Everyday Working Life Research Articles

Academic Mediation Programs Move – an Impact Report

This is a study of the impact of participating in an executive masters’ programs in mediation and conflict management. Former students from two programs - one at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and the other at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany - filled in a questionnaire that combined a multiple choice-format (quantitative data) with free text answers (qualitative data). Our analysis of the quantitative data indicates that graduates consider the program content highly relevant both on the professional and personal levels. They describe numerous ways in which they have used their knowledge and skills in their everyday work-lives and multiple positive effects on their professional development. They feel more competent in handling their own conflicts and, in addition, detail a range of transfer activities beyond strict mediating such as using mediation skills in other types of activities, giving talks and publishing on mediation and conflict management, introducing and promoting mediation in a variety of settings and influencing decision-makers.

Xenolectal Variation in the Dialect-Standard Continuum at the Workplace in the Middle Bavarian Communication Area

Adolescent and adult learners of German are exposed to different manifestations of German language - variation - in their everyday (working) life. Like all other speakers, they receive dialectal/near-dialectal and standard/near-standard input, but unlike native speakers, they also encounter xenolectal structures of varying degrees, or in other words, linguistic features that are the result of the native speakers’ efforts to make their utterances more understandable to their non-native listener (for example by simplifications or omissions that result into utterances that deviate from the regularities of the spoken language). Dialectal/near-dialectal and standard/near-standard as well as xenolectal variation have already been described in terms of their functionality. However, a description of the interplay of these variation aspects, as it is crucial for the ‘language reality’ of many adolescents and adults learning German (in Austria) at professional training or at work, has not been undertaken yet. In order to remedy this desideratum, the present work is dedicated to the conversational analysis of dialogues between German native speakers and German learners at work or in professional training that have been recorded in Vienna and Upper Austria. In doing so we adopt the model of the Dialect-Standard-Continuum based on Auer (1986) as the spectrum within which xenolectal variation takes place. Such an analysis should provide better insight into the way the probably most important implicit language-teaching and language-learning method - the conversation - makes use of variation and is determined by it.

Volta à infância: leitura des-verbal e formação de sentidos nos ambientes de trabalho de empresas de tecnologia

Nowadays, references to childhood can be easily perceived in workplace, especially in companies that take as a model the innovative, relaxed offices in Silicon Valley, California (USA). Both the architecture and the decoration of these workplaces suggest new senses, different from those formed in traditional offices. The employees of these companies, in turn, construct imaginary representations about the office - and, consequently, about the company - using all this shown material, in addition to their own experiences, memories, sensations and affections. In these communicational interactions, the highlight is the non-verbal language (Ferrara, 2001), where that childhood symbolic objects produce senses (Orlandi, 2012), suggest interpretations (Santaella, 2008) and create emotional bonds (Silva, 2012) in everyday work life. Studying these relationships that involve all the human senses in the communication process within organizations is the main theme in this article. As the objective of this research, we seek to understand how these organizational discourses are constructed in order to involve employees emotionally using their own experiences, recovered by childhood symbolic objects. Summing up: how are these shown discourses, involving childhood memories, in the work routine, materialized? As corpus of our research, we chose to observe and analyze the workplace of three multinationals from technology sector, represented by their Brazilian offices: Google-Belo Horizonte, in Minas Gerais, OLX-Rio de Janeiro and LinkedIn-São Paulo. The material for analysis was collected from images available on the corporate websites of these companies and on the websites of the architecture firms responsible for the architectural projects created for these offices. Collected data as well as its organization and analysis were based on Lucrécia Ferrara's proposal of reading non verbal messages, contextualizing in time and space each researched places, searching for "estrangement" - non-homogeneous elements or situations - and find out the "dominant" - the conflicting element in the observed environment (Ferrara, 2001). The non-verbal reading are based on the memories recovered not only by the act of seeing something, but also for hearing, smell, taste and touch. And these memories can be used to create new sensations and emotions - positive ones - for new perceptions of the corporate 'world'. In the three companies researched, which hired architects and decorators to transform the work space according to the companies' world headquarters guidelines, we found the non-homogeneous in the office organization itself. In this innovative interior, the presence of childhood symbols appear as dominant. This is the case of the Google-Belo Horizons popcorn cart, the giant slide at OLX-Rio de Janeiro and elements such as a swing at LinkedIn-São Paulo. We understand that employees' perceptions of childhood symbols refer to distant and pleasurable memories, brought by remembrance to other contexts and situations. And these memories and feelings are activated not only by the sight of these objects, but also by smell, taste - like as the popcorn cart - and by touch - as in the act of slipping or rocking. It is essential to highlight that mental and symbolic representations have an emotional charge brought about by specific moments, lived in certain contexts and recovered by memory through associations by similarity. This reading of the non-verbal material transfers the happy memories of employees to the workplace, to the company, and can contribute to the formation of meanings of pleasure and well-being for corporate world. The bridge between employees and the organization, for this image formation, is the symbolic material.

Volta à infância: leitura des-verbal e formação de sentidos nos ambientes de trabalho de empresas de tecnologia / Back to childhood: non-verbal reading and making sense in workplace technology companies

Resumo Referências à infância podem ser facilmente percebidas em empresas da atualidade, especialmente as que tomam como modelo os ambientes de trabalho descontraídos dos escritórios do Vale do Silício, na Califórnia (EUA). Compreender o modo como estes sentidos são construídos, envolvendo os coenunciadores organização e funcionários, é nosso objetivo neste artigo. A partir da observação dos discursos organizacionais infantis, mostrados nestes escritórios inovadores, e tomando como guia a leitura por similaridade do material “des-verbal”, como propõe Lucrécia Ferrara (2001), entendemos que as percepções dos funcionários ante os símbolos infantis remetem a memórias distantes e prazerosas. Deste modo, tal experiência pode ser associada às vivências do funcionário dentro do ambiente de trabalho e, consequentemente, contribuir a uma imagem corporativa positiva e desejada pela empresa.Palavras chave: comunicação dentro das organizações, discursos organizacionais, leitura des-verbal, ambientes de trabalho inovadores, infância.Abstract Nowadays, references to childhood can be easily perceived in workplace, especially in companies that take as a model the innovative, relaxed offices in Silicon Valley, California (USA). Both the architecture and the decoration of these workplaces suggest new senses, different from those formed in traditional offices. The employees of these companies, in turn, construct imaginary representations about the office - and, consequently, about the company - using all this shown material, in addition to their own experiences, memories, sensations and affections. In these communicational interactions, the highlight is the non-verbal language (Ferrara, 2001), where that childhood symbolic objects produce senses (Orlandi, 2012), suggest interpretations (Santaella, 2008) and create emotional bonds (Silva, 2012) in everyday work life. Studying these relationships that involve all the human senses in the communication process within organizations is the main theme in this article. As the objective of this research, we seek to understand how these organizational discourses are constructed in order to involve employees emotionally using their own experiences, recovered by childhood symbolic objects. Summing up: how are these shown discourses, involving childhood memories, in the work routine, materialized? As corpus of our research, we chose to observe and analyze the workplace of three multinationals from technology sector, represented by their Brazilian offices: Google-Belo Horizonte, in Minas Gerais, OLX-Rio de Janeiro and LinkedIn-São Paulo. The material for analysis was collected from images available on the corporate websites of these companies and on the websites of the architecture firms responsible for the architectural projects created for these offices. Collected data as well as its organization and analysis were based on Lucrécia Ferrara's proposal of reading non verbal messages, contextualizing in time and space each researched places, searching for "estrangement" - non-homogeneous elements or situations - and find out the "dominant" - the conflicting element in the observed environment (Ferrara, 2001). The non-verbal reading are based on the memories recovered not only by the act of seeing something, but also for hearing, smell, taste and touch. And these memories can be used to create new sensations and emotions - positive ones - for new perceptions of the corporate 'world'. In the three companies researched, which hired architects and decorators to transform the work space according to the companies' world headquarters guidelines, we found the non-homogeneous in the office organization itself. In this innovative interior, the presence of childhood symbols appear as dominant. This is the case of the Google-Belo Horizons popcorn cart, the giant slide at OLX-Rio de Janeiro and elements such as a swing at LinkedIn-São Paulo. We understand that employees' perceptions of childhood symbols refer to distant and pleasurable memories, brought by remembrance to other contexts and situations. And these memories and feelings are activated not only by the sight of these objects, but also by smell, taste - like as the popcorn cart - and by touch - as in the act of slipping or rocking. It is essential to highlight that mental and symbolic representations have an emotional charge brought about by specific moments, lived in certain contexts and recovered by memory through associations by similarity. This reading of the non-verbal material transfers the happy memories of employees to the workplace, to the company, and can contribute to the formation of meanings of pleasure and well-being for corporate world. The bridge between employees and the organization, for this image formation, is the symbolic material.Keywords: public relations, organizational discourses, non-verbal reading, innovative workplace, childhood.

Performance Analysis of a Head and Eye Motion-Based Control Interface for Assistive Robots.

Assistive robots support people with limited mobility in their everyday life activities and work. However, most of the assistive systems and technologies for supporting eating and drinking require a residual mobility in arms or hands. For people without residual mobility, different hands-free controls have been developed. For hands-free control, the combination of different modalities can lead to great advantages and improved control. The novelty of this work is a new concept to control a robot using a combination of head and eye motions. The control unit is a mobile, compact and low-cost multimodal sensor system. A Magnetic Angular Rate Gravity (MARG)-sensor is used to detect head motion and an eye tracker enables the system to capture the user’s gaze. To analyze the performance of the two modalities, an experimental evaluation with ten able-bodied subjects and one subject with tetraplegia was performed. To assess discrete control (event-based control), a button activation task was performed. To assess two-dimensional continuous cursor control, a Fitts’s Law task was performed. The usability study was related to a use-case scenario with a collaborative robot assisting a drinking action. The results of the able-bodied subjects show no significant difference between eye motions and head motions for the activation time of the buttons and the throughput, while, using the eye tracker in the Fitts’s Law task, the error rate was significantly higher. The subject with tetraplegia showed slightly better performance for button activation when using the eye tracker. In the use-case, all subjects were able to use the control unit successfully to support the drinking action. Due to the limited head motion of the subject with tetraplegia, button activation with the eye tracker was slightly faster than with the MARG-sensor. A further study with more subjects with tetraplegia is planned, in order to verify these results.

Le temps, un levier du changement

Race against time, interruptions, operating room tardiness, handover times… Expressions such as these show the significance of time in health professionals' everyday working lives. Health care facilities are no exception. In these structures, time is necessary to accomplish organisational transformation projects for the benefit of patients and users.

“Black, white and gray”–A qualitative study of how Swedish police officers describe occupational knowledge

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore how Swedish police officers describe occupational knowledge. By learning more about how officers describe occupational knowledge, the study gives more insight about the types of information that they may be more likely to adopt in their occupational tasks.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the author conducted 27 semi-structured interviews with Swedish police officers. I asked officers several open-ended questions about their everyday work life and professional experience.FindingsSwedish officers divide knowledge into two categories, which are theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge is learned in the academy and is described as “black and white,” meaning that it is considered static and not applicable to what happens out in patrol. Practical knowledge is learned in the field from colleagues.Research limitations/implicationsPolice officers around the world have a wide range of requirements and training to become police officers. However, empirical studies have found that officers tend to use different types of information when performing policing tasks. Depending on how information is perceived and is taught, officers may respond differently to different types of knowledge, due to their evaluation of the validity of the knowledge.Originality/valueThe findings in this study support previous empirical studies on the area of policing and knowledge in two ways; first, this study argues that there is a categorization of knowledge among police officers. Second, this study suggests that officers view one occupational knowledge type as more theoretical and one as more practical.

The neoliberal reality of higher education in Australia: how accountingisation is corporatising knowledge

Purpose As accounting academics, the authors know that performance measurement is well-trodden ground in the literature. Yet rarely have they turned their gaze inwards to examine the performance controls which they are subject to in the own everyday working life. Over the past 40 years, the rise of the New Public Management paradigm and neoliberalism has intensified changes in the way universities, disciplines and individual academics justify the quality of their work. This paper aims to explore the impact of accountingisation on the field and the Australian public sector higher education sector. Design/methodology/approach The perceptions of accounting academics in Australia’s 37 business faculties and schools were collected via an online survey. Additionally, a document analysis of annual reports, internal reports, strategy documents and other confidential material were also used. Findings The changes have included the use of corporate and individual research metrics aimed at increasing institutional status, brand reputation and revenue generation. These changes have transformed business schools and universities into commercial enterprises and commoditised education. What this analysis demonstrates is the apparent relationship between various government agendas, the commercialisation of universities and the distortion of the research activities by individual academics. For increased profits and efficiencies, individual scholars have paid the highest price. Practical implications If the accounting discipline is to be sustainable in the long term, business schools in Australia must reconfigure their performance measurement systems. Originality/value To date, research on “accountingisation” has previously been primarily conducted in the health and social services sectors. This research raises rarely heard voices to expose the actual social and human costs of accountingisation in Australia’s higher education sector.

Integration of migrant healthcare workforce from the perspective of leading hospital staff in Germany

Abstract Background The German healthcare system is facing a serious shortage of healthcare professionals and is therefore dependent of foreign staff to ensure adequate healthcare. 14 % of the physicians and 17 % of the nurses working in Germany have foreign citizenship. The variety of cultural backgrounds and language skills raises the question for advantages and challenges when it comes to human resource policies in hospitals and outpatient care services. Methods The findings are based on 16 expert interviews with physicians, nurses, and managers in leading positions of two hospitals and two outpatient care services. These institutions differ in the extent to which they treat migrant patients and hire foreign healthcare workers. Results From the experts' perspective, the biggest advantage in foreign health workers are their language skills. Foreign language skills are a huge advantage provided that their knowledge matches the patients' languages and their German skills are adequate as well. Additionally, their knowledge about other medical cultures are very much appreciated. The experts see challenges in different qualifications that the professionals have gained in their home countries as well as diverse working cultures, which often leads to frustration among the teams. Therefore, too much ethnic diversity is difficult for everyday working life. Ethnic discrimination is the case in hospitals with less migrant staff and patients. Conclusions To ensure adequate healthcare, healthcare professionals should get a special training, which enables them to work in diverse teams with colleagues from other countries. Meanwhile, foreign staff need time to get used to new hospital structures and should feel strengthened to bring their skills in. This is a process, which the institutions must moderate and accompany constructively. Key messages Immigration of foreign healthcare professionals leads to multicultural teams in healthcare, which are characterized by differences in cultures and qualifications. Therefore, leading professionals should support and encourage multicultural teams to learn how to deal with this diversity in everyday working life.

Writing (for) Workers: Alternative Workers’ Magazines in Francoist Spain and in State Socialist Poland in the 1960s and 1970s

This article explores how repression and everyday conflicts at the workplace were connected with labor rights and trade unionism in two authoritarian regimes. It focuses on worker and labor activists’ media in Francoist Spain and in state socialist Poland during the years 1965–68 and 1977–79, respectively. Spanish and Polish workers both lacked the right to join and form independent trade unions, the right to free assembly and association, and the right to strike. At the same time, they faced comparable problems in their everyday working lives, including low salaries, excessive overtime, incompetent management, and deficits in safety and hygiene standards. In this context, (illegal) magazines for workers emerged. They provided new arenas for exchanging experiences, advertised strike actions all across the country, called for united action, and explained national legislation and global labor norms. Based on an analysis of Spanish and Polish workers’ publications, this contribution investigates how labor activists in these states addressed day-to-day problems and the constant violations of internationally binding labor norms.

Evidence-based self-medication: development and evaluation of a professional newsletter concept for community pharmacies

Background Providing evidence-based care is recognized as a key competence for all healthcare professionals. In order to support community pharmacists in evidence-based self-medication counseling, the umbrella organization of German pharmacists initiated the development of a nationwide concept. The key element of the concept was a professional newsletter that should help pharmacists incorporate research findings into their daily counseling practice. Objective To develop, implement and evaluate the professional newsletter concept. Setting German community pharmacies. Method Clinical pharmacists from a German university compiled and synthesized clinical trial data in a professional newsletter that would supply community pharmacists with evidence-based information on common over-the-counter medicines as well as instructions for searching and appraising scientific literature. The electronic newsletter was offered to interested community pharmacists free of charge, once or twice a month, after they signed up for a subscription. About one year after the publication of the first newsletter issue, the subscribers were invited to take part in an anonymous cross-sectional online survey. In all, 21 newsletter issues were published through the end of the survey period. Main outcome measure Perceived value of the professional newsletter with 10 predefined objectives. Results A total of 1975 persons subscribed to the professional newsletter. Of those, 150 persons working in community pharmacies completed the survey. Most of them perceived the synthesized information as ‘useful’ (81–95%). They attributed positive changes in knowledge (89%), skills (87–91%), awareness (85%), and motivation (67–77%) to the newsletter. However, almost half of them (43%) found it difficult to incorporate reading the newsletter in their everyday working life. Free-text feedback suggested that further modifications should be considered to facilitate a better integration of the newsletter into everyday pharmacy practice. Conclusion A nationwide provided professional newsletter can play a vital part in supporting pharmacists in evidence-based self-medication counseling. However, the practicability of such a newsletter needs to be further improved and the newsletter should be accompanied by additional measures.

Men, chronic illness and healthwork: accounts from male partners of women with endometriosis.

Currently dominant in medical discourse, the concept of self-management sees the responsibility for health and illness shift from the state to the individual. However, while this emphasis on individual responsibility and management has burgeoned, the role and status of partners and other family members in the management of chronic illness remains under-theorised. While self-management privileges individual responsibility for the management of chronic illness, the role of partners remains unclear. This paper utilises data from a study of heterosexual couples' experiences of living with the chronic gynaecological condition endometriosis to explore how male partners engage in its day-to-day management. In all, 22 couples participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews with each partner interviewed separately (n=44). Data were analysed thematically and dyadically, informed by an interpretivist relational approach. The paper utilises the concept of healthwork to describe the illness work, everyday life work, biographical work and emotion work men engaged in. The paper demonstrates how the conceptual value of healthwork is enhanced by incorporating an analysis of the emotional effort required in managing chronic illness. The paper illustrates the value of investigating the role of partners in managing chronic illness to provide a fuller account of the distributed and relational nature of healthwork.

Sovereign Wives? An Emotional Politics of Precarity and Resistance in the UK's Military Wives Choir

AbstractThis article provides a feminist analysis of the politics of vulnerability and resistance at work in the UK's Military Wives Choir. Military spouses represent vulnerable and “militarized subjects,” providing countless forms of unpaid labor in service of the military that range from the material labor of childcare to representational work in popular culture and everyday life. And yet as scholars of critical military studies and international politics, we so often fall short in our exploration of how military spouses engage with the militaristic processes in which they are embroiled. Indeed, work on the critical and resistant capacity of military wives as political agents is in particularly short supply. This article will use the example of the Military Wives Choir to argue that rather than seeing military wives simply as vulnerable militarized subjects without the capacity for resistance, it is in and through this vulnerability that the possibility of resistance can appear. As such, this work speaks to broader questions regarding the sites in which militarization occurs; even the most militarized of spaces and bodies do not necessarily only provide the preconditions for the emergence of military power. Rather, there is always the possibility for something more.

Prilog razumijevanju pedagoginje

Ovaj tekst, kao nastavak našega promišljanja o dispozicijama za pedagogično djelovanje, kritička je refleksija vlastite profesionalne svakodnevice u kojoj detektiramo brojne dileme vezane za svrhu pedagoške profesije. Točke prijepora, poput – biti neutralna ili angažirana, graditi distanciran ili prisan pedagoški odnos, prioritizirati vlastitu ili tuđu dobrobit, odbijati ili prihvaćati sukob kao potencijalni agens promjene – izmještamo iz hodnika, predavaonica i učionica u kojima bivamo te, izlazeći time iz komforne zone nepromišljanja o njima, apostrofiramo ambivalentnu pojavnost dihotomije javno–privatno u skrivenome kurikulumu tih prostora. Promatrajući dispozicije kao za autonomno pedagogično pedagoško djelovanje prediktivna uvjerenja i osobine razvijajućega karaktera, u radu zagovaramo napuštanje shvaćanja pedagoginja kao neutralnih profesionalki apstrahiranih od osobnih uvjerenja, kvaliteta i ograničenja te u fokus stavljamo etičnost, refleksivnost i autentičnost kao temeljne dispozicije za pedagogično djelovanje usmjereno k podupiranju mogućega i transformativnoga u pedagoškome odnosu. Rad zaključujemo promišljanjem odgovornosti studijā pedagogije i samih pedagoginja za kultiviranje opisanih dispozicija.

Exploring experiences and coping strategies of nurses working in intensive care unit: A qualitative study

Background: The nursing profession is in its developing stages in the country yet when it comes to the work itself, the environment can be very competitive. Though nurses, in general, go through a tough time, it is the intensive care unit (ICU) nurses who have to be on their toes all the time. Those working in the pediatric department, deal with young patients requiring constant supervision and care compared to other ICUs.
 The aim of the current project was to explore the experiences and coping strategies of nurses working in pediatric ICUs in a public sector hospital of Lahore, Pakistan.
 Methodology: Semi structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 5 nurses who were working in pediatric ICU (PICU) in a public sector hospital. All the nurses were female.
 Results: The data was managed and analyzed using NVivo 12 version. The four superordinate themes, e.g. vocational problems, psychological problems, biosocial problems and coping had 11 master themes and 70 sub themes. 
 Conclusion: Nurses in PICU face a lot of problems in their everyday work life, yet they have found their own ways to cope with their stress. Regardless the shortage of staff and constant complaints against them, nurses of PICU find solace in religious coping and socialization (as much as they can get). These results will help authorities to look into the problems and provide suitable solutions.
 Citation: Zulfiqar L, Rafiq M. Exploring experiences and coping strategies of nurses working in intensive care unit: A qualitative study. Anaesth Pain Intensive Care 2020;24(1):__
 DOI: https://doi.org/10.35975/apic.v2i1.
 Received – 03 February 2020;
 Reviewed – 7 March 2020;
 Revised – 11 March 2020;
 Accepted – 12 March 2020;

Lived religion meets secular life: the dynamics of framing and the subjunctive power of ritual

ABSTRACT In spite of the variety of often welcome everyday enchantments and empowerment that lived religion may bring to an individual in his/her personal life, it may become problematic in a person’s social life due to provoking tensions with significant others who hold different worldviews. This controversy necessitates the adoption of tactics and practices for adjustment and regulation, should that individual wish to enhance the benefits of religious enchantment and, simultaneously, maintain his/her position in the shared social lifeworld. This article argues that ritual theory, particularly in combining the notions of ritual framing and the subjunctive mode of ritual, offers a promising approach to researching this dynamic. The ritual studies approach helps shed light on the sometimes quite subtle ways in which moving in and out of the ritual frame makes it possible to regulate the often delicate balance of enchantment and disenchantment. This article examines the case study of women engaging in angel spirituality in Finland and the way they are able to navigate different ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ worlds. It argues that the dynamic combination of ritual framing and the subjunctive mode of ritual works as important possibility work in everyday life in a society which is uneasy about very strong expressions of lived religion.

Fostering nursing innovation to prevent and control antimicrobial resistance using approaches from the arts and humanities.

BackgroundEfforts to address the complex global problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) highlight the need for imagination and innovation. However, nursing has not yet leveraged its potential to innovate to prevent AMR advancing.AimsThis paper focuses on the initial phase of an ongoing research and development study that seeks to foster nursing imagination and innovation by enhancing the meaningfulness of AMR for practising nurses and by facilitating their creative ideas.MethodsThis aim is addressed through application of arts and humanities approaches, in particular the use of visualisation, co-design and historical methods, underpinned by the Design Council Double Diamond process model. The first phase with 20 UK participants explored how hospital and community-based nurses understand and respond to the priorities and consequences of AMR within their everyday working lives.ResultsNurses varied in their conceptualisations of AMR and in their depictions and explanations of its meaning and priority within everyday practices. Some saw infection prevention and control as bound up with AMR, whereas others differentiated in the context of specific work activities. Insights into related reasoning and practice tactics were also generated.ConclusionsThe initial project phase provides a basis for fostering nursing innovation in this important field.

A fair game – the neoliberal (re)organisation of social and relational practices in local school settings

In this article, we use data from ethnography-inspired studies of eight Swedish schools. We describe and analyse how a number of neoliberal-inspired economic and political processes have (re)organised social and relational practices in local school settings. There is an increased focus on individuality in the everyday working lives of teachers, where result-centred practices, relations and professional identities have replaced notions of equality and compensatory interventions. In our study, the teachers describe an increasing focus on performativity, competition and hierarchisation. We use fairness as a lens for illuminating these changes in social relations, changes in the organisation of teachers’ practices, and teachers’ struggles with these changes. The purpose of this study is to analyse how the current reforms are enacted and how they affect the working lives of teachers, and thereby to contribute to the current discussion on how the last decades of political and administrative changes have affected educational practice.

Everyday secrecy: Oral history and the social life of a top-secret weapons research establishment during the Cold War

Despite the welcome turn within security studies towards a more material- and practice-oriented understanding of state secrecy, the ways in which security actors experience, practise and negotiate secrecy in their everyday work lives has been rather overlooked. To counter this neglect the article calls for attention to everyday secrecy. Focusing on a former top-secret weapons research facility in the UK called Orford Ness, it uses oral history to give an account of ex-employees’ memories, experiences and practices concerning secrecy. Such a focus reveals that subjects make sense of procedures and rules of secrecy in ways that are sometimes surprising and unexpected. Ultimately this perspective emphasizes that secrecy is not just what governments and organizations prescribe and proscribe; it is also shaped by subjects who negotiate these rules. Everyday secrecy matters: as a perspective it shows that secrecy is not simply imposed by states and organizations from ‘above’; it is also made from ‘below’, albeit very asymmetrically.

Paperlite: piloting a new way of working in community nursing.

Technology within healthcare is a growing industry, and health professionals now use technology within their everyday working life. Within hospitals, it is the norm to see staff using handheld devices to record clinical observations and patient notes being typed into an electronic system. However, the use of technology within community settings is far behind that of hospital counterparts. It has been acknowledged that the use of technology in healthcare will improve efficiency and remove some of the bureaucracy within the NHS, and community areas are beginning to pilot different ways of implementing this. This article describes a pilot trial of using technology to aid mobile working in the author's trust and discusses how district nursing can embrace the use of paperlite culture to improve efficiency and record reliability.