Lara Whitelaw, Trevor Collins, Zdenek Zdrahal, Paul Mulholland, Linda Potter, Non Scantlebury and Josie Taylor
The purpose of this paper is to develop support for the annotation of educational resources within a digital library and their subsequent integration with distance learning course…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop support for the annotation of educational resources within a digital library and their subsequent integration with distance learning course materials in a virtual learning environment.
Design/methodology/approach
A toolset for supporting the annotation of structured course materials was developed in participation with subject librarians, lecturers and library cataloguers.
Findings
The transparency of support provided by the system was found to be an important factor influencing the acceptance of the toolset. The approach was to facilitate rather than automate the annotation tasks of the subject librarians, lecturers and cataloguers.
Research limitations/implications
The tools developed were used in two pilot applications: one for an undergraduate health and social care course, and the second for a postgraduate science communication course. The implications of the research are not limited to these domains, and further applications of this approach and the toolset would help to further generalize and refine the work done.
Originality/value
The value of the work described here is in identifying the benefits of transparent support tools for multi‐disciplinary teams involved in the production and deployment of online course materials. Here the benefits of metadata annotation are highlighted by enabling the subject librarians, lecturers and cataloguers to see how the annotations are made and the consequences of those choices.
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Clair Doloriert and Sally Sambrook
This paper aims to draw attention to a unique paradox concerning doing an autoethnography as a PhD. On the one hand, a student may feel a pull towards revealing a vulnerable…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to draw attention to a unique paradox concerning doing an autoethnography as a PhD. On the one hand, a student may feel a pull towards revealing a vulnerable, intimate, autoethnographic self, yet on the other hand she may be pushed away from this because the oral/viva voce examination process may deny the student anonymity. Through the telling of this tale the complexities concerning self‐disclosure and student autoethnography reveal are explored.
Design/methodology/approach
The tale is autoethnographic: a fictionalised account based on real events and co‐constructed from substantial field notes, personal diaries, e‐mails, and reports.
Findings
This paper contributes to relational ethics concerned with self‐disclosure and the “I” of a reveal, and highlight the possibilities for developing Medford's notion of mindful slippage as a strategy for removing highly personal and possibly harmful elements within student autoethnography.
Research limitations/implications
The paper provides a preliminary theoretical framework that has not been empirically tested and is situated within “introspective” autoethnographic research.
Originality/value
The paper takes an innovative approach to autoethnography, addressing ethical value systems specifically within a PhD context.
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Sarah Parker, Tony Ward and Amelia Baldwin
This research aimed to explore individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) experiences of the therapeutic relationship.
Abstract
Purpose
This research aimed to explore individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) experiences of the therapeutic relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Six individuals with ID were recruited who were currently having 1:1 therapy. Semi-structured interviews focused on their experiences of the therapeutic relationship.
Findings
Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, six personal experiential themes were identified. These were labelled as a person-centred experience, the importance of adaptions, “I feel like I know you”, a secure base is offered, change does occur and an overlap of subjective experience. The results indicate that participants’ accounts of their experiences indicated that the relationship was important to them. This research also demonstrated that the benefits and value of involving individuals with ID in qualitative research.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, exploring the therapeutic relationship from the perspective of individuals with ID has not been previously explored in the literature. This research highlights considerations for therapists working with this population to help them facilitate positive therapeutic outcomes.
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Shahid Islam, Neil Small, Maria Bryant, Tiffany Yang, Anna Cronin de Chavez, Fiona Saville and Josie Dickerson
Participation in community programmes by the Roma community is low, whilst this community presents with high risk of poor health and low levels of wellbeing. To improve rates of…
Abstract
Purpose
Participation in community programmes by the Roma community is low, whilst this community presents with high risk of poor health and low levels of wellbeing. To improve rates of participation in programmes, compatibility must be achieved between implementation efforts and levels of readiness in the community. The Community Readiness Model (CRM) is a widely used toolkit which provides an indication of how prepared and willing a community is to take action on specific issues. The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a CRM assessment for the Eastern European Roma community in Bradford, UK, on issues related to nutrition and obesity.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors interviewed key respondents identified as knowledgeable about the Roma community using the CRM. This approach applies a mixed methodology incorporating readiness scores and qualitative data. A mean community readiness score was calculated enabling researchers to place the community in one of nine possible stages of readiness. Interview transcripts were analysed using a qualitative framework analysis to generate the contextual information.
Findings
An overall score consistent with vague awareness was achieved, which indicates a low level of community readiness. This score suggests that there will be a low likelihood of participation in currently available nutrition and obesity programmes.
Originality/value
To our knowledge, this is the first study to apply the CRM in the Roma community for any issue. The authors present the findings for each of the six dimensions that make up the CRM together with salient qualitative findings.
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Seeks to examine how far Michael Lipsky's theory of discretion as it relates to public sector professionals as “street‐level bureaucrats” is still applicable in the light of…
Abstract
Purpose
Seeks to examine how far Michael Lipsky's theory of discretion as it relates to public sector professionals as “street‐level bureaucrats” is still applicable in the light of public sector reform and in particular the introduction of increased managerial control over professionals.
Design/methodology/approach
The main thesis in Lipsky's work, Street‐Level Bureaucracy, that street‐level bureaucrats devise their own rules and procedures to deal with the dilemmas of policy implementation is linked to public sector reform over the past 25 years or so. The article differentiates between three forms of discretion, rule, task and value and assesses the extent to which these different forms of discretion have been compromised by reform. Examples are drawn principally from the literature on school teachers and social workers
Findings
The findings suggest that the rule‐making (hence bureaucratic) capacity of professionals at street‐level is much less influential than before although it is questionable whether or not the greater accountability of professionals to management and clarity of the targets and objectives of organisations delivering public policy has liberated them from the dilemmas of street‐level bureaucracy.
Research limitations/implications
The work has focussed on the UK and in particular on two professions. However, it may be applied to any country which has undergone public sector reform and in particular where “new public management” processes and procedures have been implemented. There is scope for in‐depth studies of a range of occupations, professional and otherwise in the UK and elsewhere.
Practical implications
Policy makers and managers should consider how far the positive aspects of facilitating discretion in the workplace by reducing the need for “rule‐making” to cope with dilemmas have been outweighed by increased levels of bureaucracy and the “de‐skilling” of professionals.
Originality/value
Lipsky's much cited and influential work is evaluated in the light of public sector reform some 25 years since it was published. The three forms of discretion identified offer the scope for their systematic application to the workplace.
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Michael Edwards, Josie Soutar and David Best
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the design and methodology of the REC-CONNECT project and to determine whether a co-produced approach to research in this area between…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the design and methodology of the REC-CONNECT project and to determine whether a co-produced approach to research in this area between those with lived experience, those delivering recovery support, and those investigating recovery evidence, generated greater project impact.
Design/methodology/approach
A co-productive approach was taken during project planning, training delivery, data collection and community connecting activity. Workshop evaluations were collected at each training session that provided data on worker/peer volunteer wellbeing, workshop efficacy and organisational factors. Community connectors used REC-CAP for evaluating improvements in clients’ community engagement.
Findings
Whilst co-production as a research approach broke down barriers between theory and practice and delivered a wider community asset map, a number of hurdles emerged: buy-in of all participants; culture/competing agendas; overcoming sense of disenfranchisement of people in recovery; and resources, tools and timescales of research requirements.
Research limitations/implications
This is a small study in Sheffield. As such, data are limited. However, the implications spread to other vulnerable groups in other areas are evidenced, and the principles offer sustainability and partnership that go beyond time-limited projects.
Social implications
Co-production as an approach to research in the substance misuse field has a meaningful impact on the “end-user” of people in recovery through empowerment, better connected recovery pathways and evidence-to-practice-based support models.
Originality/value
The project advanced the emerging principle of reciprocal asset-based community development and designed a co-produced model to create a team of professional, volunteer and peer community connectors to engage and connect new individuals to recovery with existing community assets, and who themselves emerged as a community asset through the project.
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Cheryl A. Lapp and Adrian N. Carr
To show the reader that storytelling can be seen as a form of seduction based on emotional response and thereby preventing a change process within the organisation.
Abstract
Purpose
To show the reader that storytelling can be seen as a form of seduction based on emotional response and thereby preventing a change process within the organisation.
Design/methodology/approach
Case study in relation to a psychoanalytic approach to text as a place for emotional control.
Findings
Storytelling without psychodynamic analysis becomes easily storyselling.
Research limitations/implications
Text is seen as carrier of emotions that can be corrected through psychodynamics which implies that there remains hope for enlightment by the text.
Practical implications
Every form of storytelling is a form of addressing an audience that needs to be made aware of the psychodynamics of the text as part of the author.
Originality/value
The worst stories that are sold are those we sell best to ourselves.
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Thomas V. Maher and Jennifer Earl
Growing interest in the use of digital technologies and a Putnam-inspired debate about youth engagement has drawn researchers from outside of the study of social movements into…
Abstract
Growing interest in the use of digital technologies and a Putnam-inspired debate about youth engagement has drawn researchers from outside of the study of social movements into research on the topic. This interest in youth protest participation has, in turn, developed into a substantial area of research of its own. While offering important research contributions, we argue that these areas of scholarship are often not well grounded in classic social movement theory and research, instead focusing on new media and/or the relationship between activism and other forms of youth engagement. This chapter seeks to correct this by drawing on interviews with 40 high school and college students from a moderately sized southwestern city to examine whether traditional paths to youth activism (i.e., family, friends, and institutions) have changed or eroded as online technology use and extra-institutional engagement among youth has risen. We find that youth continue to be mobilized by supportive family, friends, and institutional opportunities, and that the students who were least engaged are missing these vital support networks. Thus, it is not so much that the process driving youth activism has changed, but that some youth are not receiving support that has been traditionally necessary to spur activism. This offers an important reminder for scholars studying youth and digital activism and youth participation more broadly that existing theory and research about traditional pathways to activism needs to be evaluated in contemporary research.
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Thomas V. Maher and Jennifer Earl
Prior social movement research has focused on the role that axes of inequality – particularly race, class, gender, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ…
Abstract
Prior social movement research has focused on the role that axes of inequality – particularly race, class, gender, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) status – play for who participates and how they do so. Age is another important axis of inequality. The pervasiveness of a youth deficit model, which casts young people as deficient and requiring benevolent adult tutelage, is of particular concern for youth. This chapter assesses whether the internalization of the deficit model influences young people's activism and how they perceive their engagement. Drawing on interviews with 40 high school and college students from a southwestern US city, we find that many young people have internalized deficit-model assumptions, affecting when and how they participated. This was most evident among high school students, who limited their participation because they were “not old enough” or gravitated toward more “age-appropriate” forms of activism. Interestingly, we found college students were more willing to engage in online activism but also felt compelled to do significant research on issues before participating, thereby distancing themselves from the deficit model's assumptions of their political naivety. Finally, some participants felt discouraged by the perceived ineffectiveness of protest, which resonated with deficit model narratives of the futility of youth engagement. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the impacts of an internalized deficit model as well as considering age as an axis of inequality in activism. Youth engagement is best supported by seeing young people as capable actors with unique interests, capacities, and points of view.