The wicked and complex in education: developing a transdisciplinary perspective for policy formulation, implementation and professional practice

The concept of 'wicked issues', originally developed in the field of urban planning, has been taken up by design educators, architects and public health academics where the means for handling 'wicked issues' has been developed through 'reflective practice'. In the education of teachers, whilst reflective practice has been a significant feature of professional education, the problems to which this has been applied are principally 'tame' ones. In this paper, the authors argue that there has been a lack of crossover between two parallel literatures. The literature on 'wicked issues' does not fully recognise the difficulties with reflective practice and that in education which extols reflective practice, is not aware of the 'wicked' nature of the problems which confront teachers and schools. The paper argues for a fresh understanding of the underlying nature of problems in education so that more appropriate approaches can be devised for their resolution. This is particularly important at a time when the government in England is planning to make teaching a masters level profession, briefly defined by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) benchmark statement as 'Decision-making in complex and unpredictable situations'. The paper begins by locating the argument and analysis of 'wicked problems' within the nature of social complexity and chaos. The second part of the paper explores implications for those involved in policy formation, implementation and service provision. Given the range of stakeholders in education, the paper argues for a trans-disciplinary approach recognising the multiple perspectives and methodologies leading to the acquisition of reticulist skills and knowledge necessary to boundary cross. © 2009 Taylor & Francis

Between 'Bastard' and 'Wicked' leadership? School leadership and the emerging policies of the UK Coalition Government

Barker argues that in England under New Labour, school leaders and teachers have been 'bastardised' and suggests that the situation in 2010, with a general election afforded an opportunity in education policy for the 'pendulum to swing'. In this article, the key points about 'bastard Leadership' are briefly summarised. The article then develops a view of schools as sites of complexity and 'wickedity' as an alternative to the linear reductionist approaches of managerialists. These two perspectives present the extremes of a spectrum against which the trajectory of school leadership can be viewed as it emerges from the New Labour years and is now being developed by the Coalition Government. Evidence from ministerial speeches and the Coalition Government's flagship White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, are used to examine key issues of freedom and trust, reducing bureaucracy and increasing autonomy for schools as ways of exploring the extent to which the new government's policies on school leadership are, or are not, moving away from those of their New Labour predecessors

Kirikud ja ühiskondlik kord: baptistlik vaatenurk

The Churches and the Social Order: Baptist PerspectivesThe article explores a Baptist approach to the relationship of ‘free’ churches to society and in particular to the state. It describes ‘monopoly religion’ as the attempt to establish one approach as the uniform religion of a society. In the West this took the form of ‘Christendom’. A divergent understanding arose with the Anabaptist and Baptist movements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This denied the right of rulers to override the religious conscience in its duties to God. From 1644 his instinctive approach found intellectual expression through figures such as Roger Williams and John Milton laying the foundations for a political ideology of religious freedom. Although this took root only slowly it has eventually achieved dominance in a range of liberal democracies

Radicals in English education, 1960-1980: A critical study

This is an interdisciplinary critical review of the radical movement in English education (schools) in the 1960s and 1970s. The term 'radical’ is defined and the contributing historical currents are analysed. The distinguishing features of this radicalism are identified. There is a descriptive history of 19 radical teachers' groups, of the school students movement and of the other groups which campaigned for radical changes in education. The ideas and strategies of these groups are examined and discussed. As examples of radical practice, the 14 free schools which were established in the 1970s are described. The phenomenon of free schooling is investigated under six headings: philosophy; the free school and the community: structures; the place of free schools in society; libertarian non-intervention; and the strategy of free schooling. Twelve 'radical dilemmas' are identified - issues on which the radicals were unable to reach agreement and which rendered the radical movement a multi-dimensional tendency rather than a unified political movement. The ideas put forward by the radicals are critically examined in two case studies: one a study of the experience of White Lion Street Free School; the other a study of radical theories of learning. In each case it is suggested that there are flaws in radical thinking which point to a need for more rigorous theoretical work. Certain themes which were under-developed by radicals are identified. The significance of the radical movement is assessed, and proposals are made for further research. An appendix lists all the criticisms made of schooling by the radicals in this period. The bibliography includes a comprehensive list of all the radical literature published in this period

Lyophilisation of lentiviral pseudotypes for the development and distribution of virus neutralisation assay kits for rabies, Marburg and influenza viruses

Purpose: Some conventional serological assays can accurately quantify neutralising antibody responses raised against epitopes on virus glycoproteins, enabling mass vaccine evaluation and serosurveillance studies to take place. However, these assays often necessitate the handling of wild-type virus in expensive high biosafety laboratories, which restricts the scope of their application, particularly in resource-deprived areas. A solution to this issue is the use of lentiviral pseudotype viruses (PVs)—chimeric, replication-deficient virions that imitate the binding and entry mechanisms of their wild-type equivalents. Pseudotype virus neutralisation assays (PVNAs) bypass high biosafety requirements and yield comparable results to established assays. This study explores the potential for using lyophilisation of pseudotypes as a cost-effective, alternative means for production, distribution and storage of a PVNAbased diagnostic kit. Methods & Materials: Rabies, Marburg and H5 subtype Influenza virus pseudotypes were each suspended in cryoprotectant solutions of various molarities and subjected to freeze-drying before incubation at a variety of temperatures, humidities and time periods. Samples were then employed in antibody neutralisation assays using specific sera. Results: High levels of PV titre were retained post-lyophilisation, with acceptable levels of virus activity maintained even after medium-term storage in tropical conditions. Also, the performance of PVs in neutralisation assays was not affected by the lyophilisation process. Conclusion: These results confirm the viability of a freeze-dried PVNA-based diagnostic kit, which could considerably facilitate in-field serology for a number of clinically important viruses

Portrait methodology and educational leadership : putting the person first

This article describes a variant on a methodological approach which provides ways of developing educational leaders' understandings of themselves and their situation through the production of individually written 'portraits' which focus upon the individuals' personal concerns and issues. It describes the process undertaken in forming a particular application of this approach, which is characterised by being highly private, highly personal and conducted by peers, rather than by others in a hierarchical relationship, to produce a picture of a person's concerns at one moment in time. It examines a number of possible criticisms, before arguing that there are a number of distinct benefits to its adoption. A description is provided of how such a methodology can be translated into a useful tool that provides individuals with the non-judgemental space to reflect upon themselves and their performance, and to develop supportive networks of peers who can help to sustain them in their job. This approach then could not only help remediate current issues of recruitment and retention to leadership positions, it could also provide private development space in societies and educational systems increasingly characterised by surveillance and public criticism of performance. Finally, whilst this article focuses upon the use of portraits for educational leaders, it is suggested that it is a technique that could be used by virtually anyone in order to create space for private reflection

Multi-Block Computation for Flood Inundation Studies

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchiv

How medical advances and health interventions will shape future longevity

Medicine-related research includes numerous studies on the hazards of mortality and what risk factors are associated with these hazards, such as diseases and treatments. These hazards are estimated in a sample of people and summarised over the observed period. From these observations, inferences can be made about the underlying population and consequently inform medical guidelines for intervention. New health interventions are usually based on these estimated hazards obtained from clinical trials. A lengthy lead time would be needed to observe their effect on population longevity. This paper shows how estimated mortality hazards can be translated to hypothetical changes in life expectancies at the individual and population levels. For an individual, the relative hazards are translated into the number of years gained or lost in “effective age”, which is the average chronological age with the same risk profile. This translation from hazard ratio to effective age could be used to explain to individuals the consequences of various diseases and lifestyle choices and as a result persuade clients in life and health insurance to pursue a healthier lifestyle. At the population level, a period life expectancy is a weighted average of component life expectancies associated with the particular risk profiles, with the weights defined by the prevalences of the risk factor of interest and the uptake of the relevant intervention. Splitting the overall life expectancy into these components allows us to estimate hypothetical changes in life expectancy at the population level at different morbidity and uptake scenarios. These calculations are illustrated by two examples of medical interventions and their impact on life expectancy, which are beta blockers in heart attack survivors and blood pressure treatment in hypertensive patients. The second example also illustrates the dangers of applying the results from clinical trials to much wider populations

Personality, moral purpose, and the leadership of an education for sustainable development

This paper describes how two primary head teachers, nationally recognised as role models for the development of an education for sustainable development (ESD) in their schools, manage the implementation of this area. In doing so, it shows how they adopt two very different approaches to ESD and to their job generally, and suggests that whilst there are some commonalities between them, educational leadership needs to be seen as driven by a moral purpose, engaging and re-engaging with each situation, entering into a dialectic with others’ visions, leading to the re-conceptualisation of problems in different ways. This not only suggests a continued tension between such uniqueness and standardised approaches to headship, but raises questions about current policy imperatives for developing models of sustainable leadership