‘It’s better if someone can see me for who I am’: stories of (in)visibility for students with a visual impairment within South African Universities

Issues of visibility, invisibility and the non-disabled gaze are very relevant to the lives of many disabled persons. With this article we tentatively show that, despite the physical ‘over’-visibility of disabled bodies, many intricate parts of their personhood remain obscured and invisible. Interviews with 23 students with a visual impairment revealed that they sometimes experienced stares and averted gazes from their sighted counterparts. In response, they often hid their entire impairment, or parts thereof, in an effort to conform and gain acceptance and to earn membership to a non-disabled peer group. Acceptance was often found in companionship with fellow disabled peers. Since these stories told of continuing exclusion for disabled students on tertiary grounds, further participatory research is recommended.     

Exploring narratives of education: disabled young people’s experiences of educational institutions in Ghana

Disabled young people in many low and middle-income countries experience significant levels of educational exclusion due to disabling social and physical environments and are more likely to be illiterate than their non-disabled peers. Most social sciences and development literature, however, tends to homogenise the educational trajectories of disabled young people and focuses predominantly on the perspectives of educationalists, development experts and carers in assessing educational needs and institutions. Consequently, the experiences of young people across multiple categories of social difference, and their agency in shaping their own educational trajectories, remain largely unknown. This article contributes to filling this gap by exploring the educational narratives of young people with different impairments in mainstream, special and integrated schools in Ghana. The article shows how exploring individual narratives provides new insights into the educational needs of and ‘appropriate’ education for disabled young people in the Global South.     

Friends and family: regulation and relationships on the locked ward

This ethnographic project explored the lives of women with learning disabilities on three locked wards. Aspects of these women’s lives were regulated by the service; in particular, relationships with family outside the unit, and peer relationships inside the unit. The women in this study valued these relationships, but they were treated with ambivalence by the service. Success in future community integration and accessing community resources can be dependent on the nature and quality of relationships with others, and therefore services should acknowledge that service-users need to forge relationships of their own choosing.     

Different Pathways from Transformational Leadership to Job Satisfaction

Transformational leaders are known to inspire and motivate their followers, thereby leading to enhanced job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is an intellectual concept regarding individuals’ attitudes toward their jobs. This study asserts that the underlying mechanisms for transformational leadership to affect employee satisfaction are trust in the community, including the leader (that is, organization) and trust in the self, namely self‐efficacy. Leadership is specifically associated with continual transformations in the higher educational context, and collectivist cultures may manifest different processes underlying the transformational leadership–satisfaction relationship. This study investigated the mediating effects of trust and self‐efficacy on the relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction. The study sample included academicians from a nonprofit higher education institution in Turkey. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that the relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction is fully mediated by both trust and self‐efficacy. The mediator effect of trust was shown to be stronger than self‐efficacy, which is assumed to be the result of the cultural context. The results are discussed in the context of employee satisfaction and cultural determinants of employee satisfaction.     

高职高专英语教学改革初探

高职高专英语教学现状不容乐观,改革势在必行.文章指出应尽快转变教学观念,深入研究职业教育的特点,改革课堂教学模式和教材,提高教师素质,注重师资培养,创立多样化英语学习环境,以期提高高职高专教学的质量,办出高职高专院校的特色,培养有较高英语水平的高等技术应用型人才.这是高职高专英语教育改革与发展的当务之急.     

高教领域商业贿赂形成的原因及对策

近年来,经济活动中的商业贿赂现象,几乎渗透到社会经济生活的各个方面。高教领域作为社会经济活动的一个部分,也毫无例外地成为商业贿赂进攻的主要对象。本文结合高校工作实际,就商业贿赂在高教领域形成的原因,作些浅显的分析。     

河北省普通高等教育发展的动态评价

在综合评价的方法中,主成分分析能浓缩信息,使指标降维,简化指标的结构,使分析问题简单、直观、有效,许多动态评价问题,都可采用主成分分析来进行评价。针对区域普通高等教育发展的特点,建立综合评价指标体系,利用主成分分析评价了2000年以来河北省普通高等教育发展的情况,分析了影响因子情况,可以为河北省普通高等教育发展政策提供依据。     

高等教育的产品属性及政府角色的转化

关于高等教育的产品属性问题,一直是经济界和教育界最头疼问题。目前,对高等教育的产品属性的论断主要有两种:一种是高等教育是公共产品,另一种是高等教育是俱乐部产品。本文从公共产品的特性以及公共产品的外部效应着手,对上述两种观点进行了剖析,并进而提出了作者观点:高等教育是私人产品。在对高等教育的重新界定的基础上,进而论述了政府在高等教育中角色和地位的转变。     

高校学生管理法治化的思考

目前在高等学校的学生管理中,存在着不少侵犯学生权利的法律问题,论文从依法治教的角度分析了我国高等学校的法律依据和行为性质、高校学生管理的现状和存在的主要法律问题、高校学生合法权益的法律保护等问题,这些都是现阶段我国高等教育面临的实际问题。     

长三角地区农民资金互助合作社运行满意度及影响因素分析 ——以泰州市苏陈资金互助合作社为例

农民资金互助合作社是目前准新型农村金融机构在长三角地区的典型代表。基于对江苏省泰州市苏陈资金互助合作社的实地调研,重点考察社员对样本农民资金互助合作社运行的满意度及影响因素。研究发现：样本社社员对于农民资金互助合作社的整体运行情况基本持肯定态度;社员的家庭总收入、政府对农民资金互助合作社的支持力度以及社员在农民资金互助合作社借用的互助金额度,是影响社员对于农民资金互助合作社满意度的主要因素;农民资金互助合作社融资业务的开展,对于社员的农业和二三产业经营均具有正向促进作用;农民资金互助合作社的互助金投放的覆盖面与农村信用合作社等传统农村正规金融机构形成了互补关系。在此基础上,提出了相关政策建议。