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The author argues that the familiar distinction between interpretive and non-interpretive theories of constitutional interpretation obscures another important distinction: that between hermeneutically open and hermeneutically closed theories. Closed theories seek resolution to constitutional conflict by employing methods of interpretation that are intuitively persuasive. Open theories deny that such methods are always available, and seek resolution of conflict through a combination of legal, political, and social means. The author argues that closed theories have failed to live up to their implicit promise of self-justification, and examines the practice of constitutional interpretation in Canada and Australia to support this view.

The paper reviews some basic themes in postmodernism and argues for a moderate incorporation of these themes in organization studies and methodology. This approach, named interpretive unpacking, takes issues of multiple and fluid meanings, ambiguities and fragmentation seriously without the a priori privileging of these qualities over assumptions of stable meanings and coherence in social phenomena. The suggested position is illustrated in the fields of identity and image in organization studies through a critical reading of a key text. Assumptions around identities, identification, beliefs, perceptions and images are here problematized and seen as themes for critical exploration and careful interpretive inquiry rather than as robust starting points for the formulation of hypothesis for testing.

This chapter explains the research design. An interpretive methodology was considered most suitable for the study. Informed by an institutional framework, the interpretive methodology was selected for this monograph for its strengths of focusing on the research context, interactive processes, and meanings that are not measurable by quantitative approach. The interpretive methodology is also consistent with the ontological and epistemological positions of the researchers. Data were collected from interviewing four groups of key persons and a document survey. The data triangulation and multiple perspectives helped increase the reliability and validity of the study. Also, conducting data collection in a natural setting produced a rich data source. This enabled the provision of an enhanced understanding of the operation and effectiveness of corporate governance and financial reporting practice in a real setting. In addition, the systematic set of data analysis procedures helped improve research rigor and develop conceptual and theoretical understanding of issues of interest.

This chapter explores the idea of paradigm shifts and the changes that have taken place in the field of teaching and teacher education over the past four decades. The work unpacks how teachers, their practices, their professional development, and their education are conceived in the positivist and interpretive paradigms. The study of teaching and teacher education is likewise shaped by the ontological and epistemological underpinnings associated with different research methods and the paradigms with which they are associated. To demonstrate the influence of paradigms, this chapter concludes with a rich example of how the interpretive tradition has shaped a teacher education program in northern Finland.

This chapter explores queer theory as a “thought of a method” in educational ethnography by sharing stories of two third grade boys and situating them in a discussion of Britzman’s ideas about reading and Butler’s notion of fantasy. The stories are presented as a possible queer educational ethnography, in which the ethnographer writes the fantastic narrative of the boys as they read creatively to reveal and unsettle gender and reading as sites of constraint to which other constraints adhere. The boys’ reading itself is a queer reading of these constraints and as such makes alterity visible and possible. The study and the methodological framework suggest that educational ethnographers and other adults who work in schools should become attuned to the markers of constraint and alterity, so as to recognize, shelter, and maintain the alterity that children make possible. The chapter asserts children must be allowed to read for alterity, and shows how fantastic narratives that emerge from such readings are limited by the hushing of individuals who disallow alterity in classrooms. Ultimately, this chapter is relevant to ethnographers of education in that it suggests that queer theory not only is necessary to narrate and thus shelter the ways that gender can and should be unsettled in classrooms, but also allows us to narrate and shelter other queer urgencies related to fear, violence, and vulnerability that children experience or share in classrooms. Implications for the current climate of school reform based on standardization of curriculum are also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to forward an extension of reception analysis as a way to incorporate and give insight to social media mediations and big data in a qualitative marketing perspective. We propose a research method that focuses on discursive developments in consumer debates for example on YouTube – a large-scale open-access social media platform – as opposed to the closed and tightknit communities investigated by netnography.

Online reception analysis

Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, we find that big data can enrich online reception analyses by showing new aspects of weak tie online networks and consumers meaning making.

The potential of online reception analysis is to encompass a discursive perspective on consumer interactions on large-scale open-access social media and to be able to analyze socialities that do not represent shared cultures but are more representative of transitory everyday interactions.

Our method contributes to the current focus to define levels of analysis beyond research centered on individuals and individual interactions within groups to investigate other larger socialities. Further, our method also contributes by incorporating and investigating the mediatization of interaction that social media contributes with and therefore our methods actively work with the possibilities of social media. Hence, by extending the advances made by netnography into online spaces, online reception analysis can potentially inform the current status of big data research with a sociocultural methodological perspective.

Violence continues to escalate globally, despite efforts that are being made to curb it. Even though men constitute the majority of the perpetrators of violence, it is indisputable that some of the violence is also perpetrated by women. Qualitative in nature, this chapter is located within the interpretive research approach. Arguments made in this chapter are grounded in a socialist feminism approach, which foregrounds the importance of class and gender. Thus, this chapter drew from desk review and an empirical study conducted in Lesotho, utilising the Female Correctional Institution in Lesotho as the study site. The chapter explores women's perpetration of varied forms of violence. It aims at shedding more light on the drivers of violence perpetrated by women. The study unearthed that women's violence is mainly driven by poverty, gender inequalities, lack of social capital and self-defence. The author argues that future theoretical engagements and policy responses to women's violence could benefit from empirical evidence, which critically engages feminist approaches. The chapter is envisaged to contribute to the current debates on feminist approaches to women's violence.