Brokering academic literacies in a community of practice

This paper examines the ‘academic literacies’ approach to supporting postgraduate international students in the business school of a post-92 English university. The support service was evaluated with appreciative inquiry methods, consulting students and academics. The most helpful support, according to students and academics, came from the ‘academic literacies’ approach, which was enhanced, and enabled, because it was linked to two other ideas: communities of practice, and the learning developer as a broker

Adolescent awareness and use of electronic cigarettes: A review of emerging trends and findings

Adult electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use is increasing globally, and early studies have suggested that similar trends may be observed among the adolescent population, albeit at lower levels. The current literature review presents data collected since 2014 from 21 cross-sectional studies and one cohort study that were all published in English. In particular, it focuses on awareness, ever use, past 30-day use, and regular use of e-cigarettes. The article suggests that adolescents are nearing complete awareness of e-cigarettes. Furthermore, in relation to ever use and past 30-day use, higher prevalence rates continue to be reported across time, especially in the United States. Nonetheless, reported regular use of e-cigarettes remains much lower than past 30-day use, although conclusions are limited due to inconsistencies with measurement and consequent lack of cross-cultural applicability. The majority of studies do not report whether adolescents use non-nicotine e-cigarettes. There is a current absence of longitudinal studies that explore any association between e-cigarettes and tobacco use and little qualitative data that may illuminate how and why adolescents use e-cigarettes. Through addressing these methodological limitations, future research will be able to inform health care and policy more effectively

'Excellence' and exclusion:the individual costs of institutional competitiveness

A performance-based funding system like the United Kingdom’s ‘Research Excellence Framework’ (REF) symbolizes the re-rationalization of higher education according to neoliberal ideology and New Public Management technologies. The REF is also significant for disclosing the kinds of behaviour that characterize universities’ response to government demands for research auditability. In this paper, we consider the casualties of what Henry Giroux (2014) calls “neoliberalism’s war on higher education” or more precisely the deleterious consequences of non-participation in the REF. We also discuss the ways with which higher education’s competition fetish, embodied within the REF, affects the instrumentalization of academic research and the diminution of academic freedom, autonomy and criticality

Compulsive working, 'hyperprofessionality' and the unseen pleasures of academic work

The paper applies Hoyle's notion of ‘extended’ professionality to modern higher education working. It begins with some of the policy contexts and theoretical perspectives around the structural and professional change experienced by academic staff: changes that have been documented in systematic studies of university life from the 1970s onwards. However, the realisation for academic staff that, at 45 per cent of the workforce, they were no longer the majority group in the sector, has added impetus to debates about work, the workplace and the role of change in scholarly life (Gornall, 2009). The Working Lives team has been gathering qualitative data on academic experiences of everyday work between 2007 and 2010, using life history and ethnographic methods. This paper draws on in-depth interviews with 24 academics and participants in four focus groups, to consider the propensity in an ‘always-on’ environment for staff to rarely ‘switch off’. This is explored alongside a set of ‘emic’ notions of working practices and places that characterise the ‘hyperprofessional’ academic