It has been more than twenty-five years since publication of David Snow, Burke Rochford, Steven Worden, and Robert Benford's article, "Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation" in the American Sociological Review (1986). Here we consider the conceptual and empirical origins of the framing perspective, how its introduction fundamentally altered and continues to influence the study of social movements, and where scholarly research on social movement framing is still needed.

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The devolution of public sector schooling systems has been a feature of education reform since the 1980s. In Western Australia, the Independent Public School (IPS) initiative has recently been installed, announced by the state government in 2009. Now over 80 percent of the state's public school students attend IP schools. Drawing on interview data from a broader study of devolution and the conditions of teachers' work, this article explores the cases of two schools -one IPS and one non-IPS. While both schools were ostensibly disadvantaged, they proved to be highly contrasting schooling sites, responding to the school marketplace in markedly different ways. We consider the ways in which the IPS initiative is contributing to the operation of market dynamics within the public school sector in WA, and argue that it has created new mechanisms for the residualisation of particular, and specifically non-IP, schools. Furthermore, while one school was apparently more of a 'winner' within the school marketplace, as it was attracting increasing student enrolments, we query what it might actually mean to 'win' in such a policy settlement, with staff at both schools reporting significant dissatisfaction in their work.

Australian public school teachers work some of the longest weekly hours among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, particularly in the state of New South Wales where average hours are officially in, or near, the statistical category of ‘very long working hours’. These reports of a high workload have occurred alongside recent policy moves that seek to devolve responsibility for schooling, augmenting teacher and school-level accountability. This article explores changes in work demands experienced by New South Wales teachers. As part of a larger project on schools as workplaces, we examine teaching professionals’ views through interviews with teacher union representatives. Consistent with a model of work intensification, workload increases were almost universally reported, primarily in relation to ‘paperwork’ requirements. However, differences in the nature of intensification were evident when data were disaggregated according to socio-educational advantage, level of schooling (primary or secondary) and location. The distinct patterns of work intensification that emerge reflect each school’s relative advantage or disadvantage within the school marketplace, influenced by broader neoliberal reforms occurring within the state and nation.

Co-production has been traditionally studied in the context of industrial and service markets. This study investigates the consumer's search for meaning and fulfillment via one type of co-production, collective co-production. The case study method was utilized to examine knife making from kits. The findings unpack a three-part co-production process (design, production, and consumption) that results in significant identity ramifications for consumers. During the design stage of knife making, the informants shaped their self-concept through social inspiration, creative self-expression, and identification with the primal sense of self. The production stage provided internal validation of the self-concept through a pseudochallenge that was achieved through learning activities. The consumption stage provided external validation of the self-concept as the informants shared their co-production experience with others. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Shifts in schooling policy have had substantial impact upon the role of principals as well as the relationship that principals have with their teaching staff. In this paper we report on the initiatives 30 principals in a diverse range of devolved Australian government schools adopt to shape and support the local, school-level working conditions of teachers. Surprisingly, principals were commonly unable to articulate -or even respond to -this matter. More commonly principals reported being oriented to lifting capability through a focus on student outcomes, a focus that is consistent with much of the devolution and autonomy rhetoric. Of those who could respond regarding working conditions, dispositions of paternalistic 'care', basic distributive actions or even a lack of influence or control were reported, and clear spatial and social dimensions accompanied these patterns. Given that devolution has recently created new responsibilities for principals in Australian government schools, including in relation to staff, this finding is understandable but none the less holds substantial implications and raises questions about the managerial capacity needed for schools to be sustainable, positive workplaces.

In this analysis, we revisit the arguments made in our 2007 book, Post‐Industrial Peasants: The Illusion of Middle Class Prosperity, and foreshadow our arguments in our forthcoming book, Middle Class Meltdown in America: Causes, Consequences and Remedies (2014, Routledge). The plight of the American middle class has been growing steadily since the early 1980s, and has been compounded further by the recession of 2008–2009 and its aftermath. We extend our prior work by examining the particular effects of long‐term middle‐class decline and the recent recession on Americans over 55 years old. Our retirement savings simulation presents in stark terms the cumulative disadvantage of working in unsteady jobs with stagnant wages over the course of a late‐20th‐ and early 21st‐century work career. In our discussion, we suggest that one cultural adaptation to the retirement savings crisis is the denial of the realities of aging and the suggestion that most age‐related problems are temporary and fixable. In short, we suspect that one reason “60 is the new 30” is because few Americans can afford to be 60.