Managing ambiguity: between markets and managerialism - a case study of 'middle' managers in further education

Advocates of devolved and market oriented Education reform, point to the benefits from self determination which enhance both teacher and managerial autonomy. Critics refer, on the other hand, to the ways in which running education institutions on business and accounting principles have introduced a new managerialism (Clarke et al, 1994; Pollitt, 1990; Clarke and Newman, 1997), which has driven a wedge between lecturers and senior manager interests. In Further Education, according to Elliott (1996a), this finds expression in conflict between lecturers in defence of professional and pedagogic values, and senior managers promoting the managerial bottom line (Randle and Brady, 1994). The danger in polarising such interests in this way is that it presents a plausible, if not oversimplified, analysis of organisational behaviour as market forces permeate FE. If this paper concurs with many critics on the effects of the new managerialism, it departs company from a prevailing determinism which assumes an over controlled view of the FE workplace (Seddon and Brown, 1997). Despite evidence of widespread casualisation and depro-fessionalisation in FE, this paper examines changing managerial cultures in the FE workplace, in this case among academic ‘middle’ managers, which suggests that managerialism is not as complete or uncontested as is often portrayed. The paper draws on an ESRC research project conducted by the authors (ESRC no. R000236713), looking at Changing Teaching and Managerial Cultures in FE, at a time when the sector is emerging from a series of funding crises associated with redundancies, industrial action, mismanagement and low morale at college level

Electromagnetic propagation in periodic stratified media. I. General theory

The propagation of electromagnetic radiation in periodically stratified media is considered. Media of finite, semi-infinite, and infinite extent are treated. A diagonalization of the unit cell translation operator is used to obtain exact solutions for the Bloch waves, the dispersion relations, and the band structure of the medium. Some new phenomena with applications to integrated optics and laser technology are presented

Differential Object Marking in Paraguayan Guaraní

Differential Object Marking (DOM), the appearance of a direct object marker on some but not all direct objects in a language, has been the focus of a substantial body of literature. This study analyzes DOM in Paraguayan Guaraní, a language that has not yet been discussed in the DOM literature. I show that object-marking in Guaraní is differential. I then apply two analyses of the distribution of DOM to a corpus of textual Guaraní data, testing the effectiveness of their predictions against the actual distribution of DOM in Guaraní and comparing the success of each analysis. The first analysis is that of Aissen (2003), who proposes prominence as a condition on DOM, where the prominence of an object is how “subject-like” that object is in terms of animacy and definiteness. This prominence-based analysis predicts that highly prominent (subject-like) objects will be object-marked, while low-prominence objects will be unmarked. The second analysis is similar to that of Gerner (2008), who argues that in Yongren Lolo object-marking occurs in clauses in which ambiguity exists as to which NPs fill which grammatical functions. Under this analysis, DOM serves the purpose of disambiguating object from subject. I put both of these analyses to the test against the corpus. I find that both are supported, in that neither of their predictions fail for Guaraní. However, I argue that the ambiguity-based analysis is superior to the prominence-based analysis for Guaraní in terms of coverage, testability, and simplicity, and that an ambiguity-based analysis of DOM is therefore preferable in the case of Guaraní.No embarg

Finding Common Ground: Abortion, Television, And The Changing American Culture

As Oscar Wilde once said, life imitates art far more than art imitates life , but there is a reciprocal relationship between the two. The more society talks about an issue, the more we are going to see that issue present in television, which then spurs even more discussion on that topic. Today, we use the media to understand what is important and popular in our society. Conversely, the media uses society to capture polarizing topics, such as abortion, to attract viewers. Media critics often argue that television has too large of an impact on developing societies perspectives. However, the viewpoint could be the opposite. I am making the argument that as societies understandings and viewpoints on abortion have evolved over the past decades with changing regulations, laws, and attitudes, the portrayal of abortion in the media has reflected that development. With studies done to find that three in ten women will have an abortion by age 45, we see how prevalent abortion is in our society, with about 21% of pregnancies ending in abortion1. By showing how the media\u27s portrayal of abortion has reflected the transformation of societies views, we can see how the media and society have created a symbiotic relationship and how television mimics our reality. The media reflects societies current thoughts, and when portrayed equally this generates a greater understanding and discussion for both views on the issue. By knowing this relationship, we can use media as a way to produce healthy dialogue and explanations on certain topics that are currently significant to society

Solving the Aperture Problem: Perception of Coherent Motion

The aperture problem describes an effect by which a contoured stimulus, moving behind an aperture with both ends occluded, appears to move in a direction perpendicular to its own orientation. Mechanisms within the human visual system allow us to overcome this problem and integrate many of these locally ambiguous signals into the perception of globally coherent motion. In the current experiment, observers viewed displays composed of many straight contours, arranged in varying orientations and moving behind apertures. The total pattern of movement was consistent with a globally coherent trajectory. Observers were asked to estimate direction of global motion over a range of 0 to 360 degrees. Given a greater number of motion signals (i.e., 64 motions within apertures), younger adults can reliably and accurately judge coherent motion direction with an average error below 10 degrees. For fewer motion signals (i.e., 9 motions within apertures), younger adults exhibit greater error in their direction judgments

Dangerous radicals or symbols of crisis and change: re-theorising the status of Muslim boys as a threat to the social order.

Muslim boys in England, especially those from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds, have come to occupy the status of a folk devil or what Cohen (Folk devils and moral panics: The creation of the mods and rockers. London: Routledge, 2002) refers to as ‘visible reminders of what we should not be’. Once regarded as passive, hardworking and law abiding, they have been, in recent years, recast in the public imagination as volatile, aggressive, hotheads who are either ‘at risk’ of being brainwashed into terrorism or involvement in gangs, drugs or other such criminal activities. Shain’s chapter offers an analysis of why Muslim boys and young men have become the targets of punitive state measures over the last two decades

Sir Hiram Maxim and His Gun: A Literary Trail

Hiram Maxim, born near Sangerville, Maine, in 1840, enjoyed a brilliant career as an inventor and self-promotor. His best-known invention, the Maxim gun, proved appallingly successful during the British imperialistic ventures in Africa at the turn of the century and later in World War I. In this article, Emeritus Professor Charles Shain traces the literary usages for Maxim ’s invention, both as noun and as a verb - describing the scything action of the gun as it mowed down an advancing foe. Charles Shain published and taught in the field of American Studies at Carleton College and for twelve years was president of Connecticut College. Mr. Shain and his wife have edited two Maine anthologies: The Maine Reader (Houghton Mifflin) and Growing Up In Maine (Down East Books). The Shains live in Georgetown, Maine