Andrew T. Young, Chris Hennington and Dane Eggleston
The purpose of this paper is to examine SWAT operator deployment experience, personality, cognitive-emotion regulation, and decision making to see if there were correlations with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine SWAT operator deployment experience, personality, cognitive-emotion regulation, and decision making to see if there were correlations with successful SWAT callout resolution. These findings would then be compared with the results of a national survey of hostage (crisis) negotiators in the hopes of finding information that might be helpful with team dynamics, officer selection for these teams, and with operational dynamics and successful resolution of SWAT callouts.
Design/methodology/approach
Active SWAT officers (n=277) from various law enforcement entities in 21 states participated in this survey research. They completed a demographic questionnaire, questions about their callout experiences and experiences on their SWAT team, the Big 5 Personality Inventory, the Cognitive-Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the General Decision-Making Style questionnaire. These results were then compared with the same results obtained from a national survey of hostage (crisis) negotiators (n=514) and patrol officers (n=72).
Findings
Common personality and decision-making styles emerged from the SWAT survey, and correlations between these variables and the successful resolution of SWAT callouts are discussed. These results were then compared with negotiators and patrol officers via an ANOVA. Distinct differences between these groups emerged.
Research limitations/implications
Recruiting research participants from law enforcement, much less from a closed group such as SWAT operators, is difficult. The response rate for this study was low, and was due in part to the agency themselves declining to participate. The current study relied on honest self-report, which is always a limitation of this type of survey research. Another limitation was that lack of statistically significant findings for the multivariate and the binomial logistic regression analysis. No extrapolation of the relationship between personality, cognitive-emotion regulation, and decision-making styles and the outcome and resolution of callouts is possible based on these findings.
Practical implications
This research could have direct effect on the training and selection of SWAT team officers and hostage negotiators. There is also information provided that may impact the operation and coordination of these groups as they work together during callouts in the community.
Social implications
The current social climate in the USA seems to be calling for police departments to do everything possible to resolve high risk and dangerous situations with as much care and as little force as possible. In order to achieve successful and peaceful resolution of these SWAT callout situations, departments must deploy officers with the necessary skills, personality, and decision-making abilities.
Originality/value
There is very little general research on SWAT teams, and almost nothing on SWAT operator experience, personality, or decision making. These findings have value and application in SWAT operator selection and training, along with SWAT and negotiator dynamics and decision making when trying to successfully and peacefully resolve a SWAT callout operation.
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In this chapter, I explore how the queer-coding, gendering and policing of the monstrous female villain figure of twenty-first-century fairy tale media is interrogated and…
Abstract
In this chapter, I explore how the queer-coding, gendering and policing of the monstrous female villain figure of twenty-first-century fairy tale media is interrogated and renegotiated in the transformative narrative tradition of femslash fan-fiction. With fan studies often focusing on the most popular, vocal fandom spaces and cultures, femslash (female-female) fan-fiction has been undertheorized in academic scholarship, just as queer female desire is routinely invalidated by the mainstream media properties that inspire femslash fans (Cranz, 2016; Gonzalez, 2016; Ng & Russo, 2017; Stanfill, 2017). By romantically and sexually pairing female villains with the heroines against whom they are canonically cast as antagonists, femslash fans of Once Upon a Time and The Devil Wears Prada subvert the heteronormative and anti-feminist plot machinery that pits women against each other. The engagement of femslash fan authors with the depiction of the characters Regina Mills and Miranda Priestly as literal and figurative ‘Evil Queens’ in their source texts highlights the extent to which both women are situated as ‘villains’ because of their position as ‘unhappy queers’ who obstruct heteronormative happy endings (Ahmed, 2010; Pande & Moitra, 2017; Strauch, 2017). While in the Swan Queen fiction somewhere, someone must know the ending (maleficently, 2012), Regina is only the Evil Queen in her son's imagination, as he tries to make sense of her infidelity, The Lily and the Crown (Telanu, 2013) recasts Miranda Priestly as Pirate Queen Mír, guilty of mass-murder, rather than merely acerbic barbs (as in the film). Through close readings, I argue that the way these texts ask their readers to consider the limits of both villains' desirability, by playing with the terms of their respective criminality, shows the extent to which nuancing and negotiating the ‘evil’ of these ‘queens’ is structurally embedded in these femslash fandoms. The femslash fannish investment these texts reflect, in both the figure of the queer female villain and those who desire her, proposes an alternative version of happiness to the heteronormative happy ending, one that does not attenuate the queer codes that position these ‘Evil Queens’ as monster-outsiders to it, but embraces that monstrosity as a site of power, progress and futurity.
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Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan
This article revisits three classic findings from Dan Lortie's 1975 book Schoolteacher, in the context of the coronavirus pandemic and its possible aftermaths. These findings are…
Abstract
Purpose
This article revisits three classic findings from Dan Lortie's 1975 book Schoolteacher, in the context of the coronavirus pandemic and its possible aftermaths. These findings are that teachers and others base their ideas about teaching on the long apprenticeship of observation as students; they derive their satisfaction from the psychic rewards of teaching – the emotional satisfaction and feedback that teachers got from students; and they work in conservative cultures of individualism.
Design/methodology/approach
The article appraises Lortie's foundational text in relation to contemporary public domain surveys and op-ed articles about the impact of the pandemic on teaching and learning.
Findings
COVID-19 created conditions that undermined traditional psychic rewards, weakened the tenuous student–teacher relationship as more students found schooling less engaging, began to give parents distorted observations of teaching online and made teacher collaboration more difficult.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the current nature of the pandemic and the shortage of just-in-time original data, the research relies on rapid responses and op-ed perceptions rather than on an established body of literature and database.
Practical implications
The postpandemic agenda holds out three ways to modernize Lortie's agenda in ways that advance the presence and impact of professional capital. These ways comprise new psychic rewards for students and not just teachers, a more open professionalism that is actively inclusive of parents and collaborative professionalism that has greater strength and depth.
Social implications
Educational reform in the postpandemic age must be transformational and not seek to return to normal.
Originality/value
The paper gives new meaning to Lortie's original ideas on COVID-19 circumstances
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Managing violence is an important clinical and managerial responsibility within contemporary mental health practice and there have been considerable developments across the…
Abstract
Managing violence is an important clinical and managerial responsibility within contemporary mental health practice and there have been considerable developments across the country to pave the way for a more ‘standardised’ approach to conflict resolution. Many trusts employ someone to lead on ‘conflict resolution’ but the precise nature of the lead role and the responsibility attached to it vary greatly between organisations. Similarly, some trusts have sophisticated systems for delivering and monitoring conflict training and updates, whereas others do not. The project described here sought to clarify how training for conflict resolution is organised within a sample of mental health trusts in England. Data was generated by questionnaire and telephone interview with trust leads, and the audit findings were then analysed and used to inform an inter‐professional training pilot in one local trust. It is now expected that frontline staff will enter into conflict resolution training as defined by the NHS Security Management Service (2004) and be trained in accordance with a national syllabus of training standards. Audited opinion suggests that the training co‐ordinator role is associated with improved governance in relation to conflict‐resolution training. Arguably, if national benchmarks and standards are to be met in relation to conflict resolution, trusts need to invest in training infrastructure and at least consider the merits of funding a dedicated co‐ordinator role and inter‐professional training.
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Yvette James‐Gordon, Andy Young and Jay Bal
Before an organisation can develop its marketing strategy, it needs to carry out a thorough marketing analysis in order to understand the customers and trends, and evaluate…
Abstract
Before an organisation can develop its marketing strategy, it needs to carry out a thorough marketing analysis in order to understand the customers and trends, and evaluate external environmental forces. This paper seeks to identify and discuss the external environmental forces affecting: e‐learning providers, including market demand; political and legal forces; social and ethical influences; technology; and competition. The e‐learning provider has little, or no, control over the external environmental forces affecting the market in which it operates, and so it is necessary continually to forecast, monitor and assess this environment and to adapt its e‐learning product or services accordingly.
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Vaughn Schmutz, Sarah H. Pollock and Jordan S. Bendickson
Previous research suggests that women receive less critical attention and acclaim in popular music. The authors expect that gender differences in the amount and content of media…
Abstract
Previous research suggests that women receive less critical attention and acclaim in popular music. The authors expect that gender differences in the amount and content of media discourse about popular musicians occur because music critics draw on the cultural frame of gender as a primary tool for critical evaluation. In order to explore the role of gender as a frame through which aesthetic content is evaluated, the authors conduct detailed content analyses of 53 critical reviews of two versions of the popular album 1989 – the original released by Taylor Swift in 2014 and a cover version released by Ryan Adams less than a year later. Despite Swift’s greater popularity and prominence, the authors find that reviews of her version of the album are more likely to focus on her gender and sexuality; less likely to describe her as emotionally authentic; and more likely to use popular aesthetic criteria in evaluating her music. By contrast, Ryan Adams was more likely to be seen by critics as emotionally authentic and to be described using high art aesthetic criteria and intellectualizing discourse. The authors address the implications of the findings for persistent gender gaps in many artistic fields.