The doctor, the lawyer and the journalist: Neoliberal career changes and professional resistance during a mining boom

Recent scholarship has charted the dramatic social impact of mining booms and busts on local communities. Yet scant research addresses how mining economies shape different professions. This article ethnographically traces the careers of a doctor, a lawyer and a journalist during Western Australia's mining boom in the early 2000s. For vocally opposing a politically popular mining operation due to public health concerns, they were subject to backlash, which led to disillusionment and career changes. Their narratives share a pivotal shift: each expert initially conceptualised their role through a welfarist, liberal-democratic lens, underpinned by a moral imperative to disrupt imbalances of power, fight injustice and ‘help people’. Yet the mining boom revealed and exacerbated the neoliberalisation of their respective disciplines, in which profits were maximised, businesses treated leniently and worker protections calculated dispassionately. These stories illuminate the lived experience of neoliberalisation, and the limits of individual professional resistance in a pro-mining political economy.

Motivation for intellectual work

The author reflects on how our understanding of the motivation of an intellectual worker is being transformed today. How much does the creative component of work change the structure of motivation? Where is the line between labor-necessity and labor-need? Can there be a universal approach to financial incentives in this case? The author proposes for discussion the matrix developed for choosing the level of individualization (collectivization) of the motivation system in corporations, summarizing various sources. Companies in the high-tech sector, which is making an increasing contribution to the GDP of the leading economies, contrary to popular belief, are increasingly using the assessment of collective (team) work considering individual professional competencies. Thus, the article examines not the most noticeable "critical areas" of modern research on the motivation for intellectual work, and also presents the author's conclusions about possible practical tools in this area.

Acmeological technologies of development and assessment of professional and educational activity productivity

The article describes the results of scientific study reflection on acmeological technologies, which are the main mechanisms of adoption of a uniquely designed activity systems aimed at achieving a highly productive level of development of artistic potential in all participants. Significance of the study demonstrates that, in the context of professional education globalization, a teacher must apply highly productive educational technologies, perfecting the process of their professional and educational activities and developing mental work – creative readiness of a student for their individual professional activity. Hypothesis of the study: knowledge and introduction of highly productive acmeological technologies to professional and educational activity facilitate creative readiness in students for future activity and successful entry into forthcoming educational and professional system. According to acmeological theory of fundamental education, productive activity laws, an effort was made to classify acmeological technologies of professional and educational activity, definition and description of their features, results of their application taking into consideration a criterion of education quality in an educational system of different levels. Summarizing the results of the study 1) features of acmeological technologies as a method of productivity development of main subjects of educational system were theoretically proved and defined; 2) features of acmeological technologies of different levels of the educational system were selected and defined; 3) structural and functional elements of acmeological technologies in pedagogic activity were specified.

Aspiration, risk and risk feeding: A critique of the royal college of physicians guidance on care of people with eating and drinking difficulties

The Royal College of Physicians has recently published guidance on supporting people with eating and drinking difficulties. Although much of the advice in the guidance is sensible and helpful, in this paper we argue that the recommendations regarding ‘risk feeding’ decisions are flawed. In particular, there is a failure to clearly identify the nature, frequency and severity of different risks. There is an undue emphasis on aspiration as a risk and as a potential cause of pneumonia, and the limited evidence base for many interventions to manage risk is not adequately acknowledged. There is an emphasis on multidisciplinary team decision making at the expense of individual professional responsibility. We conclude that this guidance regarding risk feeding supports an unduly defensive approach to oral intake and should not be adopted as a standard of medical practice.

Expert Pianists’ Practice Perspectives: A Production and Listening Study

The purpose of this study was to investigate how professional pianists practice music for a concert, and whether their individual cognitive orientations in such practice processes can be identified accurately from the resulting performances. In Study I, four pianists, previously found to be skilled music memorizers, practiced and performed a short piece by André Jolivet over the course of two weeks, during which their practice strategies were studied using semi-structured interviews, and analyses of practice diaries, practice activities, and eye-movement data. The results indicate that the pianists used similar basic strategies but had different cognitive orientations, here called “practice perspectives,” consistent with each individual, in that they focused on different kinds of information while practicing. These practice perspectives may be related to skills and habits in using imagery and music analysis, as well as to professional and educational background. In Study II, 34 piano teachers listened to recordings of the concert performances and evaluated them against 12 statements representing the four practice perspectives identified in Study I. The results did not support the prediction that practice perspectives would be correctly detected by listeners. Nonetheless, practice perspectives can be used to highlight potentially vast differences between the ways in which individual professional classical musicians conceptualize music and make it meaningful to themselves and others. They could be used in the context of music education to increase musicians’ knowledge of different practice strategies and the ability to develop their own preferred working methods.

LAW BACHELOR PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE FORMATION

The article analyzes the theoretical and methodological achievements on the problem of the law bachelors’ professional competence forming. The meaning of the term “professional competence” is clarified, it means an integrative systemic state of a person and reflects his professional activity. It was found that professional competence is considered as a process of manifestation of a kind of individual professional activity of the subject, which is determined by individual ways of self-expression in the professional direction.The concept of “law bachelors’ professional competence” is clarified, by this we mean a complex of individual-psychological set of theoretical knowledge, practical skills and significant personal qualities that determine the readiness of a specialist for active work. It was found that the students readiness for professional activity includes the following features of the future specialists: active attitude to professional activity, passion for the process; implementation of an orderly set of actions; ability to feel pleasure from professional training, professional activity; stable mental state of the future specialist, i.e. the ability to clearly and confidently direct their actions in professional activities, to show erudition in the chosen field of activity; individual psychological properties that relate to the requirements of professional activity to the chosen professionKey words: readiness, competence, professional competence, bachelor, bachelor of law, law bachelors’ professional competence.

The Individual Inclination to an Occupation and its Neuronal Correlate

Many young people decide their professional direction during adolescence. This often coincides with vulnerable phases of puberty-related maturation that is usually accompanied by difficulties in assessing one’s personal inclinations and competences. Several psychological tests have been established among teachers and career advisers serving as a tool for professional coaching the teenagers’ competences and preferences. Many tools are based on the “Theory of Vocational Personalities in Work Environment” developed by John L. Holland since the 1950s, comprising the “RIASEC” model. Today, this theory provides the basis for tests which are used and refined all over the world. Professor Stangl’s online assessable “Situational Interest Test” (SIT) is based on Holland’s theory. By means of 30 short assessments the SIT questionnaire assesses the participant’s personality traits: Realistic (“Doers”), Investigative (“Thinkers”), Artistic (“Creators”), Social (“Helpers”), Enterprising (“Persuaders”), and Conventional (“Organizers”). Modern Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is able to discriminate between the brain’s compartments as Gray and White Matter using Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM). This tool allows to reshape and to normalize human brains’ structure to statistically examining individual brains. Up to now findings from 20 years of functional MRI gave detailed insights in correlations between brain structures and mental functions. Hence, knowledge on structural base of cognitive or behavioral patterns is available as a brain’s map for assigning anatomical regions to their functions. The present study demonstrates that there are statistically relevant correlations between all dimensions of Holland’s RIASEC theory by assessing individual professional inclinations and the neuronal structures of the brain. Results show correspondence between the personality traits assigned by the RIASEC test and the functions of significant structural alterations in distinct brain areas well-known from literature.

Pedagogical Conditions, Methodology and Organization of Training of Performers on Copper Wide-Ranging Instruments

the methodological principles of teaching a musician-performer to play wide-ranging wind instruments at the Military Institute (military conductors) of the Military University have features that depend on the conditions of training. The contingent of students is characterized by certain age characteristics, features of the level of basic music education, ethnic and cultural differences in the trained military personnel of foreign countries. The article describes some laws and mechanisms that ensure the possibility of achieving high levels of individual professional development during training in the game on wind instruments of trainees of a special group of military institute (military conductors) of the Military University, based on the academic method of training in the game on wind instruments, but actively adapted to a specific psychological and pedagogical situation.

The allied health collective

This chapter examines the concept of allied health as a confederation of constituent professions. We examine: the way that different jurisdictions define the allied health collective; the rationale for those groupings; and the impact of inclusion (or otherwise) of the groupings on the individual professional project of specific allied health professions. Concepts that will be explored include the considerations around a heterogeneous group of occupations attempting to work together to achieve a single professional project. It also also explores the international contexts of the allied health professions and the relevance of the specific comparisons between Australia and the UK.