Civic Domains Research Articles

Decision-making in the physical education curriculum: an analysis of the student voice in English secondary state-schools

Debates surrounding youth participation in governance have permeated a range of fields in the last two decades. This commentary is predominately situated in education and civic participation domains, with sporting domains remaining largely under researched. Indeed, this research becomes sparser when considered in school physical education and sport. In this paper, we consider the position of the student within decision-making processes in the physical education curriculum in English secondary state-schools. The paper reports on survey data from 288 English secondary state-schools exploring students’ involvement in decision-making related to the PE curriculum. Findings show considerable numbers of the schools reported no contribution from students to the physical education curriculum (n=54), and processes that were in place were problematic. Drawing on the legal framework of The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, we argue that the lack of student voice in the physical education curriculum presents a contemporary policy concern within the English education system that requires further investigation.

Adaptive Robust Control based on Backstepping Sliding Mode techniques for Quadrotor UAV under external disturbances

In recent years, the quadrotor has been extensively utilized in military and civic domains because of its high mobility and flexibility in fight. In the presence of parametric uncertainties and external disturbances, it is difficult to control the quadrotor's attitude and position. The goal of this study is to find a solution to this issue. The Euler-Newton formulation is used to describe a full mathematical model of a quadrotor in this article. The attitude and the position's subsystem are the two sections of the quadrotor system. The trajectory tracking control problem of a quadrotor based on the external disturbance is addressed using a backstepping sliding mode control (BSMC) approach. Adaptive strategies are investigated in order to effectively suppress the chattering effect of sliding mode control and to estimate the proposed controller parameters of the position as well as the upper limits of the perturbation of the attitude (ABSMC). Furthermore, the Lyapunov analysis is carried out to ensure the stability of the high nonlinear quadrotor system and the controllers’ robustness against variation. Finally, multiple simulations were run on the Matlab/Simulink platform to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller. This controller's sovereignty is demonstrated by contrasting its performance with other alternatives such as feedback-linearization (FL) and backstepping sliding-mode (BSMC) controllers.

Empowering professionalism in mission-oriented innovation

Abstract In the literature on mission-oriented innovation supply side and tech-oriented approaches have been complemented by broader and more inclusive societal approaches. Here, it is highlighted that both directionality and broad anchoring of diverse stakeholders across private, public, and civic domains are key to successful implementation. Still, it is unclear how these dimensions relate and unfold in practice. Using digital literacy in education as an example of mission-oriented innovation, this paper investigates what prerequisites and capabilities are needed to envision and govern such processes. Based upon a case study of innovative teaching practices in twenty-five classes at ten primary schools in Norway, the paper finds that the motivation, dedication, and engagement of the teachers is not primarily related to the digital technologies themselves, but to the professional and pedagogical anchoring of the digital teaching tools. The mobilization of the professionalism of the teachers is enabled by a process of balanced empowerment.

Development of the Hong Kong Identity Scale: Differentiation between Hong Kong ‘Locals’ and Mainland Chinese in Cultural and Civic Domains

ABSTRACT This study deployed a systematic method to develop and validate a measurement for the identity of Hong Kong people, reflecting the emerging localistic attitude in the city. Drawing on a two-dimensional identity model, a combination of cultural and civic domains, an operationalization for Hong Kong identity was derived to differentiate between ‘HongKongese’ and others with stronger Mainland-Chinese-oriented identity. Cultural attribute, such as language and choice of technology products, is found to be of paramount importance in identity confirmation. Anti-authoritarianism and proactive political participation are the two major discriminatory features in the civic domain. Social distance from Mainland Chinese is positively associated with these key components of the scale, supporting the scale’s construct validity and confirming the nativist tendency of certain groups of Hong Kong localists.

How Do You Solve a Problem like the Whole User? The Construction of Worthy and Problematic Users in Online Discussions of the Public Library

ABSTRACTIn this article I use a discursive approach and the concept of the ‘category entitlement’ to analyse the ways that contributors to a public Internet discussion of the value of the public library make cases for different user characteristics and behaviour as ‘worthy’ or ‘problematic’, and use these characteristics to discuss and debate the kinds of individuals and the kinds of behaviour that properly belong to each category. Contributors to the discussion represented users in three categories: a fluid ‘everyone’, which included people represented as being disadvantaged and in legitimate need of the library’s resources, expertise, and support; the user in-formation, whose worthy variant takes advantage of the library’s offerings to achieve success in economic, cultural, and civic domains and whose problematic variant fails to do so; and the visceral user who may meet bodily needs or engage in pleasurable non-purposive activities and who is deemed worthy or problematic based on their behaviour in the library space. Despite public libraries’ growing emphasis on serving the whole user, these public comments prioritise users who exercise their mind to develop into worthy members of a community and who meet behavioural expectations consistent with quiet intellectual activity.

The impact of outreach programs on academics development, personal development and civic responsibilities of dental students in Bhubaneswar city.

INTRODUCTION:Inequalities persists in distribution, accessibility, and utilization of oral health services between urban and rural population. One approach to lessen this inequality is by incorporating rural outreach programs in the academic curriculum of health-care professionals.OBJECTIVES:The objective of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of outreach programs on academic development, personal development, and civic responsibilities of dental students and also to assess the changes in the domain scores within and between genders postintervention.METHODOLOGY:The study population consisted of 100 dental students. The study methodology followed a before and after without control informal experimental study designs. At baseline, the participants were administered pretested structured questionnaire developed by D. Diaz Gallegos. Intervention involved posting participants in various rural outreach activities and academic field visits in various public health installations. A postintervention questionnaire developed by Anu F. Shinnamon et al. was administered to assess the change from the baseline. The change in domain scores was assessed using paired and unpaired t-test appropriately. P ≤ 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.RESULTS:The baseline scores of academic, personal, and civic domains were 6.05 ± 2.44, 8.04 ± 2.84, and 6.36 ± 2.23 which increased to 6.52 ± 2.10, 13.56 ± 3.44, and 8.55 ± 2.71 postintervention, respectively (P ≤ 0.05). When comparing within genders, there was increase from the baseline, and this change in the scores postintervention was statistically significant (P = 0.001). The mean scores of all three domains between genders were statistically insignificant.CONCLUSION:The outreach programs developed and enhanced the subject's academic skills, leadership qualities, self-confidence, communication skills, managerial skills, and responsibilities toward the rural community.

Heritage and Hate: Constructing Identity in the Raleigh News and Observer’s Progressive-Era Coverage of the Ku Klux Klan

Despite its harms, hate speech is protected under the First Amendment because it constitutes expression of political ideology and group identity. Although this concept is rooted in Progressive Era judicial philosophy, its significance is also evident in Progressive Era coverage of the Ku Klux Klan. Specifically, Ku Klux Klan coverage in the Raleigh (NC) News and Observer under Josephus Daniels from 1898 to 1924 constitutes a case of the partisan press constructing southern white identity across literary, civic, and political domains. Identity politics may have also influenced Daniels’s approach to Progressive censorship and transparency efforts. This case underscores links between freedom for hate speech and identity building in the partisan press well before the courts articulated a free-speech philosophy of identity.

Development of Adolescent Moral and Civic Identity Through Community Service: A Qualitative Study in Hong Kong

This article draws on Marcia’s model that defines four statuses of adolescents’ identity formation to examine adolescent moral and civic identity formation. Interviews were conducted with 23 students at three Hong Kong senior secondary schools to address the following research question: How does community service help adolescents develop their moral and civic identities? Among the participants, most of them reported attaining moral identity development and just a few participants reported civic identity development; nonetheless, one of them did not report identity development in the moral and civic domains. Furthermore, five core elements of community service programs facilitating the participants’ identity formation emerged from the findings, namely, meaningful service activities, diversity, youth voice, reflection, and extended service duration. The influence of these service elements varied across the moral and civic domains of identity. By reporting the findings gained from an East Asian school setting, the article contributes to a fuller understanding of the role of community service in adolescent identity formation.

Close Encounters: Minority and Majority Perceptions of Discrimination and Intergroup Relations in Antwerp, Belgium

Increasing numbers of second-generation Muslims are highly qualified and locally embedded in today's European cities. This does not protect them, however, from experiencing discrimination in intergroup encounters in school, at work, or in the street. Taking an approach from local intergroup relations between ethnic minorities and the majority society, we draw on the TIES (The Integration of the European Second Generation) surveys to compare Turkish and Moroccan minorities and majority Belgians in Antwerp, Belgium. Our research aims (1) to establish minority and majority perspectives on (reverse) personal discrimination (2) in different life domains, and (3) to differentiate internally between gender, socioeconomic attainments, and local climates. Structural equation models show minority and majority group perspectives on discrimination as gendered and situated inter-group encounters in socioeconomic and civic domains of life.

Social connection and exclusion of Australian women with no children during midlife

Evidence indicates women with no children can experience pronatalism-driven stereotyping, stigmatisation and exclusion. This exploratory cross-sectional study described the social connection and exclusion of Australian women with no children during midlife (defined as aged 45 to 64 years). A total of 294 Australian midlife women with no children completed a self-administered online questionnaire. Data were collected on indicators of exclusion in the social, civic, service and economic domains of life, and participants’ self-reported perceptions of being stereotyped, stigmatised and excluded because they have no children. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and, for differences between involuntarily childless, circumstantially childless and voluntarily childless women: One Way ANOVAs for normally distributed continuous data, and Kruskal Wallis Analyses of Ranks and Chi Square Tests for Independence for categorical data and non-normally distributed continuous data. The findings indicate midlife women feel negatively stereotyped because they have no children. The extent and quality of midlife women’s resources and participation vary between and within the domains of life. However, midlife women reported feeling more excluded because they have no children in the social and civic domains than the service and economic domains. There are few differences between typologies of women with no children. Given that social exclusion is a key social determinant of health and wellbeing, it is essential to ensure all women have opportunities for connection in all domains of life in Australian society regardless of their motherhood status, by challenging pronatalism at all levels of society.

Social connection and exclusion of Australian women with no children during midlife

Evidence indicates women with no children can experience pronatalism-driven stereotyping, stigmatisation and exclusion. This cross-sectional study described the social connection and exclusion of Australian women with no children during midlife (defined as aged 45 to 64 years). A total of 294 Australian midlife women with no children completed a self-administered online questionnaire. Data were collected on indicators of exclusion in the social, civic, service and economic domains of life, and perceived stereotyping, stigmatisation and exclusion due to having no children. Data were analysed using One Way ANOVAs, Kruskal Wallis Analyses of Ranks, Chi Square Tests for Independence and descriptive statistics. The findings indicate midlife women feel negatively stereotyped due to having no children. While the extent and quality of resources and participation vary between and within the domains of life, midlife women perceive more exclusion due to having no children in the social and civic domains than the service and economic domains. There are few differences between typologies of women with no children. It is essential to challenge pronatalism in Australian society in order to ensure all women have opportunities for connection in all domains of life, regardless of their motherhood status.

Enhancing the Psychology Curriculum Through Service Learning

Educators in psychology should aspire to encourage students’ holistic growth in academic, personal, and civic domains. We propose that service learning is the most potent pedagogy for developing well-rounded, psychologically literate citizens capable of meeting the goals for the undergraduate psychology major. This article defines service learning, delineates the rationales for service learning, and summarizes research demonstrating the efficacy of this pedagogical approach. The article also describes the learning objectives derived from the American Psychological Association Guidelines for the Undergraduate Major (Version 2.0, 2013), with an emphasis on the ways in which service learning contributes to academic learning, civic learning, and personal growth. Finally, the article illustrates the four types of service learning, and it provides a concrete example for structuring reflection in order to connect community experiences with course content in a service learning psychology course.

Social Exclusion of Australian Childless Women in Their Reproductive Years

Research suggests Australian childless women are at risk of pronatalism-driven social exclusion. This exploratory, mixed methods, cross-sectional study described and explored the social exclusion of Australian childless women aged 25 to 44 years, and asked: what are the nature and extent of social exclusion of childless women; and do the nature and extent of exclusion vary for different types of childless women? A total of 776 childless female Australian residents aged 25 to 44 years completed a self-administered questionnaire. Quantitative data were collected on childlessness types, indicators of exclusion and perceived stigmatisation and exclusion due to being childless. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, One Way ANOVAs and Kruskal Wallis Analysis of Ranks. Qualitative data on childless women’s experiences were inductively thematically analysed. Findings suggest societal-level pronatalism drives exclusion of Australian childless women. While exclusion occurs in all domains of life, childless women experience more exclusion, and perceive more exclusion due to being childless, in the social and civic domains than the service and economic domains. Circumstantially and involuntarily childless women, followed by voluntarily childless women, perceive more exclusion due to being childless than undecided and future childed women. Experiences are influenced by the nature of women’s ‘deviance’ from pronatalism.

Appraising the Quality of Democracy as a Developmental Phenomenon: How South Koreans Appraise the Quality of Their Democracy

In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have made serious efforts to assess the quality of democracy from the perspective of ordinary citizens. Their research endeavors to date have all sought to distinguish democracies exclusively in terms of low to high levels of quality. Unlike these studies, which are solely concerned with the varying levels of democratic quality, this study offers a new conceptual framework that allows for discerning and monitoring its shifting patterns from electoral through liberal to civic quality. An analysis of the 2010 Korea Democracy Barometer survey confirms that the quality of democracy is, indeed, a developmental and multidimensional phenomenon. Furthermore, it reveals that ordinary citizens are capable of identifying its particular dimensions, and Korean democracy shows a significant deficit in two: the liberal and civic domains.

‘A Most Exquisite Dilemma’: Conscience, Dissent and the Limits of Civic Authority in London’s Sheriffs Case

In 1754, the City of London Corporation began legal proceedings against Allen Evans and Alexander Sheafe to enforce payment of their fines for failing to act as the City’s sheriffs. This article argues that this was not a simple case of debt collection, or even of the City’s need to enforce the performance of such roles. Rather, it explores contemporary accusations that the City authorities were exploiting the legal and moral dilemmas faced by its dissenting liverymen to raise the necessary capital for the construction of the Lord Mayor’s Mansion House. More broadly, it argues that the matter offers a specific London context for understanding eighteenth-century discord concerning the validity — and indeed the existence — of England’s ancient constitution. London, whose cherished semi-autonomy from the fiat of the monarch relied on the performance of its own ancient liberties in its civic, commercial and municipal domains, proved a compelling arena for this debate.

Putting Children Front and Center: Building Coordinated Social Policy for America's Children

In this article, we argue that policymakers in America should reference a coherent, comprehensive, and child-centered framework for children. That is, based on an extensive review of the empirical literature on the first two decades of life, we conclude that policies should address the needs of young people throughout the first two decades of life. In addition, public policies should address the multiple contexts within which young people develop, and the multiple domains that represent positive development, such as cognitive, psychological, physical, social, emotional, and civic domains. By referencing such a framework, we posit that public policies would be more effective and efficient. We conclude with multiple recommendations that would be first steps to putting this framework into practice.

Geographics for the present: Patrick Geddes, urban planning and the human sciences

I argue here for a reconsideration of the work of Patrick Geddes as providing the elements of a viable system of natation for the developmen of appropriate settings for urban goverance and policy development which draw on a wider range of human and social science disciplines and knowledge frameworks than is currently the case. Geddes' work stands, eccentrically, at the interesection of a developing tradition of multidisplinary nineteenth-century urbanism and a susequent narpower and professionalized urban planning framework which is not attetive to, or capable of providing, the 'life managemen capacities which remain fundamental to urban of goverance. It is proposed that Geddes atempts at the convergence of the displines of geography, economics and anthropology through his adaptations of Frderic Le Play's wor on the Europan family provides more adequate basis for both analysing and managing the contemporary imperatives of governance in rapidly transforming urban and civic domains. The imperatives include the understanding of urban life-style and culturl patterns; the nature of the city as an economic unit in post-industrial economics, and the need for strategic and integrated approaches to urban policy development and planning.

Human Rights Practice: Gender-Sensitive Law Enforcement

Women are entitled to the equal enjoyment and protection of all human rights in the political, economic, social, cultural, civic and other domains. These rights include, inter alia, the right to life, equality, liberty and security of the person; equal protection under the law; freedom from discrimination; the highest attainable standard of mental and physical health; just and favourable conditions of work; and freedom from torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.