Engineering compliance and worker resistance in UK further education: The creation of the Stepford lecturer

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore control and resistance in the UK further education (FE) sector by examining senior college managers’ attempts to engineer culture change and analysing lecturers’ resistance to such measures.Design/methodology/approachData were derived from interviews with managers and lecturers in two English FE colleges and the analysis of college documents. Interview data were analysed thematically using NVIVO software.FindingsIt was found that college managers sought to build consent to change among lecturers based on values derived from “business‐like” views. Culture change initiatives were framed within the language of empowerment but lecturers’ experiences of change led them to feel disempowered and cynical as managers imposed their view of what lecturers should be doing and how they should behave. This attempt to gain control of the lecturers’ labour process invoked the “Stepford” lecturer metaphor used in the paper. Paradoxically, as managers sought to create lecturers who were less resistant to change, individualised resistance intensified as managers’ attempts to win hearts and minds conspicuously failed.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper draws on data from two case study colleges and this limits the generalisability of its findings.Practical implicationsThe paper provides a critical perspective on the received wisdom of investing in stylised change programmes that promise to win staff over to change but which may alienate those they purport to empower and ultimately lead to degenerative workplace relations.Originality/valueThe paper offers new insights into culture change from the juxtaposed, polarised views of senior managers and lecturers, while highlighting the negative consequences of imposing change initiatives from above.</jats:sec

Get your facts right : preschoolers systematically extend both object names and category-relevant facts

There is an ongoing debate over the extent to which language development shares common processing mechanisms with other domains of learning. It is well-established that toddlers will systematically extend object labels to similarly-shaped category exemplars (e.g., Landau, Smith, & Jones, 1988; Markman & Hutchinson, 1984). However, previous research is inconclusive as to whether young children will similarly extend factual information about an object to other category members. We explicitly contrast facts varying in category relevance, and test for extension using two different tasks. Three- to four-year-olds (N = 61) were provided with one of three types of information about a single novel object: a category-relevant fact (‘it’s from a place called Modi’), a category-irrelevant fact (‘my uncle gave it to me’), or an object label (‘it’s called a Modi’). At test, children provided with the object name or category-relevant fact were significantly more likely to display systematic category extension than children who learnt the category-irrelevant fact. Our findings contribute to a growing body of evidence that the mechanisms responsible for word learning may be domain-general in nature

Decision-level adaptation in motion perception

Prolonged exposure to visual stimuli causes a bias in observers’ responses to subsequent stimuli. Such adaptation-induced biases are usually explained in terms of changes in the relative activity of sensory neurons in the visual system which respond selectively to the properties of visual stimuli. However, the bias could also be due to a shift in the observer’s criterion for selecting one response rather than the alternative; adaptation at the decision level of processing rather than the sensory level. We investigated whether adaptation to implied motion is best attributed to sensory-level or decision-level bias. Three experiments sought to isolate decision factors by changing the nature of the participants’ task while keeping the sensory stimulus unchanged. Results showed that adaptation-induced bias in reported stimulus direction only occurred when the participant’s task involved a directional judgement, and disappeared when adaptation was measured using a non-directional task (reporting where motion was present in the display, regardless of its direction). We conclude that adaptation to implied motion is due to decision-level bias, and that a propensity towards such biases may be widespread in sensory decision-makin

Automotive Stirling Engine Development Program

The background and history of the Stirling engine, the technology, materials, components, controls, and systems, and a technical assessment of automotive stirling engines are presented

Feasibility Study of a new liquor store in Hamilton, New Zealand

The main objective of the study is to determine the feasibility of opening a new liquor store in one of three potential locations in Hamilton city. The study will primarily look at the literature review with respect to any one of three-liquor store feasibility studies. It will follow the four analysis processes proposed by the literature to conduct the feasibility study of the three potential liquor stores locations. Financial analysis, Market analysis, organizational or technical analysis, and competition analysis which are made through a literature review and finally, the results of the analysis are determined through primary research and the literature review. Main consideration is given to the competition in the respective areas because they need to be examined. Theoretical knowledge and personal observance is correlated to find a viable solution for the business set up. In the findings, it has been conclude that five cross road location is the best to set up a new business based on analysis and research. There are some areas where researcher needs to focus are covered under recommendations

Locally continuously perfect groups of homeomorphisms

The notion of a locally continuously perfect group is introduced and studied. This notion generalizes locally smoothly perfect groups introduced by Haller and Teichmann. Next, we prove that the path connected identity component of the group of all homeomorphisms of a manifold is locally continuously perfect. The case of equivariant homeomorphism group and other examples are also considered.Comment: 14 page

Both younger and older adults have difficulty updating emotional memories

Objective. The main purpose of the study was to examine whether emotion impairs associative memory for previously seen items in older adults, as previously observed in younger adults. Method. Thirty-two younger adults and 32 older adults participated. The experiment consisted of 2 parts. In Part 1, participants learned picture–object associations for negative and neutral pictures. In Part 2, they learned picture–location associations for negative and neutral pictures; half of these pictures were seen in Part 1 whereas the other half were new. The dependent measure was how many locations of negative versus neutral items in the new versus old categories participants remembered in Part 2. Results. Both groups had more difficulty learning the locations of old negative pictures than of new negative pictures. However, this pattern was not observed for neutral items. Discussion. Despite the fact that older adults showed overall decline in associative memory, the impairing effect of emotion on updating associative memory was similar between younger and older adults

The Life and Death of That Reverend Man of God, Richard Mather, Teacher of the Church in Dorchester in New-England. A facsimile Reprint with an introduction ...

We most often turn to American Puritan prose to glean historicalor biographical data. If we seek a biography that spans the evolution of American Puritanism from its nadir in England through its zenith in the New England of the 1630\u27s to 1650\u27s, and to the beginning of its decline as symbolized by the Half-Way Covenant in 1662, we may turn to Increase Mather\u27s biography of his father, The Life and Death of That Reverend Man of God, Mr. Richard Mather. It includes the background for the elder Mather\u27s decision to emigrate to New England (events leading to his suspension from his ministry for nonconformity), his arguments for leaving England (to go from ministerial bondage to freedom), and his account of the voyage to Boston (including the episode of a storm at sea in which his ship was saved by God\u27s intervention). Increase also reflects on his father\u27s parish in Dorchester (in which his plain style of preaching was precisely the style demanded by his congregation), and limns a vivid portrait of the old man on his death bed attempting to convince him, Increase, that the Half-Way Covenant would be in the best interest of Puritanism. To be sure, the biography deals almost entirely with the elder Mather\u27s involvement in his religion and it may be read as a historical document, but it is neither ponderous nor boring and it possesses, as Kenneth Murdock says, a simple dignity that comes close to art (Increase Mather: The Foremost American Puritan). The author\u27s use of anecdote (Gillebrand\u27 s questioning of Richard Mather\u27s name); of direct discourse (the dying Puritan\u27s statement concerning the younger generation); and of excerpts from his father\u27s diary and will all help the biography escape the ennui-producing sameness that characterizes other Puritan biographies (see Kenneth B. Murdock Literature and Theology in Colonial New England). The tone of this biography, while eulogistic, is one of compassion, understanding, or sympathy--the result of a son\u27s sincere appreciation of his father\u27s life and heritage--and it is this that accounts for the ease with which it may be read today. The author\u27s attitude leaves no room for the overt didacticism and pedantry and the overabundant use of religious allusions that are prevalent in many Puritan tracts, not the least ponderous of which are the biographical sketches in Cotton Mather\u27s Magnalia Christi Americana (1702). Increase Mather is peaceful and serene throughout, an unusual pose among Puritan writers whose works were influenced by the rebellious nature of their omnipresent religion. This biography shares with other Puritan biographies the trait of providing an impulse-~through its description of a visible saint --for errant sinners to come to God, but it differs from most of them since its purpose is neither to defend the religion against its antagonists nor to castigate the heathens. Instead, it is a tender--but not sentimental--eulogy of a man who embodied the whole of American Puritanism. The Life and Death of· . Richard Mather has been published in its entirety only twice since its first appearance in 1670 (Collections of the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society, 1850, 1874). A new edition of this biography--Increase Mather\u27s first work published in New England and the first biography published in America--is now offered in facsimile, that the charm as well as the content of the original may be shared. (Also reproduced here is the first woodcut print produced in America, John Foster\u27s Richard Mather, c. 1670.) This biography of Richard Mather does not constitute great literature, but there can be little doubt that it is, as Perry Miller says, the finest of the New England biographies (The American Puritans: Their Prose and Poetry)