Katie Attwell and David T. Smith
The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the identity politics associated with parental hesitancy and refusal of vaccines for their…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the identity politics associated with parental hesitancy and refusal of vaccines for their children (“vaccine hesitancy or refusal” or “VHR”). Understanding these identity politics helps policymakers to craft appropriate communication interventions that do not make the problem worse.
Design/methodology/approach
Social identity theory is a way of understanding how group identities develop around the lifestyle practices that often include refusal to vaccinate, and how this group identity is accentuated by conflict with the pro-vaccinating societal mainstream. This paper critically appraises existing studies of VHR to explore this groupness across many different contexts.
Findings
Groupness is evident across many different contexts. There are also key group characteristics: preference for natural birth and breastfeeding, nature as a concept and use of complementary and alternative medicine.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is speculative and theoretical, using existing sources. Future studies will need to demonstrate empirically with new data. However, this theoretical approach sets up a new research agenda.
Social implications
These findings can help governments and policymakers minimise social conflict that risks further polarising vaccine conversations and wedging parents on the fence.
Originality/value
This paper argues that the decision to vaccinate or not is an inherently social one, not a matter of pure individual rationality. This is a novel approach to engaging with what is often characterised and studied as an individual decision.
Details
Keywords
Liz Matykiewicz and Robert McMurray
The purpose of this paper is to consider the ways in which certain occupational, organizational and political positions become active sites of leadership construction. Taking as…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider the ways in which certain occupational, organizational and political positions become active sites of leadership construction. Taking as their example the introduction of the Modern Matron in the English National Health Service (NHS) this paper considers how new forms of gender transcending leadership are constituted relationally through a dynamic interplay of historical, nostalgic, social, political and organizational forces.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was conducted within an interpretive paradigm of social constructivism and draws on data from semi‐structured interviews with a purposive sample of 16 Modern Matrons working in a single English NHS Trust. In keeping with inductive, qualitative research practice, data has been analysed thematically and ordered using descriptive, hierarchical and relational coding.
Findings
Their contention is that the Modern Matron presents as a site for relational leadership in respect of both self and other. This paper argues that the construction of Modern Matron usefully points to the ways in which multiple discourses, practices and relations may be intertwined in defining what it is to lead in contemporary organizations. This paper highlights the extent to which leadership is an on‐going relational co‐construction based – in this instance – in the interplay of four factors: nostalgic authority, visibility, praxis and order negotiation. Together, these produce a mode of leading that is neither heroic nor popularist.
Research limitations/implications
Further research might consider how competing temporal, political and organizational imperatives encourage the development of particular sites for leadership, and how such leadership is then re‐performed in practice, as well as the affects/effect on individual and organisational performance.
Originality/value
The data provides opportunity to consider the “lived experience” of leaders in sites that are traditionally gendered female in non‐standard/public sector settings. Moreover, this paper presents empirical evidence in support of leadership as socially constructed and relational, borne of tension between different temporal, spatial and experiential factors, the on‐going negotiation of which both utilises and transcends masculinized and feminized gender performances. The result is a form of “leading” which is often subtle, difficult to identify and self‐effacing.