Core Ideals Research Articles

The work role identity in flux of professional staff in a VUCA environment

Orientation: Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) represents the environment in which business organisations operate, illuminated by the post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the recent advent of artificial intelligence (AI). The VUCA environment epitomises pervasive unpredictability, shaping the challenges faced by businesses.Research purpose: This article focuses on the dynamics of individuals within private higher education institutions (PHEIs), driven by a bottom line; they compete to attract students, face greater scrutiny from outside constituencies and subjected to higher accountability. It explores the hierarchical structure of management levels and how the interrelatedness of the business environments can facilitate the navigation of the work role identity in flux in the face of constant change.Motivation for the study: The fast-paced and ever-changing nature of today’s business landscape significantly affects employees’ core identities, as the constant need to adapt and perform at their best creates feelings of insecurity and uncertainty. Consequently, it influences institutional and individual outcomes.Research approach/design and method: This qualitative study collected data from qualified staff in senior-level positions within academia, with titles such as CEO or head of campus (HOC) (N = 15) at selected PHEIs. The data were analysed using ATLAS.ti.Main findings: The findings show an extended framework highlighting elements vital to the increased institutional brand image and improved professional identity.Practical/managerial implications: How individuals in the workplace experience and respond to constant unprecedented change affects the institutional brand and the role of management causes a significant influence.Contribution/value-add: Leaders can drive organisations to adapt, change and evolve to the conditions of their organisational environment.

The (in)visibility of deafness: Identity, stigma, quality of lifeand the potential role of totally implantable cochlear implants.

The disclosure of deafness is complex, given the historic and on-going stigma associated with being deaf. The aim of this study was to explore how identity, stigma, and quality of life may be impacted when using cochlear implants (CIs) and totally implantable cochlear implants (TICIs). The physical difference between these two assistive listening devices is significant, given many CI users opt to hide their sound processor behind hair or headwear, in contrast to TICIs (an emerging technology) whereby all components are implanted internally and thus invisible. This qualitative study involved semistructured interviews and demographic questionnaires with 12 adult participants with more than 1 year of experience using their CI. Participants were recruited Australia-wide through community organisations that support deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. Interview transcripts were analysed thematically, with the themes generated through an inductive process, with consensus generated through group working with three members from the research team. Four major themes were identified: (1) CI challenges; (2) The importance of social and support networks; (3) Identity and disclosure and (4) Concerns about TICIs. The underlying finding was centred around the construction of deaf identity. Participant attitudes were generally categorised as 'Loud and proud', with the recognition that displaying the CI was an extension of self, something to be proud of, and a means to normalise deafness; or 'Out of sight and out of mind', which sought to minimise the visibility of deafness. While both identities differed in how deafness is disclosed, they are fundamentally related to the same ideas of self-agency and empowerment. TICIs present a novel opportunity-the ability for CI users to control the visibility of their deafness and thus control disclosure. This study explored the impact of stigma and categorised two core identities that CI users construct. Future directions include investigating potential CI candidates, to explore if TICIs may be a facilitator to CI uptake. The semistructured interview guide was developed in consultation with adults with CIs. Feedback led to adjustments and improvement to the interview guide. In addition, F. R. has a lived experience with hearing loss, and C. Y. L. is an executive committee member for a nonprofit charity organisation that supports families that are D/deaf and hard-of-hearing.

EUROPEAN UNION AND EUROPEAN IDENTITY. THEORETICAL APPROACHES IN JURIDICAL LOGIC

In today's discourse, the concept of identity is profoundly contested, traversing socio-political movements like Black Lives Matter to intricate international law scenarios, such as Ukraine's identity contested by the Russian Federation. Central to these discussions is Europe, particularly post the 2016 Brexit referendum, which initiated a deep reflection on Europe's and the European Union's (EU) core identities. The myriad, spontaneous debates coalesce into a formidable challenge regarding European identity. A generic approach to this identity conundrum is to reference the values articulated in Article 2 of the Treaty on EU. However, this comes with complications. First, the current identity debate emerged precisely within the ambit of Article 2. Secondly, referencing David Hume's philosophical distinction, it is crucial to differentiate between the normative aspirations in European law ("what ought to be") and the prevailing reality ("what is"). Given the increasing discussions on identity, it is essential to bypass simplistic explanations and delve deeper. The pivotal questions surrounding Europe, its inherent identity, and the very essence of the EU might require an alternative analytical lens. This article intends to embark on a journey reflecting on European identity with a nuanced perspective from juridical logic, aiming to move beyond commonplace interpretations.

Sexual liberation and religious obligation – the ‘liquid authenticity’ of ‘traditionalist’ bachelorettes in the Israeli dating scene: a phenomenological study

ABSTRACT Following Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of ‘Liquid Modernity’, the term ‘Liquid Authenticity’ is ascribed to a community that holds a type of identity known in Israel as ‘traditional’ and does not purely conform with either the secular or religious identity categories. This concept is examined through an ethno-phenomenological study of female university students who identify with this category and go out on numerous dates through dating apps. These women proclaim a sexual liberation discourse on the one hand, while declaring that they are non-liberal and aspire towards having a traditional family and a Jewish traditional lifestyle. They see no contradiction between their sexual rhetoric, 'erotic capital' and their Jewish-traditional-religious core identities. The article's main argument is that the category to which these women belong is one of many emerging categories in Israeli society that are characterized by ”Liquid Authenticity”: a form of authenticity expressing a cooptation of discourses towards identity-based ethoses and cores. At first glance a feminization of the religious discourse may be suspected, but as illustrated it is rather a cooptation of liberal language and practices into a religious-traditional identity. Similar ”liquid authenticity” configurations can be noted among additional discourse communities and specifically political communities in Israel.

Understanding Digital Identity during the Pandemic: An Investigation of Two Chinese Spanish Teachers

During combatting the COVID-19 pandemic, the most widespread change in Spanish as a foreign language instruction is imperative online teaching. It demands that language teachers move all teaching activities to virtual platforms, facilitating the construction of their digital identities. However, there is scarce attention on Spanish teachers’ professional development, given the necessity of understanding the evolvement of their identities across virtual learning platforms. Through the lens of a case study, this research explores the digital identities of Spanish as a foreign language teachers during the school lockdown in 2022. The data includes semi-structured interviews, virtual classroom discourse, lesson plans, and reflective writing. The results show that Spanish teachers formed multiple digital identities, including curriculum innovators, vulnerable actors, involuntary team workers, overseas returnees, and academic researchers. Among them, the first three are core identities, while overseas returnees and academic researchers are peripheral identities. Regardless, they were formed and negotiated under the influence of teachers’ past experiences, the exercise of agency, emotional vulnerability, and social context. In addition, a contradictory belief in teaching was also identified during the formation of Chinese Spanish teachers’ digital identities.

Core Components of Moral Injury Groups Co-Facilitated by Mental Health Providers and Chaplains.

Despite increasing interest in moral injury, there is not yet consensus around what it is (and is not), who can have it and under what circumstances, or the degree and form of distress necessary to distinguish moral injury from other psychological and spiritual difficulties. The novelty of moral injury has created space for frontline Veterans Health Administration mental health and spiritual care providers to creatively apply their core professional skills and identities to moral injury. This paper presents findings of a core components analysis (CCA) derived from seven co-led chaplain-mental health moral injury group facilitation teams that were involved in a 16-month quality improvement endeavor of the Dynamic Diffusion Network (DDN). The DDN initiative engages providers in collaborative and iterative refinement of practices to promote rapid improvements in care for complex problems that lack a codified evidence base. Using CCA, we identified 10 core components of co-facilitated moral injury group care. Components include a clear conceptualization of moral injury, an inclusive approach to spirituality, and exploration of forgiveness, among others. This paper offers guidance that can be widely applied and readily adapted as our collective understanding of moral injury continues to expand and clarify. The core components are articulated here as principles for ongoing review and revision in response to future moral injury advances in the DDN and elsewhere.

Pet owners, Hurricane Harvey, and sense-making: conceptualizing “crisis core identities”

ABSTRACT Pets are considered family to many people, which may be a reason why pet owners face identity-specific challenges during disasters. As such, this research queries how pet owner identity may impact communicative exigencies during a disaster and how this identity may impact individuals’ disaster sense-making. The 2017 Hurricane Harvey serves as the context for this research. Data were gathered using a three-stage, multi-method design that sampled from Harvey-affected pet owners. Findings suggest that pet owner identity did impact participants’ communicative exigencies as well as their sense-making processes related to their Hurricane Harvey experience as a pet owner. Based on participant insights, the concept of “crisis core identities” (CCIs) is proposed to make sense of nuances that emerged from data. Brenda Dervin’s sense-making methodology and Michael Hecht’s communication theory of identity situate the study and serve as foundations for advancing CCIs. Implications are further discussed as related to extant research, praxis, and future research.

Identifying and mapping professional identities among Swedish ambulance nurses: A multiple qualitative case study

Research on ambulance culture and identity is globally scant and nonexistent within a Swedish context. This study on Swedish ambulance nurses serves as a first step and an important entry point into this topic. The purpose was to describe professional ambulance identities among four participants who had served between several years and decades in the ambulance services. Qualitative data was obtained through initial in-depth interviews and follow-up data gathering at a later stage. The theoretical underpinnings adhered to both narrative psychology and dialogical self theory, strengthening the capacity to develop new knowledge about professional identities. The findings present four distinct types of identities among the participants. Individuality and diversity amongst the development of core identities is shown to be cultivated by the dialogue between professional and personal identities. This dialogical process began at a stage in the ambulance career when the strict demarcation line between professional and personal identities was crossed.

19.1 “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?” EXPLORING THE INTERSECTION OF RACE, TRAUMA, AND ORIENTATION IN AN EVER-CHANGING WORLD: NARRATIVES FROM TODAY’S GENERATION

Patient narratives provide an intimate journey through the eyes of today’s young survivors. Attendees will appreciate the resilience of Black LGBTQ youth who persevere and overcome hurdles sustained by complex trauma. By reflecting on youths’ firsthand trauma narratives, attendees will deconstruct biases and learn to foster change in their own practices and views. Attendees will explore patient narratives to gain a greater appreciation of complex trauma and identity-related prejudice. Youth participants articulate their life experiences to further clinicians’ understanding and to foster conversation among clinicians. The presenter will also share her exploration as a provider within a metropolitan inpatient setting, where conversation meets collaboration. Firsthand patient stories encourage practitioners to reevaluate and conceptualize what it means to experience adversity tied to various identities. Attendees will understand how traumatic life experiences challenge one’s core identities and identify points of impact for child and adolescent mental health practitioners. Attendees will also learn to create conversation among community initiatives and health systems in order to develop culturally competent inclusive practice parameters within systems of care. Practitioners will experience a deeper connection to youth served by discussing their narratives and reflecting on the impact of race, gender, and sexuality for LGBTQ youth of color.

Whitewashing Evangelical Scripture: The Case of Slavery and Antisemitism in the English Standard Version

Abstract Religious communities in pluralistic societies often hold in tension the task of reinforcing core identities and ideals within the community while negotiating public relations among those outside the community. Christian communities have sought to accomplish both projects materially through Bible modification, with most historically working to establish transitivity (congruence between the text and their own interpretive tradition), whereas others more recently have emphasized establishing what I call intransitivity (incongruence between the text and negative social interpretations from outsiders). This study examines the ways evangelical translation teams seek to accomplish both agendas simultaneously, creating a materialized instantiation of engaged orthodoxy. Drawing on the case of the English Standard Version (ESV)—a contemporary evangelical revision of the Revised Standard Version (RSV)—I show how the ESV editors, while modifying certain RSV renderings to establish transitivity for their text among complementarian/biblicist Christians, sought to establish intransitivity between the text and more pejorative social interpretations by progressively re-translating lexically ambiguous terms and introducing footnotes to obviate the Bible’s ostensible promotion of slavery and antisemitism. Findings elucidate how a conservative religious subculture, confronted with increasing pluralism, negotiates gaining legitimacy for their text within their sectarian subculture while also whitewashing “the Text” for public relations outside that subculture.

Studējošo garīgā labizjūta un praktiskas ievirzes teoloģijas studiju programma

The publication offers research and the obtained results on an alternative way of organizing the study process – an out-of-practice internship, within the framework of which the spiritual well-being of the students of the Faculty of Theology (TF) is improved. Spirituality is one of the components that ensures the sustainability of interfaith / intercultural dialogue. Further components include an inclusive learning environment that promotes the development of individual spirituality and spiritual well-being; the dialogical practice of participating in interfaith dialogue, which allows the articulation of the “core identities” of different (non)religious traditions and the acceptance of “dignified disagreements” between different worldviews, is spiritually transformative. The focus of dialogue is based on such principles. It is not founded in the formation of common views, but instead – on the mutual enrichment of each other’s experience, which promotes the individual spiritual growth of each participant in the study process. A set of spiritually transforming and otherness-promoting pedagogical methods was tested in August 2019 at the University of Latvia (UL) TF field trip – an applied theology training practice “Sandbija 2019”, Sweden. During the approbation process, a quasi-pedagogical experiment was performed with a mixed research methodology – two measurements of the spiritual well-being of the research participants (before and after the pedagogical intervention) were performed, supplemented with qualitative data (participants’ diary entries) to explain the quantitative data. The results of the study reveal that the internship programme, which was developed according to E. J. Tisdella’s principles, improves participants’ spiritual well-being and is positively assessed by students.

Britain’s Choice: Polarisation or Cohesion

AbstractBritain’s Choice, a report published by More in Common, develops a new segmentation of the British public based on their core beliefs, values and identities. Identifying seven segments, the report aims to better understand the British public, the goal being to work out how to build a more cohesive Britain—the choice facing Britain being a path to further division and polarisation or one to greater solidarity and shared values. The report strikes a broadly optimistic turn and highlights the shared values across the seven groups, but there are warning signs in the data that there are still many issues on which these groups could be divided, the overlap between them, for now, limiting the success of attempts to do so and throwing up a ‘kaleidoscopic’ pattern that changes from issue to issue.

Alternative Identity Claims Enabling Strategic Renewal in the Face of Potential Disruption

When faced with potential disruption, incumbents often need to engage in strategic renewal to survive. Yet incumbents’ enduring core identities may inhibit such attempts. Given the recursivity between strategy and identity, we ask how incumbents circumvent their core identities to change their strategies to respond to potential disruption. We conducted a longitudinal study of Volkswagen, Daimler, and Porsche from 2002-2019 that adapted their strategies and identities to prepare for a future of connectivity, electrification, autonomous driving, and mobility. We theorize how incumbents circumvented their core identities by evoking alternative identity claims as substitute frames to legitimize adaptive strategic actions. These claims combined the organization’s past with directions for the future. While the combination of the past and future enabled incumbents to shift, a focus on the future led to a reversion to previous paths. A focus on the past led to strategic inertia, necessitating a quick pivot to adapt. We contribute to strategy and identity literature by proposing alternative identity claims as substitute frames to legitimize strategic renewal and show how temporal sensemaking suggests stability during transformations.

Birth Rights and Wrongs: Reply to Critics

Advances in medicine and technology promise to deliver us from the vagaries of the genetic lottery. But the pandemic hasn’t spared reproductive freedom. School closures and clinic restrictions make birth control and fertility treatment harder to get, while new regulations put abortion, surrogacy, and genetic testing out of reach for many in need. My book charts the landscape of harms like these and hundreds of other less familiar ones scattered across American jurisprudence—from lab accidents to contraceptive sabotage. I mine this cross-cutting body of law and organize it into three discrete categories. Some cases, like botched vasectomies, impose unwanted pregnancy. Others deprive people of the baby they long for—take the recent spate of IVF freezer meltdowns. Lastly are the examples involving donor mix-ups that confound parents’ hopes for a baby born free of disease or one who shares their DNA. Birth Rights and Wrongs traces a moral culture and political economy that resists meaningful regulation of the shoddy practices that leave couples with empty cradles or turn them into parents against their will. Reproductive injuries like these can upend people’s core identities and lived experiences. Yet they fall through the cracks of available contract, property, and tort protections in the United States. When reproduction goes awry, courts almost always let doctors, pharmacists, and sperm banks off the hook, rarely willing to grant that the plaintiff was harmed. Some say: Babies are blessings. Others insist: You can’t always get what you want. Or: physical intrusion? No property loss? No damages. And: It’d open the floodgates to fraud. The result is a legal system resigned to treat these transgressions as inevitable or natural, and at any rate unworthy of recognition or remedy. My book diagnoses this problem and tries to solve it, by rethinking reproductive controversies from abortion funding to gene editing. Boston University Law Review has brought together an exceptional and diverse panel of scholars to wrestle with these ideas in this special symposium issue dedicated to the book. I owe a special debt to Professors Appleton, Cahill, Dolgin, Robertson, and Ziegler for their critical engagement and searching insights. Each appraises the book from a unique and rich lens: philosophy, sociology, politics, economics, and history. I’m humbled by what good they find in the book. My reply here will focus on their challenges—sometimes by clarifying the themes I’d developed; other times by taking this occasion to revise or elaborate on them. It's true that today’s plaintiffs missed the heyday of personality torts: It’s been more than a century since courts last flexed their common-law muscles to establish new torts like slander, privacy, and defamation. But lost embryos, bungled birth control, and switched sperm samples give reason to recover that muscle memory. These mix-ups seem like “first world” problems, especially in the midst of a public health crisis that has transformed even parts of our lives we used to take for granted. Yet reliable health and child care have never mattered more than since stay-at-home orders, broken supply chains, and clinic restrictions stymied dreams for family life.

Confrontation, negotiation and agency: exploring the inner dynamics of student teacher identity transformation during teaching practicum

ABSTRACTDespite a surge of research interest in pre-service teachers’ identities over the past years, scant attention has been paid to the process of their identity construction during their teaching practicum. Adopting a qualitative case study approach, this study seeks to fill this gap by examining the identity construction experiences of four pre-service school counselling teachers who have just completed their teaching practicum in a university in China. Informed by possible selves theory and identity conflicts theory, the study shows that the participants’ identity construction emerged from the interactions between their core identities and new forms of identities arising from their daily practice and social interactions in different school settings. While some participants’ identities updated and expanded in a supportive work environment, some experienced identity conflicts and deficits with a reduced sense of commitment towards teaching in a constraining school context. However, facilitated by their self-agency and contextual affordance, some navigated their identity conflicts by developing a negotiated identity and/or enriching their ideal identities for their continuing practice and development. The study argues for an explicit focus on teacher identities in current teacher education programs to raise student teachers’ identity awareness and facilitate their reflective learning and identity building.

The Power of Peers: Faculty Development for Medical Educators of the Future.

The Power of Peers: Faculty Development for Medical Educators of the Future.

Toward a new theory of gender transcendence: Insights from a qualitative study of gendered self-concept and self-expression in a sample of individuals assigned female at birth

Sex and gender are two concepts that are often conflated in popular culture. However, those who experience dissonance between their assigned sex and gender identity intimately understand the difference between sex, a biologicallybased distinction, and gender, a confluence of social and behavioral factors that contribute to understanding who one is as well as how one is seen by others. The gendered self-understanding and self-expression of 170 North Americans who self-identified as gender nonconforming and who were assigned female at birth were explored using a transpersonal lens and thematic analysis. Data suggested a range and variety of gendered self-concepts that aligned across two broad themes: binary (female/woman; male/man) and non-binary (gender nonbinary; trans masculine) gender core identities. Themes of gendered self-concept, expression in behavior, dress style and appearance, and surgical body modification are discussed. These data support the application of transpersonal theory to transgender identity development, and they underscore the need for more research to test the validity of a new theoretical model of gender transcendence discussed herein.

Aspirations for Ethnonationalist Identities among Religious Minorities in Iraq: The Case of Yazidi Identity in the Period of Kurdish and Arab Nationalism, 1963–2003

AbstractThe aspirations of religious minorities in Iraq for becoming recognized ethnonationalist entities have rarely been investigated from a historical perspective, particularly in the case of the Yazidis. This article addresses changing attitudes about the Yazidi religious minority identity across different historical periods. Yazidi identity is examined as an ancillary undercurrent to the ethnonationalist identity conflict between the central government of Iraq and the Kurdish movement. This contrasts with identity as a religious minority in prior eras, when religious minorities preserved their distinct core identities based on their own social and religious customs and idiosyncrasies, making them self-defining communities bound together by coherent religious identities. In the case of the Yazidi minority, despite the multiplicity of theories and hypotheses about the origins of the Yazidi people and their national and ethnic affiliations and increasing rumors about Yazidis related to their existence as a potential sub-ethnicity or ethno-religion, the important truth is that Yazidis consider themselves religiously, culturally, and historically distinct from other ethnonationalist groups and communities in Iraq.

International students: language, culture and the ‘performance of identity’

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the multiple, intersecting identities expressed by international taught-post graduate students who are studying in a culture and language that is not their own. The study presented includes the collection of data around and beyond a planned pedagogical intervention on a pre-sessional EAP programme. The data were thematically analysed. Conflicting and intersecting identities emerged around themes of: performative, representational and core identities; international, national and individual identity; troublesome and transformative knowledge; power, agency and choice. These interwove with key underlying pre-occupations: language development; disciplinary knowledge and societal structures. By focussing on identity studies alongside the language and culture of academic contexts, international students developed an understanding of, and reflexivity around, their position within UK HE contexts. I argue this focus eased transition into a new study environment and allowed students to both better access the taught and hidden curriculum, and to understand their resistance to it.

Masterpiece Cakeshop: A Formula for Legislative Accommodations of Religion

When two core identities clash, such as sexual orientation and religious belief, which one should prevail? I argue that, rather than picking a winner and a loser, the Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop allowed for a much broader solution than the Court was able to provide — legislative accommodations rooted in tolerance that protect the dignity of same-sex couples and respect sincere religious beliefs. In Masterpiece Cakeshop, a Colorado baker refused to design a cake for a same-sex wedding based on his religious beliefs. Instead of picking a broad winner and loser, the Supreme Court ruled narrowly by finding the Colorado Civil Rights Commission acted with hostility toward the baker’s religious beliefs. At the end of the opinion, the Court provided a formula for legislative accommodations: “[T]hese disputes must be resolved [1] with tolerance, [2] without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and [3] without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.” In this paper, Part I looks at historical examples of legislative and judicial accommodations of religion under the Free Exercise Clause. Part II analyzes the Supreme Court’s decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop and shows how the Court by ruling narrowly left open a solution that could protect both sides. Part III looks at why the legislature is better equipped than the judiciary to solve the issue. It also considers several different approaches to legislative accommodations by examining proposed and enacted legislative accommodations. Part V applies these approaches to see how they would apply to wedding vendors, government officials, and religious adoption agencies.