Information is knowledge of a particular fact, event, or situation. People in business use information to analyse and resolve problems and to plan strategy. People often do not…
Abstract
Information is knowledge of a particular fact, event, or situation. People in business use information to analyse and resolve problems and to plan strategy. People often do not distinguish between information and data. Data are records of facts and events; they are a source of information. By themselves data have no meaning. Information is this data manipulated and presented.
Atcharee Chantamool, Choopug Suttisa, Thom Gatewongsa, Apiradee Jansaeng, Narongsak Rawarin and Hanvedes Daovisan
This study aims to explore how indigenous knowledge, cultural heritage preservation and ethnic identity influence the production of traditional ikat textiles in northeast Thailand.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how indigenous knowledge, cultural heritage preservation and ethnic identity influence the production of traditional ikat textiles in northeast Thailand.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research method used an ethnographic perspective with a realistic design. Purposive sampling was used to conduct 30 in-depth ethnographic interviews with members of Phu Thai ikat textile groups in Kalasin province. Interview transcripts were studied using thick descriptive analysis (themes, categorisation, coding and keywords).
Findings
The ethnographic study shows that natural dyeing, traditional crafts, materials, designs and patterns are used in Phu Thai ikat textile weaving. The results reveal that indigenous knowledge, cultural heritage preservation and ethnic identity are relevant to traditional ikat textiles.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study uniquely focuses on a deeper theoretical understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage preservation, to sustain traditional ikat textiles.
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Eloise Labaz, Julie Nichols, Rebecca Agius and Quenten Agius
This chapter explores the Aboriginal artefacts ‘clapsticks’ as a form of cultural data – a means of disseminating cultural knowledge in the galleries, libraries, archives, and…
Abstract
This chapter explores the Aboriginal artefacts ‘clapsticks’ as a form of cultural data – a means of disseminating cultural knowledge in the galleries, libraries, archives, and museums [GLAM] sector. How might alternative methods of curation animate clapsticks as active objects that deliver effective knowledge transfer? This research aims to explore and extend current industry practices of the curation of clapsticks, within the existing parameters of technology, spatial capacity, financial support, and governance as part of the operation of the GLAM sector. The research problem, therefore, explores the past limitations of colonial framing of cultural institutions that once hindered the revealing, the disseminating, and the ‘awakening’ of the complexities of knowledge intrinsic to Aboriginal cultural artefacts. Informal communication with Aboriginal community members and academics was critical to providing cultural context as well as personal beliefs and aspirations vital to conceptualising the future of cultural representation. This investigation explores how a cultural centre offers a space and an opportunity to facilitate the clapsticks datasets in its capacity as a performance-focussed building rather than solely an exhibition space or keeping place. This potential represents a shift in thinking around the clapsticks being a lens through which the stories of Aboriginal culture can be disseminated.
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Daniel D. Liou and Carl Hermanns
The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze an Arizona university’s educational leadership program and the revisioning/restructuring process that program faculty have…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze an Arizona university’s educational leadership program and the revisioning/restructuring process that program faculty have engaged in to ensure that the program provides aspiring school leaders with the conceptual knowledge, dispositions, and skills necessary to transform their schools in ways that directly address the needs of Arizona’s increasing diverse student population and ensures equitable and excellent educational opportunities for every student.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a narrative inquiry approach (Clandinin, 2006), this study examined the Sonoran Leadership Academy and how the program faculty prepared aspiring school leaders to meet the needs of Arizona’s changing demographics.
Findings
The findings indicate that the program faculty have been able to work collaboratively to establish an ecological framework of transformative leadership to develop aspiring school principals’ dispositions to tackle systemic racism and practices associated with deficit thinking and low expectations of diverse student populations. By more explicitly and seamlessly weaving concepts and skills related to race, racism, and the structures and cultures that can either perpetuate or disrupt inequitable treatment of diverse student populations throughout all of the courses and experiences of the program, the program faculty made substantial progress in supporting their students to meet the program outcomes around equity and excellence and transformative leadership.
Research limitations/implications
The knowledge generated from this study is limited to one specific educational leadership program in Arizona, but the conceptual framework emerged from the study has implications on how educational leadership programs can embark on a similar revision effort to ensure that leadership studies is responsive to the issues of race and racism in the context of schooling and demographic change.
Practical implications
The results of this study will operationalize a new conceptual model to demonstrate concrete effective teaching practices on ways to prepare school leaders for diversity and demographic change.
Social implications
By the year 2050, it is estimated that white Americans will no longer make up the majority of the population in the USA. Since the school system has historically been envisioned as the bedrock of democracy, there is a pressing need for the educational system to respond to issues related to this demographic change and to prepare effective school leaders to establish conditions of equity and excellence for all children across multiple forms of diversity in their local schools.
Originality/value
This study contributes to scholarship in several ways. First, it introduces the field of educational leadership to an antiracist framework for critical race leadership studies and principal preparation. Second, it methodologically contributes to educational studies by using narrative inquiry to understand the experiences of those who are situated in the research context. Third, the paper connects theory to practice by identifying specific strategies on how to revise a program to meet the needs of diverse K-12 student populations, and how these efforts are connected to the university classrooms in the ways school leaders are prepared for transformative leadership.
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Joseph Calvin Gagnon and Brian R. Barber
Alternative education settings (AES; i.e., self-contained alternative schools, therapeutic day treatment and residential schools, and juvenile corrections schools) serve youth…
Abstract
Alternative education settings (AES; i.e., self-contained alternative schools, therapeutic day treatment and residential schools, and juvenile corrections schools) serve youth with complicated and often serious academic and behavioral needs. The use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) and practices with Best Available Evidence are necessary to increase the likelihood of long-term success for these youth. In this chapter, we define three primary categories of AES and review what we know about the characteristics of youth in these schools. Next, we discuss the current emphasis on identifying and implementing EBPs with regard to both academic interventions (i.e., reading and mathematics) and interventions addressing student behavior. In particular, we consider implementation in AES, where there are often high percentages of youth requiring special education services and who have a significant need for EBPs to succeed academically, behaviorally, and in their transition to adulthood. We focus our discussion on: (a) examining approaches to identifying EBPs; (b) providing a brief review of EBPs and Best Available Evidence in the areas of mathematics, reading, and interventions addressing student behavior for youth in AES; (c) delineating key implementation challenges in AES; and (d) providing recommendations for how to facilitate the use of EBPs in AES.
The archaeological record of small-scale societies is replete with examples of people expending considerable labor to craft both places and objects for communal rituals…
Abstract
The archaeological record of small-scale societies is replete with examples of people expending considerable labor to craft both places and objects for communal rituals. Archaeologists often infer these efforts to have been the product of aspiring elites. This chapter focuses instead on the larger community responsible for the construction of places and objects, through a ritual economy analysis of the social logic people use to organize the production of ritual places and paraphernalia. A review of ethnographic and archaeological data suggests that the production of communal ritual places often involves the creation of sociograms, while the production of objects for use within these places encompasses a web of complementary and competitive relations. Two examples of large-scale communal ritual spaces, the early British Neolithic causewayed enclosures and the Ohio Hopewell geometric earthworks, are explored in light of these ethnographic and archaeological patterns.
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are…
Abstract
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are…
Abstract
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.
The purpose of this monograph is to present the first English translation of a unique French colonial report on women living under colonial rule in West Africa.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this monograph is to present the first English translation of a unique French colonial report on women living under colonial rule in West Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
The issue begins with a discussion of the contribution this report makes to the history of social development policy in Africa, and how it serves the on‐going critique of colonisation. This is followed by the English translation of the original report held in the National Archives of Senegal. The translation is accompanied by explanatory notes, translator’s comments, a glossary of African and technical terms, and a bibliography.
Findings
The discussion highlights contemporary social development policies and practices which featured in identical or similar forms in French colonial social policy.
Practical implications
As the report demonstrates, access to basic education and improving maternal/infant health care have dominated the social development agenda for women in sub‐Saharan Africa for over a century, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future in the Millennium Development Goals which define the international community’s agenda for social development to 2015. The parallels between colonial and post‐colonial social policies in Africa raise questions about the philosophical and cultural foundations of contemporary social development policy in Africa and the direction policy is following in the 21st century.
Originality/value
Though the discussion adopts a consciously postcolonial perspective, the report that follows presents a consciously colonial view of the “Other”. Given the parallels identified here between contemporary and colonial policy‐making, this can only add to the value of the document in exploring the values that underpin contemporary social development practice.
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Gracie Irvine, Natasha Pauli, Renata Varea and Bryan Boruff
The Ba River catchment and delta on the island of Viti Levu, Fiji, supports a wealth of livelihoods and is populated by diverse communities who are living with an increased…
Abstract
The Ba River catchment and delta on the island of Viti Levu, Fiji, supports a wealth of livelihoods and is populated by diverse communities who are living with an increased frequency and intensity of hydro-meteorological hazards (floods, cyclones and droughts). Participatory mapping as part of focus group discussions is a tool that can be used to elucidate communities’ understanding of the differing impacts of multiple hazards, as well as the strategies used to prepare and respond to different hazards. In this chapter, the authors present the results of qualitative research undertaken with members of three communities along the Ba River, from the Nausori highlands to the coastal mangroves, with a particular focus on recent floods (2009, 2012) and Tropical Cyclone Winston (2016). The communities draw on a wide range of livelihood strategies from fishing and agriculture to tourism and outside work. Natural hazard events vary in their impact on these livelihood strategies across the landscape and seascape, so that community members can adjust their activities accordingly. The temporal ‘signatures’ of ongoing impacts are also variable across communities and resources. The results suggest that taking a broad, landscape (and seascape) approach to understanding how communities draw livelihoods is valuable in informing effective and inclusive adaptation strategies for environmental change. Furthermore, documenting how the landscape is used in a mapped output may be a valuable tool for future social impact assessment for resource extraction activities.