Authentic Connections Research Articles

The dynamics of street-level marketing: Engaging urban audiences with interactive strategies

Street-level marketing has become a dynamic approach for engaging urban audiences through interactive and experiential strategies. This paper explores the effectiveness of street-level marketing, examining its evolution, theoretical underpinnings, and the impact of urban environments on marketing strategies. Key interactive methods, including guerrilla marketing, experiential campaigns, and flash mobs, are discussed alongside the critical role of technology and social media in enhancing audience engagement. Additionally, the paper addresses the challenges marketers face, such as regulatory constraints, audience diversity, and measurement of success. Despite these challenges, opportunities for leveraging community involvement, cultural relevance, and real-time feedback are abundant. By analyzing current trends and successful campaigns, the paper offers practical recommendations for businesses seeking to capitalize on urban marketing strategies and build authentic connections with city-based consumers.

Identifying Key Features of Equity-Centered Professional Learning

To address the inequities within the educational system, there are calls for teachers to have an intentional focus on equity. Unfortunately, teachers often do not receive enough preparation within their certification programs or during in-service trainings to center equity- driven practices. This study provided insight into the features that one group of teacher leaders relied upon and found essential when working to enact high-quality, equity-centered professional learning for teachers, and researchers utilized these findings to develop a framework for equity-centered professional learning. The context for this research was teacher leader-led professional learning within the context of a job-embedded professional learning experience for teacher leaders. Data collection included professional learning lesson plans, written reflections by teacher leaders after the professional learning sessions, and field notes. Findings point to five features of professional learning focused on equity that teacher leaders utilized. These include: (1), Safe, trusting community grounded in relationships, (2) Dialogue to explore and critically reflect upon biases, beliefs, and experiences, (3) Active learning opportunities that promote dissonance, (4) Authentic connections to equity within the local context through inquiry, and (5) Responsiveness to participants’ varied experiences and understanding of equity. The findings have implications for routines of practice that can be utilized to enact these essential features and how an equity lens can permeate the design of professional learning.

Better together: innovative learning and authentic connections in the online space Book review: Abegglen, S., Neuhaus, F. and Wilson, K. (eds.) (2022) Voices from the digital classroom: 25 interviews about teaching and learning in the face of a global pandemic. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.

Better together: innovative learning and authentic connections in the online space Book review: Abegglen, S., Neuhaus, F. and Wilson, K. (eds.) (2022) Voices from the digital classroom: 25 interviews about teaching and learning in the face of a global pandemic. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.

Connecting the Dots Through Arts-Infused Activities

Exploring authentic connections between the arts leads to a deeper understanding of artistic processes and prepares students for formulating connections in our increasingly interrelated world. Differentiated assessments allow students to demonstrate understanding through their choice of artistic media and work at their individual level increasing student motivation and engagement. Student peer-to-peer collaboration further enhances arts-infused activities by encouraging positive social interaction. This article provides step-by-step directions for how to create arts-infused activities and assessments in which multiple arts share common concepts.

How the COVID-19 crisis affected the well-being of nurses working in paediatric critical care: A qualitative study.

Evidence shows paediatric critical care (PCC) nurses display high rates of burnout, moral distress, symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and poor well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic magnified these pressures producing extremely challenging working conditions. The objective was to understand PCC nurses' lived experience of working during COVID-19 to determine the impact it had on their well-being. A qualitative design was used with individual, semi-structured online interviews analysed using thematic analysis. Ten nurses from six PCC units in England participated. Five themes were generated: (i) Challenges of working in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), (ii) Adapting to redeployment to adult intensive care, (iii) Changes to staff working relationships, (iv) Being unable to attain work-life balance and (v) Unprocessed traumatic experiences of working in COVID-19. It was clear COVID-19 presented novel challenges to PCC nurses' well-being. With those came enforced changes in practice; some were temporary, for example use of PPE and redeployment, but others provided insight into the prerequisites for good staff well-being, for example strong professional relationships, work-life balance and managing one's psychological health. Findings show authentic connections between peers, verbal and non-verbal communication and a sense of belonging were crucial to nurses' well-being. A dent in PCC nurses' perceived competence significantly affected their well-being. Finally, staff need a psychologically safe space to process distress and trauma experienced during COVID-19. Future research needs to test evidence-based, theoretically-informed well-being interventions to improve and maintain PCC nurses' well-being.

Leading with students: relational focus of leading practices in alternative settings

ABSTRACT This paper explores how students can be positioned as contributors to leading practices that shape the nature of their schooling experiences. Student voice and agency agendas have grown in popularity over recent years but understanding the possibilities and boundaries of the ways that students can contribute to their educational experiences requires continued exploration. This paper presents a case study of an alternative learning setting where previously disenfranchised learners were productively contributing to leading practices that shaped their school experience. Using the theory of practice architectures, the relational arrangements that supported students to shape the practices that influenced their re-engagement with schooling are examined. Through the prioritisation of authentic connections between educators and students, practices of leading were established that disrupted normative experiences of schooling and positioned students as empowered agents in their own education.

How does patient engagement work in a real-world setting? Recommendations, caveats, and challenges from a psychosocial perspective

ObjectiveTo propose a possible taxonomy for diverse stakeholders outside the healthcare communication field and to promote meaningful patient engagement in healthcare settings. Moreover, to support them in making more coherent policy, strategy, and practice decisions to enhance patient participation in their healthcare systems. DiscussionThis paper is part of the pEACH Position Papers Series and provides a critical and experience-based reflection on patient engagement in different healthcare-related settings. We propose a framework that operationalises actionable patient engagement at the micro-meso-macro levels. Finally, the authors will highlight some “points of attention” that need to be addressed to support patient engagement implementation in healthcare organisations. Conclusion and practice implicationsUnderstanding and systematising the established meanings of patient engagement through a psychosocial lens is critical to addressing the following questions: "how can various health care organisations ensure that authentic patient engagement informs decision-making and strategies", "how can these organisations build authentic connections with their patients", and importantly, "how can patients gain valuable and reliable insights through patient engagement"? Answering these questions can enable key stakeholders to make informed decisions that ensure the quality and effectiveness of patient engagement initiatives in different healthcare settings.

Connecting Biochemistry Knowledge to Patient Care in the Clinical Workplace: Senior Medical Students’ Perceptions about Facilitators and Barriers

Phenomenon : Medical students have difficulties applying knowledge about biomedical mechanisms learned before clerkships to patient care activities. Many studies frame this challenge as a problem of basic science knowledge transfer predominantly influenced by students’ individual cognitive processes. Social cognitive theory would support extending this framing to the interplay between the individual’s cognition, the environment, and their behaviors. This study investigates senior medical students’ experiences of biochemistry knowledge use during workplace learning and examines how their experiences were influenced by interactions with people and other elements of the clinical learning environment. Approach : The authors used a qualitative approach with a constructivist orientation. From September to November 2020 they conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 fourth-year medical students at one institution who had completed the pre-clerkship curriculum, core clinical clerkships, and the United States Medical Licensing Exam Step 1. The authors identified themes using thematic analysis. Findings : Participants reported that they infrequently used or connected to biochemistry knowledge in workplace patient care activities, yet all had examples of such connections that they found valuable to learning. Most participants felt the responsibility for making connections between biochemistry knowledge and activities in the clinical workplace should be shared between themselves and supervisors, but connections were often recognized and acted on only by the student. Connections that participants described prompted their effort to retrieve knowledge or fill a perceived learning gap. Participants identified multiple barriers and facilitators to connecting, including supervisors’ behaviors and perceived knowledge, and “patients seen” in clerkships. Participants also reported learning biochemistry during USMLE Step 1 study that did not connect to patient care activities, underscoring a perception of disconnect. Insights : This study identifies specific personal, social, and physical environmental elements that influence students’ perceived use of biochemistry during patient care activities. Though these findings may be most significant for biochemistry, they likely extend to other basic science disciplines. Students’ self-directed efforts to connect to their biochemistry knowledge could be augmented by increased social support from clinical supervisors, which in turn likely requires faculty development. Opportunities for connection could be enhanced by embedding into the environment instructional strategies or technologies that build on known authentic connections between biochemistry and “patients seen” in clerkships. These efforts could strengthen student learning, improve clinical supervisors’ self-efficacy, and better inform curriculum design.

Book Review. Fermor, Our Companion: Dan Horațiu Popescu’s Layers of the Text & Context. Patrick Leigh Fermor & Friends

Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) is the writer who managed to turn travelogues into a genre deserving to be called an art form. The contrast between Fermor's travelogue and the new configurations and shapes undertaken by travel writing nowadays becomes comforting through the intrinsic qualities of his écriture: the transformative encounters with known and unknown people, the preference for the adventurous less travelled paths (even on foot) of Central and Eastern Europe before WWII (1933-1939), the assessment of historical events through his own feelings and personal history. Fermor raised the stakes by making his real and reflective voyages grow into the very matter of literature (rather than be a mere setting or an annex of it) because of his erudition and because of his genuine capacity to create authentic connections between himself and the people he met, between past and present, between inter-war years and the post-WWII world, between Western and Eastern cultures in the cold-war era.

“This Person is Safe”: An Exemplar of Conducting Individual Interviews in Qualitative Research with Black Women

Significant conceptual and empirical evidence has been found through qualitative research about the benefits, limitations, and uses of individual interviews. However, there is scant research illustrating how researchers use specific techniques that center participants’ intersecting identities to build rapport, trust, and authentic connections during individual interviews, and especially during interviews with Black women. We illustrate how we used eight empirically grounded techniques in our qualitative individual interviews with Black women. Through our analysis of the interviews, the concept of safety emerged. “This person is safe” reflects the combined stories the women reported regarding their experiences engaging in individual interviews. In this article, we provide a brief background on individual interviewing in qualitative research, followed by the framing of our work. Thereafter, we provide context about the exemplar study, outline techniques shown to be effective in the literature, and provide examples from the exemplar study to show how each technique was used. Further research is needed to examine how researchers use various techniques in qualitative individual interviews in general, but with Black women more specifically.

Reconceptualising emotional capital and intimacy using a sociological lens: the Authentic Revolution

Sociologists and public health scholars have called attention to the rise of social isolation and loneliness in the US. Considering these developments, it is vital to extend the sociological imagination to better understand the forms of meaningful connection and social relationship characteristics sought by individuals. The growing Authentic Movement represents a series of decentralised social groups in the US and abroad that focus on Authentic Relating and Circling Practices. This ethnographic research combines semi-structured interviews and participant observation techniques to examine how these groups promote and allow for participants to explore concepts of emotion intimacy and alternative ways to form authentic connections with others in psychologically safe and (semi-) structured environments. In addition, the research aims to explore how these communities specifically address the rising trends and social problem of social isolation and limited meaningful (emotional) connection with others.

Preservice Teachers in Real-world Problem-Posing: Can They Turn a Context into Mathematical Modelling Problems?

While problem-posing respecting real-world situations can be a promising approach for fostering modelling competence, research on modelling through problem posing is scant. This present paper aims to characterize the mathematical tasks designed by prospective teachers regarding the criteria of a modelling problem. Data were collected from fifty mathematical tasks posed by twenty-five preservice teachers as participants at a public university in Surabaya, Indonesia, within a summative test of an assessment course.The problem-posing task asked the participants to pose two different mathematical tasks from a given realworld situation. To analyze, the participants’ responses were coded as solvable or unsolvable tasks and then further coded regarding two aspects of modelling problem i.e., connection to reality and openness of a problem. Our analysis revealed that the participants tended to pose problems with authentic connections rather than artificial connections to reality. However, only a few of the posed problems were indicated to promote openness in terms of either various mathematical models or an unclear initial state, which is the crucial indicator of a modelling problem. Implications regarding modelling competence via problem-posing in preservice teacher education are discussed.

Explorer la différence dans le roman S’adapter de Clara Dupont-Monod

The article focuses on the literary treatment of “difference” in the novel of the contemporary French author Clara Dupont-Monod, S’adapter (2021), by taking into account different levels such as the thematic, narrative, intertextual ones; the issue of personal identity is also explored in close relationship with the metaphor of “reclusion”. The study also observes various mechanisms of rendering this difference in order to explore how literature assumes the role of “repairing the world” by building authentic connections.

The Key Role of Vulnerability in Developing Authentic Connections in Romantic Relationships

The Key Role of Vulnerability in Developing Authentic Connections in Romantic Relationships

Beyond Fake News: Culturally Relevant Media Literacies for a Fractured Civic Landscape

A confluence of circumstances in US public life, including the proliferation of digital media outlets, the diminished role of information gatekeepers, and entrenched ideological polarization, have made one of the core competencies of political engagement – staying informed about current events – an increasingly fraught endeavor. Fears about misinformation, bias, and “fake news” have spawned an array of curricular resources aimed at helping educators teach students how to analyze information sources in hopes that a common foundation of knowledge will contribute to reasoned and productive civic debate. In this article, we argue that analyzing news sources is a necessary but insufficient skill for fostering dialogue in public life. We suggest that the development of authentic connections across partisan divides require more expansive literacies grounded in civic storytelling, inquiry, and collaborative social dreaming. We draw upon the practices of 2 learning communities to offer principles and strategies for fostering such culturally relevant media literacies.

Organizing and Facilitating Critical Conversations around Systemic Racism: Opportunities and Challenges

The Coffee and Critical Conversations Series was organized by Emory Libraries Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) subcommittee on Professional Development for library employees to engage in dialogue and build community around DEI topics. The subcommittee sought to foster understanding and inspire fruitful discussion on institutional racism in libraries, allyship, and the legacy of racialized trauma pervading African American life.
 The conversation series began virtually in summer of 2020. Each session was based on a curated collection of shared media (film clips, news articles, TED talks) and was facilitated by volunteers via Zoom. Attendees were given reflection questions to help guide conversation in small breakout groups. As the sessions wrapped up, the facilitators provided further resources for participants to continue their exploration of the topics. We assessed participant responses with an open-ended survey and solicited feedback from participants to inform future sessions.
 Like many of our peers, not everyone in our organization has felt informed enough to engage with social justice movements in the library. Our goal was to transform the organizational culture and relieve anxiety around discussing racism and oppression both in our institution and beyond. Coffee and Critical Conversations offers a space for folks to demystify their emotions, find language to express their feelings about current events, and foster authentic connections on our path to creating a more equitable institution.

Indigenous Meanings of Provenance in the Context of Alternative Food Movements and Supply-Chain Traceability: A Review

This article reviews the concept of provenance from both contemporary and traditional aspects. The incorporation of indigenous meanings and conceptualizations of belonging into provenance are explored. First, we consider how the gradual transformation of marketplaces into market and consumer activism catalyzed the need for provenance. Guided by this, we discuss the meaning of provenance from an indigenous and non-indigenous rationale. Driven by the need for a qualitative understanding of food, the scholarship has utilized different epistemologies to demonstrate how authentic connections are cultivated and protected by animistic approaches. As a tool to mobilize place, we suggest that provenance should be embedded in the immediate local context. Historic place-based indigenous knowledge systems, values, and lifeways should be seen as a model for new projects. This review offers a comprehensive collection of research material with emphasis on a variety of fields including anthropology, economic geography, sociology, and biology, which clarifies the meaning of provenance in alternative food systems. It questions the current practices of spatial confinement by stakeholders and governments that are currently applied to the concepts of provenance in foods, and instead proposes a holistic approach to understand both indigenous and non-indigenous ideologies but with an emphasis on Maori culture and its perspectives.

Mums Alone: Exploring the Role of Isolation and Loneliness in the Narratives of Women Diagnosed with Perinatal Depression

In this study, we explore the role that isolation and loneliness play in the narratives of women diagnosed with perinatal depression. Isolation and loneliness are increasingly seen as risk factors for depression, including in the perinatal period, but little is known about whether, and in what ways, women themselves associate isolation or loneliness with perinatal distress. Based on the thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with fourteen mothers in England, we found that women often connected feelings of depression during and after pregnancy to feeling dislocated from their previous identities and relationships. Women felt lost, confined to their homes, and often unsupported by their partners and families. However, fears of being judged to be inadequate mothers made it difficult for women to make authentic connections with others or to express negative feelings, increasing isolation and depression. We drew on the intersectionality theory to illustrate how the intersect between motherhood and other aspects of women’s identities (being young, single, deprived and/or from an ethnic minority) could leave some women particularly isolated and marginalised. Our conclusions emphasise the need to challenge social constructions of the good/bad mother, advocate for social change to lessen pressures on mothers, and develop support that addresses women’s interpersonal contexts and social networks.

Teaching Online during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Phenomenological Study of Physical Therapist Faculty in Brazil, Cyprus, and The United States

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a global transition from in-person to online instruction leaving many higher education faculty with little time or training for this responsibility. Physical therapist education programs were especially impacted since a large part of the development of skills rely on face-to-face onsite practice. This phenomenological study explored the perceptions of physical therapist educators in three countries—Brazil, Cyprus, and the United States, who transitioned to an entirely virtual medium of teaching during the pandemic. Sixteen faculty participated in 1:1 semi-structured interviews. Trustworthiness of qualitative inquiry was ascertained using triangulation, thick descriptions, and peer reviews. Four major themes emerged from analysis of participants’ interview data: adapting pedagogy in real-time, expected excellence, limitations of the medium, and informing future teaching practice. All participants described teaching during the pandemic as one of the most challenging experiences of their professional careers. Despite available resources, faculty noted challenges in making authentic connections with students, adapting to technological interruptions, assessment of student understanding of content, and managing work-life balance. Despite the challenges, faculty worked collaboratively with peers to innovate new approaches of creating social, cognitive, and teaching presence. Unique opportunities arose from the pandemic to enhance future teaching practice.

Pedagogical principles that support the prioritisation of meaningful experiences in physical education: conceptual and practical considerations

ABSTRACT Background An emphasis on meaningfulness may facilitate the types of experiences that are more likely to lead children towards a commitment to physical activity participation in ways that enrich the quality of their lives. While several authors have highlighted the importance of prioritising meaningfulness, direction is lacking on how teachers can consistently and intentionally foster meaningful experiences for pupils in physical education. Purpose Our purpose in this paper is to draw on conceptual understandings of meaningful experiences to propose a coherent set of pedagogical principles that can support teachers in making decisions that facilitate meaningful experiences for pupils. Pedagogical Principles Interrogation of the concepts meaningful experiences provides two preliminary pedagogical principles for teaching for meaningfulness. First, the personal nature of identifying experiences as meaningful indicates the value of adopting democratic approaches that allow for ownership and individualisation of experience. Democratic principles include teachers fostering inclusive environments and helping pupils actively make authentic connections between their lived experiences inside and outside of their classroom and communities. Second, the introspective and retrospective characteristics of meaningful experiences points to the central role of reflection. Reflective principles capture the continuity of experience (past-present-future) to help pupils look back and generate awareness of what makes an experience meaningful while also moving toward future meaningful experiences. These principles also provide insight into ideas and actions that do not represent an approach where personal meaningfulness is prioritised. Conclusions Reflective and democratic pedagogical principles provide concept-based practical direction for teachers in facilitating meaningful experiences for pupils in physical education and for future research on meaningfulness in physical education.