The current economic climate in the United States and the difficulty employers face in hiring and maintaining a skilled workforce in an increasingly competitive and global economy have generated interest in developing and promoting policies and programs that can most effectively help low-skill individuals gain job skills and move up the economic…

This paper draws attention to the political economy of embodiment: how, as symbolic and economic capital intersect, particular characteristics, forms and expressions of corporeality are "produced", nurtured, resourced and subsequently ascribed value as "ability", in and outside schools. The analyses suggest that increasing…

Objective: To evaluate a health improvement initiative aimed at enhancing the health of men in deprived areas. Design: A healthy lifestyle programme was undertaken with men to increase their health knowledge, and encourage behaviour modification and access to health improvement services. A peer mentoring programme was implemented and a training…

This article explores the impact of Hong Kong's transition from British colony to Chinese Special Administrative Region on patterns of language use in the domain of professional employment. In particular, it presents the findings of a large-scale multifaceted investigation into the roles of Putonghua, Cantonese, written Chinese and English in the…

The purpose of the paper is to explore students' perception of university teaching behaviours in Pakistan. Three hundred and fifty students from the six public sector Pakistani universities returned questionnaires. Assessment framework, learning activities and instructional strategies emerged from factor analysis as common factors. Students' views…

Although increasingly recognized as a future skills issue, the use of information in the workplace is a little studied area within library and information research. A substantial "pedagogic" literature of learning in the workplace exists, however, and this was critically reviewed to generate a repertoire of issues which could in turn be…

To achieve effective intervention of engineers in the public sector, engineers should develop skills to comprehend their ethical and professional responsibility, and they should gain the necessary education to understand the possible impact of engineering solutions in a global and social context. An active learning process has been conceived,…

This paper investigates the implementation and use of an internal organisational blog by several departments in the HR division in a large public sector financial organisation in the UK. This qualitative study adopts a case study approach and examines the experiences of staff using the blog to explore whether it can facilitate organisational…

New public management (NPM) approaches have informed policy in the public sector in advanced countries in the last decade. Some authors suggest that the main objective of NPM at the organisational level is to change the traditional way professionals are regulated. This study examines the impact of NPM on the working conditions of Portuguese higher…

With the presidential candidates both underscoring their support for entrepreneurial initiatives in education, policy experts are advancing ideas for helping such efforts flourish. In their October 15 debate at Hofstra University, both Senators John McCain of Arizona and Barack Obama of Illinois used questions on education to talk about school…

This paper introduces the emergent role of the state-sponsored student entrepreneur within the academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime. Drawing on two clarifying cases of such entrepreneurship, the study explores the shifting boundaries between public and private sectors, the creation of new circuits of knowledge, and the entrepreneurial…

This qualitative study looks at the leadership perceptions and practices of career professionals in the public sector across three countries of sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Ghana and Madagascar). All participants were alumni of the Humphrey Fellowship program, a year-long mid-career fellowship in the United States for professional development and…

As prison populations soar at unprecedented rates, the need for high quality education behind bars has never been greater. Prison education programs are the vehicle for reform and may be the solution to curtailing an ever-growing prison population. Yet, as the public sector increasingly contracts with the private sector for prison management,…

Two imperatives form the basis of the present paper. The first is the market-driven imperative, vital to production and value-chain development. The second is the knowledge imperative, central to the advancement of human capacity and institutional development. In view of these two imperatives, this paper argues for overhaul in extension toward a…

All workplaces are sites in which people learn. To state such a fact still seems fairly revolutionary given that many employers and policymakers tend to restrict the meaning of job-related learning to formal episodes of "training" that can be counted and costed. This view is rooted in a wider perception prevalent in society in general…