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The food industry in Turkey has undergone significant changes in recent years, including the increased use of automation and the adoption of standardized production processes. These changes have had a profound impact on the skills required of those labour in the food industry and have led to the de-skilling of the labour force. De-skilling may be beneficial for firms in the short run, but will adversely affect the long-term competitiveness of the industry and limit opportunities for labour. Potential policy interventions are needed to mitigate the negative effects of de-skilling and to promote a more skilled labour force in the food industry in Turkey. In essence, this study examines the challenges and consequences of deskilling in the food industry in Turkey, including its effects on employment, wages and labour autonomy. This paper essentially examines the challenges and consequences of de-skilling in the food industry in Turkey, including its effects on employment, wages and labour autonomy. Accordingly, as in many other areas, de-skilling affects the basic dynamics of workers in the food industry, such as income, employment, unemployment and indebtedness. In this context, the challenges and consequences of the deskilling of the labour force in the food industry will be discussed based on the data obtained from fieldwork in chain food firms operating in Bolu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: There is little published on the outcomes after restarting elective orthopaedic procedures following cessation of surgery due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, the reported perioperative mortality in patients who acquired SARS-CoV-2 infection while undergoing elective orthopaedic surgery was 18% to 20%. The aim of this study is to report the surgical outcomes, complications, and risk of developing COVID-19 in 2,316 consecutive patients who underwent elective orthopaedic surgery in the latter part of 2020 and comparing it to the same, pre-pandemic, period in 2019. Methods: A retrospective service evaluation of patients who underwent elective surgical procedures between 16 June 2020 and 12 December 2020 was undertaken. The number and type of cases, demographic details, American society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) grade, BMI, 30-day readmission rates, mortality, and complications at one- and six-week intervals were obtained and compared with patients who underwent surgery during the same six-month period in 2019. Results: A total of 2,316 patients underwent surgery in 2020 compared to 2,552 in the same period in 2019. There were no statistical differences in sex distribution, BMI, or ASA grade. The 30-day readmission rate and six-week validated complication rates were significantly lower for the 2020 patients compared to those in 2019 (p < 0.05). No deaths were reported at 30 days in the 2020 group as opposed to three in the 2019 group (p < 0.05). In 2020 one patient developed COVID-19 symptoms five days following foot and ankle surgery. This was possibly due to a family contact immediately following discharge from hospital, and the patient subsequently made a full recovery. Conclusion: Elective surgery was safely resumed following the cessation of operating during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Strict adherence to protocols resulted in 2,316 elective surgical procedures being performed with lower complications, readmissions, and mortality compared to 2019. Furthermore, only one patient developed COVID-19 with no evidence that this was a direct result of undergoing surgery. Level of evidence: III Cite this article: Bone Jt Open 2022;3(1):42–53.

The paper sheds light on preschool teachers' experiences with the plethora of parents' WhatsApp groups in Israel. Using a social constructivist approach, we conducted discussions with twenty-five preschool teachers. We argue that WhatsApp as a social medium contributes to the de-skilling of the preschool teachers' labour. We identified three types of ambivalence in the teachers' comments regarding interactions with and among parents: (a) instrumental ambivalence celebrates technology's efficiency while witnessing a shift in long working hours and a need to justify their pedagogical decisions; (b) substantive ambivalence indicates the intensified tendency to hold teachers in a need to engage in public relations; (c) critical ambivalence demonstrates a turn from a professional discourse between parents and teachers to a surveillance and accountability discourse. We conclude that the intense supervision by parents afforded by WhatsApp groups contributes to the de-skilling of preschool teachers' labour by turning a caring profession to a managerial practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on narratives from Swedish officers’ experiences from challenging situations, the article investigates the role of experience-based knowledge in military practice. Officers must be prepared to act in situations in which they do not have full control, make decisions under uncertain circumstances, and master tasks with conflicting rules, objectives, and means. These conditions apply in an overseas warfare environment, and also back home. The officers’ ability to adequately interpret phenomena in a given situation includes a variety of inarticulable knowledge. The aim of this article is to examine two aspects of military practice: (I) what role experience plays when handling challenging situations, and (II) how different kinds of knowledge are active in forming a professional skill. Using a set of epistemological concepts (phronesis, knowledge of familiarity, skill acquisition model), the article presents an analytical framework that focuses on experience-based forms of knowledge. The results show that experience-based aspects of knowledge which are crucial in military practice run the risk of not being discussed, because established methods and research traditions are focusing on measurable forms of knowledge. Finally, the article discusses the risk of de-professionalization due to unilateral use of monitoring and evaluation methods that primarily focus on forms of knowledge that can be calculated and expressed explicitly.

In Paul Willis’s “Learning to Labour”, the lads articulate ‘anti-school culture’ as their reaction after penetrating/seeing through the schooling mechanism. This paper will demonstrate some other reactions to seeing through the school system, through the case of migrant workers in Shenzhen China. These reactions are: bypass, repair, and “mobile learning”. By analyzing the learning strategies displayed by a group of young migrant workers in an electronics factory, who left school out of choice but were keen to learn, this paper argues that “mobile learning” allows social actors to imagine and realize new possibilities without challenging the existing structure. Migrant workers use this method to bypass and repair the school system which is falling apart. This paper points out that migrant workers who drop out from school are not “bad students.” This label is not helpful for understanding their situation or for solving their problems. Their problems cannot be solved by exhausting various resources to help them become “good students.” These young migrant workers are not backward, unteachable, unmotivated, or unwilling to learn. Rather, they saw through the middleclass nature of schooling and its urban bias, and realized it cannot possibly help them improve their livelihoods. They become wage labourers in factories in Shenzhen as the result of finding alternatives. Migrant workers who engage in “mobile learning” move to different places and social contexts. On the one hand, through “legitimate peripheral participation,” they gain knowledge and skills in that social context, and they collate and assemble such learning resources for their own use. On the other hand, they mobilize cultural taste, social experiences, and symbols between urban and rural settings, and thus create social, cultural, and symbolic capital which enables them to transform their subjectivities in response to the failure of the schooling system. However, “mobile learning” has its limitations. All the resources, opportunities, and every transition of this learning process is not institutionalized. “Mobile learning” relies largely on waiting, coincidences, the appreciation of supervisors and workers’ own extra labor (such as showing loyalty, hard work, diligence, etc.). In short, the path of migrant workers’ “mobile learning” is thin and easily ruptured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative interviews with Latvian and Swedish agency nurses in Norway reveal that the two groups have quite different experiences of integration in the Norwegian labor market. Aiming to add knowledge about differentiation within migrant labor markets, the objective of this article is to examine how language, nursing culture, and personal motivation affect the double control that agency nurses are subject to, their resultant skill-sets, inclusion in the workplace, and response to this. Norway is of interest as the Norwegian language can be difficult to learn outside Scandinavia. The Latvian agency nurses are harder hit by the double control of the temporary work agencies than the Swedish are. They obtain higher wages and better working conditions and are ready to speak up against unfair treatment. If they want to leave the agency, they easily find direct employment. Latvian nurses seem more ready to accept work below their qualifications and some show signs of "resigned acceptance." They have more to lose than the Swedish nurses in terms of access to work, wages, and working conditions if they return to their homeland. Although Latvian and Swedish nurses largely feel well received in the workplace, the double control they are subject to calls for self-restraint and impedes a sense of inclusion. For the Latvian nurses, language problems and cultural differences exacerbate this. The study expands and nuances how double control affects agency workers, and applying a broad concept of resigned acceptance it nuances what language means for discrimination in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goals of this work were to critically explore the challenges faced by overseas nurses during their working careers in the UK, to critically explore the available support for overseas nurses, and to make recommendations on how to minimize the effects of these challenges, as well as how to provide more support for overseas nurses during their working careers in the UK.

The longstanding view in US economic history is that the shift in manufacturing in the nineteenth century from the hand labor artisan shop to the machine labor of the mechanized factory led to "labor de-skilling" – the substitution of less skilled workers, such as operatives, for skilled craft workers. Investigating the Department of Labor's 1899 Hand and Machine Labor Study , we show the adoption of inanimate power, which we call "mechanization," did induce de-skilling at the production operation level. However, while the treatment effect of mechanization was economically and statistically significant, it accounted for only 16 percent of the de-skilling on average in the sample, using our preferred IV estimator. Broadening the scope of our inquiry, we find that variations in the division of labor, as captured by the share of production tasks performed by the average worker, accounted for a substantially larger fraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently IT work has been subjected to management approaches that apply production methods to service work. Specialised information and communication technologies (ICTs) used by IT professionals have played an important role in this ‘service turn’, but this has not been adequately explored in the literature. Via a qualitative study of IT professionals situated across the servitised IT functions of five UK‐based organisations, this article considers how these ICTs are inscribed with managerial logics that afford control benefits to managers while undermining professional autonomy and job quality. The article makes two main contributions to the literature. Firstly, it sheds light on how ICTs introduced into organisational IT functions support managerial control objectives and impact the job quality of IT professionals. Secondly, it suggests that ICTs may infect the logic of professionalism that takes pride in the quality of the work performance with a dominant managerial logic that places an emphasis on meeting management objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Migration of health workers from Africa continues to undermine the universal provision of quality health care. South Africa is an epicentre for migration – it exports more health workers to high-income countries than any other African country and imports health workers from its lower-income neighbours to fill the gap. Although an inter-governmental agreement in 2003 reduced the very high numbers migrating from South Africa to the United Kingdom, migration continues to other high-income English-speaking countries and few workers seem to return although the financial incentive to work abroad has lessened. A deeper understanding of reasons for migration from South Africa and post-migration experiences is therefore needed to underpin policy which is developed in order to improve retention within source countries and encourage return. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 South African doctors and nurses who had migrated to the United Kingdom. Interviews explored factors influencing the decision to migrate and post-migration experiences. Results: Salary, career progression, and poor working conditions were not major push factors for migration. Many health workers reported that they had previously overcome these issues within the South African healthcare system by migrating to the private sector. Overwhelmingly, the major push factors were insecurity, high levels of crime, and racial tension. Although the wish to work and train in what was perceived to be a first-class care system was a pull factor to migrate to the United Kingdom, many were disappointed by the experience. Instead of obtaining new skills, many (particularly nurses) felt they had become ‘de-skilled’. Many also felt that working conditions and opportunities for them in the UK National Health Service (NHS) compared unfavourably with the private sector in South Africa. Conclusions: Migration from South Africa seems unlikely to diminish until the major concerns over security, crime, and racial tensions are resolved. However, good working conditions in the private sector in South Africa provide an occupational incentive to return if security did improve. Potential migrants should be made more aware of the risks of losing skills while working abroad that might prejudice return. In addition, re-skilling initiatives should be encouraged.

This paper examines the impact of technological advancement on the changing labour of frontline workers in the organised retail sector based on a case study of a shopping mall in Delhi-NCR. Its main concern is to see how labour use practices are being transformed by innovative technologies in the contemporary scenario. It also highlights the possibility that technological advancement can limit the role of workers and their mastery over the craft. The study shows how innovative technology demarcates the role of frontline workers, confining their functioning to the periphery of specific centres and allotted shelves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of education researchers, both in Europe and in North America, have claimed that classroom teachers in state schooling systems have suffered from a process of “de-professionalisation” and/or “de-skilling” over recent decades. This paper argues that these claims are problematic, on at least two grounds. First, for teachers at least, “professional” is basically an ideological concept with little if any descriptive validity. To the extent that being a “professional” connotes individual or group autonomy from outside influences (whether state or societal), surveillance and controls over teacher behaviour have always been an essential component of state schooling systems, whether or not individuals or groups of teachers have attempted to mediate – or even resist – this domination from time to time. Second, while classroom teachers’ work has changed and perhaps intensified over time, it is questioned whether these changes have resulted in significant de-skilling of their work – issues which are explored in the second part of this paper. Finally, as one example of the complex ways in which the state apparatus has worked throughout the history of state schooling (in Canada and the USA at least) to maintain and enhance its control over teachers, a case study is provided describing events in Ontario in the 1940s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Written and verbal skills have risen in prominence within today's fine art curriculum. Their provision is clearly outlined and quantified, and this is beginning to overshadow what happens 'in the studio'. This article outlines 'the problem with making' in fine art education today by focusing on the teaching of drawing, asking the questions: what exactly are the skills of drawing, what is gained by learning them, and how, in practice, are they intertwined with theory? By establishing the educational value of drawing, we might then influence ways skills in general are perceived and deployed within fine art education today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Order picker operations in large food distribution warehouses have been considerably changed by a introduction of a new tool – voice guidance systems. Where the work used to be characterized by a lack of fixed sequencing and the impossibility for operatives of getting ahead of schedule, preparation activities have evolved towards more restrictive temporalities comparable to production line workers’ experience. With “up front and close” vocal guidance, order pickers’ skill is limited to their physical engagement, now considered a resource (i.e. a mode for appropriating the meaning of work) but also a bulwark against the pathologies that arise as the general intensification drive reaches its limits.

Background: Migration of health workers from Africa continues to undermine the universal provision of quality health care. South Africa is an epicentre for migration – it exports more health workers to high-income countries than any other African country and imports health workers from its lower-income neighbours to fill the gap. Although an inter-governmental agreement in 2003 reduced the very high numbers migrating from South Africa to the United Kingdom, migration continues to other high-income English-speaking countries and few workers seem to return although the financial incentive to work abroad has lessened. A deeper understanding of reasons for migration from South Africa and post-migration experiences is therefore needed to underpin policy which is developed in order to improve retention within source countries and encourage return. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 South African doctors and nurses who had migrated to the United Kingdom. Interviews explored factors influencing the decision to migrate and post-migration experiences. Results: Salary, career progression, and poor working conditions were not major push factors for migration. Many health workers reported that they had previously overcome these issues within the South African healthcare system by migrating to the private sector. Overwhelmingly, the major push factors were insecurity, high levels of crime, and racial tension. Although the wish to work and train in what was perceived to be a first-class care system was a pull factor to migrate to the United Kingdom, many were disappointed by the experience. Instead of obtaining new skills, many (particularly nurses) felt they had become ‘de-skilled’. Many also felt that working conditions and opportunities for them in the UK National Health Service (NHS) compared unfavourably with the private sector in South Africa. Conclusions: Migration from South Africa seems unlikely to diminish until the major concerns over security, crime, and racial tensions are resolved. However, good working conditions in the private sector in South Africa provide an occupational incentive to return if security did improve. Potential migrants should be made more aware of the risks of losing skills while working abroad that might prejudice return. In addition, re-skilling initiatives should be encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Regional development – including in the Arctic – relies heavily on in-migration, skills acquisition and international expertise. This paper is based on a qualitative study (Part of the fieldwork was undertaken with Dr. T. Fossland, University of Tromsø.) of highly skilled immigrants in Tromsø, Norway, undertaken while migrants attended the Global Future talent mobilisation programme. It builds on migrant narratives and observations, showing both women and men migrate for non-work reasons – often marriage or love. While previous studies focused on women as dependent migrants and described the ‘de-skilling’ of highly skilled migrants during migration, this study addresses the mechanisms which make entering labour markets a problem, prior to the deskilling, for men and women. Acknowledging that love migration is grounded in processes outside the labour market, and that migrants enter a specific local labour market, I employ a contextual perspective focused on gender and place. Theories on the transfer of skills are added to understand the processes of accessing and exclusion from skilled labour markets. The study finds gendered expectations and norms affect both women and men’s participation in labour markets. It shows how both the scale and structure of a local labour market are important in understanding exclusion processes and that going beyond language proficiency, localised knowledge and access to local non-migrant networks seem necessary to make skills relevant. These findings strengthen our understanding of migrants’ exclusion, and the spatial, social and cultural embeddedness of skills. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper we explore 'exergaming' in schools, the latest trend influencing the physical education (PE) curriculum. Throughout the paper we investigate the various proponents of exergaming including the gaming industry, academic researchers and PE teachers. Our inquiry takes a closer look at exergaming as a pedagogical trend and describes exergaming's potential implications for the profession of PE as well as for individual students. Our methodological approach includes review and analysis of popular, scholarly and curricular texts related to the use of exergaming in schools. The analysis underscores the political nature of the curriculum and, in so doing, invites a closer look at this curricular trend by examining whose interests are served through the circulation of crisis discourses surrounding youth (ill)health and the use of these crisis discourses to justify the placement of commercial products in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is strongly shaping the nature and direction of biomedical practice and organisational culture. Clinicians are now expected to adopt the principles of EBM and evidence-based practice (EBP) whilst also maintaining such things as professional autonomy, clinical judgement and therapeutic integrity. Little sociological work has been done on the implications of EBM in oncology contexts. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 13 oncology consultants and 12 oncology nurses in Australia, in this paper we explore how oncology clinicians utilise and/or critique types of evidence and statistical probabilities; the organisational systematisation of care; and, wider policies of EBM. The results illustrate significant variation in perception of EBM between the oncology sub-specialties examined, and the central role of organisational structures and intra-professional hierarchies in how evidence is viewed and utilised in practice. The interviews also capture the ways in which oncology specialists are negotiating the systematisation of care under the rubric of EBM, and the contradictory effects of professional de-skilling vis-à-vis the reinforcement of biomedical objectivity/power. Finally, we examine the experiences and perceptions of oncology nurses in relation to evidence and EBM, exploring the interplay of processes of professionalisation and distinction in shaping the evidence-based trajectories of nursing. We contrast these results with previous sociological writings on EBM, reflecting on the applicability and limitations of these theoretical positions when applied to the experiences of oncology clinicians. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Aim: To describe the development, evaluation and outcomes of a pilot crisis resource management (CRM) course developed specifically for the Ambulatory Surgery sector. Methods: The scenario-based course (DaCRM) covered the diagnosis and management of a number of potential medical emergencies. Evaluation incorporated pre- and post course surveys and follow-up interviews. Results: All participants applied learnings either clinically or organizationally in their workplace, and one successfully diagnosed and managed a malignant hyperthermia event. Conclusion: Some important generalizable principles were demonstrated: team-based CRM training of clinical and non-clinical staff can increase confidence, ameliorate possible de-skilling in Ambulatory Surgery settings and can save lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through in-depth interviews with Taiwanese newspaper workers, this paper illustrates the "de-skilling" effects of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on journalists. In recent years, Taiwanese reporters have experienced an increase in workload and an intensification of managerial control due to the introduction of new technologies in the newsroom. Using ICTs in the workplace consequently has harmed journalists' working conditions and autonomy. Moreover, ICTs have led to a trivialization of reporting tasks and devaluation of reporters' experience and knowledge. The degradation of reporting work resulting from the use of ICTs has enabled managers at Taiwanese newspapers to hire young employees to fill the jobs of experienced reporters and to reduce salary costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article touches on and questions the object of visual studies, word and image relations, historicity, art under visual studies and politics. Exploring in particular the place of politics in visual studies, it outlines some of the ways in which visual studies as a field of inquiry all too often plays lip-service to politics, as it does to history and, more pressingly, as it does to ethics. Resisting an uncritical demand that ethics be introduced and come to occupy central stage in visual studies, the article goes on to interrogate the complex and nuanced ways in which an ethics of vision might still, and necessarily, come to the fore. Attentive to the dangers of such a foregrounding, it nonetheless proposes how such an ethics of vision offers a blueprint for the commitment that lies at the heart of visual studies and thereby can enable the field to make a difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the impact of the NHS and Community Care Act (1990), and the redefined role of 'care manager', upon social work. It draws from a three-year ethnographic study of five area teams; one based in inner London and the others, including a hospital team, based in the north of England. particularly it uncovers the considerable impact of intense bureaucracy, circumscribed budgets and the consequential removal of the care manager from the community. The article also questions any 'seamless service' in work with other professionals and raises doubts as to whether need is even being partially met. Care managers are rarely able to utilize the skills that they develop during the Diploma in Social Work course. Frustration is felt on behalf of staff in the area office, who are now working under considerable strain, with little recognition, within what resembles a new emergency service. It is hoped the article is able to draw attention to the consequences of the continued deskilling of social work and retrenchment of what little remains of welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]