Child care responsibilities and participation in continuing education and training: issues relating to motivation, funding and domestic roles. Dowswell T, Bradshaw G, Hewison J. J Advanced Nursing. 2000; 32(2):445-453. Available online from the Baystate Health Sciences Library, or from PubMed at your institution.
Picture this: you've cleaned the house. The cheese tray is out. Cocktail napkins are staged, and your neighbor's teenage son programmed the perfect soundtrack on your iPhone and got it to play throughout your house. The only problem? The guests never show. And so it often goes with our professional development: the best laid intentions are delivered to vastly empty rooms.
The problem is not you. Well, it might be you. This article by Dowswell, Bradshaw and Hewison offers some insight to your guests--er, colleagues' motivation underlying their participation (or not) in your professional development opportunities.
If you do not read this article (what!??), at least take away this: human capital theory underlies much of what constrains or increases our access to educational opportunities. Sure, you know that moving a staff meeting from 8am to 7am to accommodate a spectacular guest speaker now competes with potential child care coverage concerns and transportation issues. But what you may not have known is that your educational opportunity may be viewed by some as "training to do the job better...[or] training to get a better job." And this is the distinction that may impact our perceived cost of attending.
Human capital theory, cultural capital, and habitus are concepts that suggest our life circumstances influence a great deal more of our motivations and intentions in our decisions than we might initially think. How can you help your colleagues navigate these decisions? Read this article for a quick dip into the literature around this topic. No one likes to see a cheese tray go to waste.
The problem is not you. Well, it might be you. This article by Dowswell, Bradshaw and Hewison offers some insight to your guests--er, colleagues' motivation underlying their participation (or not) in your professional development opportunities.
If you do not read this article (what!??), at least take away this: human capital theory underlies much of what constrains or increases our access to educational opportunities. Sure, you know that moving a staff meeting from 8am to 7am to accommodate a spectacular guest speaker now competes with potential child care coverage concerns and transportation issues. But what you may not have known is that your educational opportunity may be viewed by some as "training to do the job better...[or] training to get a better job." And this is the distinction that may impact our perceived cost of attending.
Human capital theory, cultural capital, and habitus are concepts that suggest our life circumstances influence a great deal more of our motivations and intentions in our decisions than we might initially think. How can you help your colleagues navigate these decisions? Read this article for a quick dip into the literature around this topic. No one likes to see a cheese tray go to waste.
