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Article
Publication date: 16 April 2024

Lorenz S. Neuwirth and Jordan Bell

Lead is a well-established environmental contaminant that over the last 50 years has become recognized as a neurotoxin with its greatest concern for the developing child (i.e…

Abstract

Purpose

Lead is a well-established environmental contaminant that over the last 50 years has become recognized as a neurotoxin with its greatest concern for the developing child (i.e. both in-utero and postnatally). What is problematic is that children exposed to lead often come from lower socioeconomic status (SES), are largely Black communities and are further at increased risk for developing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The literature on ACEs had focused much on trauma, single parenting, child abuse, lack of finances and stress, etc., but has not considered the intersectionality of these ACEs as risk factors within environmental neurotoxic exposures such as lead poisoning. This is important as most low SES communities are Black. In particular, within the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), Black families have been neglected of proper lead-abatement to their apartments for nearly 70 years.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a viewpoint/perspective paper that examines the lived experiences of Black folxs in NYCHA through a Black critical theory (BlackCrit) and antiblackness framework pertaining to ACEs, and lead poisoning within the NYCHA system of New York City. This perspective paper draws upon the last three years of news reports, five decades of publicly available data sets from NYCHA and the comptroller to raise an awareness of how Black children are treated by NYCHA generation after generation which can be argued as a mass atrocity against NYCHA residents. Furthermore, the systematic and institutionalized racism and environmental injustices by NYCHA and the state can also be considered as a crime against humanity. As such, BlackCrit could help to position awareness, advocacy and knowledge about Black folxs residing in NYCHA to achieve fair, safe and affordable public housing to experience Black joy across future generations.

Findings

Thus, rather than civic and state government response efforts focusing their full attention and resources to serving and supporting individuals affected by ACEs they should equally consider the environments in which Black people live and also allocate funds proportionally to address these areas often overlooked. Moreover, proportions of these funds should be redirected especially to lead-abatement and removal of known sources of lead exposures, evaluation of suspected sources of lead exposures (i.e. drinking water, baby food and formula, children’s juice and cereal products, superfund and other waste sites, electronic recycling plants, etc.) and accompanied by all affected children undergoing full and comprehensive neuropsychological testing and follow up studies paid for by the state. The goal should have two fundamental objectives: (1) accepting accountability for failing to address these preventable neuropsychological issues directly affecting Black children generation after generation and (2) offering the proper waived or reimbursable supports and resources to help Black children sustain the best quality of life (QOL) trajectory possible when diagnosed with lead poisoning.

Research limitations/implications

The manuscript is a viewpoint/perspective paper grounded in BlackCrit and an antiblackness framework. There are ample public news reports and public data available from NYCHA on these matters over the last three years. However, the scope of this paper was not to delve too deep into these numbers per se, but rather to address the concerns leading up to and arguably contributing to, at least in part, to these numbers of lead-exposed Black children in NYCHA. Lead poisoning has never been considered as an ACE and its relationship to mass atrocity research is novel which may pave a new avenue for research of this kind through the utility of BlackCrit and antiblackness framework to support and advocate for change so that Black children can be provided with a basic human right of safe housing and experience Black joy.

Practical implications

BlackCrit has not been used in the context of lead poisoning research. Mostly individuals and families of middle- and low-income have been studied in the context of poverty and lead poisoning. However, many people who live in poverty, in public housing, within New York are Black. Thus, Black children are generation after generation exposed to unaddressed lead-abatement and it appears that now more than ever BlackCrit should become the framework for how this work should be discussed in the literature to raise awareness to state governments regarding Black folx's persistent lead poisoning, NYCHA's neglect and mass atrocity research as a long overdue advocacy effort to bring the necessary voice, authentic narrative, and actual knowledge of the lived experiences of Black families in NYCHA with lead poisoning.

Social implications

The goal of this viewpoint/perspective paper should have two fundamental objectives (1) NYCHA and New York State accepting accountability for failing to address these preventable lead poisoning issues directly affecting Black children; and (2) offering the proper support and resources to help Black children sustain the best QOL trajectory possible when diagnosed with lead poisoning.

Originality/value

Lead poisoning research has never been approached through a mass atrocity and BlackCrit framework and perspective. This is the first report on bridging these fields within the context of NYCHA public housing neglect of lead-abatement and continued poisoning of current and future generations of Black children. This failure of NYCHA lead-abatement contributes annually to economic loss in New York State for many years to come which could be entirely avoided.

Details

Journal for Multicultural Education, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2053-535X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 April 2024

Charles D.T. Macaulay and Ajhanai C.I. Keaton

This paper explores organization-level racialized work strategies for maintaining racialized organizations (Ray, 2019). It focuses on intentional actions to maintain dominant…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper explores organization-level racialized work strategies for maintaining racialized organizations (Ray, 2019). It focuses on intentional actions to maintain dominant racial norms, demonstrating how work strategies are informed by dominant racial structures that maintain racial inequities.

Design/methodology/approach

We compiled a chronological case study (Yin, 2012) based on 168 news media articles and various organizational documents to examine responses to athlete protests at the University of Texas at Austin following the death of George Floyd. Gioia et al.’s (2013) method uncovered how dominant racial norms inform organizational behaviors.

Findings

The paper challenges institutional theory neutrality and identifies several racialized work strategies that organizations employ to maintain racialized norms and practices. The findings provide a framework for organizations to interrogate their strategies and their role in reproducing dominant racial norms and inequities.

Originality/value

In 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was reinvigorated within sporting and corporate domains. However, many organizations engaged in performativity, sparking criticism about meaningful change in organizational contexts. Our case study examines how one organization responded to athlete activists’ BLM-fueled demands, revealing specific racialized work strategies that maintain structures of racism. As organizations worldwide disrupt and discuss oppressive structures such as racism, we demonstrate how organizational leadership, while aware of policies and practices of racism, may choose not to act and actively maintain such structures.

Details

Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-678X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 April 2024

Niall Cullinane

The 50th anniversary of Fox's Beyond Contract and Man Mismanagement coincides with another vital contribution to the sociology of work from 1974: Braverman's Labor and Monopoly

Abstract

Purpose

The 50th anniversary of Fox's Beyond Contract and Man Mismanagement coincides with another vital contribution to the sociology of work from 1974: Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital. This article analyses these two scholars' complementary approaches to job design and the extent to which Fox's ideas influenced subsequent labour process thought.

Design/methodology/approach

The article's methodological approach is a historiographical reading of Fox and Braverman's thought in the context of their times and later scholarship.

Findings

The article demonstrates that despite some noteworthy overlap with Braverman concerning scientific management, Fox's insights were marginal to later iterations of labour process analysis. It delves into the reasons for this relative neglect, providing an understanding of the dynamics at play.

Originality/value

This paper's value lies in its combined industrial relations and labour process historiography. It offers a fresh perspective on Alan Fox's relationship to the latter field of study.

Details

Employee Relations: The International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0142-5455

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 January 2024

Iris Vilnai-Yavetz, Shaked Gilboa and Vincent Mitchell

This study aims to identify the irritating aspects in the mall environment that impact shoppers with disability and explore the opportunities to design inclusive mall environments.

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to identify the irritating aspects in the mall environment that impact shoppers with disability and explore the opportunities to design inclusive mall environments.

Design/methodology/approach

A mixed-methods design was used in which data collected using a survey (n = 1,434 shoppers with and without disability) were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and repeated-measures two-way ANOVA. In addition, qualitative data were obtained from critical incident technique (CIT) stories (n = 521) from shoppers with and without disability.

Findings

Mall environmental irritants evoke feelings of irritation that mediate the impacts of “inconvenient ambient conditions,” “the annoying socialscape” and “overwhelming design and atmospherics” on decreased mall-visit frequency. Compared with shoppers without disability, shoppers with disability suffer more from these irritating aspects of the mall environment, as evidenced by significantly greater high-activation unpleasant emotions. The “poor access and accessibility” category of irritants mainly affects the mall experiences of shoppers with disability.

Practical implications

Based on the findings, this study offers spatial-, temporal-, social-, material- and virtual-oriented recommendations for the design of inclusive retail spaces. The authors suggest that people with disability have a unique “lived experience” perspective on retail environments and that solutions should be co-created based on ongoing consultations with shoppers and employees with disability.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study offers the first systematic, comprehensive comparison of the impact of environmental irritants on shoppers with and without disability and extends the literature on irritating aspects of retail environments from individual stores to malls.

Abstract

Details

Work-Life Inclusion: Broadening Perspectives Across the Life-Course
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-219-8

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 15 March 2024

Athitaya Nitchot and Lester Gilbert

Our study aims to focus on the application of knowledge mapping to provide pedagogically-structured learners' competences.

Abstract

Purpose

Our study aims to focus on the application of knowledge mapping to provide pedagogically-structured learners' competences.

Design/methodology/approach

We conducted an experiment examined the associations between the pedagogical quality of students’ pedagogically-informed knowledge (PIK) maps, class assignment scores and perceptions of PIK mapping’s uses.

Findings

The results showed that higher assignment scores were significantly predicted by higher quality PIK maps, ratings for PIK mapping were significantly higher than other mappings, and the learners’ experience of PIK mapping led to a significant change of attitude towards mapping as a learning activity and to a positive opinion of the value of PIK mapping in particular. Interestingly, there was no significant relation between learners’ opinion ratings of the uses of PIK mapping in learning and their assignment scores.

Originality/value

Questions remain on the generalizability of the findings, and on the features of a PIK map which are particularly useful to a learner. This study investigated the value of PIK mapping in the context of a practical class on the building of simple DIY (do-it-yourself) holographic projectors; it may be thought that the applied nature of the topic was more suited to the PIK mapping of learner competences and intended learning outcomes than a more theoretic classroom topic on holography. A future study is planned to address this issue.

Details

Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2397-7604

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 August 2023

Nicole Brownlie, Katie Burke and Luke van der Laan

The current literature on school teacher-created summative assessment lacks a clear consensus regarding its definition and key principles. The purpose of this research was…

Abstract

Purpose

The current literature on school teacher-created summative assessment lacks a clear consensus regarding its definition and key principles. The purpose of this research was therefore to arrive at a cohesive understanding of what constitutes effective summative assessment.

Design/methodology/approach

Conducting a systematic literature review of 95 studies, this research adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. The objective was to identify the core principles governing effective teacher-created summative assessments.

Findings

The study identified five key principles defining effective summative assessment creation: validity, reliability, fairness, authenticity and flexibility.

Research limitations/implications

The expansiveness of education research is such that not all relevant studies may have been identified, particularly outside of mainstream databases. This study considered only the school environment, so contextual limitations will exist.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study contributes original insights by proposing a holistic definition that can facilitate consensus-building in further research. The assimilation of core principles guided the development of quality indicators beneficial for teacher practice. The comprehensive definition, key principles and quality indicators offer a unique perspective on summative assessment discourse.

Article
Publication date: 29 March 2024

Jurgen Grotz, Lindsay Armstrong, Heather Edwards, Aileen Jones, Michael Locke, Laurel Smith, Ewen Speed and Linda Birt

This study aims to critically examine the effects of COVID-19 social discourses and policy decisions specifically on older adult volunteers in the UK, comparing the responses and…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to critically examine the effects of COVID-19 social discourses and policy decisions specifically on older adult volunteers in the UK, comparing the responses and their effects in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, providing perspectives on effects of policy changes designed to reduce risk of infection as a result of COVID-19, specifically on volunteer involvement of and for older adults, and understand, from the perspectives of volunteer managers, how COVID-19 restrictions had impacted older people’s volunteering and situating this within statutory public health policies.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses a critical discourse approach to explore, compare and contrast accounts of volunteering of and for older people in policy, and then compare the discourses within policy documents with the discourses in personal accounts of volunteering in health and social care settings in the four nations of the UK. This paper is co-produced in collaboration with co-authors who have direct experience with volunteer involvement responses and their impact on older people.

Findings

The prevailing overall policy approach during the pandemic was that risk of morbidity and mortality to older people was too high to permit them to participate in volunteering activities. Disenfranchising of older people, as exemplified in volunteer involvement, was remarkably uniform across the four nations of the UK. However, the authors find that despite, rather than because of policy changes, older volunteers, as part of, or with the help of, volunteer involving organisations, are taking time to think and to reconsider their involvement and are renewing their volunteer involvement with associated health benefits.

Research limitations/implications

Working with participants as co-authors helps to ensure the credibility of results in that there was agreement in the themes identified and the conclusions. A limitation of this study lies in the sampling method, as a convenience sample was used and there is only representation from one organisation in each of the four nations.

Originality/value

The paper combines existing knowledge about volunteer involvement of and for older adults.

Details

Quality in Ageing and Older Adults, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1471-7794

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 22 February 2024

Daniele Morselli

This article focuses on the assessment of entrepreneurship competence by selected vocational teachers in Italy. The exploratory research question addresses the extent to which…

Abstract

Purpose

This article focuses on the assessment of entrepreneurship competence by selected vocational teachers in Italy. The exploratory research question addresses the extent to which entrepreneurship assessments are competence based, and the research seeks to identify fully fledged assessment programmes with both a formative and summative component, and the use of assessment rubrics. It also explores the extent to which entrepreneurship competence is referred to in school documentation and later assessed, and the tools and strategies used for such assessment.

Design/methodology/approach

This case study is part of a larger European research project promoted by Cedefop; in Italy it focused on six selected vocational IVET and CVET programmes and apprenticeship schemes. It used a wide range of instruments to ensure triangulation and multiple perspectives: analysed policy documents and undertook online interviews with experts and policy makers. At VET providers' premises it deployed: analysis of school documents; observations of learning environments; interviews and focus groups with (in schools) teachers, directors and vice directors, learners and alumni (in companies) instructors, company tutors and employers, apprentices and alumni.

Findings

Assessment tasks were rarely embedded within fully fledged assessment programmes involving both formative and summative tasks, and assessment rubric for grading. Most of the time, entrepreneurship programmes lacked self-assessment, peer assessment and structured feedback and did not involve learners in the assessment process. Some instructors coached the students, but undertook no clear formative assessment. These findings suggest institutions have a testing culture with regard to assessment, at the level of both policy and practice. In most cases, entrepreneurship competence was not directly assessed, and learning outcomes were only loosely related to entrepreneurship.

Research limitations/implications

One limitation concerned the selection of the VET providers: these were chosen not on a casual basis, but because they ran programmes that were relevant to the development of entrepreneurship competence.

Practical implications

At the policy level, there is a need for new guidelines on competence development and assessment in VET, guidelines that are more aligned with educational research on competence development. To ensure the development of entrepreneurship competence, educators need in-service training and a community of practice.

Originality/value

So far, the literature has concentrated on entrepreneurship education at the tertiary level. Little is known about how VET instructors assess entrepreneurship competence. This study updates the picture of policy and practice in Italy, illustrating how entrepreneurship competence is developed in selected IVET and CVET programmes and apprenticeships.

Details

Education + Training, vol. 66 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0040-0912

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 December 2023

Daniel Wigfield and Ryan Snelgrove

The purpose of this research is to explore how one unsanctioned community sport organization (CSO), AM Hockey, sought to acquire legitimacy in a highly institutionalized minor…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this research is to explore how one unsanctioned community sport organization (CSO), AM Hockey, sought to acquire legitimacy in a highly institutionalized minor hockey marketplace at various points in its organizational life cycle.

Design/methodology/approach

This study was guided by instrumental case study methodology. Twenty (20) AM Hockey stakeholders from a variety of roles (e.g. executives, program directors and coaches) were interviewed. Document analysis was also utilized to supplement the interviewees. Internal and public documents reflective of the CSO's creation and growth were obtained.

Findings

Findings revealed that the CSO had to navigate distinct phases of evolution including the Building, Growth, Competition and Stabilization phases. Although the four life cycle phases identified in this study share similarities with the phases identified by Lester et al. (2003), findings indicated that institutional work mechanisms must be understood in their context as they can vary over the life cycle of an organization. Therefore, start-up sports organizations must approach the pursuit of legitimacy as a continual process rather than something acquired and defended through maintenance work.

Originality/value

Developing legitimacy remains a central challenge for CSOs that seek to deliver alternative sport programming, yet it continues to be understudied. Ultimately, the long-term viability of an unsanctioned CSO in a federated sports system relies, in part, on its ability to continually determine the actions needed to achieve legitimacy within its environment.

Details

Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal, vol. 14 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-678X

Keywords

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