Education research in Australia: where is it conducted?

Research assessment exercises aim to identify research quantity and quality and provide insights into research capacity building strategies for the future. Yet with limited knowledge of the ecology of Australian educational research, there is little chance of understanding what research audits might contribute towards a capacity building agenda for such a complex field. This paper draws on secondary data analysis of research outputs submitted by 13 Australian higher education institutions to the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2010 and 2012 national research assessment exercises, to show where Australian educational research is conducted. Findings offer a profile of education researchers by location in academic organisational units within universities. By analyzing data not accessible through reported ERA data we were also able to present information about appointment profiles, specifically levels and type of appointment within universities, as well as data on institutional and geographic region, and patterns associated with type of outputs (books, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers and other outputs) and field of research. Analysis of the data reveals definitive shifts in the nature of the published outputs and in employment profiles of researchers and their location across university and regional groupings. Research audits are administrative processes that reshape institutional and disciplinary governance structures, policies, individual outputs, work practices and careers, but they are not the sum total of the field per se

Transforming post-compulsory education? Femocrats at work in the academy

This article is based on interviews with 40 women academic managers in United Kingdom further and higher education institutions, all of whom described themselves as feminists or were strongly committed to equal opportunities. The article examines the potential for such manager-academics to act as change agents and engage in transformations of post-compulsory education, moving beyond both old-fashioned collegiality and 'new managerialism'. Considerable differences seemed to exist in the organisational cultures, management strategies, labour processes and working conditions of institutions of further education (FE) as compared with higher education (HE). The two sectors have been differentially exposed to economic pressures, competition for students and permeation of management practices and values from the private sector, with all of these more intensely felt in FE. In addition, the project identified quite different degrees of exposure to feminisms and Women's Studies of women working in the two sectors. One of the consequences of these differences in the two sectors is that those working in FE are more hesitant about openly revealing and using their feminist or pro-equity values to shape and inform their managerial strategies and goals. This article considers the pressures on academic managers to adopt the values and practices of private sector in forms of 'new managerialism' and analyses what role feminists might play in resisting this. Some feminist academic managers, mainly those working in HE senior positions, do appear to have the potential to transform their institutions in feminist-inspired ways. More collaboration between feminists working in different sectors of post-compulsory higher education might facilitate this. Though based in the United Kingdom, the study has implications for feminist manager-academics working in other countries too. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Tissue-Specific and Developmental Expression Pattern of Abscisic Acid Biosynthetic Genes in Peach Fruit: Possible Role of the Hormone in the Coordinated Growth of Seed and Mesocarp

Peach fruit tissues start differentiating into mesocarp, endocarp, and seed from the first phases of development. A seed is necessary for fruit set, and it may strongly regulate the growth of the whole fruit through metabolic or hormonal signals. Although the importance of sugar and hormone signaling in growing fruit, such as peach, has been analyzed extensively, no conclusions as to the cross-talk between these signal molecules and their role in seed and flesh development have previously been made. The present study provides insight into the regulatory steps of the carotenoid/ABA biosynthetic pathway to establish possible relationships between growth and accumulation of pigments, sugar, and hormone in the different tissues of peach fruit (Prunus persica L. Batsch, cv Redhaven). In the flesh, the transcriptional pattern of most of the genes involved in the ABA synthesis exhibits a good association with both color changes and hormone accumulation. In contrast, in the seed, along with other nongreen tissues, this association is not conceivable. The behavior of zeaxanthin epoxidase genes (Ppzep) well represents the presence of distinct regulatory mechanisms at various steps of the pathway and in a tissue-specific manner. Moreover, the key role of 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase (NCED) enzyme in regulating ABA synthesis appears to be substantiated by observed Ppnced expression profiles, both in the flesh and in the seed. Based on the results obtained in this study, a crucial connection between ABA biosynthesis, sugar content, and sucrose cleavage enzymes (sucrose synthase), at different stages of fruit development, is proposed