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One of the aims of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) in Scotland is greater inclusion of interdisciplinary learning and teaching in school education. There is, arguably, a limited amount of guidance in the CfE literature to advise and supporf secondary teachers in the practical implications of the planning, preparation and implementation of interdisciplinary learning and teaching. This paper examines this guidance and insights from research literature and presents the findings from a research project, Searching for Meaning, which focused on science and religious education teachers collaborating in planned interdisciplinary learning and teaching in secondary schools. The paper identifies some of the key factors for effective interdisciplinary learning and teaching between science and religious education. These include; supporf from the school leadership; openness to interdisciplinary work and willingness to learn about other disciplines; teamwork, dialogue and joint planning and the need for time and supporf for teachers. These findings are potentially significant for other forms of interdisciplinary learning and teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The case of a missing person is described whose body was discovered almost 8 months later on a secluded beach on the Solway coast, south west Scotland. The delay in discovery was due to the foot and mouth outbreak in the UK in 2001 and this resulted in conditions favouring the development of partial mummification. The influence of the tides and involvement of HM Coastguard are discussed, along with difficulties in the identification of partially skeletonised remains. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article discusses the development and the change in personnel officers in the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland during the 1970s. The origin of the personnel officer in the public sector was the ''establishment person", whose main functions were to supervise the administration of detailed rules about pay and conditions of service and to monitor and control any proposed increase in staff. The subjective views of personnel officers suggest that the status and importance of their function to the organization as a whole has risen. The reorganization process has also given personnel officers great scope to be involved in organizational change and industrial relations activities.

In recent years unemployment studies have tended to emphasize the importance of measuring, and identifying the determinants of, unemployment duration. This is because duration is the variable which links the stock of unemployment and the flows of unemployment on and off the register and hence changes in duration will be an important determinant of the way in which changes in the stock of unemployment reflect changes in the pressure of labor demand. For analogous reasons one would like to measure and explain variations in the duration of registered vacancies. Certainly scholars C.C. Holt and M.H. David in their seminal exposition of a labor market stock-flow model saw vacancy duration as a concept of equal importance to that of unemployment duration. Some empirical support for the importance of trying to provide detailed measures of vacancy duration is provided by some estimates made by scholar C. Leicester, these revealed that changes in vacancy duration accounted for the major portion of all cyclical change in the stock of unfilled vacancies in Great Britain during the early 19705. In addition to the above reasons, a measure of the duration of registered vacancies can help provide an indication of the performance of the public employment service in meeting the labor market needs of employers.

This article focuses on employee welfare within the context of the management of problem drinkers in Scotland during the 1980s. The term welfare work has been broadly defined by academics to encompass not only the early concern with workers' physical working conditions, but also the human relations school of thought. Contrary to the popular image of down and outs, most of those suffering from an alcohol problem remain in employment or at least do so until deterioration in health or behavior makes it impossible for employment to be continued. Despite questions as to whether alcoholism should be treated as a sickness, research has shown that dismissal of drink-problem employees is unlikely to be successfully contested either by unions or through tribunals. However, recognition that summary action may be detrimental to the interests of both employer and employee has led a number of organizations to adopt alcohol policies. These workplace-based alcohol policies identify, on the basis of impaired work performance, and refer, through the influence of disciplinary sanctions, problem drinkers for treatment. Close association with alcohol policies indicates that welfare orientation continues to persist within personnel.

This article discusses research findings on the categories of National Health Service (NHS) personnel managers in Scotland in terms of the insider-outsider dichotomy in personnel management. Personnel officers in the NHS in Scotland are predominantly male, only one Area Officer Personnel and three District Personnel Officer (DPO) being female. In terms of age, the majority of personnel officers are relatively older individuals. The career typologies of personnel officers in the NHS in Scotland states that the DPO group was more varied in terms of work experience. In terms of the insider-outsider dichotomy, they were overwhelmingly insiders. Two other types of personnel officers existed in the DPO group. Firstly, the local specialists who have spent their whole career in personnel but only in the NHS, indeed only in the same district or its predecessors. A perhaps growing group are the general managers. The individuals in this group are committed to a career in the NHS, but not necessarily as personnel officers. They are usually graduates who entered the NHS via the national administrative training scheme. Overall, the personnel function in the NHS in Scotland is not staffed by outsiders. Only at District Personnel Officer level were any experienced officers brought into the NHS from outside industry and these outsiders have remained at that level in the NHS structure.

The article presents a study on the success of individual union in attaining recognition in Scotland. Inflation, unemployment and government policy are some of the key factors in an overall increase in union density. On the data provided by the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service in Scotland in the years 1976 to 1985, the total number of recognition claims and those unions which have been successful in incurring full recognition decreased during the said time. The success rates of leading individual unions involved in recognition claims are not great in comparison to other unions. The results of the study show that a significant level of organizing activity by an individual union is essential.

During the current decade, trade union membership has dropped by about 25 per cent, primarily due to the decline in manufacturing establishments in major urban centres. At the same time, there has been a growth in the number of new firms starting up in business. Based on research in those Scottish New Towns, it is found that the proportion of firms which recognise unions is much lower than that for the UK as a whole. Trade unions, it is argued, need to adopt much stronger organising initiatives in such locations if they are to tap in to potential members in these firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]