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A recent United Nations (2021) report stated that education needs to be concerned with enhancing human relationships with the natural world if we are to work toward building a sustainable future. This paper proposes that educational practices underpinned by an ecological orientation in mid-century Aotearoa offer insights for educators looking to enhance human connection with nature. It also argues that ecological thinking has implications for how research in the history of education might be carried out.

The article responds to recent calls in history of education for researchers to attend to the intertwined ecologies of living and material worlds in research approaches by Maria Tamboukou (2020) and Karin Priem (2022). It conducts a close analysis of a 1952 nature diary, encountered in the national archive, written by a 9-year-old pupil on the West Coast of the South Island. The analysis attends to the human–nature interactions the diary records, and to the resonance of the text in the context of post-war curriculum changes.

Post-war nature study in Aotearoa New Zealand built on an aim to nurture children’s connections with nature and to place. Analysis of an entry from the 1952 nature diary highlights these connections and demonstrates the possibilities for a reframing of human–nature relationships that emerge with an ecological orientation in education. These findings speak to urgent contemporary concerns with environmental sustainability and human–nature relationships.

The paper draws on educational philosophy and theory (Fesmire, 2012; Nicol, 2014) alongside recent conversations in the history of education (Priem, 2022; Grosvenor and Priem, 2022; Tamboukou, 2020) to consider human–nature relationality at the heart of ecological thought. It outlines an approach to archival research that is ecologically oriented, generating openness and receptivity to the material world.

Comparative analyses in education science have traditionally focused on the category of geographic location as the comparative unit. However, comparison may involve many other units of analysis, such as culture, politics, curricula, education systems, social phenomena, and other categories of the lives of societies. Still, categories are inseparably linked to one or several geographic locations. Comparative approaches are often also dictated by the availability heuristic. Studying geographic units as the foci of comparative research is a necessary step for comparative presentation of the topic. According to Bray and Thomas, a researcher must always seek preliminary insight in the geographic unit to be analyzed before making the comparison. In social science research, a unit of analysis relates to the main object of the research, as it answers the question of “who” or “what” is going to be analyzed. The most common units of analysis are people, groups, organizations, artifacts or phenomena, and social interactions. Ragin and Amoroso have noted that comparative methods can be used to explain the commonness or diversity of results. This paper shows how comparative research can be approached in ways that have not been discussed, grounded in the historically variable understanding of the very term “comparison.” They are, for example, The Ogden-Richards triangle, The Porphyrian Tree, Classification strategies – Mill’s Canons, The chaos of the world – the order of science, Weber’s ideal types, Raymond Boudon’s formula, and the Möbius strip in comparativism.

The purpose of this study is to analyse recent empirical research that has explored the field of telepractice in early intervention for families of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

The systematic review included 16 studies from 2012 and 2022 that examined the field of telepractice in early intervention for families of children with ASD. Analyses focused on the accessibility of telepractice and comparison with traditional treatment, the effectiveness of telepractice for parents in learning strategies in the home environment and the effectiveness of telepractice for children with ASD. What are the differences related to formats of telepractice and whether telepractice presents some technical challenges for families?

The results indicate that telepractice can make an important contribution to more intensive and better quality treatment. The review of studies shows positive effects in terms of parental satisfaction and the effectiveness of telecare interventions for children. Some early intervention telepractice programmes also report improvements in parents’ use of strategies, communication skills, imitation skills and interaction with children.

The studies reviewed were conducted on relatively small samples. Many of them did not include a control group. Only three studies compared traditional formats with distance treatments. Some studies did not include professional support for parents. Some studies had shorter time periods of distance treatment. Some studies had a high lack of feedback from parents on the use of telepractice. In the future, more randomized controlled trials should be conducted in the field of telepractice in early intervention, based on larger samples and including a control group. It would be advisable to compare the different types of distance treatments with each other and with the traditional face-to-face format. Further research should examine the impact of participant characteristics, socioeconomic status and participant demographics, together with individual needs, perceptions and treatment responses to telepractice. Given the mixed results regarding the impact of early distance treatment in reducing stress in parents, further research in this area is recommended.

From this systematic review, the authors can conclude that the optimal early intervention would be a hybrid training, i.e. the implementation of both approaches so that the family has the opportunity to have a traditional contact with a specialist and the use of telepractice, which can increase the number of treatments and reduce costs. The authors suggest that parents and telepractice providers be educated about the safe and appropriate use of telepractice. Professionals should also have coaching skills to conduct telepractice and adapt some strategies (such as prompting and modelling) taking into account the specific needs of parents and children and be frequently available to the family. There should also be higher levels of support for parents’ well-being.

Policy proposals include raising the level of early intervention for children with ASD, as this can have more lasting effects for families of children with ASD. This may have an impact by reducing the costs of support for families later on. Funding is recommended for developers of online platforms that create a safe and effective basis for telecoaching practice, for appropriate technical equipment for professionals and families and for education for professionals in the use of telepractice.

Based on the analysis of the recent research, suggestions and guidelines for the effective use of telepractice in early intervention for children with ASD and their families are presented.

This study aims to investigate the influence of social capital on firms’ business strategies, focusing on Miles and Snow (1978) dichotomy between “prospector” and “defender” strategies.

The authors perform multivariate regression analyses using a sample of US firms spanning the period from 1995 to 2021. The authors use a two-stage least squares model to alleviate endogeneity concerns and perform several cross-sectional tests and path analyses.

The authors find a significant and positive association between social capital and defender-type business strategies. Results from cross-sectional analyses reveal that this relationship is more pronounced in highly competitive product markets and among firms led by highly qualified CEOs. In addition, the authors find that CEO compensation mediates the effect of social capital on business strategy. Overall, the results suggest that low social capital regions foster prospector strategies due to managers’ self-maximizing incentives. Finally, the authors find that business strategy acts as a mediating factor, connecting social capital to firms’ financial reporting outcomes.

In light of recent public concerns over declining social capital in major economies and the growing globalization and multiculturism in societies, the findings are of interest to policymakers and the wider society by highlighting the far-reaching implications of social capital on businesses and the capital market.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study documents the first empirical evidence on the association between a society’s social capital and firms’ business strategies. The study contributes to the research on the determinants of a firm’s business strategy and extends the literature on the relationship between social capital and firm behavior.

Tabletop ‘pen and paper’ role-play games (TTRPGs) can function as spaces of creative experimentation with gender identity through shared storytelling. The last decade has seen an explosion of Actual Play (AP) shows that broadcast recorded gameplay of TTRPGs to online audiences. Neverafter is the 15th season of well-known AP show Dimension 20 and is a horror-themed re-imagining of classic fairy tales through the rules of Dungeons and Dragons. Four of the six player characters are male, based individually on the fairy tales of Pinocchio, Puss in Boots, the Frog Prince, and a (gender-swapped) Mother Goose, adventuring together in a story-world called ‘The Neverafter’. Not only are these versions of the fairy tale characters shaped by the players' own explorations of identity, but as an AP show, this is also layered with the expectations produced by the show's wide fan base. Their diverse gender explorations and their subversion of fairy tale conventions are enabled by the fluency of the players and audience in freely flowing between the framing perspectives of player and character. This chapter will focus on non-binary player Ally Beardsley's creation and performance of Mother Timothy Goose as a gay, elderly, human man as a particularly meaningful case study. This analysis considers how heroic masculinity is reconceptualised in Neverafter through the horror-themed embodiment of fairy tale men in the context of contemporary gender issues.

Performance management systems (PMSs) must remain dynamic and maintain the ability to withstand the high degrees of complexity brought about by digital technologies (DTs). Academics and practitioners have explored DTs and PMSs separately. This study aims to bridge the academic and practitioner discourse surrounding PMSs and DTs to promote knowledge diffusion and collaboration.

The authors adopted a mixed method approach, combining quantitative and qualitative content analysis, which were validated through semi-structured interviews with academics and practitioners. The authors first conducted a content analysis of the academic literature contained in the Scopus database and the practitioners' literature featured in the Nexis Uni database.

The combined academic-practitioners’ body of knowledge underscores the risk and environmental dimension, as well as the theoretical frameworks employed to explore digitally empowered PMSs. These findings were corroborated by 17 confirmatory interviews conducted with scholars and practitioners.

Due to its scope, the research is limited to publications listed on Scopus and Nexis Uni. Additionally, its qualitative and interpretative nature presents some generalizability issues.

This study connects the intentions of scholars and practitioners concerning PMSs and DTs to promote collaborative efforts and knowledge diffusion. Moreover, considering the broader spectrum of insights, this manuscript postulates new avenues of research that address the key issues and concerns of both academics and practitioners. Finally, this article showcases PMs- and DT-appropriate theoretical frameworks that can inform practitioners’ discourse and work.