The clinical trials required for NPS products should address the characteristics of recreational NPS use. Enforcement resources and technical solutions are required to clearly distinguish legal NPS products. The impact the new NPS regime has on other drug use is a key issue and demands further study.
Evidence linking teacher quality and the ‘performance’ of education systems has led to a widespread emphasis on improving the quality of entrants to teaching. In the USA and UK particularly, policymakers have encouraged entrants who have been highly successful in other careers to switch to teaching, on the assumption that they bring distinctive attributes/competences that will not only enable them to become successful teachers, but to improve leadership and management cultures in schools. This study analyses the numbers of ‘elite’ career‐changers entering initial teacher education (ITE) in England, and compares their completion rates with those of first‐career entrants. In addition, through semi‐structured interviews, it examines the experiences of career transition of 24 ‘elite career‐changers’. Theoretically underpinned by notions of motivation, self‐efficacy, and professional identity development, the findings suggest that career‐changers are primarily influenced by altruistic and intrinsic motivations, and consider previously acquired attributes to be significant positive influences on their self‐efficacy. While they report high levels of resilience in adapting to contrasting professional cultures and to the demands of teaching, they also report significant levels of frustration with a perceived lack of acknowledgement from colleagues and school leaders of the potential ‘added value’ contribution they could make at a wider institutional level. These findings are discussed in the context of the presumed system‐wide benefits of attracting elite career‐changers into teaching, arguing that while previously acquired attributes are enabling them to become successful classroom practitioners, the schools may not be capitalising on potential contributions at a leadership and management level.
Background and aim
New Zealand has recently legalized medicinal cannabis and has explored the possibility of legalizing large‐scale recreational cannabis supply. In the process, concerns have emerged regarding whether corporations involved in the large‐scale production and sale of legalized cannabis will invest in tactics of influence with policymakers and the public. This paper aimed to examine the various ways a legalized cannabis industry could seek to influence governments and the public in the New Zealand reform context.
Method
Based on the study of industry tactics with alcohol, tobacco and gambling, we applied a three‐chain model of industry influence that breaks tactics into the ‘public good’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘political’ chains.
Results
Exploratory analysis of the nascent cannabis industry's activity in New Zealand provided signs of industry influence strategies related to all three chains. The medicinal cannabis industry has associated the establishment of a legal cannabis sector with regional economic development and employment, supported lobbying for recreational law reform, funded NGOs involved in lobbying for law reform, established research partnerships with universities, invited ex‐politicians on advisory boards, and participated in government public sector partnerships.
Conclusion
There is emerging evidence that the legal cannabis industry is using strategies to influence the regulatory environment in New Zealand.
This paper argues that contradictory forces affect teachers' work in the neoliberal school system in England, with a diversity of governance models alongside increasingly dominant orthodoxies of what constitutes 'effective practice and leadership'.School reforms in England have focused on increasing overall attainment and on closing the achievement gap for pupils from 'disadvantaged communities'; whilst there is evidence that reforms have delivered on the former, evidence is inconclusive on the latter, with some critics arguing that some reforms have increased social inequality.The future for teachers' professional identity and practices in this landscape is uncertain. Whilst this paper broadly concurs with many studies of teacher identity which argue that the ever-extending reach of performative mechanisms has restricted teachers' opportunities to develop as activist professionals with 'a moral purpose', it also argues that the diversified landscape may provide the opportunity for new autonomous spaces. It goes on to suggest that further research is needed into the forms of locally-determined values and practices emerging in 'quasi-privatised' academies and free schools in England, to explore whether these professional communities will be entirely managerialist/entrepreneurial in character, or whether models of practice underpinned by a concern with social equity and social justice issues may emerge.
Through this process, we learnt that there are trade-offs between hosting multiple surveys in each country vs. using one integrated database. We also found that although perceived anonymity is routinely assumed to be a benefit of using digital research methodologies, there are significant limits to research participant anonymity in the current era of mass digital surveillance, especially when the target group is particularly concerned about evading law enforcement. Finally, we list a number of specific recommendations for future researchers utilising Internet-mediated approaches to researching hidden populations.
In this Harm Reduction Digest Sheridan, Butler, Wilkins and Russell address the emergent phenomenon of so-called 'legal party pills' which have become a significant drug issue in New Zealand and elsewhere. Although banned in a number of countries, they are currently legally available in New Zealand where they are marketed as 'safe' alternatives' to 'illicit' drugs often used in the dance scene such as MDMA and amphetamines. The authors describe the availability and use of these substances in New Zealand, summarize what is known about their effects, and speculate on harm reduction interventions and mechanisms of control and their possible sequelae. The paper provides a timely account of an emerging drug issue of relevance to harm reduction internationally.
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