(2012). Resistance! Do Teachers Dare to Strike and Insist Upon Collective Bargaining in this Neoliberal Age? Educational Studies: Vol. 48, No. 6, pp. 499-500.

Theory and language: locating agency between free will and discursive marionettesThis article outlines a research methodology that embraces individual narratives, yet recognizes that individual narratives are nested within a backdrop of broader social and cultural understandings of who we are and how we come to understand our world. This dialectical move requires an epistemological shift, focusing on the utility of reconceptualizing the ‘environment’, not only as the social, political, or economic conditions in society, but also as language. Reconceptualizing the environment (...) as language makes it epistemologically possible to construct a bridge between varying levels of analysis, namely, between individual accounts and life stories and the cultural, social, and historical worlds from which those accounts emerge. (shrink)

During the last 10 years or so, a number of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives have been introduced in global supply chains, which aim to improve the conditions of workers engaged in producing goods for export. This article discusses the observations of CSR in practice in the Costa Rican-United Kingdom (UK) banana chain. The banana chain makes for an interesting case study because there are dominant corporate actors at each end who are in a position to influence the conditions experienced (...) by workers on banana plantations. At the top of the chain there are four major UK supermarket groups who control access to the retail market and as selfappointed guardians of consumer interest are demanding that producers adopt more socially responsible practices. At the other end, banana production is highly integrated and controlled by three large North American agri-businesses who have developed their own social and environmental certification programmes. Costa Rica also makes for an interesting country to locate the study as it has a tradition of state-led policies to protect worker rights. Yet, in spite of CSR commitments made by both supermarkets and producers that emphasise health and safety and the country's established Labour Law, this article shows that there are problems for workers when they are forced to meet demanding production schedules. Furthermore, it suggests that whilst supermarkets continue to drive down consumer prices and put pressure on producers to reduce costs, a downward spiral of working conditions is created regardless of the CSR policies in place. However, this article also identifies that changes to supermarket behaviour is possible when consumer trust is at stake. (shrink)

HARDIN PK. Nursing Inquiry 2003; 10: 209–217 Shape-shifting discourses of anorexia nervosa: reconstituting psychopathologyThis article explores how the circuitous relationship between individuals, the media, and discursive systems replicate and reinforce the act of self-starvation in young women. Using a feminist poststructuralist methodology, the focus of this article is on how discourses and institutional practices operate to position young women who take up the subject position of wanting to be diagnosed as anorexic. Utilizing data from online accounts and individual interviews, I (...) attend to the ways in which young women are institutionally positioned as ‘anorexics’ and the effects that those positions have on their behaviors, in addition to reinforcing institutional practices that construct anorexia nervosa. Questions addressed through this inquiry are: How do institutional practices create and continue to constitute ‘anorexia nervosa’? How do discourses operate to position young women such that they are either included and/or excluded into the category of ‘anorexia nervosa’? What are the effects and consequences that emanate from these positionings? (shrink)

This paper delineates a postmodern discourse analysis that is positioned within a semiotic theory of language. This theory of language foregrounds the performative aspects of language usage and provides the theoretical space from which to theorize the interrelationship between social organizations or structure and social agents or individuals. Our version of discourse analysis contends that social structure is enacted (production and reproduction) through the employment of various vocabularies: social structure is not something outside of, behind, or underneath these performances, and (...) we argue that social organization is not produced by external structures operating upon or causing people to adopt certain behaviours. Rather, social structure is an effect of taking up practices and reproducing and modifying them. From this perspective, individuals are constituted by being recruited into and reproducing discursive practices. Hence, by looking at the actual employment of language – its tactical, practice dimensions – one can avoid the usual binary of seeing the person as either the autonomous origin of his or her experience or the ideological pawn of social determination. This methodology calls into question how the narratives or stories that individuals recount are imbricated within relational plays of power, and concomitantly, how subjects reauthorize their own positions. We assert that the methodological challenges of research addressing social injustice cannot be reduced to either: (i) interpersonal relationships between researcher and participants, or (ii) relegated to ‘social structures’ acting upon or outside of individuals. (shrink)

The Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought aim to make available to students the most important works in the field in affordable, readable, and unabridged editions, a goal eminently achieved in these two volumes, which have been edited and translated by a noted Rousseau scholar and teacher. Whether used alone or assigned together, these volumes are especially well designed for classroom use; scholars will also find them convenient and reliable, though the multivolume Collected Writings, vols. 1–6, edited by (...) Roger D. Masters and Christopher Kelly will remain the standard scholarly edition of Rousseau’s writings in English. (shrink)

This study examines the socioeconomic and familial background of Irish Catholic priests born between 1867 and 1911. Previous research has hypothesized that lack of marriage opportunities may influence adoption of celibacy as part of a religious institution. The present study traced data from Irish seminary registries for 46 Catholic priests born in County Limerick, Ireland, using 1901 Irish Census returns and Land Valuation records. Priests were more likely to originate from landholding backgrounds, and with landholdings greater in size and wealth (...) than the local average. Priests were found to originate from families with more sons than the national average, but with similar numbers of daughters. These findings are discussed in relation to competition for resources and lineage survival strategies. (shrink)

Caring for critically ill and dying patients often triggers both professional and personal growth for physician trainees. In pediatrics, the neonatal intensive care unit is among the most distressing settings for trainees. We used longitudinal narrative writing to gain insight into how physician trainees are challenged by and make sense of repetitive, ongoing conflicts experienced as part of caring for very sick and dying babies. The study took place in a 45-bed, university-based NICU in an urban setting in the United (...) States. From November 2009 to June 2010 we enrolled pediatric residents and neonatology fellows at the beginning of their NICU rotations. Participants were asked to engage in individual, longitudinal narrative writing about their “experience in the NICU.” Thematic narrative analysis was performed. Thirty-seven physician trainees participated in the study. The mean number of narratives per trainee was 12; a total of 441 narratives were available for analysis. Conflict was the most pervasive theme in the narratives. Trainees experienced conflicts with families and conflicts with other clinicians. Trainees also described multiple conflicts of identity as members of the neonatology team, as members of the medical profession, as members of their own families, and as members of society. Physician trainees experience significant conflict and distress while learning to care for critically ill and dying infants. These conflicts often led them to question their own morals and their role in the medical profession. Physician trainees should be educated to expect various types of distress during intensive care rotations, encouraged to identify their own sources of distress, and supported in mitigating their effects. (shrink)

Making research data readily accessible during a public health emergency can have profound effects on our response capabilities. The moral milieu of this data sharing has not yet been adequately explored. This article explores the foundation and nature of a duty, if any, that researchers have to share data, specifically in the context of public health emergencies. There are three notable reasons that stand in opposition to a duty to share one’s data, relating to: (i) data property and ownership, (ii) (...) just distribution of benefits and burdens and (iii) the contemporary ethos of science. We argue each reason can be successfully met with corresponding rationale in favour of data sharing. Further support for data sharing has been echoed in policies of health agencies, funding bodies and academic institutions; in documents on the ethical conduct of biomedical research; and in discussions on the nature of public health. From this, we ascertain that sharing data is the morally sound default position. This article then highlights the key roles reciprocity and solidarity play in supporting the practice of data sharing. We conclude with recommendations to regard public health research data as a common-pool resource in order to build a framework for stable data sharing management. (shrink)

The number of children with chronic critical illness (CCI) is a growing population in the United States. A defining characteristic of this population is a prolonged hospital stay. Our study assessed the proportion of pediatric patients with chronic critical illness in U.S. hospitals at a specific point in time, and identified a subset of children whose hospital stay lasted for months to years. The potential harms of a prolonged hospitalization for children with CCI, which include over treatment, infection, disruption of (...) family life, and the intensive utilization of resources—combined with the moral distress experienced by the clinicians who care for the children, suggest the need for ethical analysis of this growing issue to identify actions that could be taken at the clinical and health systems levels to reduce the harms associated with prolonged hospital stay.In this article we present three real cases from our study that involved a very long hospital stay. We applied a framework developed by Mackenzie, Rogers, and Dodds to analyze inherent, situational, and pathogenic vulnerabilities to examine the ways that interventions intended to remedy one source of harm for the children in our cohort inadvertently created other harms. We examined the complex ways that children with protracted hospitalization are vulnerable to the choices made by their family and clinicians, as well as by healthcare systems and communities. Finally, we used this analysis to summarize actions and ethical responses to this growing patient population. Such an understanding is essential to making clinical and ethical decisions that arise for children who are at risk for a very long stay in the hospital. (shrink)

This volume presents the history of Western education through the biographies of some 70 individuals, past and present, who exemplify the education of their times or have made important contributions to the development of educational theory or practice. In so doing, it links major issues and ideas in education to key historical personalities. Each chapter includes substantive background information, a summary, and chapter notes.

It is unclear how children learn labels for multiple overlapping categories such as “Labrador,” “dog,” and “animal.” Xu and Tenenbaum suggested that learners infer correct meanings with the help of Bayesian inference. They instantiated these claims in a Bayesian model, which they tested with preschoolers and adults. Here, we report data testing a developmental prediction of the Bayesian model—that more knowledge should lead to narrower category inferences when presented with multiple subordinate exemplars. Two experiments did not support this prediction. Children (...) with more category knowledge showed broader generalization when presented with multiple subordinate exemplars, compared to less knowledgeable children and adults. This implies a U-shaped developmental trend. The Bayesian model was not able to account for these data, even with inputs that reflected the similarity judgments of children. We discuss implications for the Bayesian model, including a combined Bayesian/morphological knowledge account that could explain the demonstrated U-shaped trend. (shrink)

For decades, psychostimulants have been the gold standard pharmaceutical treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In the United States, an astounding 9% of all boys and 4% of girls will be prescribed stimulant drugs at some point during their childhood. Recent meta-analyses have revealed that individuals with ADHD have reduced brain volume loss later in life (>60 y.o.) compared to the normal aging brain, which suggests that either ADHD or its treatment may be neuroprotective. Crucially, these neuroprotective effects were significant in (...) brain regions (e.g., hippocampus, amygdala) where severe volume loss is linked to cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease. Historically, the ADHD diagnosis and its pharmacotherapy came about nearly simultaneously, making it difficult to evaluate their effects in isolation. Certain evidence suggests that psychostimulants may normalize structural brain changes typically observed in the ADHD brain. If ADHD itself is neuroprotective, perhaps exercising the brain, then psychostimulants may not be recommended across the lifespan. Alternatively, if stimulant drugs are neuroprotective, then this class of medications may warrant further investigation for their therapeutic effects. Here, we take a bottom-up holistic approach to review the psychopharmacology of ADHD in the context of recent models of attention. We suggest that future studies are greatly needed to better appreciate the interactions amongst an ADHD diagnosis, stimulant treatment across the lifespan, and structure-function alterations in the aging brain. (shrink)

DOING CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY Edited by PAMELA SHURMER-SMITH, University of Portsmouth Doing Cultural Geography is an introduction to cultural geography that integrates theoretical discussion with applied examples: the emphasis throughout is on doing geography. Recognising that many undergraduates have difficulty with both theory and methods courses, the text explains the theory informing cultural geography and encourages students to engage directly with theory in practice. It emphasises what can be done with humanist, Marxist, poststructuralist, feminist, and postcolonial theory, showing that (...) this is the most effective way to engage with the theoretical literature. Twenty short chapters are organized in sections on theory, topic selection, methodology, interpretation, and presentation. The text is punctuated throughout with questions, suggestions for activities, and short sample extracts from the academic literature, chosen to exemplify the subject of the chapter and to stimulate further reading. Chapters conclude with glossaries and suggestions for further reading. Doing Cultural Geography will be used in project work - from seminar-based activities to the planning stages of undergraduate research projects. It will be essential reading for students in modules in cultural geography, foundation courses in human geography, as well as theory and methods modules. Features and Benefits:  most pedagogically informed teaching text on cultural geography available  integrates theory with practice. (shrink)