Discusses four obstacles to improvement in child care: attitudes towards it, its relationship to family life, lack of training, and inadequate work conditions. (Author/SS)

The author claims that excellence will return to the workplace when every organization, corporate and bureaucratic, and when academia and associations offer professional, technical, and skills training for their own members. Discusses the quest for professionalism, and why accountability should be considered an element of professionalism. (CT)

Recommends that library managers make inexpensive but enlightened changes in administrative policies and work environment to encourage professional development of permanent staff. References are listed. (RAA)

The author focuses on laws governing maximum working hours, explaining how their coverage became restricted to women and children and how organized labor showed renewed interest in universal hour laws during the Depression. She advances three hypotheses to explain how laws that once were protective became restrictive. (CT)

The ways in which high school teachers cope with the potential boredom of their work runs the gamut from self-improvement through in-service education to leaving the teaching profession. (LH)

Examined job tenure among 85 individuals with psychiatric disabilities. Surveyed clients' demographic, clinical, and vocational histories, their initial reactions to specific jobs, and aspects of the work environment. The average job lasted 70 days. Longer tenure was predicted by previous work history, early satisfaction with the job, lower…

Trainers/teachers in eight occupational areas (n=167) identified ways in which they challenge or support workplace learners. Military trainers tended more toward challenge; higher education mentors tended more toward support. Within occupational groups, individual differences in trainer ideology appeared. (SK)

Presents an analysis of personal, socialization, and structural factors affecting the lifespan achievement of 15 Asian American women identified as gifted. Their families' intense focus on educational achievement and hard work are described, and the need for better preparation to overcome obstacles in the workplace is discussed. (Author/CR)

The learning processes of an employee in a new role were analyzed using the Dreyfus model of skill development (novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert). Influences of the trainer, informal workplace interactions, and formal courses on the transition to the new role were identified. (SK)

The balancing act between work and life away from work has gotten so complicated that few are able to pull it off. Employers are blurring the lines between the two by offering day care for aged parents or children and flexible scheduling that allows some to work at home. (JOW)

Argues that elementary school improvement hinges upon bettering teaching quality by concentrating on pedagogy. This pedagogical emphasis is necessary not because teacher performance is weak, but because teaching demands are great and primary teachers' influence is high. Schools must become learning organizations, or workplaces that promote…

Some training failures may be attributed to lack of recognition that learning is a social activity and that collective learning results in communities of practice. The experiences of Dede Miller at Xerox Corporation and the gap that separates learning theory and common training practice show how hard it is to apply new approaches to workplace…

An Australian survey examined the child care and working arrangements (part time, shift work, overtime) of 2,890 mothers. Differences in use of formal child care or unmet child care needs depended on children's ages and full-time/overtime status. Those working in nontraditional arrangements may be more likely to use informal child care. (SK)

Examines the idea that in the context of the globalized workplace, widespread use of English will exert pressure toward global uniformity yet result in the emergence of a large number of local varieties of English and hybrids. Examines such contradictory sociolinguistic tensions between the phenomenon of homogeneity and normativity on one hand and…

Discusses high-involvement work teams, in which groups of workers participate in improving their work activities; describes how a typical work team progresses through a project; and introduces a systems model of interrelated steps through which teams may progress to solve problems. (LRW)