This chapter contains sections titled: A prima facie case for teaching as a practice MacIntyre's objection Schools as surroundings.

Although prior studies have extensively investigated the effect of working conditions upon professional satisfaction, the cross-national variance in the effect remains largely understudied due to technical or financial restrictions. The Teaching and Learning International Survey provides an opportunity to investigate the cross-country differences in the impact of working conditions upon principals’ professional satisfaction. The current study attempts to investigate the overall and specific effects of principals’ workplace environment satisfaction, rewards satisfaction, and workload stress on their professional (...) satisfaction in 47 countries included in the TALIS 2018. The results indicate that workplace environment, rather than the typically regarded effort-reward issues, is the most powerful contributor to individual principals’ professional satisfaction across 47 countries, while, in countries with low overall professional satisfaction, rewards satisfaction and workload stress are more powerful predictors for principals’ professional satisfaction on the country level. This study may inform policymakers in school principal stimulation and retention that effective practice to stimulate and/or retain school principals may vary across countries and research findings derived from data on the individual level may not be applicable to practice on the country level. (shrink)

Humor styles and psychosocial working conditions in relation to occupational burnout among doctors Medical professionals are an occupational group at a particularly high risk for job burnout. The aim of the study was to determine relationships between humor styles and psychosocial working conditions on the one hand and occupational burnout in the medical profession on the other. Participants in the study were 82 professionally active doctors, interviewed and examined using questionnaire methods: the Maslach Burnout Inventory, Humor (...) Styles Questionnaire, and the Psychosocial Working Conditions instrument. The results show that occupational burnout is a serious problem among medical doctors, even those with a short work history. Difficult psychosocial working conditions enhance the occupational burnout symptoms. Moreover, higher severity of burnout symptoms correlates with lower support from superiors and with less frequent utilization of adaptive humor styles: self-enhancing and affiliative. Therefore, it is worthwhile to develop programs of burnout prevention for medical professionals, with an emphasis on social skills training, and to enlarge such resources as support at workplace and humor utilization skills. (shrink)

The millions of farm workers in the Global South are an important resource for smallholder producers. However, research on their labour organisation is limited. This article focuses on smallholder farm workers in Ghana’s cocoa sector, drawing on insights from qualitative interviews and the concept of bargaining power. We review the labour relations and working conditions of two historical and informally identified labour supply setups (LSSs) in Ghana’s cocoa sector, namely, hired labour and Abusa, a form of landowner–caretaker relations, (...) and identify an imbalance of horizontal power. Further, we analyse the labour relations and working conditions of an emerging and formal LSS in Ghana’s cocoa sector: private labour providers (PLPs). We argue that PLPs are likely to address the imbalance of horizontal power between farm workers and smallholders and bring about significant improvements in the working conditions of farm workers. We also assess the sustainability potential and limitations of PLPs and argue that tensions exist. We contribute to the growing horizontal power perspective by providing avenues for research and policy related to promoting sustained labour rights for farm workers in smallholder agriculture in the Global South. (shrink)

The work of scientists and doctors in advancing genetic research and its applications has been accompanied by plenty of discussion in the popular press—from Good Housekeeping and Forbes to Ms. and the Congressional Record—about such ...

Small businesses in developing countries, as part of global supply chains, are sometimes assumed to respond in a straightforward manner to institutional demands for improved working conditions. This article problematizes this perspective. Drawing upon extensive qualitative data from Tirupur’s knitwear export industry in India, we highlight owner-managers’ agency in avoiding or circumventing these demands. The small businesses here actively engage in irresponsible business practices and “evasion” institutional work to disrupt institutional demands in three ways: undermining assumptions and values, (...) dissociating consequences, and accumulating autonomy and political strength. This “evasion” work is supported by three conditions: void, distance, and contradictions. Through detailed empirical findings, the article contributes to research on both small business social responsibility and institutional work. (shrink)

The human propensity for casting our social worlds as "us against them" is perhaps the primary impediment to deep and broadly inclusive understandings of the workings of rhetoric. Many decades ago, Kenneth Burke assailed that barrier with regard to Adolf Hitler. Surrounded by the satisfactions of vituperation against the leader of one of the world's most heinous social movements, Burke begged his readers to make space for understanding how Hitler's rhetoric brought about what it did. Philippe-Joseph Salazar's Words Are Weapons (...) makes a similar contribution for our era. He asks us to resist the gratifications generated by dismissing as "Islamaphobic" any critical analysis of what he calls "caliphal"... (shrink)

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine whether psychosocial working conditions may be a mediator between indoor physical working conditions and the type of vague general health symptoms included in the diagnosis of sick building syndrome (SBS). The study was based on survey data from 1505 British white-collar workers from 20 different organizations. A path analysis revealed that there was a significant direct relation between physical working conditions and vague symptoms and also (...) psychosocial job strain (Effort-Reward Imbalance ratio), which in turn also strongly related to the vague symptoms. The findings thus suggested a mediating role between physical working conditions and symptoms for psychosocial job strain. Due to the cross-sectional study design no conclusions on causality can be drawn. (shrink)

Although many people seem to share the intuition that multinational companies carry a responsibility for the working conditions in their supply chains, the justification offered for this assumption is usually rather unclear. This article explores a promising strategy for grounding the relevant intuition and for rendering its content more precise. It applies the criteria of David Miller's connection theory of remedial responsibility to different forms of supply chain governance as characterized by the Global Value Chains framework. The analysis (...) suggests that the criteria for identifying MNEs as remedially responsible for bad working conditions in their direct suppliers are fulfilled in many cases, even though differentiations are required with regard to the different supply chain governance structures. MNEs thus have a duty to make sure currently bad working conditions in their suppliers are changed for the better. Moreover, since production in supply chains for structural reasons continuously generates remedial responsibility of MNEs for bad working conditions in their suppliers, it puts the prospective responsibility on them to make sure that their suppliers offer acceptable working conditions. Further, it is suggested that the remedial responsibility of MNEs might require them to make financial compensation to victims of bad working conditions and in grave cases initiate or support programs to mitigate disastrous effects suffered by them. (shrink)

This article conceptualizes labor force exits as a parallel option to employer changes in the gender-specific opportunity structure for employed young women. It argues that the same working conditions should predict both employment exits and employer changes. Family characteristics, rather than working conditions, should differentiate between job changers and job leavers. These hypotheses were tested with 1970-1980 data from the National Longitudinal Survey. Results from logit analyses showed that employment conditions do affect young women's decisions (...) to change jobs or exit the labor force, and influence them in similar ways, and that household factors affect labor force exits more strongly than they do job changes. While pregnant women are more likely to leave the labor force, both improved job conditions and existing preschool children enhance the likelihood of continuous employment for pregnant women. (shrink)

Despite sharing Catholic Social Teaching as their system of morals and both being confronted with marketisation pressures, working conditions at German and Belgian Catholic social service providers of elderly care differ. We argue that an interdisciplinary approach is needed to understand such differences, as interpretation of CST is mediated by local contexts. Working conditions result from interactions shaped by each country’s respective religious, legal and socio-economic contexts, providing players with different levels of discretion and power resources. (...) In Belgium, working conditions at Catholic elderly care providers tend to be better due to a strong Catholic trade union, encompassing labour market regulation and a universal legal system applying to all care providers. Moreover, there is strong interaction between these Catholic care providers and other Catholic institutions. By contrast, German CSSPs, operating as faith-based organisations with their own legal framework in a relatively liberalised and decentralised labour market, are able to use various flexibility practices which put pressure on working conditions. Using such practices is partially justified by the Catholic discourse on charity and altruism, stressing the particular nature of work in the Catholic care sector. Overall, the article demonstrates differences in the local application of CST. It also shows how transnational differences in working conditions at Catholic social service providers are the product of more than just local differences in the interpretation and application of CST principles, being shaped by interactions between a country’s specific religious, legal and socio-economic contexts. (shrink)

There is scarce research on the interaction between psychosocial working conditions and being a target of workplace bullying with individual characteristics as a moderator. We therefore examined 3,363 employees from 60 Danish workplaces to test whether sense of coherence moderates the relationship between the job demand-control model and bullying. This work is exploratory in nature, as no previous study to assess this moderation was found. Hierarchical linear regressions showed that demand-control model was significantly associated with bullying. Sense of (...) coherence displayed a significant though practically negligible moderating effect. This suggests that negative psychosocial working conditions are associated with bullying independently of personal characteristics, at least in terms of sense of coherence. (shrink)

Interest in spirituality as a protective factor in various aspects of daily life has increased over the years. Still there has been relatively little research attention paid to the effect of spirituality in the workplace. The current study was conducted to explore the role of spiritual well-being as positive spillover effect on job satisfaction when adverse workplace experiences are reported. Spiritual well-being was related to job satisfaction even when the adverse workplace conditions of job frustration, work tension and victimization (...) were present. The context of the findings with other research and theory are discussed, as are directions for future research. (shrink)

This article integrates theory and concepts from the business and society, business ethics, and labor relations literatures to offer a conceptualization of labor union social responsibility that includes activities geared toward three primary objectives: economic equity, workplace democracy, and social justice. Economic, workplace, and social labor union stakeholders are identified, likely issues are highlighted, and the implications of labor union social responsibility for labor union strategy are discussed. It is noted that, given the breadth of labor unions in a global (...) work environment, labor union social responsibility also has implications for NGOs, corporations, and how corporate social responsibility is viewed going forward. This article concludes by noting that the nexus of labor relations and corporate social responsibility warrants more attention in management and labor relations literatures. (shrink)

Language tests for overseas registered nurses (ORN) working outside their home country are essential for patient safety, as communication competency needs to be established in any workforce. We argue that the current employment of existing language tests is structurally and institutionally racist and disadvantages ORNs from non‐European Union (EU) and non‐White countries seeking to work in the United Kingdom. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT), we argue that existing English language tests for ORNs seeking registration in the United Kingdom are (...) discriminatory due to the UK's racist migration policies and a regulatory body for nursing and midwifery that fails to acknowledge and understand its own institutionally racist practices. (shrink)

This commentary's claim is that Dänzer's argument does not sufficiently take into account the complexities of the global production of goods, the current corporate responsibility practices and the problems of attributing responsibility to single actors. I argue in favour of a shared responsibility and briefly present a discursive approach for attributing MNE's share of responsibility in global supply chains, which requires obligatory transparency.

Directive 2002/73 enacted by the Council and Parliament of the European Union introduces substantial and procedural amendments to the European Community's `old' Equal Treatment Directive 76/207, providing, in particular, clarification of the definitions of concepts such as direct and indirect discrimination and harassment. Yet, while the European Commission has praised the progressive nature of the new European legislation, a critical assessment of its provisions reveals some serious shortcomings and a host of missed opportunities. Although the new Directive generally reflects the (...) spirit of the case law of the E.C.J., it does so without any originality or pro-activism meaning that the European legislature has once again left the initiative of pursuing sex equality in the E.U. to the Court. (shrink)

This essay examines the Brazilian deforestation debate to explicate the beginnings of a post-modern theory of argumentation. Modernist argumentation reflects two distinct approaches, found in the deforestation controversy. The first approach, ‘universal minimilization,’ presumes that the survival of humanity is sufficient grounds upon which to base argument. The alternative, ‘strategic manipulation,’ results in argument being employed as a technical device to advance one's interest. In place of the modernist approach, we offer an ecocentric theory of argumentation. This conception calls for (...) individuals to set aside differences in values to sustain humanity but at the same time to be sensitive to differences in costs and benefits that accrue from common efforts to persons differently situated. Additionally, this view operates with a tacit working assumption that environmental questions are not discrete entities to be evaluated separately. Rather, people must act collectively on a range of interconnected issues to ensure survival. (shrink)

Two experiments examined the contribution of working memory (WM) to the retrieval and inhibition of background knowledge about counterexamples (alternatives and disablers, Cummins, ) during conditional reasoning. Experiment 1 presented a conditional reasoning task with everyday, causal conditionals to a group of people with high and low WM spans. High spans rejected the logically invalid AC and DA inferences to a greater extent than low spans, whereas low spans accepted the logically valid MP and MT inferences less frequently than (...) high spans. In Experiment 2, an executive-attention-demanding secondary task was imposed during the reasoning task. Findings corroborate that WM resources are used for retrieval of stored counterexamples and that people with high WM spans will use WM resources to inhibit the counterexample activation when the type of counterexample conflicts with the logical validity of the reasoning problem. (shrink)

Previous work suggests that threat-related stimuli are stored to a greater degree in working memory compared to neutral stimuli. However, most of this research has focused on stimuli with physically salient threat attributes, failing to account for how a “neutral” stimulus that has acquired threat-related associations through differential aversive conditioning influences working memory. The current study examined how differentially conditioned safe and threat stimuli are stored in working memory relative to a novel, non-associated stimuli. Participants completed a (...) differential fear conditioning task followed by a change detection task consisting of three conditions across two loads. Results revealed individuals successfully learned to distinguishing CS+ from CS– conditions during the differential aversive conditioning task. Our working memory outcomes indicated successful load manipulation effects, but no statistically significant differences in accuracy, response time, or Pashler’s K measures of working memory capacity between CS+, CS–, or N conditions. However, we observed significantly reduced RT difference scores for the CS+ compared to CS– condition, indicating greater RT differences between the CS+ and N condition vs. the CS– and N condition. These findings suggest that differentially conditioned stimuli have little impact on behavioral outcomes of working memory compared to novel stimuli that had not been associated with previous safe of aversive outcomes, at least in healthy populations. (shrink)

Frederich Engels (1820-1895) was a German businessman and political theorist renowned as one of the intellectual founders of communism. In 1842 Engels was sent to Manchester to oversee his father's textile business, and he lived in the city until 1844. This volume, first published in German in 1845, contains his classic and highly influential account of working-class life in Manchester at the height of its industrial supremacy. Engels' highly detailed descriptions of urban conditions and contrasts between the different (...) classes in Manchester were informed from both his own observations and his contacts with local labour activists and Chartists. Extensively researched and written with sympathy for the working class, this volume is one Engels' best known works and remains a vivid portrait of contemporary urban England. This volume is reissued from the English edition of 1892, which was translated by noted social activist Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky (1859-1932). (shrink)

What economic conditions are necessary for us to arrive at a post-work future, and what should a post-work future look like? This chapter argues that only through the democratization of core economic institutions can we properly experiment with post-work imaginaries. I argue, based on principles of participatory autonomy and relational equality, for the democratization of workplaces, finance and investment, and the knowledge commons. Given these necessary structural changes, the possibility of a post-work future becomes a democratic choice by placing (...) democratic decision-making power in the hands of those who are directly affected by workplace decisions, investment decisions, and the collective production of knowledge. Through this democratization process, the potential to reduce working hours, the possibility of building meaningful work, and the chance to decenter work as the mechanism for economic security and meaning-making, all become subject to democratic deliberation and decision-making. (shrink)

The present paper argues that a right to work, defined as social and legal guarantees to fair conditions of employment, should be an essential part of a democratic state with market arrangements. This argument proceeds along the following lines. First, I reconstruct an account of rights that defends the “correlativity” thesis of rights and duties. The basic idea is that a social member’s legitimate demand to something of value, such as gainful employment, implies duties on the part of others (...) to respect and fulfill it. These duties include the following with regard to that demand: avoiding actions that cause the harm, protecting it against standard threats, and otherwise providing aid in case it is deprived. Second, I sketch an outline of what a right to work will entail in terms of the correlative duties just described. This means that respect and fulfillment of the demand will require both social members and the democratic state alike to guarantee fair conditions of employment: first, by forbearing from actions that deprive members of access to work; and second, by protecting members against threats of deprivation and aiding them when they are so deprived. Third, I answer some ethical and empirical objections to the idea of a right to work: that it violates the legal rights of owners and employers, fails to impart self-respect, lacks economic efficiency, and erodes human capital by undermining competitive incentives. Finally, I make some concluding observations that a democratic right to work so conceived is ethically and economically superior to alternative arrangements that neither respect nor fulfill these correlative duties to avoid harm, protect against threats, and provide aid in cases of deprivation. (shrink)

Due to the spread of the Covid-19 virus, all countries began to introduce quarantine measures, which led to the closure of all higher education institution indefinitely. They were forced to switch to a distance learning process in a short time. The readiness for this process was different, purely technical problems arose - the lack of the Internet, computers, educational materials on the network. And most importantly, the teachers are not ready for distance learning. The IT industry was the first to (...) respond to the needs of teachers and students in physical culture and sports: the power of channels was increased, a large number of services and tools for teaching appeared. For video conferencing, the ZOOM tool turned out to be very popular, a large number of blogs with training recommendations were published on social networks, distance courses were held on the development of training resources and the organization of training. After the weakening of quarantine in the world, it became clear that humanity has entered a new stage of development, where distance learning will play a big role. Therefore, it is important to analyze the results of the distance learning process and determine the priority ways of developing online education in training future managers of physical culture and sports. The article is devoted to the problems of using distance work in the training of future managers of physical culture and sports. (shrink)

I respond to a challenge raised by Jordan Pascoe: Kant’s conception of obtaining full citizenship through working oneself up necessarily condemns some people to passive citizenship. I argue that we should not focus on work to establish universal full citizenship. Rather, a Universal Basic Income, an income paid regularly to everyone and without conditions, can secure everyone’s full citizenship. Moreover, I argue that such a scheme is more Kantian in nature than hitherto assumed.

Johnson-Laird's mental models theory claims that reasoning is a semantic process of construction and manipulation of models in working memory of limited capacity. Accordingly, both a deduction and a given interpretation of a premise would be all the harder the higher the number of models they require. The purpose of the present experiment was twofold. First, it aimed to demonstrate that the interpretation of if...then conditional sentences in children (third, sixth, and ninth graders) evolves as a function of the (...) number of models the children can produce. We proposed a theory of conditional reasoning development that hypothesises a developmental trend of three successive levels of interpretations underlain by one, two, and then three models, i.e. conjunctive, biconditional, and conditional respectively. Second, we aimed to show that these different levels correlate with working memory capacities: the higher the working memory span, the higher the number of models underlying the conditional interpretation. These two hypotheses were verified, supporting the mental models theory. The results are compared with the rival theory of mental logic. (shrink)

Adolf Grünbaum is one of the giants of 20th century philosophy of science. This volume is the first of three collecting his most essential and highly influential work. The essays collected in this first volume focus on three related areas. They discuss scientific rationality-the problem of what it takes for a theory to be called scientific, and ask whether it is plausible to draw a clear distinction between science and non-science as was famously proposed by Karl Popper. They delve into (...) the debate between determinism and indeterminism, in both science and in the humanities. Grünbaum defends the position of the Humane Determinist, which then leads to a thorough criticism of the current theological approaches to ethics and morality-where Grünbaum defends an explicit Secular Humanism-as well as of prominent theistic interpretations of twentieth century physical cosmologies. The second volume is devoted to Grünbaum's writings on the Philosophy of Physics and Space-Time, and the third to his lectures on the Philosophy of Psychology and Psychoanalysis, including his 1985 Gifford Lectures, which are to be published for the first time. (shrink)

The truth-conditional theory of sense holds that a theory of truth for a natural language can serve as a theory of sense: if knowledge of a theory of truth for a language L is sufficient for understanding utterance of L-sentences, the T-sentences of the theory 'show' the sense of the uttered object-language sentences. In this paper I aim to show that indexicals create a serious problem for this prima facie attractive theoretical option. The so-called 'instantiation problem' is that a truth-theory (...) for indexical languages needs to contain universal statements that show how the reference of indexicals depends on features of the utterance context. Now one can deduce from such statements T-sentences that do not show the sense of an indexical sentence on an occasion of use. I survey proposed solutions to the instantiation problem by Evans and Sainsbury and, unfortunately, find them all wanting. Perhaps there is nothing like the sense-giving truth-condition for an indexical sentence. (shrink)

This study examined the hypothesis that conditional reasoning involves visual short-term memory resources (Johnson-Laird, 1985). A total of 147 university students were given measures of verbal and visual short-term memory capacity and a series of concrete and abstract conditional reasoning problems. Results indicate that there is a positive correlation between verbal working memory capacity and reasoning with both concrete and abstract premises. A positive correlation was also obtained between visual working memory capacity and reasoning with concrete premises.

The purpose of my remarks is to draw some conclusions about the conditions which must be realized if physical, biological and social scientists are to work effectively in reaching common goals. I shall draw these conclusions on the basis of my experience as a psychologist whose participation in the war effort found him a member of a team composed principally of physicists and research engineers. I may say that while my experiences were largely at the level of the lower (...) echelons of the working fraternity, the conclusions appear to me to have application without regard to the extent of the brass which, in a figurative sense, decorates the scientist's hat. (shrink)

This research synthesizes social exchange, organizational culture, and social identity theories to explore the boundary conditions of the relationship between high-performance work systems and employee organizational citizenship behavior. In particular, it draws on the China-specific management context. In this country, in spite of the wide use of a long-term-oriented and loose-control-focused Western-styled strategic human resource management model, a short-term-focused and tight-control-oriented error aversion culture is still popular. The study uses multi-source individual-level survey data in a large state-owned enterprise to (...) test the hypotheses. It is found that employee-experienced, Western-styled high-performance work systems positively impact a China-specific employee’s organizational citizenship behavior, and the—joint—moderation effects of employee-perceived error aversion culture and organizational identification are significant. The research findings deepen the understanding of the HRM-OCB relationship by demonstrating that culture and identity can jointly adjust the effects of HRM on OCB. The findings also challenge an established argument in the HRM-OCB literature that compatibility between employees’ personalities and organizational values – organizational identification – can enhance OCB. (shrink)