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1 – 10 of 269Krystal Wilkinson and Clare Mumford
One in six people globally are affected by infertility, and many turn to fertility treatment in a bid to have a child(ren). While many countries offer work-related legislative…
Abstract
One in six people globally are affected by infertility, and many turn to fertility treatment in a bid to have a child(ren). While many countries offer work-related legislative protections and provisions for those who are successful in conceiving a child, in the form of maternity and paternity-related supports and protection again discrimination – the same cannot be said for those struggling to conceive. There are similar inequalities when it comes to workplace policy and support. Drawing on data from our two-year research study on “complex fertility journeys” and employment, this chapter sets out the work-life challenges that arise when individuals find themselves navigating the considerable “reproductive work” of fertility treatment alongside the demands of paid employment, and how affected employees respond. It also touches on the challenges experienced by line managers tasked with offering support. The chapter concludes with implications for practice in terms of making organizations more “fertility friendly,” which should extend beyond support for attending fertility treatment appointments to include awareness raising, manager training, and support for the varied outcomes of treatment cycles, including involuntary childlessness.
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Librarianship’s dominant conception of the freedom to read is governed by a liberal principle of noninterference, wherein free readers are those who face no intentional…
Abstract
Purpose
Librarianship’s dominant conception of the freedom to read is governed by a liberal principle of noninterference, wherein free readers are those who face no intentional intervention in their choice of materials. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how this account fails to adequately capture systemic threats that impoverish people’s reading lives.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper deploys informal argumentation to expose a flaw in the dominant account of the freedom to read. The author uses a case study of comparative titles or comps, an editorial decision-making and justificatory convention that reproduces racial inequality in Anglophone trade publishing.
Findings
Comps present one example of how everyday norms and practices of literary production render people’s reading lives pervasively unfree, even absent some intent to interfere in them. The going account of the freedom to read calls, at best, for a greater diversity of book-commodities from which consumers may choose. However, the comp case suggests that this distributive remedy will be insufficient without relevant changes to the institutional arrangements that condition readers' choices in the first place.
Originality/value
This paper draws together insights from Library and Information Science, political philosophy and print culture studies to illuminate limitations in librarianship’s standard conception of the freedom to read. This reveals the need for an alternative, structural account of that freedom with significant implications for practice.
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Catarina Lucas and Joana Paulo
The purpose of this study is to present a general review that provides an overview of the concept of sustainability and the effectiveness of mathematics curricula in courses where…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to present a general review that provides an overview of the concept of sustainability and the effectiveness of mathematics curricula in courses where deeper work on economic and environmental sustainability has become central.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative methodology consisting of a review based on a pre-defined systematic method was used to exhaustively search and identify the most relevant answers to the research question: What is the role of mathematics to sustainability? To facilitate answering such a broad question, several concrete questions were formulated. Answers from published and unpublished documents were analysed. The quality of the extracted data was assessed, and the results were synthesized.
Findings
It was concluded that, on the one hand, the discipline of mathematics has much to contribute to solving the problems of sustainability; on the other hand, new mathematics is appearing stimulated by new challenges.
Social implications
This work presents social implications in an innovative way. It allows for an increase in educational sustainability by bringing the academic community closer to the business world and the challenges of society and, furthermore, by having a major impact on the motivation of teachers and students to develop cooperative work within university institutions.
Originality/value
The originality is based on an a priori analysis for the construction and implementation of didactic tools for university teacher training in the area of mathematics within the framework of sustainable development, both economically and environmentally.
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Amy Stornaiuolo, Jennifer Higgs, Opal Jawale and Rhianne Mae Martin
With the rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (AI), it is important to consider how young people are making sense of these tools in their everyday lives…
Abstract
Purpose
With the rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (AI), it is important to consider how young people are making sense of these tools in their everyday lives. Drawing on critical postdigital approaches to learning and literacy, this study aims to center the experiences and perspectives of young people who encounter and experiment with generative AI in their daily writing practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This critical case study of one digital platform – Character.ai – brings together an adolescent and adult authorship team to inquire about the intertwining of young people’s playful and critical perspectives when writing on/with digital platforms. Drawing on critical walkthrough methodology (Light et al., 2018), the authors engage digital methods to study how the creative and “fun” uses of AI in youths’ writing lives are situated in broader platform ecologies.
Findings
The findings suggest experimentation and pleasure are key aspects of young people’s engagement with generative AI. The authors demonstrate how one platform works to capitalize on these dimensions, even as youth users engage critically and artfully with the platform and develop their digital writing practices.
Practical implications
This study highlights how playful experimentation with generative AI can engage young people both in pleasurable digital writing and in exploration and contemplation of platforms dynamics and structures that shape their and others’ literate activities. Educators can consider young people’s creative uses of these evolving technologies as potential opportunities to develop a critical awareness of how commercial platforms seek to benefit from their users.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the development of a critical and humanist research agenda around generative AI by centering the experiences, perspectives and practices of young people who are underrepresented in the burgeoning research devoted to AI and literacies.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine Robert Pagès' 1948 conception of “auto-document” as a possible forerunner to the neo-documentalist conception of “documentality” as…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine Robert Pagès' 1948 conception of “auto-document” as a possible forerunner to the neo-documentalist conception of “documentality” as offered in Bernd Frohmann’s 2012 article “The Documentality of Mme Briet’s Antelope.”
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is conceptual and historical.
Findings
Robert Pagès' concept of the “auto-document” in his 1948 article proposed an understanding of documents that depends on the “uniqueness” of a document. His article proposed a post-Otletian theory of documents similar to a discussion of documents by Bernd Frohmann in 2012 with the concept of “documentality.” Further attention to Pagès work and to Frohmann’s works could result in new understandings of Briet’s works, could illuminate other works and authors understood as belonging to neo-documentation and could yield new understandings of documents and information from the perspective of documentality as a new philosophy of information and documents.
Research limitations/implications
Further attention to Pagès' work and to Frohmann’s works could yield new understandings of documents and the relation of documentary types across natural and sociocultural domains and bring renewed attention to documentality as a new philosophy of information and documents.
Practical implications
Attention to these issues could broaden the study of documents and documentation, increase the historical understanding of Suzanne Briet’s works and bring light to other works in neo-documentation, particularly in regard to the concept of documentality as a new philosophy of documentation and information.
Social implications
Attention to these issues could broaden the study of documents and documentation to include more broadly animal and other natural entities and our relationships to them. The works cited also illuminate an empirical science understanding of documents, documentary evidence and information.
Originality/value
This is one of the first papers commenting on Robert Pagès’ works and brings renewed attention to Bernd Frohmann’s works, as well as to neo-documentation and its concept and philosophy of documentality, as a new philosophy of information and documents.
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Sampa Chisumbe, Clinton Ohis Aigbavboa, Erastus Mwanaumo and Wellington Didibhuku Thwala
Dr Dongmei Zha, Pantea Foroudi and Reza Marvi
This paper aims to introduce the experience-dominant (Ex-D) logic model, which synthesizes the creation, perceptions and outcomes of Ex-D logic. It is designed to offer valuable…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to introduce the experience-dominant (Ex-D) logic model, which synthesizes the creation, perceptions and outcomes of Ex-D logic. It is designed to offer valuable insights for strategic managerial applications and future research directions.
Design/methodology/approach
Employing a qualitative approach by using eight selected product launch events from reviewed 100 event videos and 55 in-depth interviews with industrial managers to develop an Ex-D logic model, and data were coded and analysed via NVivo.
Findings
Results show that the firm’s Ex-D logic is operationalized as the mentalizing of the three types of customer needs (service competence, hedonic excitations and meaning making), the materializing of three types of customer experiences and customer journeys (service experience, hedonic experience and brand experience) and the moderating of three types of customer values (service values, hedonic values and brand values).
Research limitations/implications
This study has implications for adding new insights into existing theory on dominant logic and customer experience management and also offers actionable recommendations for managerial applications.
Originality/value
This study sheds light on the importance of Ex-D logic from a strategic point of view and provides an organic view of the firm. It distinguishes firm perspective from customer perspective, firm experience from customer experience and firm journey from consumer journey.
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Elisei Emili Lubuva, Placidius Ndibalema and Esther Mbwambo
The study aims to assess the effectiveness of engaging tutors in designing and using ICT integrated lesson activities in strengthening their pedagogical use of ICT competences.
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to assess the effectiveness of engaging tutors in designing and using ICT integrated lesson activities in strengthening their pedagogical use of ICT competences.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data from an intervention group of 70 tutors from two teachers colleges (TCs) were used to compare their level of ICT competences and domains of professional practice before and after the intervention. Document analysis, lesson observations and feedback from the learning management system (LMS) were used to describe tutors’ experiences from the intervention.
Findings
There was a statistically significant increase in tutors’ level of pedagogical use of ICT competences and domains of professional practice associated with hands-on practice in designing and implementing the intervention.
Research limitations/implications
The intervention focus on hands-on practice, actual teaching and learning needs, and the use of active learning strategies like flipped classroom and the LMS, were useful means for tutors to make sense of pedagogical use of ICT competences.
Practical implications
The results offer useful insights to teacher education institutions and policymakers on how to prepare professional learning and supportive policies to enhance teaching and learning with ICT for addressing the learning needs of the subject matter.
Originality/value
Creating 16 ICT integrated lesson activities helped tutors to learn pedagogical use of ICT competences by doing. Use of such intervention could be a useful strategy in teacher education institutions to reposition ICT competence development from reproducing technological competences toward developing knowledge creators who could innovate their pedagogical practice with support from mentors, digital learning resources and networks.
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