Emily Anne Tarrant and Alison Torn
This study aims to explore the ways in which young people and prison staff (Prison Officers) within a youth custodial establishment experience empathy. Previous research tends to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the ways in which young people and prison staff (Prison Officers) within a youth custodial establishment experience empathy. Previous research tends to view empathy as a stable trait and one which people can develop through individual-centred therapy. There has been little consideration of the impact of relationship factors and context in relation to empathy experience and expression. The current study aims to address this by exploring the role of the custodial context in shaping empathy, including the potential impact of relationships, environmental factors and culture.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach was used to enable breadth and depth in the exploration of this area. Individual, semi-structured interviews were carried out with a purposive sample of three young people and three Prison Officers. Data was analysed using inductive thematic analysis informed by the guidelines of Braun and Clarke (2006) and King and Horrocks (2010).
Findings
Constructed themes included “constructions of empathy”, “recipe for empathy”, “institutional investment”, “the value of empathy” and “doing empathy”. Together, they provide detailed insight into the interplay of personal and wider contextual factors influencing the experience of empathy in a custodial setting. The findings suggest that the way in which young people and staff experience empathy in the custodial environment is unique. The findings suggest that empathy takes place within the context of relationships and is influenced by the nature of those relationships, along with the wider social context within which it occurs.
Practical implications
The findings of the current study support a move away from understanding empathy as an individual personality trait and instead viewing it as a dynamic experience that is changeable based upon the relationship and the context within which it occurs. The findings suggest that interventions aiming to develop empathy should look beyond the level of the individual and the relationship and focus upon developing environments that are supportive of empathy.
Originality/value
This study provides unique insights into the subjective experience of empathy in a custodial setting, presenting as one of the first to take a more holistic approach to understand this phenomenon.
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Megan Stephenson and Alison Torn
The study explores the original positioning of the higher education institution in the teacher education market in March 2020. The case study identifies how the university…
Abstract
Purpose
The study explores the original positioning of the higher education institution in the teacher education market in March 2020. The case study identifies how the university operated prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the adaptations made to teaching and learning pedagogy throughout academic year (AY) 2019–2020, the impact and the experience it had on staff and students and the subsequent lessons learnt.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a comprehensive narrative the authors explore how, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the academic staff had to upskill themselves in the world of digital technology, drawing on the theoretical framework of community of inquiry (Garrison, 2009; Garrison et al., 2000, 2010). The article describes and analyses the impact of change through the timeline of the pandemic across the AYs 2019–2020 and 2020–2021. Training delivered and adapted from “Active Digital Design” (ADD), was adopted to plan, teach and deliver all centre-based training from September 2021.
Findings
The article describes how the leaders across the university and within the teacher education department used this time and space as an opportunity to revaluate whole pedagogical delivery and curricular programme design, effectively transitioning to a blended learning strategy. The rapid adoption of online resources, adjustments made to programmes and school placements and the peaks and troughs of engaging students with online learning are all evaluated. The authors conclude on a reflective note, thanks to excellent leadership and management the majority of the ADD programme that was received positively by academics and students. A continuous cycle of review means adaptations to programme delivery continue to be adopted via the learning communities formed as a result of the experience.
Originality/value
The impact of the pandemic and school closures on the graduating cohorts of 2020 and 2021 are evaluated. Reflecting on the experience and expertise of the team a truly comprehensive, consistent and balanced curricular is set to shape AY 2022–20/23.
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THE NEW REFORMATION SOCIETY, founded apparently at the end of 1860, finds no place in Greenwood's Free Public Libraries (1886), and from its title appears to deserve no such…
Abstract
THE NEW REFORMATION SOCIETY, founded apparently at the end of 1860, finds no place in Greenwood's Free Public Libraries (1886), and from its title appears to deserve no such place. But Greenwood was an Englishman and a Liberal, and the Society owes both its character and its relevance to libraries to its founder, the Scots‐born businessman, Alexander Alison. Since in Britain authoritarian politics are never taken seriously, the man and the body deserve some attention.
To examine the trend of “witness tours” that travel to the North American Arctic to experience, document, and then advocate on behalf of environmental issues in the North. These…
Abstract
To examine the trend of “witness tours” that travel to the North American Arctic to experience, document, and then advocate on behalf of environmental issues in the North. These tours are presented as part of a colonial legacy that has long witnessed the North as a space of potential investment from the South. Especially in their reliance upon suffering as a narrative practice to justify their experience, these tours repeat patterns that reduce the agency of Northern communities and peoples to address changes they are facing. The chapter also provides best practices for such excursions and compares their approach to Northern-based expeditions that also advocate for environmental conservation and protection.
In the first part of the chapter, the history of colonialism and exploration sets the foundation for understanding the recent trend in witness tours. These tours are then examined through a discourse analysis of their narratives to highlight their connection with colonial approaches to the North. The final section of the chapter presents three necessary steps to reduce the reliance upon colonial legacies for these tours.
The witness tours examined are heavily dependent upon using their resilience of the travels to travel through harsh landscapes to make their case for caring about these landscapes. Far from being an innocent narrative strategy, this reliance upon suffering provides a level of elitism to these narratives at the same time as it reproduces colonial patterns. The chapter suggests three steps to avoid these problems: (1) Recognize the stories of people who live in the North; (2) Do not present the Arctic as a timeless wilderness landscape; and (3) Understand our limited perspective on the North as outsiders.
The chapter suggests that witness tours need to be understood within the context of a history of colonial exploration in the Arctic as well as the agency of Northern peoples to address both environmental change and colonialism.
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Elizabeth Shaw, Anushtayini Sivananthan, David Phillip Wood, James Partington, Alison Pearl Reavy and Helen Jane Fishwick
The purpose of this paper is to improve the quality of care of patients presenting with challenging behaviour.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to improve the quality of care of patients presenting with challenging behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
Current guidelines are described, and adherence to the standards is audited, with a particular emphasis on physical restraint.
Findings
The results of the clinical audit revealed that in the substantial majority of episodes of challenging behaviour, non-physical techniques were used prior to the need to intervene with physical restraint; however, when physical restraint was used, there was limited use of staff debriefs to facilitate reflection- and work-based learning. A potential diagnostic link to the likelihood of use of prone position restraint was also a finding. The results of a quality improvement project undertaken in response to the findings of the clinical audit demonstrated significant and sustained improvements in adherence to most standards.
Practical implications
Continuous improvements to the safety of both patients and staff when managing acute challenging behaviour requires ongoing quality improvement interventions underpinned by the application of human factors principles.
Originality/value
The completion of this audit cycle suggests that it is useful to measure specific points of care processes, however, continuous improvement interventions are indicated to lead to sustained improvement – in this paper this is demonstrated by the safer management of challenging behaviour.
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In 1994, a leaked council report revealed that, for more than ten years, Gordon Rowe, a former social worker, had been beating, raping and ill‐treating the adults with learning…
Abstract
In 1994, a leaked council report revealed that, for more than ten years, Gordon Rowe, a former social worker, had been beating, raping and ill‐treating the adults with learning difficulties who lived in the residential homes run by his company, Longcare. This paper describes the effect of this abuse on some of those residents.
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The management of children′s literature is a search for value andsuitability. Effective policies in library and educational work arebased firmly on knowledge of materials, and on…
Abstract
The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.
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Iuliia Hoban and Denise R. Muro
The prolonged civil war in Syria and the full-scale war in Ukraine have significantly impacted the nations’ children, yet Ukrainian and Syrian children found ways to express their…
Abstract
The prolonged civil war in Syria and the full-scale war in Ukraine have significantly impacted the nations’ children, yet Ukrainian and Syrian children found ways to express their agency. This comparative study centers on children’s first-hand accounts of conflict through a feminist geopolitical approach and interpretive textual analysis methods to explore common themes children express in diaries, how resistance is articulated, and how other actors mediate these narratives. Informed by feminist geopolitics, the authors investigate how the everyday practice of narrating their experiences provides children with a space to articulate their perspectives on war-related experiences. This research employs thematic analysis to explore four Ukrainian and four Syrian children’s diaries. In this chapter, the authors discuss three salient themes from the diaries: (1) trauma and fear; (2) loss of normalcy; and (3) coping, hope, and resilience. The authors argue that these themes demonstrate children’s agency and that diaries can be read as a medium of resistance. This chapter also pays attention to how such narratives are mediated, commodified, and even controlled by adults for political objectives. This chapter, thus, contributes to the discussion of the nature of children’s experiences in armed conflict. Furthermore, it explores how children’s agency is potentially articulated, manipulated, and restricted in everyday sites.
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Dorina Maria Buda and Alison Jane McIntosh
The purpose of this paper is to propose voyeurism as one possible lens to analyse the experiential nature of dark tourism in places of socio‐political danger, thus expanding…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose voyeurism as one possible lens to analyse the experiential nature of dark tourism in places of socio‐political danger, thus expanding psychoanalytic understandings of those who travel to a “dark” place.
Design/methodology/approach
Freud's and Lacan's theories on voyeurism are used to examine the desire to travel to and gaze upon something that is (socially constructed as) forbidden, such as a place that is portrayed as being hostile to international tourists. A qualitative and critical analysis approach is employed to examine one tourist's experience of travelling to Iran and being imprisoned as a result of taking a photograph of what he thought was a sunrise but also pictured pylons near an electrical plant.
Findings
The authors' analysis of the experiences of this tourist in Iran reveals that tourism, in its widest sense, can be experienced as “dark” through the consumption and performance of danger. This finding moves beyond the examination of dark tourism merely as “tourist products”, or that frame a particular moment in time, or are merely founded on one's connection to or perception of the site.
Research limitations/implications
Whilst the authors recognise the limitations of the case study approach taken here, and as such, generalisations cannot be inferred from the findings, it is argued that there is merit in exploring critically the motivational and experiential nature of travel to places that may be considered forbidden, dangerous or hostile in an attempt to further understand the concept of dark tourism from a tourist's lived perspective.
Originality/value
As the authors bring voyeurism into the debate on dark tourism, the study analyses the voyeuristic experiences of a dark tourist. In short, the authors argue that the lived and “deviant” experiential nature of tourism itself can be included in the discussion of “dark tourism”.
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David Myers, Alison Dalgity and Ioannis Avramides
The purpose of this paper is to describe the Arches heritage inventory and management system for the benefit of practitioners working with heritage inventories. Arches is a modern…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the Arches heritage inventory and management system for the benefit of practitioners working with heritage inventories. Arches is a modern software platform purpose-built for the creation and management of inventories to support effective heritage place management. The system was developed as open source software jointly by the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and World Monuments Fund (WMF).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper discusses the needs and challenges addressed by the GCI and WMF in developing Arches, explains the system’s design and functionality, reports on software releases and ongoing enhancements, describes current software implementations, and concludes by discussing the role and growth of the open source community and the Arches project’s aspirations.
Findings
The needs and challenges in the heritage field that the GCI and WMF originally identified have been confirmed through interactions between the Arches project and a range of practitioners. The suitability of Arches to address these needs is demonstrated through steady growth of the open source community and an increasing number of implementations of the Arches platform.
Practical implications
Arches provides a purpose-built system that is freely available and ready for use. It offers a system that requires a marginal investment by organizations compared to building digital inventories from scratch. The Arches project has created an international community of information technology and heritage practitioners to share experience, knowledge, and skills to address their common challenges in dealing with digital inventories.
Originality/value
The paper offers heritage practitioners details on a new tool for overcoming their challenges in building and managing digital heritage inventories.