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The focus of this chapter lies with women middle-level leaders. It reports on themes from women in leadership programmes designed and delivered by Barbara Watterston, through the lens of a programme especially developed for the Association of Independent Schools of South Australia (AISSA). This chapter begins by profiling a description of the programme. The main aim was providing women leaders with an opportunity to take stock of their careers, consider ongoing challenges impeding their work as school leaders, and identify options for the future. After the programme finished, volunteers were invited to write a narrative encapsulating their career journey. Three women leaders volunteered, and their insightful reflections regarding their career trajectories constitute a significant portion of this chapter. The final part of this chapter identifies three common themes that emerged from their stories, resonating with ideas which are frequently illuminated in similar programmes and research. These include the importance of ongoing professional learning to be a successful leader, gender-based barriers that caused the women to doubt their abilities and readiness for leadership, and the deep appreciation the women expressed from learning with and from like-minded other women leaders.

Although research on reproductive technologies such as IVF and egg freezing has traditionally been rather separated from the work on contraceptives and abortion, analysing reproductive and nonreproductive technologies together, as this volume proposes, can provide the basis for a broader contemporary politics of reproductive control. This chapter analyses this politics of integrating reproductive and nonreproductive technologies by focusing specifically on IVF-based fertility (preservation) treatments and (medical) abortion. More specifically, it explores both technologies' interrelated research trajectories and the financial and platformised dimensions of their clinical implementation. With a dual focus on egg freezing and medical abortion, this project seeks to explore how processes of platformisation and financialisation shape the clinical and commercial infrastructures that govern twenty-first-century reproduction. The chapter's broadened analytic scope that incorporates both reproductive and nonreproductive technologies highlights how a contemporary biopolitics of reproductive control may be expressed through these technologies' interrelated regulatory practices, shared politicised reference points (e.g. the embryo), opposite investment practices and mutually reinforcing social effects.

Since the inception of formal education, negative labelling of students by teachers has been a norm in education settings. However, research on student outcomes has shown that this practice is contrary to the principles of quality education and legislation mandating the rights of the children to an education that prepares them for a fulfilled future. Still, the practice has persisted in education in various forms. This chapter examines how teacher agency can be used as a tool to uproot negative labelling from the school systems to allow teachers to create positive learning environments where every learner is valued as an individual with rights.

The overarching question of this paper is, “What are the advantages of being an upwardly mobile academic?” The extant academic research on working-class academics has usually emphasized various kinds of “deficits” of working-class academics. In this paper, the author demonstrates that although class positions can constitute a formidable burden, they can translate into specific advantages in academia.

This study is based on the narrative, phenomenological approach, which has been applied in working-class studies and higher-education research. The empirical material comprises the collection of 25 narrative interviews conducted and analyzed according to the biographical narrative interpretive method (BNIM).

This paper looks at the experience of working-class academics from a holistic perspective, including both the downsides and upsides of being an “outsider within,” or “insider without.” It uncovers four assets of a working-class background – referred to as “navigational capital,” “revolutionary potential,” “wisdom” and a distinct “working-class pedagogy.”

The working-class pedagogy can be turned into support programs for working-class individuals. Their navigational capital can foster evolutionary changes and small improvements for the benefit of the entire academic community. Their revolutionary dispositions can trigger major reforms, and their unique experiences can be utilized as case studies in teaching.

This paper engages with the literature on the cultural mismatch and cleft habitus in the academic context. It analyzes the positive but rarely discussed aspects of being an upwardly mobile academic with a working-class background. By recognizing these unique assets, it engages with the literature on inclusive universities and can help make higher education more inclusive and sustainable.

A growing ageing population with complex healthcare needs is a challenge to the organisation of healthcare support for older people residing in care homes. The lack of specialised healthcare support for care home residents has resulted in poorer outcomes, compared with community-dwelling older people. However, little is known about the forms, staff mix, organisation and delivery of such services for residents’ physical healthcare needs. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This systematic review, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, aimed to provide an overview of the range of healthcare services delivered to care homes and to identify core features of variation in their organisation, activities and responsibilities. The eligibility criteria for studies were services designed to address the physical healthcare needs of older people, permanently residing in care homes, with or without nursing. To search the literature, terms relating to care homes, healthcare and older people, across ten electronic databases were used. The quality of service descriptions was appraised using a rating tool designed for the study. The evidence was synthesised, by means of a narrative summary, according to key areas of variation, into models of healthcare support with examples of their relative effectiveness.

In total, 84 studies, covering 74 interventions, identified a diverse range of specialist healthcare support services, suggesting a wide variety of ways of delivering healthcare support to care homes. These fell within five models: assessment – no consultant; assessment with consultant; assessment/management – no consultant; assessment/management with consultant; and training and support. The predominant model offered a combination of assessment and management. Overall, there was a lack of detail in the data, making judgements of relative effectiveness difficult. Recommendations for future research include the need for clearer descriptions of interventions and particularly of data on resident-level costs and effectiveness, as well as better explanations of how services are implemented (review registration: PROSPERO CRD42017081161).

There is considerable debate about the best means of providing healthcare to older people in care homes. A number of specialist initiatives have developed and this review seeks to bring these together in a comparative approach deriving models of care of value to policy makers and commissioners.