A problem with inclusion in learning disability research.

People with severe learning disability are particularly difficult to include in the research process. As a result, researchers may be tempted to focus on those with learning disability who can be included. The problem is exacerbated in this field as the political agenda of inclusion and involvement is driven by those people with learning disability who are the higher functioning. To overcome this we should first detach the notion of consent from ideas about autonomy and think instead of it as a way to avoid wronging others; this fits the original historical use of consent in research. This allows us to think in terms of including participants to the best of their abilities rather than in terms of a threshold of autonomy. Researchers could then use imaginative ways to include the least able and to ensure they are not wronged in research or by exclusion from it

We make the road by walking: challenging conceptualisations of leisure time for children in poverty

In this article, we discuss a research project focusing on the ways in which children in poverty spend and experience their leisure time. We argue that the dominant conceptualisation of leisure time participation reduces poverty to a lack of social and cultural capital, marginalising poor children as passive objects of socialisation. Inspired by the interpretative paradigm of lifeworld orientation, three insights are identified throughout poor children’s experiences, which include the following: (1) challenging taken-for-granted divisions of time; (2) giving meaning to regimes of time as an on-going learning process; and (3) imagining a socially just future

The physical activity experiences of men with serious mental illness: Three short stories

Objectives: Although a considerable amount of research has explored the effects of physical activity on mental health, the voices of people with mental illness have been largely excluded from published reports. Through this study we aim to foreground service users' voices in order to shed light on the personal and subjective nature of the relationship between physical activity and serious mental illness (SMI). Methods: An interpretive case study approach was used to explore in depth the physical activity experiences of three men with SMI. Creative analytic practice was used to write three creative non-fictions which, as first-person narratives, foreground the participants' voices. Results: We present three short stories in an effort to communicate participants' personal and subjective experiences of physical activity in an accessible, engaging, and evocative manner. We hope to: (i) provide potentially motivating physical activity success stories for others who live with SMI; (ii) increase awareness among mental health professionals of the possibilities of physical activity; and (iii) provide an empathetic understanding of possibilities and problems of living with SMI which may help challenge the stigma surrounding mental illness. Conclusions: For us, the stories communicate the diversity and difference inherent in the ways men with SMI experience physical activity. We reflect on how the short story form allows these differences to be preserved and respected. We resist making further interpretations of the stories preferring instead to encourage the reader to form her or his own conclusions. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Among the Savage Anthros: Reflections on the S.A.S. Oral History Project

Paper presented at the annual meeting 199

Action research and democracy

This contribution explores the relationship between research and learning democracy. Action research is seen as being compatible with the orientation of educational and social work research towards social justice and democracy. Nevertheless, the history of action research is characterized by a tension between democracy and social engineering. In the social-engineering approach, action research is conceptualized as a process of innovation aimed at a specific Bildungsideal. In a democratic approach action research is seen as research based on cooperation between research and practice. However, the notion of democratic action research as opposed to social engineering action research needs to be theorized. So called democratic action research involving the implementation by the researcher of democracy as a model and as a preset goal, reduces cooperation and participation into instruments to reach this goal, and becomes a type of social engineering in itself. We argue that the relationship between action research and democracy is in the acknowledgment of the political dimension of participation: ‘a democratic relationship in which both sides exercise power and shared control over decision-making as well as interpretation’. This implies an open research design and methodology able to understand democracy as a learning process and an ongoing experiment

On religion and cultural policy: notes on the Roman Catholic Church

This paper argues that religious institutions have largely been neglected within the study of cultural policy. This is attributed to the inherently secular tendency of most modern social sciences. Despite the predominance of the ‘secularisation paradigm’, the paper notes that religion continues to promote powerful attachments and denunciations. Arguments between the ‘new atheists’, in particular, Richard Dawkins, and their opponents are discussed, as is Habermas’s conciliatory encounter with Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). The paper then moves to a consideration of the Roman Catholic Church as an agent of cultural policy, whose overriding aim is the promotion of ‘Christian consciousness’. Discussion focuses on the contested meanings of this, with reference to (1) the deliberations of Vatican II and (2) the exercise of theological and cultural authority by the Pope and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). It is argued that these doctrinal disputes intersect with secular notions of social and cultural policy and warrant attention outside the specialist realm of theological discourse

Transitional experiences of post-16 sports education: Jack's story

This paper explores the layered transitional experiences of a semi-professional athlete named Jack (a pseudonym) between the fields of professional sport and further and higher education. Our analysis is framed by the quadripartite framework of structuration and focuses on Jack's 'in-situ' practices at his college and university in order to illustrate how these can operate to reproduce, transform, and challenge the habitual discourses and rituals that circulate within these institutions by generating forms of corporeal empowerment for young athletes who have valued conjunctural knowledge. The findings highlight the fragility of the transition process and raise questions regarding how the experiences of young people are shaped by the relationships between employment and post-16 education. Jack's experiences have implications for both policy and practice within further education and higher education. © 2012 © 2012 Taylor & Francis

'Leader, you first': The everyday production of hierarchical space in a Chinese bureaucracy

Recent studies highlight how organizational power relations are materialized in space. However, relatively little is known about how these spatialized power relations are reproduced on a day-to-day basis. Drawing on a ten-month ethnographic study of a large government office in China, we find that hierarchical space is produced through three intertwined processes. It proliferates as employees actively seek out signs of hierarchy in the organization’s space; it becomes familiarized as employees fabricate and circulate fanciful narratives about their spatial environs; and it is ritualized by employees acting out hierarchical relations across the organization’s space. These processes resulted in a hardening of the hierarchical relations of power. The study extends the existing literature by showing how hierarchical organizational space is not just something that is imposed on employees; it is also imposed by the employees themselves

Puut tarjoumina paikkasuhteen muotoutumiseen - viitekehys lasten luontosuhteen tukemiseen

This study, informed by phenomenology and ethnography, explores urban children’s relationship with trees in a garden camp context: what are trees for urban children? Studying Finnish 7- to 12-year-old children, the research employed triangulation: participant and non-participant observation methods with mixed data collection over the course of three years. Engaging in grounded theory analysis after an intermission, the study unites the theoretical constructs of affordance and connectedness to place. Based on empirical observations, this study provides a theoretical framework to clarify the phased process of how urban children’s connectedness to place is evolving. Exploitation of tree affordances during place-based play reflected connectedness to place; utilization of trees became more versatile over time. The results showed trees to be intriguing and multifaceted, satisfying many of the children’s private and social needs. Trees provided the materials, space and often purpose and contents for the actual play that could not have thrived without them. In addition, children learned to manage possible tree-related risks mainly from experience and through scaffolding with peers. Recommendations for supporting beneficial nature contact emphasize allowing child-directed, place-based play time and planning biodiverse, low-maintenance spaces with a wide variety of trees that will invite children to use green spaces according to their needs.This study, informed by phenomenology and ethnography, explores urban children’s relationship with trees in a garden camp context: what are trees for urban children? Studying Finnish 7- to 12-year-old children, the research employed triangulation: participant and non-participant observation methods with mixed data collection over the course of three years. Engaging in grounded theory analysis after an intermission, the study unites the theoretical constructs of affordance and connectedness to place. Based on empirical observations, this study provides a theoretical framework to clarify the phased process of how urban children’s connectedness to place is evolving. Exploitation of tree affordances during place-based play reflected connectedness to place; utilization of trees became more versatile over time. The results showed trees to be intriguing and multifaceted, satisfying many of the children’s private and social needs. Trees provided the materials, space and often purpose and contents for the actual play that could not have thrived without them. In addition, children learned to manage possible tree-related risks mainly from experience and through scaffolding with peers. Recommendations for supporting beneficial nature contact emphasize allowing child-directed, place-based play time and planning biodiverse, low-maintenance spaces with a wide variety of trees that will invite children to use green spaces according to their needs.Peer reviewe

The effects of online negative word‐of‐mouth on dissatisfied customers:A frustration–aggression perspective

Conceptualizing how customers construe online negative word‐of‐mouth (nWOM) following failure experiences remains unsettled, leaving providers with inconclusive recovery strategy programmes. This empirical study recognizes online nWOM as a co‐created encounter between the complainant (i.e., the initiator of the online nWOM) and the recipient (i.e., the consumer who engages with the online nWOM), examining their idiosyncrasies to discern their understanding of the experience. It introduces frustration–aggression theory to online WOM literature, recognizing that it can support a higher‐order understanding of phenomena. Through phenomenological hermeneutics, interviews and focus groups, data were collected from millennials in Albania and Kosovo that provided accounts of nuanced and distinctive online nWOM realities. The emerged insights extended extant theory to a three‐fold online nWOM typology (i.e., lenient online nWOM, moderate online nWOM and severe online nWOM) recognizing the negative impact customers have on a provider, which is controlled by frustration–aggression tags. Frustration–aggression variations across online nWOM led to the construct of three types of customers that engage in online nWOM, namely tolerable online nWOM customers, rigorous online nWOM customers and confrontational online nWOM customers. Findings culminated with satisfactory recovery strategies aligned to customer inferences regardless of the nWOM context