Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

letters I wish I had written 101

srhe

Sam Gyimah MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science

Dear Minister

“Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”

If asked to sum up in a single word the direction of higher education policy from 2010 onwards, I think that many of us who try to follow Government thinking on these matters might say that the word would be “markets”. In successive White Papers and speeches, ministers have insisted that fee-paying students should see themselves as customers buying services from a university provider, which in turn should be competing with other providers in the higher education marketplace to offer the best value for money to student customers. In this way, your predecessors have argued, quality would go up and costs would come down, as happens in most markets for consumer goods. The Government has encouraged this trend by demanding that universities provide more information on which student-customers might base…

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The Miracle of the Mundane

beyond the chattering masses?

Longreads

Heather Havrilesky | What If This Were Enough?| September 2018 | 16 minutes (3,976 words)

On a good day, all of humanity’s accomplishments feel personal: the soaring violins of the second allegretto movement of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7, the intractable painted stare of Frida Kahlo, the enormous curving spans of the Golden Gate Bridge, the high wail of PJ Harvey’s voice on “Victory,” the last melancholy pages of Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose. These works remind us that we’re connected to the past and our lives have limitless potential. We were built to touch the divine.

On a bad day, all of humanity’s failures feel unbearably personal: coyotes wandering city streets due to encroaching wildfires, American citizens in Puerto Rico enduring another day without electricity or potable water in the wake of Hurricane Maria, neo-Nazis spouting hatred in American towns, world leaders testing missiles that would bring the deaths…

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Johann Hari on the causes of, and healing responses to, depression

remember the social determinants of mental health

Minding the Workplace

Depression is one of our most significant public health challenges. And as too many readers of this blog know from first-hand experience, depression is a common result of severe bullying, mobbing, and harassment at work. Fortunately, we are gaining a stronger understanding of depression and how to treat it. Contributing to a thoughtful and provocative discussion on this important topic is Johann Hari’s Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression — and the Unexpected Solutions (2018).

Hari is an investigative journalist who has lived with depression since childhood. His own experiences caused him to dig deep into understanding depression and anxiety and how we might respond to it. In essence, he includes, but goes beyond, potential organic causes of depression and looks for possible roots in our broader society. Consequently he is helping to prompt a more expansive exploration of depression and potential healing and treatment approaches.

I’m going…

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Ethnography: Mitigating Observer Bias

ethnography and reflection and much more!

Research Design Review

The following is a modified excerpt from Applied Qualitative Research Design: A Total Quality Framework Approach (Roller & Lavrakas, 2015, pp. 207-212).

In qualitative research, the researcher – including the in-depth interviewer, focus group moderator, coder in content analysis, and observer – is the instrument, meaning that the qualitative researcher wields substantial control in the design content, the gathering of data, the outcomes, and interpretation of the research.  Ethnography is no different in that the observer – albeit not controlling participants’ natural environment – plays a central role in creating the data for the study by way of recording observations.  In this respect, the credibility of an ethnographic study essentially rests on the observer’s ability to identify and record the relevant observations.

The necessary observer skills have been discussed elsewhere in Research Design Review – for example, “The Importance of Analytical Sensibilities to Observation in Ethnography.” Without these skills, an observer…

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How a university punished a whistle blower

recognising whistleblowers stories

The Research Whisperer

Ann L. Berrios is a graduate of Barnard College and received her Masters from Stony Brook University. She has worked as a university administrator since 1983. She has also written about this incident at Citizen Truth. 

We don’t have the resources to fact-check Ann’s story, and we have not asked her to satisfy a burden of proof. To do so would put more strain on her. We present her story here as she presented it to us.

We do this because we recognise that there are entrenched power structures within universities. We know that sometimes people in power commit fraud and break the law. We know that sometimes those people are protected by the universities that they work for. We know that sometimes whistleblowers are persecuted.

We believe that Ann has the right to be heard. 

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Whistle wash shop, by Holly Occhipinti on Flickr (CC BY)

By reporting fraud, my husband acted to protect the scientific integrity of repositories…

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It’s all about performance

herd readable

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by Marcia Devlin

The Australian federal government has indicated its intention to introduce partial funding based on yet to be defined performance measures.

The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) by the Australian government updates the economic and fiscal outlook from the previous budget and the budgetary position and revises the budget aggregates taking account of all decisions made since the budget was released. The 2017-2018 MYEFO papers state that the Government intends to “proceed with reforms to the higher education [HE] sector to improve transparency, accountability, affordability and responsiveness to the aspirations of students and future workforce needs” (see links below). Among these reforms are performance targets for universities to determine the growth in their Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding for bachelor degrees from 2020, to be capped at the growth rate in the 18-64 year old population, and from 1 January 2019, “a new allocation mechanism based on institutional outcomes and industry needs for sub-bachelor…

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Workplace bullying and mobbing: Recovery and possibilities for post-traumatic growth

yep

Minding the Workplace

What are the recovery prospects for targets of severe workplace bullying or mobbing who are experiencing psychological trauma? Can they access effective treatments and help? Can they recover and heal from their ordeals to live rich, meaningful lives?

A few short decades ago, many psychological trauma experts were pessimistic about our ability to treat PTSD and related conditions. Yes, they were learning a lot about trauma, its symptoms, and its effects. However, their growing body of research and understanding had yet to yield many answers on treatment and healing.

We have come a long way since then. Today, we are at a point where the term post-traumatic growth is becoming a reality for many of those who have faced deeply traumatic experiences. This, in turn, allows us to be optimistic about recovery prospects for workplace bullying and mobbing targets who are dealing with trauma.

YES! magazine

In a feature for…

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