Stephen E. Lunce and Stephanie A.M. Smith
This paper presents the results of a study that investigates the sophistication of the information technology (IT) employed by maquiladoras. The maquiladoras are Mexican…
Abstract
This paper presents the results of a study that investigates the sophistication of the information technology (IT) employed by maquiladoras. The maquiladoras are Mexican manufacturing and assembly plants that have been established by non‐Mexican, primarily US, companies to take advantage of several economic factors that should increase the profitability of these non‐Mexican firms. This research is designed to allow the research team to: (1) develop an understanding of the technologies found in the maquiladoras, and (2) assist in the development of an adequate model of IT architectures employed such that comparisons can be made of the architectures used by manufacturing firms located in the USA, Canada, and Mexico (the signatories of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement). In general, the results of this survey indicate the use of significantly more sophisticated IT than might otherwise be expected as a result of the general perception that maquiladoras should be organized to capitalize on the relatively low skill levels and wages of the hourly Mexican worker.
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Camille Griffith and Stephanie Masta
The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the role of Linda Tuhiwai Smith's book Decolonizing Methodologies in our work as Indigenous scholars.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the role of Linda Tuhiwai Smith's book Decolonizing Methodologies in our work as Indigenous scholars.
Design/methodology/approach
This article explores the application of Indigenous-centered research methodologies as outlined by Linda Tuhiwai Smith in Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Through the collaborative work of two Indigenous scholars, we examine how traditional academic structures rooted in settler colonialism can be challenged and transformed.
Findings
We did not have findings as this is not a research paper, but a reflection on how we used Tuhiwai Smith's work in the development and implementation of an Indigenous centered research project.
Originality/value
The originality of this submission is that it reflects on how Tuhiwai Smith's work was used in the natural sciences as opposed to just education/social science research.
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Alana Rovito and Audrey R. Giles
Purpose – In this chapter we examine the creation and implementation processes of an arts-based recreation programme for Aboriginal youth development in Canada…
Abstract
Purpose – In this chapter we examine the creation and implementation processes of an arts-based recreation programme for Aboriginal youth development in Canada called Outside Looking In (OLI) to determine if and how OLI’s staff and Board members perceive the programme to be influenced by Eurocentric ideas of programming and the impact this may in turn have on achieving Aboriginal self-determination.
Design/methodology/approach – Informed by postcolonial theory, we employed a case study design and collected data using semi-structured interviews, fieldnotes and a review of archival documents.
Findings – We contend that while OLI reproduces some aspects of Eurocentric programming, it also provides avenues to contribute to Aboriginal self-determination.
Research limitations – A limitation to this research is the absence of interviews with OLI’s programme participants; nevertheless, this research provides a starting point upon which future research can build.
Originality/value – Our research provides an insight into how youth development through recreation programmes for Aboriginal peoples are created and implemented. Most importantly, it provides evidence of the need to further reflect upon the ways in which such programmes can enable Aboriginal self-determination.
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Stephanie Lynn Craig, Sean J. Smith and Bruce B. Frey
This paper examines instructional coaching as a means to support teachers at all levels in primary and secondary schools in implementing new and innovative practices using the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines instructional coaching as a means to support teachers at all levels in primary and secondary schools in implementing new and innovative practices using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework as a design guide.
Design/methodology/approach
This mixed-methods study compared the impact of an instructional coaching intervention around the implementation of the UDL framework on educators versus the UDL implementation efforts of educators who did not receive the coaching intervention. Coached participants shared their experiences with the coaching cycle. These qualitative data were collected through teacher interviews, self-assessments, and observations. The data assisted in the interpretation of the quantitative findings from a quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test comparison group design.
Findings
The results of this study revealed positive outcomes for teachers in knowledge and application of UDL, although not at statistically significant levels. The qualitative data collected supported the positive gains and revealed that teachers valued and changed their practices from the use of coaching as they navigated the implementation of UDL in their learning environments.
Research limitations/implications
One limitation to be noted includes the district site that participated in this study had used the UDL framework for several years and maintained high expectations for teachers to increase their UDL-aligned practices each year. Therefore, all teachers who participated in this study were under the same district evaluative expectations to participate in professional development at some level to increase proficiency with UDL implementation, whereas a district in the beginning stages of UDL implementation might serve as a better gauge of growth. Additionally, the control participants were self-identified and not randomly assigned.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first conducted that investigates the effect of instructional coaching on teachers' increased understanding and implementation of the UDL framework. This study examines instructional coaching as a stand-alone professional development in supporting teachers' use of UDL in design-inclusive classrooms. Written into US law, the UDL framework is a scientifically valid framework that supports teachers with the design of flexible and accessible classrooms for an increasingly diverse population of students.
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Brent Smith, Stephanie A. Tryce and Carol Ferrara
To measure the relationships between varieties of patriotism and fan reactions to anthem-linked athlete activism and to test the effects of teammate allyship.
Abstract
Purpose
To measure the relationships between varieties of patriotism and fan reactions to anthem-linked athlete activism and to test the effects of teammate allyship.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study of US sport fans (n = 519), the authors examine whether two varieties of patriotism—the affective “symbolic patriotism” and the cognitive “uncritical patriotism”—might explain fans' reactions (support v. opposition) to anthem-linked athlete activism. The authors also consider whether fans' acceptance of nonactivist teammate allyship moderates patriotism influences on those reactions.
Findings
Using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the authors posit and show that fans' reactions to athlete activism are driven more strongly by uncritical patriotism than by symbolic patriotism. The authors also show that fans' acceptance of nonactivist teammate allyship significantly moderate the strength and direction of fans' reactions to athlete activism.
Research limitations/implications
The authors contribute substantive, new knowledge into the sways of athlete activism, teammate allyship and fan patriotism within the sport world. By way of novel heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations, the authors show evidence of discriminant validities of symbolic patriotism and uncritical patriotism. Using PLS-SEM moderation tests, the authors also show that fans' acceptance of teammate allyship moderates the influences of these patriotism types differently.
Originality/value
Few empirical studies to date have investigated sport fans' reactions to athletes' displays of social activism (e.g. taking a knee to protest racism).
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Based on a case study of the ‘regeneration’ of the ‘Five Estates’ of Peckham, a neighbourhood located in south-east London, this chapter considers the social implications of urban…
Abstract
Purpose
Based on a case study of the ‘regeneration’ of the ‘Five Estates’ of Peckham, a neighbourhood located in south-east London, this chapter considers the social implications of urban ‘regeneration’ processes from an anthropological perspective centred on concepts of waste and value and highlights the emotional turmoil and personal disruption that individuals affected by regeneration plans routinely experience.
Methodology/approach
An ethnographic approach is used based on participant observation, unstructured and semi-structured interviews as well as limited archival research. Life histories are central to the methodology and these result in the substantial use of long quotes from respondents, to highlight the ways in which they framed the issues as well as their opinions.
Findings
The chapter shows how urban regeneration processes that involve displacements and demolitions deeply affect the lives of estate residents. In juxtaposing the voices and experiences of local politicians, officers and residents it sheds light on the ways in which the values and interests of some individuals — those invested with more power, ultimately — ended up shaping regenerated landscapes. At the same time, the homes and communities valued by the residents who lived in them were demolished, removed and destroyed. They were wasted, literally and symbolically, erased from the landscape, their claims to it denied and ultimately forgotten.
Social implications
The chapter highlights how while the rhetoric of regeneration strives to portray these developments as improvement and renewal, the ethnographic evidence shows instead the other side of urban regeneration as wasting both communities and urban landscapes resulting in ‘state-led gentrification’.
Originality/value
Thinking about regeneration and recycling through waste and value allows us to consider these processes in a novel way: at a micro level we can look at the ways in which individuals attribute to and recognise value in different sets of objects and social relationships. At the macro level we can then observe how the power dynamics that shaped the situation resulted in only a specific view and set of values to be enacted and respected, while all others were silenced, wasted and literally expelled from Peckham.
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David G. Smith and Mady Wechsler Segal
Institutional structures of professional career paths often support breadwinner–homemaker families, with a stay at home wife available full time to support the professional (and…
Abstract
Institutional structures of professional career paths often support breadwinner–homemaker families, with a stay at home wife available full time to support the professional (and children), so the professional can devote complete energy and time to developing a career. This research examines how two partners in the same narrowly structured, fast track occupational culture such as those occurring for dual military officer couples shape how women and men negotiate decision making and life events. Data from interviews with 23 dual U.S. Navy officer couples build upon Becker and Moen’s (1999) scaling back notions. With both spouses in these careers, placing limits on work is extremely difficult due to fast track cultures that demand higher status choices and structures that formally do not reliably consider collocations. Trading off occurs, but with distress due to the unique demands on two partners in the fast track culture, which means career death for some. Two partners in fast track careers may not yet have given up on two careers as many peers may have, but they lose a great deal, including time together and their desired number of children. But they ultimately posit individual choice rather than focusing on structural change. The pressured family life resulting is likely similar to that for partners in other narrowly structured, fast track cultures such as in law firms and academia.
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Stephanie van Hover, David Hicks, Elizabeth Washington and Melissa Lisanti
This study examined and traced the relationship between, and the influence of, the official standards documents of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the related day-to-day lesson…
Abstract
This study examined and traced the relationship between, and the influence of, the official standards documents of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the related day-to-day lesson planning and implementation of a pair of co-teachers. Using a case study methodology alongside a conventional content analysis we traced the processes of how these policy texts (the Standards of Learning [SOLs] for World History) were connected to and activated within the daily routines of these teachers who taught struggling students in a high-stakes testing context. The findings illustrated how the policy texts and discursive practices emerging from the State’s SOLs constituted a level of pedagogical governance that saw these teachers organize instruction clearly designed to support student recall on the end of year multiple choice test. Our work recognized the power of policy texts as they interact with teachers. The significance of unpacking policy documents in order to examine issues of power, symmetry and potential areas of negotiation in the planning and implementation of instruction for teacher educators is discussed.
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Stephanie Wheeler, Jonathan Passmore and Richard Gold
Collaboration and psychological safety are key factors to effective teams. LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) has emerged over the past decade as a development tool used in both…
Abstract
Purpose
Collaboration and psychological safety are key factors to effective teams. LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) has emerged over the past decade as a development tool used in both educational and workplace settings for a range of purposes. In this study, the authors sought to investigate the impact of the experience of participating in a LSP away-day on the collaboration and psychological safety of the participants.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study the subjective experience of participants of LSP workshop awaydays using a coaching approach were examined through interpretative phenomenological analysis. Members of two teams were invited to participate in team awaydays and approximately six weeks later, they were invited to share their reflections on the experience and its impact on team relationships and team performance.
Findings
The interviews revealed that participants' felt experience of engaging with LSP was positive, created closer bonds within the team and a better understanding of each other and the challenges which the team were facing. Participants reported a tangible change in the way they are collaborating and engaging not only just with fellow participants but also with other colleagues.
Originality/value
The experience of the participants in this study supports the view that LSP can have a positive role to play in developing psychological safety and collaboration in organisational teams and that there was a lasting impact on group norms which was sustained after the event.
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Fiona Pacey, Jennifer Smith-Merry, James Gillespie and Stephanie D. Short
In 2010, Australia introduced the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for the health professions (the Australian scheme) creating a legislative framework for a national…
Abstract
Purpose
In 2010, Australia introduced the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for the health professions (the Australian scheme) creating a legislative framework for a national system of health workforce regulation, delivering a model of collective (and multi-level) government involvement in regulatory activities. The purpose of this paper is to examine how its governance arrangement compares to different national systems and other health regulatory bodies in Australia.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative case study is informed by documentary analysis in conjunction with policy mapping. This is part of a larger project investigating the policy pathway which led to establishment of the Scheme. The authors compare the Scheme with other Australian health standard setting and regulatory bodies.
Findings
The Australian scheme’s governance model supported existing constitutional arrangements, and enabled local variations. This facilitated the enduring interest of ministers (and governments) on matters of health workforce and articulated the activities of the new regulatory player. It maintains involvement of the six states and two territories, with the Commonwealth Government, and profession-specific boards and accreditation agencies. This resulted in a unique governance framework delivering a new model of collective ministerial responsibility. The governance design is complex, but forges a new way to embed existing constitutional arrangements within a tripartite arrangement that also delivers National Boards specific to individual health professions and an organisation to administer regulatory activities.
Originality/value
This study demonstrates that effective design of governance arrangements for regulatory bodies needs to address regulatory tasks to be undertaken as well as the existing roles, and ongoing interests of governments in participating in those regulatory activities. It highlights that a unique arrangement, while appearing problematic in theory may in practice deliver intended regulatory outcomes.