Constructions Of Success Research Articles

A view from the top: An examination of postfeminist sensibilities in women leaders’ constructions of success and responses to gender inequality in English football

Abstract Using data from biographic interviews with women leaders in English football, this article examines women’s constructions of success in the face of gender inequalities and analyses the conditions under which women leaders challenge or repudiate gender inequalities. Through the lens of postfeminist sensibilities, I find that women face an “ideological dilemma” between acknowledging unequal access to football leadership and narrating their success through a discourse of personal choice and merit. Consequently, women leaders were unlikely to reflect on their privileged access to leadership or support institutional changes to address gender equality. Nonetheless, women leaders invested in personal strategies to support future women leaders in football by reclaiming negative narratives about football’s treatment of women and performing acts of “tempered radicalism” to challenge unequal gender relations. These findings show that a postfeminist sensibility in the football workplace can be simultaneously beneficial and detrimental to gender equality efforts as women leaders work to reconcile a collective feminist consciousness with a neoliberal subjectivity. These findings suggest that it is a mistake to position postfeminist sensibilities in opposition to radical gender equality efforts. Instead, we must focus on ways to support women leaders to navigate their complex, fragile, and contradictory positions and capitalize on the ruptures in neoliberal thinking within postfeminist sensibilities that offer opportunities to challenge gender inequalities.

Extending the story of IS success: a meta-analytic investigation of contingency factors at individual and organisational levels

ABSTRACT In the last decade, a diverse array of information systems (IS) has emerged to help organisations achieve their performance goals. As a result, global spending on information technology (IT) has increased manifold. These developments have reopened the fundamental question of how IS success is shaped at the organisational level. Scholars and practitioners would also like to understand if, compared to the individual level, IS success patterns differ at the organisational level. The last meta-analysis of IS success was conducted nearly a decade ago and it could not examine IS success at the organisational level. There is also a need to gain a deeper understanding of key contingencies influencing success at the organisational level. Based on a comprehensive meta-analysis of research studies conducted in the last decade, we not only report how IS success patterns are shaped at the organisational level but also show how these patterns compare to success configurations at the individual level. Additionally, we conduct detailed multi-level meta-analyses of system complexity and user type as two key contingencies influencing success at both individual as well as organisational levels. Findings of our moderation analyses reveal distinct constructions of IS success across both levels.

Leadership and intersectionality

Using intersectionality theory, the article presents constructions of successful leadership by three Black women school principals in three different contexts: England, South Africa and the United States. The article is premised on the overall shortage of literature on Black women in educational leadership, which leaves Black women’s experiences on the periphery even in contexts where they are in the majority. Through a life-history approach, we interviewed three Black women leaders on their experiences of gender and race in constructing success in leadership, and used intersectionality theory to analyse their accounts. Our analysis suggests that Black women leaders’ constructions of success are shaped by overcoming barriers of their own racialized and gendered histories to being in a position where they can lead in providing an education for their Black communities, where they are able to inspire a younger generation of women and to practice leadership that is inclusive, fair and socially just. We conclude with a range of implications for the scholarship of intersectionality and educational leadership practice.

‘My Own House, Car, My Husband, and Children’: meanings of success among Ghanaians

The purpose of the study was to explore the extent to which contemporary social, economic, and religious developments inform social constructions of success in Ghana. Participants, consisting of 21 females and 39 males, aged between 20 and 70, from different educational and occupational backgrounds were interviewed about what they consider as success. Participants belonged to either Traditionally Western Mission Churches or Charismatic Christian denominations and were selected from three regions of Ghana. Thematic analysis revealed four dimensions of success: (1) Social (including marriage, children, social recognition, and social contribution to society); (2) Material (comprising meeting basic needs; economic independence; material wealth); (3) Educational; and (4) Religious (e.g., God's work, relationship with God). Three pathways to success were also observed in the data: (a) Divine blessings; (b) Adaptability; and (c) Striving. Discussion focuses on social, policy, counselling, and research implications.

What counts as success? Constructions of achievement in prestigious higher education programmes

Academic achievement is regarded an indicator of the success of individuals, schools, universities and countries. ‘Success’ is typically measured using performance indicators such as test results, completion rates and other objective measures. By contrast, in this article we explore students’ subjective understandings and constructions of success, and discourses about ‘successful’ students in higher education contexts that are renowned for being demanding and pressured. We draw on data from 87 semi-structured interviews with students and staff on law, medicine and engineering physics programmes in a prestigious university in Sweden. We focus particularly upon academic expectations, effort levels, and programme structures and cultures. Achieving top grades while undertaking a range of extracurricular activities was valorised in all contexts. Top grades were especially impressive if they were attained without much effort (especially in engineering physics) or stress (especially in law and medicine); we introduce a new concept of ‘stress-less achievement’ in relation to the latter. Furthermore, being sociable as well as a high academic achiever signified living a ‘good life’ and, in law and medicine, professional competence. We discuss the implications of the dominant constructions of success, concluding that (upper) middle-class men are most likely to be read as ‘successful students’, especially in engineering physics.

Border Brokers: Teachers and Undocumented Mexican Students in Search of Acompañamiento

ABSTRACTThis article examines the deployment of border conocimiento and the subsequent cultural production of third spaces for transnational Mexican youth by Chicano educators who I call “border brokers” at a northern California high school. It examines the micro-level insurgent actions on the part of a small group of educators at Bosque High to engage Mexican migrant youth through a different educational vision and narrative—a vision based on communal notions of learning and belonging and border epistemology, what I call Acompañamiento, where the meaning and scope of membership in the community in which one lives are addressed. Demonstrating a border epistemology, border teachers understood intimately the need to go beyond narrow constructions of academic success to join in the struggle for full realization of their students’ humanity and need to be in community. Using ethnographic data from a year-long study at a northern California high school and town, this paper examines the different ways that educators came together to claim space and create place for displaced transmigrants in what I call acts of acompañamiento—a fluid cultural practice of solidarity, advocacy, and relationship/community building based on cultural knowledge situated in border zones.

Critical geographies of education: an introduction

Critical geographies of education: an introduction

Having It All? A Qualitative Examination of Affluent Adolescent Girls’ Perceptions of Stress and Their Quests for Success

This study sought to better understand the relationship between affluence and elevated risk for psychosocial distress among adolescent girls. In-depth qualitative interviews at two time points with three cohorts of girls (sixth-, eighth-, and 10th grade; T1 n = 57, T2 n = 58) from two independent girls schools Grades 6 to 12, along with their parents, and their teachers were conducted. Through narrative thematic analysis, four overarching sources of significant stress were identified: (a) pervasive experiences of pressures to perform, (b) narrow constructions of success, (c) peer competition, and (d) misalignments in expectations between some girls and their parents. These pressures were even more heightened among the older girls. Although all of the girls reported experiencing these stressors, those girls who reported a more other-oriented sense of purpose also reported stronger connections with peers and seemed better able to manage the pressures.

Exploring Service Provider Perceptions of Treatment Barriers Facing Black, Non-Gay-Identified MSMW

ABSTRACTNon-gay-identified men who have sex with men and women and who use alcohol and other drugs are a vulnerable population. Little is known about health and medical service provider interaction with these underserved clients. This article presents a thematic analysis of two focus groups undertaken with social and medical service providers regarding the needs of non-gay-identified men who have sex with men and women. Four emergent themes (labeling, constructions of masculinity, HIV/AIDS awareness, and treatment success) illustrate perceived barriers to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, as well as treatment success. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed.

Constructions of success in academia: an early career perspective

Expectations around success in academia vary, and early career academics often receive conflicting messages about what they should concentrate on to achieve promotion or tenure. Taking a social constructionist approach, this paper considers the constructs of objective and subjective career success in academia and shares the perspectives of early career academics in three countries in relation to these narratives. Key findings are that objective career success in academia dominates the literature but remains ill-defined in the minds of the early career academics to whom the measures are applied, and that subjective career success in academia needs both more research attention and more consideration in promotion, tenure, and workload deliberations and policies.

Toward a study of culture suitable for (Frontiers in) cultural psychology

Toward a study of culture suitable for (Frontiers in) cultural psychology

Breaking in and breaking out a medical school: feminist academic interrupted?

PurposeDespite the well‐documented resistance to feminism and gender equality within universities, the profound implications for feminist academics have not received sufficient attention. In this paper the author aims to focus on the inauthentication of feminist academic work by powerful actors in higher education and the implications for feminist academic careers. The author illustrates through her professional experience at a UK medical school how the othering and exclusion of feminists, sustained through surveillance and power mechanisms of organisational life, can disrupt and interrupt feminist academic identity.Design/methodology/approachThis is a reflective piece of work that attempts to illustrate the author's experiences of occupational segregation and marginalisation within a patriarchal and an emerging “entrepreneurial” academic department. The author attempts to represent her lived professional experiences as a feminist academic in a medical school, through the use of narrative and metaphors.FindingsDrawing on notions of othering, interrupted and storied subjectivities, the author illustrates how gendered expectations and constructions of academic performance and success within patriarchal organisations can “make up” and “break up” the professional self and affect the nomadic nature of academic careers and identities.Practical implicationsThis paper contributes to theory about workplace identities and practice of gender equality in academia.Originality/valueThe author illustrates how the intersections of identities (feminist, social scientist, woman) can shape personal stories, professional experiences and careers within universities. The author demonstrate how personal stories can uncover gender inequalities and challenge dominant paradigms of knowledge and research within a micro‐web of emotionality and power relations.

Making Meaning in Student Teaching

Using Kegan's (1982, 1994) theory of constructive developmentalism, this study focused on the way in which the teacher candidates defined success in student teaching. The candidates differed in their personal epistemologies or what Kegan (1982) called orders of consciousness, which referred to the different ways an individual made meaning of everyday events and relationships. One of the teacher candidates defined success through the lens of external opinions and feedback from her cooperating teachers and university supervisors, whereas the other drew upon her own internal beliefs. The difference in their constructions of success reflected the variance in these candidates’ orders of consciousness: one student operated from a perspective in which external feedback and relationships defined the self, and the other was evolving toward an epistemology based on her self-authored interpretation of events and relationships. The findings of this study have implications for the way teacher educators supervise and support student teachers and also for the way teacher education programs encourage and challenge candidates to think about teaching before they enter student teaching.

The role of gender and culture in the narrative construction of identity

This paper focuses on gendered constructions of success and failure in narratives produced in a specific cultural context. The paper presents results of the analysis of narratives produced in the context of a class reunion. The ca. 10,000-word corpus is made up of 28 short, autobiographical narratives told by 18 females and 10 males in 2007, in Hungary. A discourse-analytical approach is applied, which makes possible the combination of a close analysis of actual texts, the self-presentation of women and men in front of their class mates, and of the wider social-cultural context in which they are produced and consumed. An analysis of narrative networks links the local-interactional and social-discursive functions of the narratives. First, macro-topics of success and failure are identified then their linguistic expressions are examined focusing on distancing through the frequent use of slang, mitigation and self-irony. Results are explained by the ambivalent relationship towards success in the Hungarian value-system as well as by the gender-differentiated meaning of the concepts of success and failure.

Constructions of Strategies Toward Success in English Literacy in Children by Dual-Language Families: A Qualitative Research Proposal

Constructions of Strategies Toward Success in English Literacy in Children by Dual-Language Families: A Qualitative Research Proposal

Women’s Careers at the Start of the 21st Century: Patterns and Paradoxes

In this article we assess the extant literature on women’s careers appearing in selected career, management and psychology journals from 1990 to the present to determine what is currently known about the state of women’s careers at the dawn of the 21st century. Based on this review, we identify four patterns that cumulatively contribute to the current state of the literature on women’s careers: women’s careers are embedded in women’s larger-life contexts, families and careers are central to women’s lives, women’s career paths reflect a wide range and variety of patterns, and human and social capital are critical factors for women’s careers. We also identify paradoxes that highlight the disconnection between organizational practice and scholarly research associated with each of the identified patterns. Our overall conclusion is that male-defined constructions of work and career success continue to dominate organizational research and practice.

Review of The scales of success: Constructions of life-career success of eminent men and women lawyers.

SHEELAGH O'DONOVAN-POLTEN The Scales of Success: Constructions of Life-Career Success of Eminent Men and Women Lawyers Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2001, 351 pages (ISBN 0-8020-8392-7, C$24.95, Softcover) Reviewed by ANNE MARSHALL Many writers have posed the question, What constitutes a successful life? Sheelagh O'Donovan-Polten has asked a group of professionals who are themselves seen as successful, describe what it means them. Her central research question How does a professionally successful, middle-aged Canadian lawyer construct success? An additional important question To what degree do such constructions differ by gender? The author uses the term life-career indicate that the scope of her inquiry is broader than simply career. The organization of the book is similar a research report. The seven chapters are divided into four parts. Part One provides a rationale for the research, background literature in adult development, career development, gender issues, and related areas, as well as a description of the inquiry process. Case profiles of the eight participants are presented in Part Two. Part Three includes a description of the 14 data themes, divided into common themes and gender-linked themes. Concluding propositions and implications of the research constitute Part Four. The interview protocols and other research documents are included at the end of the book. Robert Kegan's (1982, 1994) constructive-development model used as a theoretical frame of reference for the inquiry process. Kegan has described a comprehensive theory of the psychological evolution of meaning-making. He depicts adult development as a hierarchically organized series of alternating periods of stability and transition. Five balances (1982) or orders of consciousness (1994) represent interludes of dynamic development stability, during which assimilation of and accommodation new experiences proceed in context of a relationship established between the individual and the environment. Yet, each evolutionary balance achieved is only a temporary solution the lifelong dialectical struggle between two human yearnings - the desire for social connection and the desire for independence. O'Donovan-Polten adopted a phenomenological approach, employing minimally structured, in-depth interviews with her eight collaborative co-participants. She interviewed four male and four female middle-aged lawyers who were in private practice in the Toronto area. All were considered be highly successful according peer judgement and other external criteria. Each a senior-level partner in their respective law firms, and between 40 and 60 years old. In the first phase of the research, O'Donovan-Polten conducted what she termed a Kegan-style interview, the first part of which was virtually identical that prescribed for the Subject-- Object Interview (p. 22). Six 24 months later, she followed up with the second phase, Profile Review Interview, in which the co-participant's preliminary profile checked for accuracy, completeness, and confidentiality. In the third phase, she conducted a comparative and inductive analysis of the categorized and synthesized data. The eight case profiles presented have been personally endorsed by the lawyers, and are interesting read. Each has slightly different data category labels, reflecting the characteristic voice, including specific vocabulary, of each participant. The four male profiles are presented first, then the four female ones, in order to render male versus female comparisons all the more explicit and stark (p. 30). Verbatim quotes from the interviews are included in the profiles. Fourteen themes emerged from the analysis. These themes are presented in a fairly complicated graphic, representing a set of scales. O'DonovanPolten sought an image that could symbolize both the data analysis as well as a vision of human development that gender- and culture-sensitive. …

Book Review: Gender and the Legal Profession: Fitting Or Breaking the Mould, by Joan Brockman; Scales of Success: Constructions of Life-Career Success of Eminent Men and Women Lawyers, by Sheelagh O'donovan-Polten

Book Review: Gender and the Legal Profession: Fitting Or Breaking the Mould, by Joan Brockman; Scales of Success: Constructions of Life-Career Success of Eminent Men and Women Lawyers, by Sheelagh O'donovan-Polten

Arabic, the Arab Middle East, and the Definition of Muslim Identity in Twentieth Century India

The “foreignness” of Islam in India is a familiar theme in the rhetoric of contemporary-Hindu fundamentalism. The numerical majority of Hindus in India is taken to mean that the nation-state ought to be founded on ideals and institutions defined as authentically “Hindu”, that India is the land of the Hindus, and that it must be ruled only by them. This ideology evidently leaves little room for non-Hindus, but especially so for Muslims, who ruled large parts of the Indian subcontinent for several centuries and who still constitute a sizeable minority in India. It is argued, for instance, that as the ruling elite in India, Muslims not only exploited the Hindus, they never even thought of themselves as “really” Indian and should not consequently be considered as such. For all the centrality of the Muslim Other to constructions of Hindu fundamentalism, the appeal and success of the latter is predicated on the systematic exclusion, if not the expulsion, of Muslims from the Hindu nation-state.