Martyn Griffin

Raised Aspirations and Attainment? A Review of the Impact of Aimhigher (2004-2011) on Widening Participation in Higher Education in England.

Aimhigher was discontinued on 31 July 2011. This paper reviews the literature analysing its contribution to widening participation to higher education in the UK. Successes of Aimhigher are considered alongside its challenges; particularly the necessity to situate policy within the diverse demands of 42 areas covering England. These issues are considered in the context of wider contemporary debates concerning the quality of research into widening participation and instruments used to evaluate policy. Four strands of literature are identified and analysed: Aimhigher’s impact and evaluation, its effectiveness in targeting beneficiaries, the progression and tracking of students and policy.

Non-domination, contestation and freedom: The contribution of Philip Pettit to learning and democracy in organisations

This article provides a reading of the civic republican ideas of the political philosopher Philip Pettit in order to make new contributions to learning within organisational life. Our aim is to achieve non-domination in the workplace, and we suggest how Pettit’s work, through the provision of a democratic constitution and development of the resources of individuals and groups, might inspire eminently practical ways in which to increase freedom and minimise asymmetries of power at work. Such asymmetries have long been an ingrained feature of organisations, confounding even the most progressive attempts to increase opportunities to learn and act within organisations. We do not, therefore, underestimate the problems involved. Nevertheless, we advance our arguments as new – but practicable – contributions to progressive forms of management learning.

Whistle While You Work? Disney Animation, Organizational Readiness and Gendered Subjugation

This paper introduces the concept of ‘organizational readiness’: socio-cultural expectations about working selves that prepare young people (albeit indirectly and in complex and multi-faceted ways) for their future life in organizations. This concept emerges from an analysis of Disney animations and how they constitute expectations about working life that may influence children through their representations of work and gendered workplace roles. The paper’s exploration of Disney’s earlier animations suggests they circulated norms of gender that girls should be weak and avoid work. In contrast, its contemporary productions circulate gender norms that suggest girls should be strong and engage in paid work. In this reading, the continued circulation of earlier alongside contemporary animations may convey to young viewers a paradox: girls must and must not work; they must be both weak and strong. We thus offer new insights into the puzzle of the continued relegation of women to the sidelines in organizations; more optimistically, we also point to ways in which future generations of employees may forge ways of constituting forms of gendered selves as yet hardly imaginable.

Doing Free Jazz and Free Organizations, “A Certain Experience of the Impossible”? Ornette Coleman Encounters Jacques Derrida

Many scholars have attempted to make jazz relevant to an organizational audience. We seek to extend this literature by considering a more radical version of improvisation associated with the jazz musician Ornette Coleman. Inspired by an encounter between Coleman and the philosopher Jacques Derrida, we juxtapose the radical collective responsibility associated with Coleman’s Free jazz improvisation and Derridean deconstruction. We especially emphasize a phrase used by Derrida, “a certain experience of the impossible,” as an expression for a particular experience of doing management. The overall contribution of the article is to explore the possibility of responding to issues within organizations in more participative and improvisational ways, without losing an appreciation of the inherent impossibility (perhaps even absurdity) of the managerial condition.

How reasonable is intactivism?: a reply to Van Howe

This is a reply to:Van Howe, R. 2013. “Infant male circumcision in the public square: applying the public reason of John Rawls.” Global Discourse. 3 (2): 214–229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2013.805515.