Finally, we unpack understandings of the relations between entrepreneurialism and aesthetic labour to move beyond assumptions of the instrumental power of the makeover. Our findings thus, enrich understandings of the consumption of postfeminist images of entrepreneurs

Exploring media construction of investment banking as dirty work

Purpose - To explore how two kinds of UK-based media positioned investment banking as dirty work during the financial crisis, thereby engaging in moral enterprise (Becker 1963) and contributing to the shaping of society’s normative contours (Cohen 1972). - Design/methodology - We employ rhetorical analysis to explore how newspaper editorials and an online blog portray investment banking as tainted between April 2008 and October 2009. - Findings – These media sources construct the values and behaviours of investment bankers, rather than the tasks of their occupation, as morally tainted. Through specific rhetorical strategies they advance three key arguments: bankers are morally tainted because their wealth is excessive; because their wealth is not earned; and because they are selfish and materialist. - Originality/value – In investigating media designations of investment banking as dirty work, the paper addresses two aspects of dirty work which are underexplored. Firstly it examines a high-prestige occupation and secondly investigates the construction and attribution of taint to a previously untainted occupation. It makes two methodological contributions to the literature: contributing to the nascent interest in the media’s construction of dirty work (for example, Grandy and Mavin 2012); and using rhetorical analysis to study the construction of taint

Organisations, race and trauma

SIGNPOSTING RESOURCES IN THE WAKE OF GEORGE FLOYD’S DEATH This brief guide is intended as a ‘first stop’ resource to help individuals understand: a) A brief outline of Institutional Racism so that individuals can read up and better inform themselves about the context– with the caveat that some content might be distressing b) The role of Activism c) An explanation of Racially Traumatic Events which affect people at work and in their private lives d) Some Practical Strategies to help individuals cope with the trauma they have witnessed e) Further resources about Tackling Racism in Education and decolonising the curriculum which contain advice, facts and guidance. Much of this information may be of interest to the wider community

Cultural difference on the table: food and drink and their role in multicultural team performance

Multicultural teams are increasingly common and provide a challenge to achieving the integration associated with greater effectiveness. The vague and abstract nature of many definitions of culture can make the difficulties in acknowledging and addressing difference challenging. This longitudinal study of a multicultural team follows the anthropological roots of cultural studies to focus on the material role of food and drink in team development. In an empirical, ethnographically oriented study of a culturally diverse work team over time, we explored the ways that food and drink acted as boundary objects in the processes of integration, differentiation and cultural adaptation and negotiation. By employing the lens of material culture, with its sensory nature and its associations with identity, we also highlight the complexity of cross-cultural interaction, with its possibilities of cooperation, learning, difficulties and resistance, and suggest that food and drink allow a grounded discussion of culture, accommodation and difference. We contribute to the multicultural team literature, emphasizing the roles of materiality, constrained choice and complexity, as well as how these are translated into performance by the generative mechanisms of agency in context. We also identify some specific contributions to practice arising from this research

Dipeptidyl peptidase-1 inhibition in patients hospitalised with COVID-19: a multicentre, double-blind, randomised, parallel-group, placebo-controlled trial

Background Neutrophil serine proteases are involved in the pathogenesis of COVID-19 and increased serine protease activity has been reported in severe and fatal infection. We investigated whether brensocatib, an inhibitor of dipeptidyl peptidase-1 (DPP-1; an enzyme responsible for the activation of neutrophil serine proteases), would improve outcomes in patients hospitalised with COVID-19. Methods In a multicentre, double-blind, randomised, parallel-group, placebo-controlled trial, across 14 hospitals in the UK, patients aged 16 years and older who were hospitalised with COVID-19 and had at least one risk factor for severe disease were randomly assigned 1:1, within 96 h of hospital admission, to once-daily brensocatib 25 mg or placebo orally for 28 days. Patients were randomly assigned via a central web-based randomisation system (TruST). Randomisation was stratified by site and age (65 years or ≥65 years), and within each stratum, blocks were of random sizes of two, four, or six patients. Participants in both groups continued to receive other therapies required to manage their condition. Participants, study staff, and investigators were masked to the study assignment. The primary outcome was the 7-point WHO ordinal scale for clinical status at day 29 after random assignment. The intention-to-treat population included all patients who were randomly assigned and met the enrolment criteria. The safety population included all participants who received at least one dose of study medication. This study was registered with the ISRCTN registry, ISRCTN30564012. Findings Between June 5, 2020, and Jan 25, 2021, 406 patients were randomly assigned to brensocatib or placebo; 192 (47·3%) to the brensocatib group and 214 (52·7%) to the placebo group. Two participants were excluded after being randomly assigned in the brensocatib group (214 patients included in the placebo group and 190 included in the brensocatib group in the intention-to-treat population). Primary outcome data was unavailable for six patients (three in the brensocatib group and three in the placebo group). Patients in the brensocatib group had worse clinical status at day 29 after being randomly assigned than those in the placebo group (adjusted odds ratio 0·72 [95% CI 0·57–0·92]). Prespecified subgroup analyses of the primary outcome supported the primary results. 185 participants reported at least one adverse event; 99 (46%) in the placebo group and 86 (45%) in the brensocatib group. The most common adverse events were gastrointestinal disorders and infections. One death in the placebo group was judged as possibly related to study drug. Interpretation Brensocatib treatment did not improve clinical status at day 29 in patients hospitalised with COVID-19