Jacquelynn S. Popp, Josh Montgomery, Jodi Hoard and Cynthia Brock
The purpose of this paper is to empower teachers to engage in a process of curricular transformation to integrate a social justice framework, even if it means starting with small…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empower teachers to engage in a process of curricular transformation to integrate a social justice framework, even if it means starting with small steps.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors present a set of guiding principles on which social studies teachers can draw to transform their curriculum to embody a social justice framework within and across units of historical inquiry. The principles are anchored in an example historical unit, the Chicago Haymarket Affair of 1886, and an analogous contemporary sub-unit, The Exonerated Five (formerly The Central Park Five incident of 1989).
Findings
The guiding principles represent an accessible approach educators can flexibly apply to their process of curricular transformation. The authors provide a balanced approach of emphasizing the need for educators to restructure social studies curriculum with the feasibility of this process at larger or smaller scales according to educators' readiness for change.
Originality/value
The authors outline a process to empower teachers to change the status quo of their social studies teaching, at a scale determined by the teacher. The authors provide a practical, concrete set of guiding principles for educators to make changes that represent social justice integration aligned with existing social studies curriculum and standards. The authors encourage teachers to reflect on their readiness for and progress toward transforming their curriculum to integrate a social justice framework.
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Jody Ralph, Laurie A. Freeman, A. Dana Ménard and Kendall Soucie
Nurses working during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have reported elevated levels of anxiety, burnout and sleep disruption. Hospital administrators are in a…
Abstract
Purpose
Nurses working during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have reported elevated levels of anxiety, burnout and sleep disruption. Hospital administrators are in a unique position to mitigate or exacerbate stressful working conditions. The goal of this study was to capture the recommendations of nurses providing frontline care during the pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 36 nurses living in Canada and working in Canada or the United States.
Findings
The following recommendations were identified from reflexive thematic analysis of interview transcripts: (1) The nurses emphasized the need for a leadership style that embodied visibility, availability and careful planning. (2) Information overload contributed to stress, and participants appealed for clear, consistent and transparent communication. (3) A more resilient healthcare supply chain was required to safeguard the distribution of equipment, supplies and medications. (4) Clear communication of policies related to sick leave, pay equity and workload was necessary. (5) Equity should be considered, particularly with regard to redeployment. (6) Nurses wanted psychological support offered by trusted providers, managers and peers.
Practical implications
Over-reliance on employee assistance programmes and other individualized approaches to virtual care were not well-received. An integrative systems-based approach is needed to address the multifaceted mental health outcomes and reduce the deleterious impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nursing workforce.
Originality/value
Results of this study capture the recommendations made by nurses during in-depth interviews conducted early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Barry Eidlin and Michael A. McCarthy
Social class has long existed in tension with other forms of social difference such as race, gender, and sexuality, both in academic and popular debate. While Marxist-influenced…
Abstract
Social class has long existed in tension with other forms of social difference such as race, gender, and sexuality, both in academic and popular debate. While Marxist-influenced class primacy perspectives gained prominence in US sociology in the 1970s, they faded from view by the 1990s, replaced by perspectives focusing on culture and institutions or on intersectional analyses of how multiple forms of social difference shape durable patterns of disempowerment and marginalization. More recently, class and capitalism have reasserted their place on the academic agenda, but continue to coexist uneasily with analyses of oppression and social difference. Here we discuss possibilities for bridging the gap between studies of class and other forms of social difference. We contend that these categories are best understood in relation to each other when situated in a larger system with its own endogenous dynamics and tendencies, namely capitalism. After providing an historical account of the fraught relationship between studies of class and other forms of social difference, we propose a theoretical model for integrating understandings of class and social difference using Wright et al.‘s concept of dynamic asymmetry. This shifts us away from discussions of which factors are most important in general toward concrete discussions of how these factors interact in particular cases and processes. We contend that class and other forms of social difference should not be studied primarily as traits embodied in individuals, but rather with respect to how these differences are organized in relation to each other within a framework shaped by the dynamics of capitalist development.
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James Shein, Rebecca Frazzano and Evan Meagher
The case briefly describes the history of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) under Ross Perot and GM before turning to the beginning of a tumultuous decade in the late 1990s. As the…
Abstract
The case briefly describes the history of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) under Ross Perot and GM before turning to the beginning of a tumultuous decade in the late 1990s. As the turn of the century approached, EDS made critical strategic missteps such as missing opportunities in the Internet space, overlooking the onset of client-server computing, and failing to obtain major Y2K-related projects. The company attempted a turnaround by replacing the CEO with Dick Brown, whose leadership helped streamline the sprawling company. Despite initial successes, Brown's tenure ultimately ended in failure, due largely to his failure to recognize the growing Indian market and his willingness to buy business at the expense of the company's margin. The disastrous multibillion-dollar Navy & Marine Corp Intranet contract typified the type of high-profile transactions that Brown pursued, often boosting EDS's stock price in the short term while eroding its cash flow short term and its profitability over the long term. EDS management went through several stages of the turnaround process: the blinded phase, the inactive phase, and the faulty action phase, until Michael Jordan replaced Brown as CEO and enacted a three-tiered operational, strategic, and financial turnaround.
EDS's near-decade of turnaround efforts takes students through every phase of the turnaround process and demonstrates that even initially successful turnaround efforts can become distracted, rendering them ineffective. The case will show both a failed turnaround and a subsequent successful one, while adding an international component with respect to EDS's overlooking an important, growing Indian market.
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Kevin T. Rich and Jean X. Zhang
We investigate whether municipal financial manager turnover is associated with accounting restatements. This analysis is motivated by the notion that suspect financial reporting…
Abstract
We investigate whether municipal financial manager turnover is associated with accounting restatements. This analysis is motivated by the notion that suspect financial reporting could limit the ability of stakeholders to assess the use of public resources (GASB, 2006). The evidence suggests that municipalities disclosing accounting restatements are more likely to see changes in the top financial manager position than a control sample of non-restatement municipalities. Overall, our findings are consistent with associations between financial reporting quality and the labor market for municipal financial managers, and imply that governments should consider adding the prevalence of accounting failures as an input in the evaluation of top financial managers.
The future is often portrayed as rational, logical, and informed by the continuing achievements of the scientific and technological revolution. In similar ways, our own time was…
Abstract
The future is often portrayed as rational, logical, and informed by the continuing achievements of the scientific and technological revolution. In similar ways, our own time was seen as marked by such advances by futurists of earlier decades. But at the end of the twentieth century, resistance to the claims of mainstream science and technology has grown to an extent unanticipated in these earlier appraisals. This essay argues that such resistance is liable to flourish in the twenty‐first century, and that understanding why this should be the case is important for studies of the future. In particular, this essay takes up the Fortean approach. This approach examines areas of human experience that are “damned” by mainstream science, and also examines the processes and strategies adopted both by those effecting the damnation, and those challenging it. The case being made is that although we can expect many of these damned phenomena to remain excluded – deservedly so in some cases – this will not always be the case.
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The thesis of this commentary is that the institution of war could be abolished through a combination of constructive programmes and obstructive programmes. Good works alone won't…
Abstract
The thesis of this commentary is that the institution of war could be abolished through a combination of constructive programmes and obstructive programmes. Good works alone won't end war. To transform dominator, warring cultures into egalitarian and nonwarring ones, constructive programmes are needed to prepare the way, to establish the groundwork for a new lifestyle. But, alone, they will not result in a paradigm shift on earth to a Gene Roddenberry‐style Star Trek future in which there is gender and racial equality, poverty has been eliminated and conflicts are resolved by the rule of law instead of through military force. Paradoxically, unless paired with the force of obstructive programmes, constructive programmes can enable dominator cultures to remain firmly in place. Moreover, to bring about a major social transformation, we will need leaders to unite men and women as full partners in shaping a massive cultural shift to a more egalitarian, just and nonwarring future.Can the people of Earth bring an end to the barbaric practice of war? Or is making war ‐ assembling armed groups that go forth to indiscriminately kill members of other groups ‐ something that evolution built into our biology, an inescapable, inevitable curse that at best can only be managed and mitigated?