Social, cultural, political, and organizational characteristics of urban schools that make them difficult settings for teachers are discussed. It is suggested that, while an emphasis on professional community would be beneficial for all students, it is particularly pressing for urban schools where other resources for school reform are limited.…

Teachers' views on their control of school policy and classroom practices are analyzed on the basis of data from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) of 1990-91. The SASS, a nationally representative survey of more than 53,000 teachers, reflects teachers' opinions of school conditions. Overall, teachers (61 percent) did not believe that they had…

A number of environmental influences--social, cultural, political, economic, and personal--work against the development of sustained professional practice and a professional self-image in qualified staff in early child care centersin Australia. These influences derive from the low professional status of child care workers, the physical and…

A study compared the working conditions of part-time English teachers at Brigham Young University (BYU) and Utah Valley Community College (UVCC). At BYU more than half of the advanced writing classes are taught by part-timers, who make up 27% of the English department, and women part-timers outnumber men four to one. At UVCC there are about as…

The purpose of this report is to describe how Minnesota technical college students can be empowered through vocational education to be full participants in the labor force and to deal with the changes that they encounter in the workplace. Chapter 1 introduces the problem of keeping up with changes in the ways in which work is performed. Chapter 2…

Ninety-five teachers in Key Stage 1 in England and Wales completed a questionnaire and records of time spent on work over a period of 14 consecutive days, resulting in detailed records of 1,330 days of teachers' time. The data are analyzed in terms of overall time spent on work; time distribution; and time spent specifically on teaching,…

This paper looks at the feasibility of investigating how health risk behaviors established during youth contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in a young workforce. The population of interest consists of Mexican women living and working on the Mexican side of the United States-Mexico border. Proposed goals would (1) establish…

This paper discusses the development of an equity board that grew out of an ad hoc gender issues committee at Walsh College in Ohio. The document discusses the history and background of the equity board. The original committee members expanded their focus to produce a discrimination policy. This policy was designed to fulfill two major purposes:…

A 1988 symposium on the effect of family problems on the corporate bottom line and a review of more than 80 other studies have confirmed that business investments in programs and policies to resolve family-work conflicts yield returns. Family issues/problems have been documented to affect employee recruitment, productivity, turnover, and…

Use of ethnographic methods to assess learning and staff development needs for workplace adult education programs is discussed, focusing on the teacher's role as ethnographic researcher. Four stages of ethnographic research are identified: (1) open-ended, inductive study; (2) structured observation; (3) analysis; and (4) speculation and sharing of…

The job and training experiences of women currently or formerly employed in a skilled trade were examined in a survey completed by all 41 tradeswomen who attended a West Coast tradeswomen's summit. On average, the women were 43 years old and had worked in their trade for 11.26 years. Of the women, 75.6% were white, 19.5% were women of color, 46.3%…

This document contains two papers from a symposium on enhancing team performance. "The Impact of Organizational Sub-Cultures on Information Sharing: A Manufacturing Company's Dilemma" (Toni Powell) reports on a qualitative study that examined the subcultures of a company involved in significant change and noted the effects of conflicting…

This book is an inquiry into university teaching across cultures and includes, in Part 1, a cast study of the nature of the university workplace in Thailand, and in Part 2, common instructional problems and solutions faced by Western professors teaching in the Southeast Asian context. Within Part 1, "The Nature of the University as a…

Designed to accompany a Cross-Cultural Training Workshop for supervisors of limited-English-proficient (LEP) employees, this "train the trainer" manual can be used as a resource for individuals who have some experience as cross-cultural trainers or as an orientation for novices in the area of cross-cultural communication. The workshop is…

This eight-page tabloid-style report presents an overview of past and present working conditions in the United States as a whole and in Hawaii in particular, with emphasis on women and on lower-level workers. The seven articles in the paper cover the following topics: "A Brief History of Labor in Hawaii" (William J. Puette); "The…