Construction Of Self Research Articles

Influence of context on identity construction after traumatic brain injury

Objective: It has been widely accepted that positive identity construction after traumatic brain injury (TBI) results in better rehabilitation outcomes. However, there is limited information available on the linguistic resources that individuals use to construct such identities, and how the context in which they are communicating may influence this construction of self. This research uses the tools of systemic functional linguistics to examine the linguistic construction of identity in an individual with moderate-severe chronic TBI. Method: The individual participated in two different conversations, one with a male stranger and the other with a female brain injury researcher, and the conversation transcripts were analyzed using tools of systemic functional linguistics. Results: The identities communicated and linguistic construction of self in both contexts had many similarities. In both conversations, the participant presented a positive perspective of his post brain injury life, and he described similar relationships. Nevertheless, there were also noteworthy differences. With the stranger, he distanced himself from the topic of the injury by not discussing his pre-injury self or his injury-related difficulties. However, with the researcher, he contrasted a negative pre-injury persona with his current, improved post-injury self. Additionally, when conveying information about his relationships to the stranger he projected a more powerful and in-charge identity than with the researcher. Discussion: An analysis of language using systemic functional linguistics can reveal important information about how individuals communicate their identity. Additionally, the identities communicated can be highly variable depending on the conversation partner, the context of the interaction, and sociocultural gender norms. Conclusion: The results suggest that contextual influences on identity construction have important clinical implications for rehabilitation.

Kin Are the People Who Still Pick Up the Phone: An Essay on the Social Constructions of Family, Kin, and Self

In this short creative nonfiction piece, author Casey Anne Brimmer discusses their understanding of kinship as a matter of chosen family that relies on covenants—spoken and unspoken—to built kinship ties. Here, the author speaks to their experience of being isolated from kin by circumstances and how, to them, kin are the people who pick up the phone even after years of not talking to one another.

Other spaces for young women’s identity work in physics: Resources accessed through university-adjacent informal physics learning contexts in Sweden

For young women, inbound identity trajectories into physics are generally regarded as exceptional. In this study, we investigated the experiences that young women have which may support their sustained interest and achievement in physics, and their ongoing inbound trajectories into post-secondary physics education. To understand these experiences, we look to the role of informal physics learning (IPL) environments as spaces which can offer resources that support women’s trajectories into physics. In this paper, we highlight the important role of what we call “university-adjacent” IPL experiences—internships, summer schools, and associations that connect secondary students with the research lives of physicists. Focusing on case studies of six women enrolled in post-secondary physics programs across Sweden, we identify the various forms of resources made available through IPL environments, and how these create possibilities for young women to engage in forms of identity work that contribute to the construction of new possible selves in physics. Findings suggest that young women can access important relational and ideational resources through university-adjacent IPL programs. Relational resources included (a) supportive social networks, (b) enduring relationships, and (c) relatability. Importantly, our research finds that IPL opportunities that emphasize relationship building can create immersive experiences which go beyond representation and rather emphasize opportunities to develop practice-linked identities. Ideational resources emerged as (a) sources of information which possibilized physics for participants, and (b) types of information that provided possibilities to learn about the life of a physicist. Finally, while we claim that IPL experiences provide important possibilities for young women to immerse themselves in the practices of physics, we also discuss that these kinds of experiences remain inaccessible to most students, and thus reproduce a certain elitism in the field.Received 22 October 2021Accepted 11 July 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.020118Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasDiversity & inclusionLearning environmentPhysics Education Research

The Reception of Pauline Mysticism: An Ideological Critique

AbstractPaul was a mystic. So claimed scholars from Adolf Deissmann to Albert Schweitzer. Others disagreed, figures no less significant than Rudolf Bultmann, Karl Barth and Ernst Käsemann. The pro-mystic group argued that Paul's theological message was best understood if set within the context of Hellenistic or Jewish mysticism. The anti-mystic group could not tolerate any similarity of that sort, which, in their opinion, would damage Paul's uniqueness. The disagreement among biblical scholars can be traced back to more general misgivings about mysticism in European thought. After surveying the reception history of Paul's mysticism, and relying on the ideological critique of religious studies, I argue that the discomfort with a ‘mystical’ Paul may be attributed to the construction of a rational Christian self, where the ‘mystical’ is othered altogether. In addition to a historical reading of Paul in the context of Jewish mysticism, it may be helpful to read him in comparison with Islamic mysticism. Hence some Pauline passages are compared with passages from Sufi literature.

Accounts of preventative coping: an interview study of stroke survivors on general practice registers

ObjectivesPreventative coping is an underexplored aspect of coping behaviour. Specifically, coping is a key concern in stroke survivor accounts, but this has yet to be investigated with reference to secondary...

“My Crafts Define My Audience”: Understanding Dialogues of Indian Women Crafter- Entrepreneurs

This paper contributes to the organization of craft in developing countries wherein craft work is a negotiated construction of self, hand labor, timelessness and of meanings. As clients are more inclined towards customization, this work found the existence of traditional and D.I.Y women crafter entrepreneurs, using the platform of social media to display their crafts which in turn constitutes the ways of 'doing' work within the digitalized contexts. This investigation is conducted by employing netnography and participant observation on Indian women entrepreneurs engaged in homecraft, to capture the ongoing interactions between the crafters and her clients. Findings highlight on the interplay of the actors and practices using craft as an approach to work, while also grappling with ambiguities and uncertainties posed by the context of social media. Moreover, the study's important implications focus on the performativity, an inclusive 'socio-cultural practice' used by women crafters' to combat resource scarcity, competition from other players, face nonwork pressures and find meaning in work, thus enhancing our understanding on organizing craft.

Your Bodies are Our Future: Vietnamese Men’s Engagement with Korean Television Dramas as a Technology of the Self

ABSTRACT In the 21st century Korean television dramas (K-dramas) have featured prominently in the Vietnamese menu of mass cultural consumption as part of Hallyu – the global popularisation of South Korean cultural products. Grounded in Michel Foucault’s notion of ‘technologies of the self’, which conceptualises humans’ use of various means to achieve personal ambitions, this article discusses how Vietnamese working-class men use K-dramas in their constructions of self. It explores these informants’ ‘forward-learning’ reception, manifested in how they draw lessons from two prominent themes in K-dramas: the pursuit of dreams and representations of soft masculinities, marked by upper- and middle-class male characters’ metrosexual lifestyles. Through a psychosocial exploration of these informants’ viewing experiences, the article examines how they construct a modern self that fits their desire for a metropolitan lifestyle and upward mobility in light of neoliberalism in modernising Vietnam. The article contributes to Hallyu research, audience research and contemporary Vietnamese studies.

Children’s identity work in daily singing-based music classes: A case study of an Australian boys’ school

Music can be a powerful activity and resource in a child’s ongoing identity construction. Rather than something that people have, musical identities are understood to be something people enact and continually work on. The correlation between musical identities and developing music skills raises serious questions regarding the possibilities and responsibilities for school music education and music teachers to positively contribute to children’s emerging identities. This study investigates how daily singing-based music classes at an Australian boys’ school shape and support children’s identity work. Research was conducted using one-on-one semistructured interviews incorporating a “draw and tell” artifact elicitation technique with seven students in Year 3. All students were engaged in their fourth year of Kodály-inspired music education as part of the school curriculum. Findings indicate that singing, singing games, playing the recorder, writing activities, musician models, and thinking musically positively contributed to boys’ identity work. These daily school music practices provided a resource for their identity work; fostered a high value for learning in, about, and through music; developed musical proficiency; ignited interest in learning musical instruments; and facilitated the entanglement of children’s musical worlds. Boys’ future identity work was supported by assisting the construction of musical possible selves and encouraging the continuation of music learning. This case study exemplifies music as a process and resource for children’s ongoing identity construction, the contributions of school music education to identity development, and the potential of singing-based music education to positively shape and support children’s musical identity work.

Bocheński’s Minima Moralia

Late in life, Józef Maria Bocheński set out to examine the age-old preoccupation with the question “how to live as well and as long as possible?” A traditional answer has been, “live wisely.” In his Handbook of Worldly Wisdom (2020), Bocheński analyzes this answer arguing that, conceptually, living wisely is distinct from obeying moral commandments, prescribing ethical rules, and recognizing authority (e.g., piety, free submission to divine authority). He claims that ethics consists solely in what moral philosophers label as “metaethics” — a theoretical discipline interested in the conceptual status of moral discourse qua discourse. However, Bocheński remains silent about a substantive ethics — that is, how a life led one way or another subscribes to some guiding value-set. As regards wisdom, therefore, the consequence of this position is that Bocheński’s account is ethically neutral. I argue that such a position entails a tension and dichotomy between, on the one hand, prudential rationality concerned with getting on in the moment — that is, wisdom — and, on the other hand, unconditional moral commandments. For his part, Bocheński does not recommend living according to wisdom’s precepts as he analyses them; his own path through life, he tells us, has been a commitment to Christian values, piety abetted by observance of moral commandments, a perspective that, I submit, is not ethically neutral: on the contrary, it entails thick, substantive value-choice. Bocheński’s avowal suggests a second dichotomy and tension, that between the worldly conduct of life, with moderate acknowledgment of moral principles, and an extra-worldly perspective (the “folly of the Cross”). Bocheński does not attempt to resolve either dichotomy, to seek a possible point of their convergence and integration, for instance by inquiring into moral psychology (i.e., the construction of self, the nature of the will, etc.). I believe that this set of views stems from conclusions Bocheński reached in advance of producing the Handbook that bear on, first, how philosophy should be conducted — as logical analysis hostile to grandiloquent speculation and synthesis (“worldviews”); and second, his utter dismissal as nefarious of anthropocentric views. Indeed, Bocheński asserts, without a blush, that almost everything “we” have come to believe about ourselves is superstition writ large. I trace what I consider to be difficulties with Bocheński’s account of wisdom — in relation to his take on morality, (meta-)ethics, and piety — to these idiosyncratic views.

Personhood and aging: Exploring the written narratives of older adults as articulations of personhood in later life

Personhood is a complex concept in gerontological research. It is often used to explore the maintenance or reconstruction of self-identity. Narrative analysis has commonly explored how the stories that older individuals living with cognitive impairment(s) produce preserve the personhood that is perceived to be threatened by cognitive decline. This article moves beyond this exploration by focusing on the experiences of aging more generally to better understand how non-cognitively impaired older adults construct personhood through narrative writing. This article uses thematic narrative analysis and argues that older adults articulate personhood through written narratives by creating coherent constructions of self. Importantly, it demonstrates that older adults are concerned with maintaining a sense of self rather than embracing changed aspects of identity in accordance with popularized conceptualizations of personhood as well as ideals of coherence and consistency promoted in successful and active aging discourses.

Mobilizing Stories of Illness in Digital Contexts: A Critical Approach to Narrative, Voice, and Visibility

AbstractIllness stories have been celebrated as a resource for giving patients voice from the active position of the wounded storyteller. The proliferating research on illness stories, however, has often reproduced a reductionist approach to narrative as a window to subjective views and experiences based on a largely underdeveloped and essentialized notion of voice. Critics of the over-celebration of narrative have called for caution toward the use of personal stories, pointing to the need to situate constructions of the narrative self in their social, cultural, and political contexts. This article discusses a new type of illness stories that has emerged in digital contexts and that is characterized by the use of illness for producing various forms of economic and social value. Using small stories and affective positioning as its analytic lens, the article examines the specific case of story design, curation, and sharing of the COVID-19 diagnosis of actor Idris Elba in March 2020. As the article argues, the illness experience is mobilized in small stories online as a resource for authenticating the self in line with conventional modes of sharing, blurring the lines between the personal voice and the public visibility of storytelling. The article contributes to the critical study of the mobilization of stories in digital contexts.

Construction of self as a principal: Meanings gleaned from narratives of novice school principals

It is assumed that individuals’ cognitions of who they are in a particular social structure influence their behaviour in that space. Likewise, school principals’ cognition of who they are in schools as social structures influences how they behave as leaders. In this article, we use the role identity theory as a framework to analyse novice principals’ narratives of lived experiences to understand how they construct themselves as principals in schools and how these constructions influence their execution of leadership. Positioned within the interpretivist paradigm, we adopted the narrative inquiry methodology to engage with the lived experiences of 3 purposively selected novice principals from the Pinetown district in KwaZulu-Natal. The narrative interview was employed to generate field texts, which were subsequently analysed using 2 methods: narrative analysis and analysis of narratives. From our analysis of field texts, 4 themes explaining how the participating novice principals construct themselves as school principals were identified; these themes are: a leader as a learner, re-establishing oneself as a leader, spanning boundaries, and leading to inspire. From these themes, we conclude that a principal’s conception of self is dynamic and is a blend of multiple meanings generated prior to becoming a principal and meanings generated during the principalship tenure.

Construction of Socio-situational Identity in Social Media Platforms: A Critical Appraisal of the Use of Digital Write-ups and Photographs

The forms of identity exploration tools and trends have been changed enormously with the rapid expansion of internet media and communication technology for the last decades. Modern dwellers are enthusiastically found to be exposed themselves in online social media through different types of digital contents for establishing their socio-situational identity every day. The random practice of sharing digital contents in online social media is not only a matter of technological instigation, but also a stimulation of late modern socio-situational condition in the process of forming identity for its’ users. Undoubtedly, the digital contents have reasonable grounds to be accepted and celebrated by the social media users in terms of their aptness in purpose. Guided by the spirit of modern technological advancement, the digital contents like digital compositions and photographs seem to occupy a huge amount of social media space today. Although the increasing endorsement and adoration of digital contents in the construction of socio-situational identity in online social platforms is alleged to manufacture a generation having less competence and compassion in the use of language in proper order, many scholars find the initiation however facilitating multidimensional avenues in the narration and construction of socio-situational self for the users. In this circumstance, with the help of recognized works and materials related to the fields, the study intends to investigate, interpret, and review the possible opportunities and challenges in the use of digital write-ups and photographs on the construction of socio-situational identity in online social media platforms.

Discursive Narration of the Collective Self in the International Speeches of the Baltic Presidents

National identities are fluid and artificial rather than natural and static concepts that have been investigated by numerous scholars through the later part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. A common agreement is that group identities are negotiated, constructed, perpetuated, transformed, and in some instances, also destructed through discourse as a social practice. Thus, it is seen to be imperative for independent nation-states that are part of larger supra-national bodies to construct and upkeep their national identity not only on the group-internal level, but also to negotiate and represent the identity internationally. Moreover, the construction of a unified collective self may pertain to forming effective international partnerships which can foster the achievement of common supra-national, international, and individual national goals. Therefore, the current study employs Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis (CACDA) to investigate how the presidents of the Baltic States have negotiated their respective national identities in international meetings in the period from the early 1990s until 2021 via the various discursive strategies and linguistic means of collective self-presentation and what common goals have been represented in the process of forming international partnerships.

Thinking of Harm Reduction and Reducing Harm in a Chinese Therapeutic Community for Drug Users.

Harm is a concept that permeates behavioral and public health discourses on addiction. Examining addiction recovery services in settings beyond the OECD led me to the question: What does harm mean in an un-urban, un-Western, and un-democratic space? While some emphasize the human rights potential of reducing harm, others speak to the violence of cure. My ethnographic research in a Therapeutic Community (TC) for drug treatment in Southwest China pushed me to consider how the potential for reducing the harms of illegalsubstance use balance with the complex psychological demands of cure. The alliance linking Sunlight Therapeutic Community with the provincial drug abuse institute and a foreign NGO was fragile. At the TC, they had difficulty weaving the Western psychological construct of the singular self through the Chinese scaffolding of institutional and cultural practices around the group. In thinking with the concepts of harm and reducing harm, I move across time and space to consider how current tensions link to and reflect: 1) the historical harms of opium imperialism; 2) reducing harm in translation; and, 3) reducing harm in the recent psycho-boom.

Exploring the professionalisation of further education teachers in England

ABSTRACT The paper captures the professionalisation of teachers in the further education sector by shining a light on their everyday struggle to uphold their ethical goals in support of their students in a climate of performative and regulatory expectations. It reports on a small-scale qualitative study in which the six participants were either on the Postgraduate Certificate in Post Compulsory Education course (PGCE in PCE) or on the Masters degree in Professional Practice and Lifelong Education (MA PPLE). They were therefore either student teachers or experienced teachers with different lengths of experience. Students were asked to rank order a set of cards and clarify their decisions. Semi-structured interviews were then undertaken in which the participants were asked to bring artefacts of their choice (potentially from their course of study). Reflection points included the construction of self as teacher and the tensions and impact of a range of expectations nationally and locally. Participants shared responses to continuous change in the sector, their institutions and within their practices. All expressed a common and sustained mission to make a difference, no matter how small, to their students’ lives.

Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry: Poems & Artifacts

Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry: Poems & Artifacts

Crossing the Line: Cristóbal de Villalpando and the Surplus of Script

In 1706 Cristóbal de Villalpando signed a painting with an unusual, intensive calligraphic flourish, and sent it from Mexico City far to the north. This essay describes Villalpando's decision to invest so much pictorial energy in letterforms against this geographic backdrop. Doing so reveals several social registers in which writing had taken on particular professional charge, and opens on to a yet broader artistic sensitivity to writing: its forms and modes of production. The Spanish Empire's extensive bureaucracy of paper made imperial subjects highly sensitive to script's visual and material qualities, such that Villalpando and his fellow artists could capitalize upon them both to produce meaning within their pictures, and to engineer particular constructions of self. In juxtaposing distinct domains of writing – notarial, educational, performative – with paintings, this essay stakes a methodological claim for considering the archive, broadly conceived, as a place just as important for looking as for reading and transcription.

Despair of Self: Strategies of Seeing and Becoming in Linn Ullmann'sDe urolige

Despair of Self: Strategies of Seeing and Becoming in Linn Ullmann's<i>De urolige</i>

Development of the ethical self of accounting versus non-accounting students – an institutional analysis

Research Question: How do accounting versus non-accounting Romanian students perceive the factors influencing the construction of the ethical self? Motivation: The answer is important in the context of accountants’ ethics being increasingly under scruity following corporate scandals. Probably because in Romania we do not have the same context, prior research on accounting ethics is scarce, so little is known about how various educational aspects impact skills and behavior. Idea: In this study we offer insights about the academic ethics education in Romania and discuss its complexity, usefulness and effectiveness. To this purpose, we involve the Romanian end-users of the academic accounting ethics education (the students) to ask for their perception regarding the role education plays in developing the ethical self. Data: We survey 413 students from five Romanian universities. Tools: We conduct descriptive statistics, cross-sectional analysis and regression analysis on the data from the survey and we mobilize an institutional-based theoretical framework (DiMaggio &amp; Powell, 1983) to discuss the factors associated with the construction of the ethical self. Findings: Our results indicate that while all isomorphic pressures are present in the creation of the ethical self, the most important factors appear to be the coercive (from classes on ethics) and mimetic ones (resulting from the need to follow immediate proxies such as classmates, professors, and the profession), and to a lesser extent the normative ones. Contribution: Understanding students’ perception of their ethics education will help both academia and professional associations adapt their style of teaching ethics so that it becomes more effective and applicable to the users.