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This chapter examines the concepts of race and racism, critically reviewing their historical and contemporary applications in everyday life as well as in academic and policy debates. Racism has been extensively researched, with various theories and conceptualisations developed across social science. However, there is a great deal of disagreement regarding its nature, contemporary significance and empirical validation. This chapter examines these and attempts to synthesise some of the common definitions of racism provided in the literature. It explores related concepts and underlying themes pertaining to expressions of race and racism. Furthermore, it unpacks current knowledge about racial issues and discusses recent advances in the conceptual understanding of various forms of racism. It also elucidates the social, political and analytical applications of racism as a concept and the significance of racism in contemporary societies. The chapter concludes by highlighting how racism is a dynamic phenomenon, continuously evolving with the social, political and technological transformations in contemporary societies.

In August, 2015, Serena Williams, one of the most successful female athletes of all time, was body shamed in a New York Times article. The incident highlights the issue of unequal treatment of male and female athletes – while a muscular frame enhances masculinity for male athletes, a muscular physique invites body shaming for female athletes. In this study, symbolic interactionist theories regarding the generalized other are called into question. While George Mead's theorizing exhibits a nonproblematic role taking of the generalized other in a cooperative manner, this study reports the presence of paradoxical generalized others, and consequently, the incongruent role taking of a latent generalized other by individuals. This study investigates if the issue of body image exists among college female athletes, if college female athletes experience the dilemma of choosing between outstanding performance with a muscular frame or maintaining traditional female appearance. To provide answers to the question, female athletes in a midwest university were invited to fill out a survey. The survey results confirm the existence of a paradox between performance and appearance among some college female athletes.

Racism occurs in many ways and varies across countries, evolving and adapting to sociocultural history, as well as contemporary economic, political and technological changes. This chapter discusses the multilevel dimensions of racism and its diverse manifestations across multiracial societies. It examines how different aspects of racism are mediated interpersonally, and embedded in institutions, social structures and processes, that produce and sustain racial inequities in power, resources and lived experiences. Furthermore, this chapter explores the direct and indirect ways racism is expressed in online and offline platforms and details its impacts on various groups based on their intersecting social and cultural identities. Targets of racism are those who primarily bear the adverse effects. However, racism also affects its perpetrators in many ways, including by limiting their social relations and attachments, and by imposing social and economic costs. This chapter thus analyses the many aspects of racism both from targets and perpetrators' perspectives.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented, and none of the world’s think tanks could have predicted how far it would spread. People visualise the pandemic as a classic example of a VUCA environment (an environment characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity). Managing COVID-19 requires unique and different leadership qualities.

Purpose: This study’s rationale emphasises that VUCA demands strategic and agile leadership. Leaders across the globe must acknowledge the fact that the elements of VUCA, i.e. volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, are not synonymous and hence need differential treatment. Also, recommend adopting agile leadership to tackle the VUCA world.

Methodology: This is a conceptual study focusing on agile leadership. The study addresses the challenge of leading in the VUCA environment. The constituting components of VUCA are differentiated, followed by an extensive literature review of agile leadership.

Findings: VUCA is the new normal and is there to stay. Business leaders still need to counter VUCA due to their incapacity to distinguish and treat the components equally. Furthermore, there is an emergent need to develop an agile workforce, agile organisations, and agile leadership to combat VUCA. The study indicates that business leaders must be agile enough to handle the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises. There is a constant need to ensure agility. This study will provide a deep insight into VUCA and help business leaders emerge victorious in turbulent times.

This chapter is dedicated to understanding the idea of international as a key notion to the development of globalisation and to promoting the rescaling of spaces and subjects in contemporary higher education. The author discusses the concept of scale as a performative device that activates the capacities of bodies. Instead of seeing scale as a naturalised and hierarchical structure of spatial distribution, the author understands it as an ensemble of discourses and practices that produce scalar effects. Globalisation uses scale to promote the idea that subjects would become ‘international’ by being linked to privileged spaces and bodies in the Global North. In this sense, globalisation is not merely about nodes where certain flows converge. Rather, the author understands it as the political conditions that control and constrain the space for certain flows to occur and not others. Using assemblage analysis, the author presents and analyses three scenes taken from his ethnographic records that have as a guiding line the materialisation of the international. These scenes report the experience of being a Latin American doctoral student attending a congress in the United States, a tense situation experienced at a Chilean university academic event, and the unpretentious manifestation of an elaborate idea of internationality from a personal experience of a trip to India. The results point to three elaborations of the international: an optimistic view of a shared world, a geopolitical internationality and the production of a global corporeality.

Four reputed leaders for the coming years in the field of special education for individuals with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) each with a slightly different perspective on the field were asked to respond independently to a prompt asking what does special education mean for students with EBD and what is being done and how do we maintain tradition? The contributors' responses to the prompt are presented and then summarized across the essays. A remarkable consistency emerges across the independent essays. In addition to the tradition of providing a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment, the contributors identify needs to support teachers serving this population. Needs in teacher training and the expertise required to meet the needs of individuals with EBD are outlined as well as potential contributions of technology to carry out specific tasks. We conclude with a call for increased advocacy for use of the knowledge that we currently possess and that which will soon be discovered to support students with EBD as well as their teachers. We also note that the contributors' names are listed alphabetically to acknowledge the equality of each person to the final product.

This concluding chapter summarises the main themes and topics discussed in this book, synthesising the key issues facing contemporary anti-racism efforts. It reflects on a possible anti-racist future(s) in a context of greater sociocultural affiliations and more interconnected local and global environments. Ideas about race and ethnicity have adapted, and racial hierarchies, structures and processes continuously shape the way social groups engage, interact and live with difference. This raises questions regarding the enduring influence of race and racism. What will the state of multiracial societies be in the evolving digital economy that has transformed the structural and institutional environment affecting everyday life? What kind of an anti-racist future can be imagined that will contribute to ensuring greater social equity? This chapter ponders on a range of possibilities to chart directions towards an anti-racist future that fosters increased intercultural understanding for relational engagements across difference. It draws conclusions and lessons for an anti-racist future and lays out some directions for future research.