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Article
Publication date: 8 March 2023

Elizabeth M. Pope and Stephanie Anne Shelton

Qualitative research is well-established and widely adopted across a range of disciplines; however, there is little discussion of the teaching of qualitative research methods…

Abstract

Purpose

Qualitative research is well-established and widely adopted across a range of disciplines; however, there is little discussion of the teaching of qualitative research methods. What engagements there are primarily focus on methods rather than core concepts that inform ethical and effective use of those approaches. “Subjectivity” and “reflexivity” are pervasive concepts taken up in numerous textbooks, handbooks, and journal guidelines. But, despite being an expected and critical aspect of qualitative methodologies, few scholars consider how researchers might learn to engage with these necessary aspects effectively.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual paper written from the authors' experiences teaching qualitative research to graduate students at the master's and doctoral levels.

Findings

This conceptual paper offers an andragogical discussion of how novice and student researchers might learn to consider the concepts of reflexivity and subjectivity. Additionally, it considers how the deep and critical reflection inherent in both subjectivity and reflexivity are valuable aspects in extending discussions and applications of qualitative research in various disciplines.

Originality/value

This paper offers a fresh and unique consideration of teaching novice researchers how to practice reflexivity and examine their subjectivities using the work of Alan Peshkin as a model.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 23 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 December 2022

Sergio Evangelista Silva and André Luís Silva

This article introduces a model of knowledge creation in consciousness, the creation of explicit knowledge in six forms and its register and organisation in documents.

Abstract

Purpose

This article introduces a model of knowledge creation in consciousness, the creation of explicit knowledge in six forms and its register and organisation in documents.

Design/methodology/approach

Assuming the premise of three realms of reference to knowledge and two forms of reference to entities, this article, through a phenomenological perspective, deduces a model of the creation of knowledge in consciousness and the creation of explicit knowledge in six forms and its register in documents.

Findings

Two basic types of knowledge are introduced: situated knowledge and theoretical/normative knowledge. Considering three realms of reference of knowledge – the space–time realm, subjectivity realm and linguistic realm – six general types of knowledge are deduced. Finally, three layers of knowledge organisation are presented: classification and mapping documents, theoretical/normative documents and documents of situations.

Practical implications

This article can contribute to the development of more efficient forms of creation of explicit knowledge, its register in documents and the development of more efficient knowledge organisation and management systems.

Originality/value

Relying on established perspectives of the realms where subjectivity is immersed, this article discusses how knowledge is created in consciousness and registered in documents. It also presents a novel perspective of types of knowledge through the combination of dimensions, realms of reference and forms of reference to entities.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 79 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 March 2023

Chong Zhang

There is widespread debate about the nationalistic top-down approach of citizenship education. By using the notion of cultural citizenship as a useful theoretical lens…

Abstract

Purpose

There is widespread debate about the nationalistic top-down approach of citizenship education. By using the notion of cultural citizenship as a useful theoretical lens, citizenship education research tends to focus on the process of subjectivity construction among students’ citizenship learning process. The Communist Party of China plays a dominant role in cultivating citizens in the form of ideological and political education (IaPE) in Chinese universities. The research problem thus focuses on the dynamics and complexity of how Chinese university students construct their subjectivities regarding citizenship learning through IaPE. The main purpose of the study is to provide some research directions for understanding students’ citizenship learning today.

Design/methodology/approach

With the case study of one university in China and interview data from 25 students, this paper examines the ways in which students understand and respond to dominant discourses.

Findings

The findings revealed there is a deficit of citizenship learning in IaPE, and students felt ideologically pressurized. This study suggests students’ complex subjectivities of active participants but confused minds as a phenomenon in Chinese higher education, in which they must involve in IaPE for personal academic and career development, while they adopted covert strategies for self-conscious citizenship learning expectations. These strategies took the form ranging from obediently completing basic curriculum requirements and distancing away by studying abroad, to actively searching for learning opportunities from other courses and media society.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to citizenship education research by recognizing the complexities of how subjectivities are formed in formal university settings.

Details

Social Transformations in Chinese Societies, vol. 19 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1871-2673

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 5 May 2023

Reha Kadakal

This chapter offers a critique of the affirmative forms of thought that attempt to ground the ontology of social being through subjective-idealist terms. Some recent examples came…

Abstract

This chapter offers a critique of the affirmative forms of thought that attempt to ground the ontology of social being through subjective-idealist terms. Some recent examples came in the form of notion of truth grounded in subjects' experience and in rationality of language and discourse. The first part of the chapter demonstrates the perilous implications of such an approach for social theory tasked with ontology and for the conception of truth necessary for its task. The second part scrutinizes the paradigm of society that stems from this subjective-idealist notion of truth and social ontology that adopts discourse, language, and literary metaphors to comprehend social being. As an alternative, the final part of the chapter offers a preliminary sketch of the relation of ontology, normativity, and mediation, as well as the notion of critique necessary for social theory tasked with ontology.

Book part
Publication date: 30 April 2024

Julien Grayer

Racial stigma and racial criminalization have been centralizing pillars of the construction of Blackness in the United States. Taking such systemic injustice and racism as a…

Abstract

Racial stigma and racial criminalization have been centralizing pillars of the construction of Blackness in the United States. Taking such systemic injustice and racism as a given, then question then becomes how these macro-level arrangements are reflected in micro-level processes. This work uses radical interactionism and stigma theory to explore the potential implications for racialized identity construction and the development of “criminalized subjectivity” among Black undergraduate students at a predominately white university in the Midwest. I use semistructured interviews to explore the implications of racial stigma and criminalization on micro-level identity construction and how understandings of these issues can change across space and over the course of one's life. Findings demonstrate that Black university students are keenly aware of this particular stigma and its consequences in increasingly complex ways from the time they are school-aged children. They were aware of this stigma as a social fact but did not internalize it as a true reflection of themselves; said internalization was thwarted through strong self-concept and racial socialization. This increasingly complex awareness is also informed by an intersectional lens for some interviewees. I argue not only that the concept of stigma must be explicitly placed within these larger systems but also that understanding and identity-building are both rooted in ever-evolving processes of interaction and meaning-making. This research contributes to scholarship that applies a critical lens to Goffmanian stigma rooted in Black sociology and criminology and from the perspectives of the stigmatized themselves.

Details

Symbolic Interaction and Inequality
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-689-8

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 September 2023

Melissa Yoong and Nourhan Mohamed

While past research has explored how opting-out enables mothers to break free from masculinist organizational cultures, less attention has been given to how they resist…

Abstract

Purpose

While past research has explored how opting-out enables mothers to break free from masculinist organizational cultures, less attention has been given to how they resist disciplinary power that constitutes and governs their subjectivities. This paper aims to add to the discussion of opting-out as a site of power and resistance by proposing the concept of “constructive resistance” as a productive vantage point for investigating opted-out mothers' subversive practices of self-making.

Design/methodology/approach

This Malaysian case study brings together the notion of constructive resistance, critical narrative analysis and APPRAISAL theory to examine the reflective stories of eighteen mothers who exited formal employment. These accounts were collected through an open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured email interviews.

Findings

The mothers in the sample tend to construct themselves in two main ways, as (1) valuable mothers (capable, tireless, caring mothers who are key figures in their children's lives) and (2) competent professionals. These subjectivities are parasitic on gendered and neoliberal ideals but allow the mothers to undermine neoliberal capitalist work arrangements that were incongruent with their personal values and adversely impacted their well-being, as well as refuse organizational narratives that positioned them as “failed” workers.

Originality/value

Whereas power is primarily seen in previous opting-out scholarship as centralized and constraining, this case study illustrates how the lens of constructive resistance can be beneficial for examining opted-out mothers' struggles against a less direct form of power that governs through the production of truths and subjectivities.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 September 2023

Yunfei Xing, Yuming He and Justin Z. Zhang

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused significant disruption to the global labor market, resulting in a rapid transition toward remote work, e-commerce and…

Abstract

Purpose

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused significant disruption to the global labor market, resulting in a rapid transition toward remote work, e-commerce and workforce automation. This shift has sparked a considerable amount of public discussion. This study aims to explore the online public's sentiment toward remote work amid the pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on justice theory, this paper examines user-generated content on social media platforms, particularly Twitter, to gain insight into public opinion and discourse surrounding remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing content analysis techniques such as sentiment analysis, text clustering and evolutionary analysis, this study aims to identify prevalent topics, temporal patterns and instances of sentiment polarization in tweets.

Findings

Results show that people with positive opinions focus mainly on personal interests, while others focus on the interests of the company and society; people's subjectivities are higher when they express extremely negative or extremely positive emotions. Distributive justice and interactional justice are distinguishable with a high degree of differentiation in the cluster map.

Originality/value

Previous research has inadequately addressed public apprehensions about remote work during emergencies, particularly from a justice-based perspective. This study seeks to fill this gap by examining how justice theory can shed light on the public's views regarding corporate policy-making during emergencies. The results of this study provide valuable insights and guidance for managing public opinion during such events.

Details

Library Hi Tech, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0737-8831

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 July 2023

Ritesh Kumar and Ajnesh Prasad

This study revisits the discourse on the neoliberalization of business schools and explores how accreditation-linked institutional pressures catalyze cultural change that…

Abstract

Purpose

This study revisits the discourse on the neoliberalization of business schools and explores how accreditation-linked institutional pressures catalyze cultural change that adversely impact academic labor and academic subjectivities in the Global South.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with academics from elite business schools in India.

Findings

This study shows how academics encounter institutional pressures in Indian business schools. Three major themes emerged from the data: (1) the conception of the ideal academic that existed before accreditation, (2) how the conception of the ideal academic was fundamentally transformed during and after accreditation, and (3) the challenges academics experienced in achieving the performance targets introduced by accreditation-linked institutional pressures.

Originality/value

This study offers two contributions to the extant literature on business schools located in the Global South: (1) it illustrates how organizational changes within business schools in India are structured by accreditation-linked institutional pressures coming from the Global North, and (2) it adds to the growing body of work on neoliberal governmentality by highlighting the implications of accreditation-liked institutional pressures on academic subjectivities.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 42 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 February 2023

Yanni Ping, Alexander Buoye and Ahmad Vakil

The purpose of this study is to present a methodology for enhancing the quality and usefulness of online reviews for prospective customers to investigate how this contemporary…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to present a methodology for enhancing the quality and usefulness of online reviews for prospective customers to investigate how this contemporary form of instrumental support can be facilitated to strengthen customer-to-customer support.

Design/methodology/approach

This study develops an analytics framework with applications of machine learning models using customer review data from Amazon.com. Linear regression is commonly used for review helpfulness and sales prediction. In this study, Random Forest model is applied because of its strong performance and reliability. To advance the methodology, a custom script in Python is created to generate Partial Dependence Plots for intensive exploration of the dependency interpretations of review helpfulness and sales. The authors also apply K-Means to cluster reviewers and use the results to generate reviewer qualification scores and collective reviewer scores, which are incorporated into the review facilitation process.

Findings

The authors find the average helpfulness ratio of the reviewer as the most important determinant of reviewer qualification. The collective reviewer qualification for a product created based on reviewers’ characteristics is found important to customers’ purchase intentions and can be used as a metric for product comparison.

Practical implications

The findings of this study suggest that service improvement efforts can be performed by developing software applications to monitor reviewer qualifications dynamically, bestowing a badge to top quality reviewers, redesigning review sorting interfaces and displaying the consumer rating distribution on the product page, resulting in improved information reliability and consumer trust.

Originality/value

This study adds to the research on customer-to-customer support in the service literature. As customer reviews perform as a contemporary form of instrumental support, the authors validate the determinants of review helpfulness and perform an intensive exploration of its dependency interpretation. Reviewer qualification and the collective reviewer qualification scores are generated as new predictors and incorporated into the helpfulness-based review facilitation services.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 37 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 14 December 2023

David Rooney

Wisdom is a very difficult construct to work with in research and practice. One reason for this is that wise people can deal with metaphysical questions and experience spiritual…

Abstract

Wisdom is a very difficult construct to work with in research and practice. One reason for this is that wise people can deal with metaphysical questions and experience spiritual phenomena, both of which are hard to measure meaningfully. Although metaphysical and spiritual matters are not imponderable, they have significant measurement problems that are also part of the shortcomings of standard social science statistical frameworks. A second reason is that for many wisdom theorists, wisdom is context-dependent because wisdom is defined by and responds to what its context presents to it. We can therefore argue that wisdom is essentially context, which in quantum physics is theorised as a superposition of random variables that interact. This chapter, therefore, ponders the ‘immeasurable’ from the perspective of quantum-like social science and quantum theory to render wisdom, including its spirituality component, in formal mathematical models. The mathematical formalism of quantum physics allows for the presence of metaphysical phenomena in its ontological foundations and its mathematical models. This chapter, therefore, also presents an argument for understanding wisdom from the superposition perspective and, in particular, the internal interactions between random variables contained within it. If the challenge of measuring wisdom as a nondeterministic system is met, we may finally have an opportunity to measure wisdom in ways that embrace wisdom's complex ontology. A third reason is that wisdom depends on people making first-person subjective judgements. Subjectivity is central to many interpretations of quantum theory, and we can borrow the analytical formalism used in quantum physics for wisdom research. Finally, the chapter discusses future approaches to empirical wisdom research that adopt quantum-like social science methods.

Details

Applied Spirituality and Sustainable Development Policy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-381-7

Keywords

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