Claire Bone, Pat Dugard, Panos Vostanis and Nisha Dogra
The purpose of this paper is to examine students’ understandings of mental health and their learning preferences, in order to provide guidance for developing targeted mental…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine students’ understandings of mental health and their learning preferences, in order to provide guidance for developing targeted mental health education.
Design/methodology/approach
A study-specific self-administered questionnaire was used at two English schools (n=980; ages 11-18), incorporating a combination of open-ended and fixed-choice items. Data were subject to content analysis, cross-tabulation of frequencies and statistical analyses.
Findings
Overall, students understood mental health in terms of personal attributes or disorder, however older students were more likely to talk about relationships. Males were less likely to say they wanted to learn about mental health than females, believing they had no need to learn more. White students were also less interested in learning about mental health than Indian students. Overall, students said they would not use social media to learn, however Indian students were most likely to want to use it. Younger students preferred school-based learning to online.
Research limitations/implications
The questionnaires were study specific and self-report. However interesting demographic variations in responses were found, worthy of further exploration.
Social implications
Policymakers should consider targeted mental health interventions in schools and research the potential roles/barriers of the internet and social media. Long-term possible benefits relate to improved preventative strategies within schools.
Originality/value
Previous research has focused on the delivery of mental health promotion/education in schools, whereas the current study drew on a large sample of students to understand how they define mental health for themselves, as well as how they prefer to learn about it.
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Nadzeya Svirydzenka, Claire Bone and Nisha Dogra
Mental health of children and young people is often discussed in terms of mental illness, however, such an approach is limited. The purpose of this paper is to explore young…
Abstract
Purpose
Mental health of children and young people is often discussed in terms of mental illness, however, such an approach is limited. The purpose of this paper is to explore young people's views of what mental health is and how to stay mentally healthy.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper investigated young people's views on these two issues through a series of workshops. In total 218, 13-year-old schoolchildren produced posters with their impressions of the issues. Themes that young people identified were then discussed with them in terms of the existing Bright Futures definition of mental health. Poster responses were subsequently transcribed and thematically analysed.
Findings
The paper identified a number of themes for each question. Mental health was viewed in terms of personal attributes of an individual, illness, ability for personal management and establishing social relations. Young people saw mental health maintained through a combination of lifestyle choices, personal attributes, management of self and environment, social support and relationships, as well as treatment of illness. These themes corresponded to the ones identified by the Bright Futures.
Research limitations/implications
This study highlights the complexity of young people's views on the meaning of mental health. They were also more positive, open and competent in discussing mental health than previously suggested. However, a more systematic investigation of views and attitudes is necessary, including younger children. Additionally, health care professionals are likely to benefit from young people's engagement in planning and implementing strategies for better mental health.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the few to investigate the positive meaning of mental health with young people.
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The purpose of this paper is to formulate an analytical model for interpreting photographs in accountability statements from Barthes' celebrated theoretical work on photography…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to formulate an analytical model for interpreting photographs in accountability statements from Barthes' celebrated theoretical work on photography, La chambre claire; to offer a study of the communication of accountability by an NGO through the first detailed analysis, within accountability literature, of one photograph.
Design/methodology/approach
The study establishes a conceptual framework for examining photography based on La chambre claire's contrast of rational codes (Studium) with intuitive elements (Punctum). An application of the framework is provided in considering the heterogeneity and accountability of NGOs through an examination of the Oxfam Annual Review 2003/2004 front cover photograph.
Findings
The framework is enlightening: the photograph's Studium reflects the complexity of Oxfam's dual engagement in the corporate and charitable sectors, and the developed and developing worlds; its Punctum arouses sentiment and compassion.
Research limitations/implications
The study provides a model which may be applied to the wealth of photographs produced by contemporary organizations; the framework encompasses promotional images as well as photographic art, and is well suited to figurative photography. It is limited regarding photographs of a hybrid or abstract nature.
Practical implications
The analysis is of interest to accounting researchers, practitioners, trainees, auditors and any user of accounting and accountability statements. It illuminates the way in which photographs highlight, complement and supplement information more traditionally communicated in numbers and words.
Originality/value
The paper adds to research into NGOs; augments theoretical work on photographs in accountability literature; and expands the empirical literature on the interpretation of photographs in accounting and accountability statements.
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This chapter offers a reading of the inclusion of Susan Glaspell's short story, A Jury of Her Peers, in the casebook, Procedure. What does it mean that the editors turn to a…
Abstract
This chapter offers a reading of the inclusion of Susan Glaspell's short story, A Jury of Her Peers, in the casebook, Procedure. What does it mean that the editors turn to a secular, literary narrative to ground a consideration of “The Problem of Judgment?” How should we read the irony of the reading instructions they provide, which reproduce the blindness to form – to the significance of “trifles” – that the text describes? How do we read literature in the context of law? More specifically, what does attention to the form of the story yield for an understanding of legal judgment?
José-Santiago Fernández-Vázquez
This paper examines how organic candies are marketed as healthy and ethical choices on commercial websites through the use of visual, rhetorical and promotional strategies.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines how organic candies are marketed as healthy and ethical choices on commercial websites through the use of visual, rhetorical and promotional strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses social semiotics and multimodal critical discourse analysis to identify the narratives and discursive traits that organic candy manufacturers reproduce on their websites as part of their ethical branding policy. The dataset is formed by 10 websites that commercialize organic confectionery.
Findings
The findings indicate that sellers try to associate organic candy to healthiness, simple and traditional lifestyles and social awareness to distinguish themselves from their competitors. Often the ethical claims that organic candy websites reproduce are not justified.
Research limitations/implications
A major limitation of this study is that the investigation does not evaluate the effectiveness of rhetorical and discursive strategies on real consumer decisions. Further research of an ethnographic or empirical nature would be required for this purpose.
Practical implications
This study recognizes the strategies that organic candy sellers reproduce can help consumers make more informed choices. From the point of view of marketers, understanding the multimodal, rhetorical and discursive strategies that organic candy brands employ can be useful to devise their own marketing approaches.
Originality/value
The investigation contributes to a growing body of research about multimodal critical discourse analysis within food marketing studies. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first paper that analyses organic candy branding from a multimodal perspective.
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Christopher Cox, Hui Hua Chua, M. Claire Stewart and S.G. Ranti Junus
To highlight content of interest to this journal’s readership that promotes current thinking and activities in information technology.
Abstract
Purpose
To highlight content of interest to this journal’s readership that promotes current thinking and activities in information technology.
Design/methodology/approach
A selective conference report of the annual meeting of the American Library Association and a pre‐conference.
Findings
The largest conference of librarians, the variety of programs, activities, exhibit halls, creates one of the best professional development opportunities for librarians. Attracting librarians from all sectors and work environments from around the globe, this conference is hard to describe in a brief way except to say it is an experience. Documenting relevant programs about information technology was the goal of this contribution.
Practical implications
An alternative to not being present while gaining some information and coverage.
Originality/value
Contains information of particular interest to readers who did not attend these sessions. Introduces them to presenters and important hot topics.
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Nathan N. Cheek and Eldar Shafir
Poverty is a powerful context that affects billions of consumers around the world. An appreciation of this context and the ways it shapes thoughts, feelings, and behaviors is…
Abstract
Poverty is a powerful context that affects billions of consumers around the world. An appreciation of this context and the ways it shapes thoughts, feelings, and behaviors is essential to understanding the vulnerabilities of low socioeconomic status (SES) consumers. We synthesize research on consumption in poverty by reviewing some of the social vulnerabilities and frequent neglect, discrimination, and stigmatization encountered by low-SES consumers, as well as the cognitive challenges emerging from the experience of financial scarcity. These social, cognitive, and societal vulnerabilities highlight the importance of behaviorally informed programs and policies to address consumer vulnerability in contexts of poverty.
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THE centenary celebration is that of the apparently prosaic public library acts ; it is not the centenary of libraries which are as old as civilization. That is a circumstance…
Abstract
THE centenary celebration is that of the apparently prosaic public library acts ; it is not the centenary of libraries which are as old as civilization. That is a circumstance which some may have overlooked in their pride and enthusiasm for the public library. But no real librarian of any type will fail to rejoice in the progress to which the celebration is witness. For that has been immense. We are to have a centenary history of the Public Library Movement—that is not its title—from the Library Association. We do not know if it will be available in London this month; we fear it will not. We do know its author, Mr. W. A. Munford, has spent many months in research for it and that he is a writer with a lucid and individual Style. We contemplate his task with a certain nervousness. Could anyone less than a Carlyle impart into the dry bones of municipal library history that Strew these hundred years, the bones by the wayside that mark out the way, the breath of the spirit that will make them live ? For even Edward Edwards, whose name should be much in the minds and perhaps on the lips of library lovers this month, could scarcely have foreseen the contemporary position ; nor perhaps could Carlyle who asked before our genesis why there should not be in every county town a county library as well as a county gaol. How remote the days when such a question was cogent seem to be now! It behoves us, indeed it honours us, to recall the work of Edwards, of Ewart, Brotherton, Thomas Greenwood, Nicholson, Peter Cowell, Crestadoro, Francis Barrett, Thomas Lyster, J. Y. M. MacAlister, James Duff Brown and, in a later day without mentioning the living, John Ballinger, Ernest A. Baker, L. Stanley Jast, and Potter Briscoe—the list is long. All served the movement we celebrate and all faced a community which had to be convinced. It still has, of course, but our people do now allow libraries a place, more or less respected, in the life of the people. Librarians no longer face the corpse‐cold incredulity of the so‐called educated classes, the indifference of the masses and the actively vicious hostility of local legislators. Except the illuminated few that existed. These were the men who had the faith that an informed people was a happier, more efficient one and that books in widest commonalty spread were the best means of producing such a people. These, with a succession of believing, enduring librarians, persisted in their Struggle with cynic and opponent and brought about the system and the technique we use, modified of course and extended to meet a changing world, but essentially the same. Three names we may especially honour this September, Edward Edwards, who was the sower of the seed; MacAlister, who gained us our Royal Charter ; and John Ballinger, who was the person who most influenced the introduction of the liberating Libraries Act of 1919.