Conceptual Essay Research Articles

The art of leadership: holistically leading and engaging post-pandemic visual arts education

ABSTRACT Within the post-pandemic landscape of education across the United States, educators have found themselves floundering and rallying to navigate teaching and learning, amidst the personal and collective need to cope and survive. In response, with particular attention to visual arts education, our undergraduate and graduate art education programs are providing transformative professional development for our pre-service and in-service Artist Educator students, through contemplative practices that focus on the heart in order to discover and promote holistic leadership in visual arts education. This conceptual essay examines specific tenets for embracing holistic leadership for Post-Pandemic Visual Arts Education, through the deconstruction of a contemplative model containing three essential components that are integrated practices: (1) Know Thyself: Being Authentic, (2) Hone Emotional Intelligence: Cultivating Empathy and Compassion, and (3) Think and Act Creatively: Engaging Reflectively and Reflexively.

A Solid Foundation But What Will Be Built on It? Reviews of the Management, Organizations, and Environmental Sustainability Field

In this conceptual essay, we integrate broader insights into the state of research on management, organizations, and environmental sustainability, enabling a clearer view of where the field stands and the directions in which it should best grow. To this end, we first review the findings and insights of the articles published within this special review issue. Then, we define a set of emerging themes from viewing the set of articles collectively, highlighting the communalities and trends within the field but also rising concerns. Based on this assessment, we propose several remedies and a future agenda that would help our field to become more inclusive and impactful. In this final section, we specifically and critically expand on (a) the imperative of interdisciplinarity; (b) the need to avoid being trapped in the mainstream; and (c) a corresponding institutionalized intent to develop further novel approaches for research in our field.

What's in a "Latinx?": Considerations When Utilizing Pan-ethnic Identifiers of Latinidad

People of Latin American origin use many different terms to self-identify their ethnicity. To date, there are very few scholarly articles that have investigated the growing use (and potential outcomes) of the term “Latinx.” Over the past decade, this pan-ethnic identifier has been wholly ascribed to a group of people who do not all identify with it. The dearth of empirical understanding on this topic is especially concerning given its significant implications on one’s positive identity development and overall psychosocial functioning. This conceptual essay is meant to introduce readers to the role that U.S. colleges and universities played in the promulgation of the word “Latinx.” It also aims to stimulate discussion amongst readers who may question how “Latinx” came to be the pan-ethnic identifier for this community as well as those who may question whether they should adopt or reject the label. To address the aforementioned inquiries, this composition includes a brief history of the most commonly used pan-ethnic terms for the Latin American diaspora. The implications of ascribing gender-inclusive vs. gender-neutral labels on positive identity development, as well as recommendations and best practices for social work researchers, practitioners, and other stakeholders, are also discussed.

We Have Met the Enemy in Teacher Education; It Is Us—Teacher Educators and the Bad Faith of Our Niceness, Not Teachers

In this conceptual essay, the author draws on the concept of bad faith to explore its connections to Niceness and role in sustaining the historical failures of U.S. teacher education to prepare future teachers to effectively teach learners from diverse backgrounds through culturally responsive pedagogy. Bad faith is a useful, albeit underutilized, concept in considering and challenging the patterned historical inequities maintained by Niceness in teacher preparation programs. Applying a critical race theory (CRT) methodology and analysis, the author presents and interrogates three representative exemplars of a logic of racism operationalized through bad faith, then insulated by Niceness in U.S. teacher education. These exemplars serve as conceptual case studies that are constituted as composite scenarios of patterned enactments of bad faith authorized by Niceness within U.S. teacher education; these cases demonstrate how [and why] the bad faith–Niceness interplay informs the work and [good] intentions of stakeholders most often in ways that further, rather than challenge, historical failures of U.S. teacher education for culturally responsive pedagogy.

Doing Critical Race Theory in Perilous Times: Engaging Critical Race Legal Scholarship for Higher Education and Beyond

Abstract: Misinterpretations and caricatures of Critical Race Theory (CRT) abound in popular media and in higher education scholarship. Given the confusion surrounding what CRT is and is not, I write this conceptual essay as an invitation to engage seriously with CRT's legal foundations. I offer four guideposts to aid scholars in engaging the legal roots of CRT on a deeper level: thinking with and beyond tenets, leveraging the scope of CRT work by legal scholars, understanding the CRT critique of Critical Legal Studies, and appreciating CRT's theoretical depth and complexity. Further, I highlight characteristics of CRT legal scholarship that are not always explicit in higher education research. Specifically, I describe CRT as an anti-subordination project, a materialist project, a critical intellectual project, and an activist project. Through engaging with CRT's legal scholarship, I demonstrate how higher education scholars' understanding and employment of CRT will be enriched.

A Signature Pedagogy: Virtue-Based Service-Learning and the Theopolitical Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas

The purpose of this conceptual essay is to explore how the theological politics of Stanley Hauerwas can provide an appropriate yet accessible ethical framework for faculty members and administrators at American Christian colleges and universities seeking to maximize the effects of service-learning. An attempt will be made to propose a virtue-based model of service-learning emphasizing the development of hope and patience through an understanding of the Christian church as a contrast society seeking to be a servant community dependent upon God.

Doing Critical Race Theory in Perilous Times: Engaging Critical Race Legal Scholarship for Higher Education and Beyond

Abstract: Misinterpretations and caricatures of Critical Race Theory (CRT) abound in popular media and in higher education scholarship. Given the confusion surrounding what CRT is and is not, I write this conceptual essay as an invitation to engage seriously with CRT’s legal foundations. I offer four guideposts to aid scholars in engaging the legal roots of CRT on a deeper level: thinking with and beyond tenets, leveraging the scope of CRT work by legal scholars, understanding the CRT critique of Critical Legal Studies, and appreciating CRT’s theoretical depth and complexity. Further, I highlight characteristics of CRT legal scholarship that are not always explicit in higher education research. Specifically, I describe CRT as an anti-subordination project, a materialist project, a critical intellectual project, and an activist project. Through engaging with CRT’s legal scholarship, I demonstrate how higher education scholars’ understanding and employment of CRT will be enriched.

Developments in Targeted Genome Editing in Plants and Their Applications in Crop Improvement-A Conceptual Essay

Developments in Targeted Genome Editing in Plants and Their Applications in Crop Improvement-A Conceptual Essay

Small axe: chipping away at special collections barriers to inclusivity

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to share this study’s efforts to foster belonging in special collections public service spaces, as Black and Latina practitioners of color, while navigating known systemic professional barriers to inclusivity in the library information profession.Design/methodology/approachIn this conceptual essay, frameworks from Black and Chicana feminist theories are applied which resonate deeply with this study’s practices but are not often encountered in library spaces, namely intersectional nepantla, which is used to situate the positionality within special collections.FindingsFostering belonging in special collections environments is an ongoing effort, but this study offers reflections in solidarity with all who seek to increase inclusivity and equity in their spaces. It is believed that the cumulative impact of many small actions implemented from the ground up can potentially be as significant as top-down, administrative charges.Originality/valueThis article's originality stems from both its authors and the methodology. As BIPOC practitioners, to the authors emphasize the authentic, day-to-day interactions that are essential to developing inclusivity and equity in special collections and archival spaces. Special collections reference workers have limited time off desk to collaborate and conduct research.

Building Bridges: Examining the Role of University Athletic Departments and Local Congregations in the Holistic Care of Student-Athletes in the United States

This conceptual essay discusses how university athletic departments and local churches can collaborate in providing spiritual care for intercollegiate athletes in the United States. Parachurch organizations such as Athletes in Action (AIA) and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) play a vital role in creating and maintaining these partnerships. Additionally, a considerable body of literature is available on the importance of religiosity and spirituality in the lives of intercollegiate athletes in the United States. In the interests of helping intercollegiate student-athletes grow and develop religiously and spirituality, many sports chaplains assist student-athletes with finding a local place to worship while on campus. Chaplains that subscribe to the “urban chaplaincy/congregational model” play a significant role in bringing this task to pass. This essay highlights the primacy of building a relational bridge between university athletic departments and local churches in the United States to collaborate in intercollegiate student-athlete spiritual development and holistic care.

A Call for Raciolinguistic Epistemologies: Transnational Languaging of Immigrant Literacy Teacher Educators

ABSTRACT Twenty-first century literacy teacher education in and beyond the United States continues to reinforce standardized languages – often English, and knowledges based on these languages in their preparation of literacy teachers. Despite literacy research informed by a largely white monolingual population of teacher educators, most of whom are predominantly English-speaking and rely very often on best practices in literacy research largely and historically conducted with monolingual (i.e., standard-English speaking) students, there is an expectation that research on diversity in literacy will change the practices of teachers amidst a concomitant failure to examine intentionally, the racial, linguistic, and cultural diversity of language and literacy teacher educators who have been deemed so central to changing teachers, ideologies and practices toward languaging. To address these concerns, this conceptual essay argues that immigrant teacher educators (of Color) possess epistemologies critical to teaching literacy and language to prospective and practicing teachers in teacher education programs within the United States. I present and discuss three epistemological bases of immigrant literacy teacher educators of Color racialized epistemologies – steeped in their racialized languaging, as a paradigmatic shift from Minority World to Majority World knowledges in literacy and language research, policy, and education.

Translanguaging through the body: centering geographies of selves in Latinx pre-service teacher education

Traversing metaphorical, literal, and epistemological borders everyday creates and produces new ways of being and knowing. These migrations have afforded many with ways to live in the in-betweenness of multiple languages, identities, and knowledges. In this conceptual essay, we focus on Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of geographies of selves to support ideas of translanguaging as a theory and pedagogy of linguistic embodiment. The body moves through space and time gathering information, knowledge, and wisdom to produce hybrid languages and culture and ultimately new knowledges. We specifically look towards the borderlands embodied experiences as central to new ways of understanding how bodies/identities express different realities and knowledges through language. We offer implications for Latinx pre-service education.

Dialogic Intentions: Social Practice and Moral Character in Contemporary Arts and Education

The decades-long surge of artistic interest in social practice finds a potential confluence in the recent rise of moral character as an object of psychological study, with both ideas filtering downstream into contemporary arts education philosophy and practices. Although much has been written about the social turn in the arts and the cultivation of character in education, few investigators have analyzed the relationship between them. This conceptual essay contributes to a possible convergence by examining the tensions and opportunities inherent in the integration of experimental art-making with the traditions of social science and moral theory. Its purpose is to take a personality-based approach to socially engaged art-making: to understand why some artists engage in social practice and the implications for arts education. This inquiry draws from a series of public interviews that examine the works and values, thoughts and feelings, practices and perspectives of contemporary artists working in higher education.

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN LARGE-ENROLLMENT INTRODUCTORY STATISTICS

Implementing formative assessment in large-enrollment statistics courses is recommended by mathematics and statistics education communities. Yet research maintains that large-enrollment courses employ few, if any, formative assessments, exacerbating negative attitudes toward statistics and low student achievement. This conceptual essay applies an andragogical approach to the theories of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and formative assessment. A literature review explicates the associations between formative assessment with feedback and reassessment with student attitudes and achievement. Resulting from the review, a conceptual framework is proposed that illustrates the relations between the elements of formative assessment cycles and student attitudes and achievement. The implications of this conceptual framework suggest a comprehensive transformation of assessment practices to provide pathways for student success in statistics courses.

Citizen brand: The emergence of brandstanding as organizational engagement and civic duty

The concept of brandstanding has been embraced by leading public relations firms and practitioners, but is virtually absent from scholarship. This conceptual essay defines brandstanding as an organization (corporation, nonprofit, or government agency) taking a public stance on a contentious issue (generally, outside of its industry or core purpose) while articulating its corresponding values and maintaining authenticity. It further describes the phenomenon in four components: (1) organizational and stakeholder values, (2) authenticity, (3) engagement, and (4) measurement. Understanding the role of each can help PR practitioners guide organizations toward informed participation in civic discourse. While some have encouraged an approach that minimizes contention (i.e. Argenti, 2020), this essay uses moral decoupling theory to argue that reducing the distance between what they say and how they act (Dowell & Jackson, 2020; Weiner, 2021) and striving for authenticity—the continuity, credibility, integrity, and symbolism of an organization’s stance (Morhart et al., 2015)—should be the most crucial factors in engagement decisions.

Chicana/Latina feminista plática methodology as a praxis of solidarity for Black women and women of color contingent faculty at a predominantly white institution (PWI)

Rooted in the history of women of color feminisms along with the everyday pedagogical practices that occur in Chicanx/Latinx communities, CLF plática methodology stems from the recognition that Chicanx/Latinx communities are experts of their lives who engage in knowledge production and theory every day. In this conceptual essay, we explore how utilizing a CLF plática methodology while working as contingent faculty at a PWI in north Texas helped us to craft a praxis of solidarity that: developed community; provided a relationship and the space to strategize on how to respond to white supremacist violence; presented opportunities to discharge and heal; as well as opportunities to celebrate and engage in collaborative mentorship and now, collaborative research with each other.

Advancing Racial Equity in Extended Clinical Practice

ABSTRACT In this conceptual essay, we analyze a recent trend in teacher preparation: extended clinical practice. We unearth how this practice continues to perpetuate the racial status quo instead of achieving educational change. We draw on institutionalized racism to examine how and why clinical practice in P-12 schools, often viewed as the most important or impactful component of teacher preparation, preserves and supports racist schooling practices and outcomes. Our analysis highlights a set of normative assumptions within extended clinical practice that are enacted across individual, intra-organizational, and inter-organizational levels, reinforced by color-evasive practices disguised as color-neutrality. As we examine these assumptions, we identify specific racialized institutional pressures across multiple contexts. We conclude with a series of recommendations for teacher preparation that aims to advance racial equity in P-12 schooling.

The Importance of ehealth in the management of patient’s safety

The goal of this article is to communicate the concept of patient safety as well as the function, goals, benefits, and application areas of eHealth in the patient safety management process. The advancement of information and communication technology presents potential for e-health services and tools to assist innovation in the health services industry. The employment of digital technology in the medical field, on the other hand, has a significant impact on patient safety. As a result, it is vital to consider if e-health services and technology may be leveraged to improve patient safety management. The article is conceptual in nature and was prepared using research methods such as a review and in-depth analysis of health policy literature and papers, reports, and legal proceedings. Although eHealth services and technology may be used to help with a variety of patient safety management duties, they require continual, complex engagement at all levels of the health system, as well as cross-sectoral and worldwide collaboration. This is true for both technological collaboration and the legal framework for implementing the promise of e-health. Patients' and medical personnel's active participation in generating health awareness, as well as their involvement in communication and educational processes, is especially important in the implementation of digital technology. Objectives: The major purpose of this article is to communicate the essence and determinants of patient safety, as well as to emphasize the possibilities for integrating eHealth tools and services (digital health treatments) in the patient safety management process. The conceptual essay is founded on an examination of literature and materials. The following research methodologies were used: a) study and in-depth analysis of management literature relevant to patient safety management and digital health, and b) document analysis - review and in-depth analysis of international strategy documents on health policy, reports, and legal acts.

Management in education by applying strategic planning

Strategic planning is vital in all organizations, including the management of an educational institution. In this context, the study seeks to present the application of strategic planning in educational management. The methodology used was an applied theoretical and conceptual essay with descriptive and bibliographic characteristics and a qualitative approach to data. We searched management journals for articles that addressed strategic planning in educational management. Thirty articles that addressed strategic planning in education management were investigated in the title, abstract, and keywords. Twenty-one articles were selected that carried out empirical studies in educational institutions that prepare strategic planning in their management or aim to implement it. Among the results achieved, we found that the main reason that facilitates or inhibits the implementation of strategic planning in the management of educational institutions is the transparency of the objectives to professionals along with the manager, meaning a plan built with the participation of all will be much easier to achieve the expected goals and be able to have an overview of the past to project the future, thinking about the pedagogical, economic and financial aspects and the existing competition in the sector.

Regimes of comprehensibility

This brief conceptual essay addresses the fundamental antinomy between, on the one hand, promoting a multilingual approach to reading and, on the other, deconstructing linguistic boundaries and identifications as such. While the concept of multilingualism pragmatically challenges monolingual habits of thinking, it fails to take account of the porousness of linguistic boundaries. Multilingualism, in this respect, is still beholden to the monolingual paradigm. Conversely, however, the deconstruction of the unity of a language risks playing fast and loose with sedimented institutional and textual histories that not only give “a” language tremendous authority but also add continuously to its qualities as a conceptual and aesthetic resource. Drawing on two examples from Kiran Desai’s novel The Inheritance of Loss (2006), the article discusses author-, text- and reader-oriented approaches to literary multilingualism, in order to arrive at a more contextualising and socially oriented notion that draws on current world literature scholarship. With “English” as its central case, a key claim here is that a regimes-approach makes it possible to speak of the multilingualism of “one” language.