Preparing Teaching Assistants for Including All Learners

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Webster ◽  
Paula Bosanquet ◽  
Peter Blatchford
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Teaching Assistants ◽  
Collaborative Work ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Special Educational Needs ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Adult Support

The early 21st century has seen a considerable increase in both the number and presence of teaching assistants (TAs) and learning support staff in classrooms. In the United Kingdom and elsewhere, TAs have assumed responsibility for teaching lower-attaining pupils and especially those with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND). This drift has occurred in a largely uncritical way and has attracted little attention because of the attendant benefits additional adult support has for teachers. However, evidence from research in the United Kingdom and the United States have revealed troubling and unintended consequences of this arrangement in terms of impeding pupil progress and increasing the likelihood of pupils’ dependency on adult support. Of particular concern are research findings that show how a high amount of support from TAs for pupils with high-level SEND leads to a qualitatively different experience of schooling compared to pupils without SEND, particularly in terms of having fewer interactions with teachers and peers. Heavy reliance on the employment and deployment of TAs to facilitate the inclusion of pupils with often complex learning difficulties in mainstream settings can be seen as a proxy for long-standing and unresolved questions about how teachers are prepared and trained to meet the learning needs of those with SEND and the priority school leaders give to SEND. Future efforts to meaningfully educate pupils with SEND in mainstream schools must attend to teachers’ confidence and competence in respect of this aim. In addition, extensive and collaborative work with schools in the United Kingdom is offering a more hopeful model of how TAs can supplement this endeavor. Improving how teachers deploy TAs and how TAs interact with pupils, together with addressing persistent problems relating to the way TAs are trained and prepared for their roles in classrooms, schools can unlock the potential of the TA workforce as part of a wider, more inclusive approach for disadvantaged pupils.

Commercialization of Journalism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Kvalheim ◽  
Jens Barland
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
21St Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Penny Press ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Modern Sense

Commercialization of journalism is not a new concern. Indeed, journalism has always been bought and sold in the market, and commercialization has thus always been a central part of the production of journalism. In a modern sense, however, commercialization became an issue with the emergence of the penny press in the United States and the abolishment of the “taxes on knowledge” in the United Kingdom. These developments altered the content of newspapers and brought along discussions concerning the effects of commercialization. In the late 20th and early 21st century, commercialization of journalism again took a new turn. Developments such as digitalization and the emergence and communization of the internet, has led to an increased attention to market logics. This, in turn, makes studies of the commercialization of journalism increasingly more important.

Strike Ballots, Democracy, and Law

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Breen Creighton ◽  
Catrina Denvir ◽  
Richard Johnstone ◽  
Shae McCrystal ◽  
Alice Orchiston
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Labour Organisation ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Strike Activity ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Worked Example ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Democratic Rights ◽  
The Right

The purpose of the research upon which this book is based was empirically to investigate whether the ballot requirements in the Fair Work Act do indeed impose a significant obstacle to the taking of industrial action, and whether those provisions are indeed impelled by a legitimate ‘democratic imperative’. The book starts from the proposition that virtually all national legal systems, and international law, recognise the right to strike as a fundamental human right. It acknowledges, however, that in no case is this recognition without qualification. Amongst the most common qualifications is a requirement that to be lawful strike action must first be approved by a ballot of workers concerned. Often, these requirements are said to be necessary to protect the democratic rights of the workers concerned: this is the so-called ‘democratic imperative’. In order to evaluate the true purpose and effect of ballot requirements the book draws upon the detailed empirical study of the operation of the Australian legislative provisions noted above; a comparative analysis of law and practice in a broad range of countries, with special reference to Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States; and the jurisprudence of the supervisory bodies of the International Labour Organisation. It finds that in many instances ballot requirements – especially those relating to quorum – are more concerned with curtailing strike activity than with constructively responding to the democratic imperative. Frequently, they also proceed from a distorted perception of what ‘democracy’ could and should entail in an industrial context. Paradoxically, the study also finds that in some contexts ballot requirements can provide additional bargaining leverage for unions. Overall, however, the study confirms our hypothesis that the principal purpose of ballot requirements – especially in Australia and the United Kingdom – is to curtail strike activity rather than to vindicate the democratic imperative, other than on the basis of a highly attenuated reading of that term. We believe that the end-result constitutes an important study of the practical operation of a complex set of legal rules, and one which exposes the dichotomy between the ostensible and real objectives underpinning the adoption of those rules. It also furnishes a worked example of multi-methods empirical, comparative and doctrinal legal research in law, which we hope will inspire similar approaches to other areas of labour law.

scholarly journals A Comparative Discussion of the Judicial Disqualification of Directors under the South African Companies Act

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Rehana Cassim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
South African ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Locus Standi

Abstract Section 162 of the South African Companies Act 71 of 2008 empowers courts to declare directors delinquent and hence to disqualify them from office. This article compares the judicial disqualification of directors under this section with the equivalent provisions in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States of America, which have all influenced the South African act. The article compares the classes of persons who have locus standi to apply to court to disqualify a director from holding office, as well as the grounds for the judicial disqualification of a director, the duration of the disqualification, the application of a prescription period and the discretion conferred on courts to disqualify directors from office. It contends that, in empowering courts to disqualify directors from holding office, section 162 of the South African Companies Act goes too far in certain respects.

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