This account of practice focuses on using action learning (AL) from both the facilitator and student experience during the dissertation stage of a postgraduate degree to resolve wicked workplace problems. The action learning process was used to explore and create a catalyst for change through research that explored the wicked problem of…

In this article, we illustrate how ideas and practices of mindfulness can be integrated into management education, drawing from our work on postgraduate programs run with working managers. Our purpose is particularly to show how mindfulness can be introduced into the curriculum in a way that is acceptable for participants and clients, and brings…

This account of practice offers an example of the use of action learning within the undergraduate Degree Apprenticeship Curriculum of a UK university, specifically the Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship. This programme is aimed at an age-diverse group who are supported by their employers through the levy to improve their knowledge, skills and…

Action learning has evolved over a period of time when managerialism and performativity, which are aspects of neoliberalism, have become stronger and this explains, in part, the emergence of Critical Action Learning (CAL). Performativity, in particular, has increasingly become internalised by people at work. CAL seems to be limited to power…

Although there is increasing interest in how learning to become a researching professional is understood by students undertaking a professional doctorate of education (EdD), the topic remains under-researched and under-theorized. In this article, we provide a set of theorizations, starting with the purpose and distinctiveness of the professional…

This article discusses the current challenges faced by the two authors--both participants on a professional doctorate (PD) programme in education at a leading UK university--in gaining legitimacy as higher education (HE) professionals. By: (1) reflecting upon their own professional experiences in HE and as PD students; (2) utilizing…

In the second year module "Professional Contexts for Modern Languages" at Lancaster University, students take 20-25 hour placements, and using a multimodal forum, they articulate their challenges, development and understanding of the varying contexts in which they are working. In summative assessment, students across languages and types…

In efforts to respond to key government public health initiatives for settings-based health promotion, the "Workplace Health Champion" role has emerged as a method of promoting health within the UK healthcare setting. Health promotion techniques used by these individuals are based on psychological theories that are known to motivate…

This article presents an original application of Q methodology in investigating the challenging arena of emotion in the Higher Education (HE) workplace. Q's strength lies in capturing holistic, subjective accounts of complex and contested phenomena but is unusual in employing a statistical procedure within an interpretivist framework. Here Q is…

This paper focuses on a context where interdisciplinarity intersects with interprofessionality: the work of children's services professionals who address the needs of children identified as vulnerable. It draws on evidence and perspectives from two disciplines--educational studies and health care--to consider the issues and challenges posed by…

This article makes a connection between youth work spaces, emotions and some elements of memory, exploring the construction of spaces dangerous for social justice in both meanings of the term "dangerous for". It investigates the contribution to social justice of lesbian and gay youth work and other non-heteronormative youth work in a…

This paper suggests that as university missions have adapted to accommodate major developments associated with, for instance, mass higher education and internationalisation agendas, university workforces have diversified. They now, for instance, incorporate practitioners in areas such as health and social care, and professional staff who support…

Certainly, there are people who can't wait to leave work, and people with grand plans for retirement. There are also people who have worked a long time in a stressful environment or doing heavy manual work, or who live in a poor community, and whose life expectancy is much shorter. But most people in their 50s say that they would like to work…

It is like trying to fit a triangular peg into a round hole while both the hole and the peg continually change shape and size. Sound a little crazy? That is just what industry thinks about the current global "one-size-fits-all" concept of education. The perception from business, government and education leaders of 50 nations at the…

How people respond at work may have a critical part to play in how bereaved or terminally ill colleagues manage their grief and their lives. Although counselors, human resources, occupational health staff, and others may have an important back-up role to play, pivotal support needs to come from line managers, colleagues, and, where they exist,…