Critical Social Theory Perspective Research Articles

Global value chains, neoliberalism and development practice: Reflections on Kenya's experience

AbstractGlobal value chain (GVC)‐led development discourse has gained considerable traction in the international development policy debate. Multilateral institutions and donor agencies shape value chain discourse and practice. Through the scholarly literature, this study critically reviews the conceptual underpinnings of value chain theory and its discourse. The study reviews the thematic programmatic application of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and analyses the application of value chain from a critical social theory perspective in Kenya. Findings demonstrate that the application of value chain theory to Kenya's development practice is unclear with regard to crucial elements of GVC configuration such as the state's role in facilitating development strategies, asymmetrical power relations within value chains and world historical processes affecting upgrading trajectories. This aspect is evident in the value chain‐led development interventions of the USAID in Kenya and supports neoliberal development agenda that caters to the business interests of multinational corporations.

MEMBEDAH TEORI KRITIS MAZHAB FRANKFURT : SEJARAH, ASUMSI, DAN KONTRIBUSINYA TERHADAP PERKEMBANGAN TEORI ILMU SOSIAL

This article aims to examine the critical theory of the Fraknfurt school, especially those related to its history, concepts, assumptions, and contributions. Historically-geneologically, critical theory was born from the womb of Marxist theory. Although born from the womb of Marxist theory, critical theory is not too satisfied with the analysis of the Marxians who are considered too mechanistic economic determinism in seeing the social reality of Western capitalist society. According to critical theory, the Marxian analysis in viewing and analyzing the inequality of the reality of capitalist society in Europe is too reductionist, that is, it is the economic factor (structure) that determines socio-economic inequality or class conflict in a capitalist society. The critical theory developed by the people who call themselves Neo-Maxians, exists to further develop the classical Marxian analysis, which rests not only on economic factors, but also on other socio-economic factors. The Frankfurt school of critical social theory thought services pioneered by Horkheimer, however, has provided a relatively new (though not very new) theoretical perspective in seeing, understanding and analyzing social reality. This critical social theory perspective has contributed significantly to the development of social theory. One of them is that critical theory has contributed to the development of critical and emancipatory awareness of human practice in seeing social realities that are full of inequality and injustice.Keyword : Critical Theory, Frankfurt School, History, Development of Social Theory

Counter-hegemony of the East Java Biennale art community against the domination of hoax content reproduction

This research analyses and describes in detail how the digital biennale activities that are a part of the Indonesian Digital art community has become a form of criticism and silent resistance to the social hegemony. It refers to the ideology, norms, rules, and myths that exist in modern society in Indonesia, especially the reproduction of hoax content. Hoax refers to the logic people who live in a world of cyber media with all of its social implications. This phenomenon is a problem, and it is at the heart of the exploration of the art community in East Java Biennale. The critical social theory perspective of Gramsci’s theory forms the basis of this research analysis. The qualitative research approach used a digital ethnomethodology research method focused on the online and offline social movements in the Biennale Art Community. The data collection techniques used were observation and non-active participation in the process of reproduction-related to the exhibition of Indonesian Biennale digital artworks. It was then analyzed using Gramsci’s hegemony theory. The purpose of this study was to describe the process of social movements in a digital format conducted by the Indonesian Biennale when reproducing works of art to counteract the dominance and hegemony of the Hoax phenomenon in Indonesia. The benefit of this research was that it obtained a preposition of Gramsci’s hegemony theory in the world of digital art as created by contemporary Indonesian Biennale artists. Digital technology has had a tremendous effect on the media industry, government, trade, informal industry sector, human resources, urban planning, services, disaster relief, health, education, religion, artistic and cultural expression, in addition to various other fields. The conclusion obtained from this research is that there is a formation of a new hegemony, a digital hegemony. This new hegemony is of particular concern for the digital artists in East Java Biennale. Through the digital format works, the artists also try to communicate their art as a form of silent resistance, protest, and criticism of the hegemony that occurs in society, referring to the ideology, norms, and myths. It can be called a digital counter-hegemony.s

Theoretical Approaches to Studying Incivility in Nursing Education.

Incivility is a concerning occurrence in nursing education. Examining the concept of incivility is critical to the development of strategies used to prevent and mitigate experiences in nursing education. The purpose of this paper is to examine this concept through theoretical lenses of oppressed group behaviour, attribution theory, and conceptual models of empowerment. A critical social theory perspective is outlined as an additional theoretical approach to studying incivility in nursing education. Examination through various theoretical lenses may help to describe, explain, and predict incivility in nursing education. Theoretical considerations of this concept are limited but may hold the key to comprehensive understanding and advancement of knowledge. The ultimate goal of theoretical and knowledge development of incivility in nursing education is the creation and maintenance of civil educational environments.

Theory in Emancipative Action: Aligning Action Research in Information Systems Education with Critical Social Research in Information Systems

As educators, we want to guide our students so that they develop to the best of their ability and are emancipated. As researchers in education, we often use action research. We use proven theories to guide our intervention to emancipate our students. Or do we? Recently, prominent information systems journals have published few papers in the field of information systems education. We demonstrate that the guidelines for action research from a critical social research perspective in information systems are not evident in action research studies in information systems education. The emancipative goals of pure critical social research and reliance on critical social theory to guide our intervention are lacking in these educational studies. Our aim is to provide alignment between educational action research in information systems and information systems research conducted from a critical social theory perspective. Our methodology is to explicitly propose phases of action research from a critical social research perspective, grounded both in information systems and education literature. Then, we demonstrate the value of this approach in a study on the improvement of a data warehousing module. We conclude that by using proven theories and reflecting on the presuppositions in a problem environment, the researcher is able to guide the development of students and the community.

CONSCIOUS ENGAGEMENT IN UNDERGRADUATE MALE NURSING STUDENTS: FACILITATING VOICE THROUGH AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT

Although women have made significant progress into traditionally male-dominated professions, such as medicine and engineering, the same cannot be said of men in the nursing profession. Utilizing a critical social theory perspective, an action research project was designed to encourage participants, current male nursing students and alumni of MacEwan University, to share their educational experiences through narratives. The significance of this action research project is threefold: (1) to understand the phenomena of the MacEwan male nursing student, (2) to develop strategies and coping mechanisms to address concerns voiced by participants’ experiences, and (3) to create evaluative tools to assess effectiveness of such strategies.

Using Critical Social Heuristics and Project-Based Learning to Enhance Data Warehousing Education

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how project-based learning can be used from a critical systems perspective in data warehousing education. Data warehousing is a discipline in information technology focusing on providing data-driven decision support systems for strategic decision making. In this study we used action research from a critical (emancipative) perspective to reflect on our current instructional design of the data warehousing module before redesigning it to better serve the needs of the involved and affected. We used critical systems heuristics and project-based learning as frameworks of understanding to guide our intervention. Project-based learning is a learning/teaching approach aimed at organising the learning experience in terms of a project. We used written interpretive interviews in the diagnosis and evaluation of success phases of our action research cycle. Our reflection is according to the action research model of Checkland reflecting on our success in the area of application (data warehousing instruction) as well as our methodology (action research from a critical social theory perspective) and our framework of ideas (project-based learning and critical social heuristics).

The Contrasting Attitudes of Reviewer and Seller in Electronic Word-of-Mouth: A Communicative Action Theory Perspective

This study draws important factors in electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) and examines how these influence the building of customer loyalty. eWOM is viewed as social communication between customers and sellers, and thus the communicative action theory is applied. With the theory, we identify reviewer and seller as influential players on customers, and derive important factors such as correctness and veracity of reviews from the reviewers’ action, and information compactness and adequacy from the seller’s action. We propose these constructs as antecedents of customer loyalty and further hypothesize their curvilinear impacts as follows: the marginal impacts of veracity and correctness will decrease as veracity and correctness increase, and the marginal impacts of compactness and adequacy will increase as compactness and adequacy increase. The result indicates that only the seller’s action has a curvilinear impact, whereas the reviewer has proportional positive impact on customer loyalty. This study indentifies imp ortant factors in eWOM from a critical social theory perspective and validates them using the positivistic approach. For practitioners, it discusses the important factors in eWOM with the identification of the individuals who are responsible for these factors.

Promoção à saúde e empoderamento: uma reflexão a partir das perspectivas crítico-social pós-estruturalista

In this paper we describe the theoretical framework and the core strategies of health promotion followed by a critical intra- and extra-paradigmatic analysis of the key ideas of this movement. From an intra-paradigmatic perspective we privilege a critical social theory perspective for analyzing one of the key concepts of health promotion--empowerment--exploring its potential to transform community and professional practices in the field of health. Next, we reflect about health promotion from an extra-paradigmatic perspective, seeking in the post-structuralist theories new analytical possibilities for understanding the power relations that establish themselves on the basis of practices and policies of health promotion. Throughout this article, we articulate the explored theoretical principles to contextual questions and current debates in the field of health in Brazil.

Teaching critical reflection skills for advanced mental health nursing practice: a deconstructive–reconstructive approach

This paper presents a literature review conducted to establish what was already known about critical reflection in the nursing literature and what work had been done on using a critical social theory framework as the basis for critical reflection. Critical thinking emerged as a significant aspect of nursing education and practice in the late 1980s. It has been promoted as a means by which issues in clinical practice can be examined through a systematic process of exploration and reasoning. Traditionally, critical thinking has commonly involved an attempt to link practice with theory using a scenario or exemplar from practice to illustrate a practice dilemma. This process is often constructed as a retrospective narrative of events. This paper provides a deconstructive-reconstructive approach that differs from some traditional approaches by taking a critical social theory perspective with an emphasis on improving practice. The nursing literature reviewed was accessed through Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL). The search was restricted to English language and published between 1995 and 2005. Based on these findings, we developed a postgraduate advanced mental health nursing programme. There were 490 articles related to 'nursing' and 'critical thinking'; 34 articles related to 'nursing' and 'critical reflection'; 23 articles related to 'nursing' and 'critical social theory'; 15 articles related to 'mental health nursing' and 'critical thinking'; and two articles related to 'mental health nursing' and 'critical reflection'. In the programme we developed based on these findings, students were facilitated to deconstruct concepts and knowledge integral to their own practice. In the reconstructive phase, students implement a change project in clinical practice, supported by a mentor. The deconstructive-reconstructive approach to the development of critical thinking skills provides advanced practitioner with the opportunity to integrate practice, theory and research.

A critique of Freire’s perspective on critical social theory in nursing education

Nursing has been perceived as oppressed by virtue of among other things gender, occupation and class. It has been suggested that historically, nursing education perpetuated the rituals of tradition and was oppressive in terms of what was taught and how it was taught. Developments in nurse education have resulted in nurse educators seeking alternative means of educating, with the aim of emancipating nurses. Paulo Freire (1921-1997) promoted liberation through reflection and action, directed at transforming the conditions which lead to oppression. The fundamental basis of this approach is critical social theory, which is underpinned by the philosophy that social phenomena must be understood in terms of their context and history. From a critical social theory perspective, fruitful nursing education will only be possible if the history and structure of nursing are clearly understood by those involved in the educational process. We contend that the adoption of Freire's theory in nursing education may contribute towards the development of nurses who will be competent to meet the demands of contemporary healthcare practice. However, the application of this theory to nursing education can be challenging because of constraints imposed by the system in which nurse education takes place. It is therefore important that the application of critical social theory in nurse education be evaluated.

The Nurse in the Caring in Nurse Relationship: A Critical Social Theory Perspective

Acritical social theory interpretation of the “ideal” nurse in the caring in nursing relationship suggests the ideal is difficult but nurses strive for this. The ten expert nurses from an international study acknowledged the nurse’s vulnerability, frustration, and need for validation and fulfillment in the “special” role of the nurse. This interpretation was based on a framework developed from Habermas’ (1995) Theory of Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action in which the components of the personal and professional self of the nurse are described then interpreted. Critical social theory examines power and justice, which is relevant in today’s healthcare delivery system.

Cultural Differences in E-Mail Use of Virtual Teams: A Critical Social Theory Perspective

This paper provides a perspective on cultural differences in e-mail use of virtual teams from the critical social theory (CST) point of view. CST can be used as a qualitative methodology in information systems research. Among CST concepts, Habermas' theory of communicative action is applied here for the purpose of drawing a plausible explanation for the phenomenon of cultural differences between East Asian countries and the West in the use of e-mail in virtual teams. East Asian countries such as Korea and Japan, which are heavily influenced by the Confucius tradition of emphasizing respect for the social order in all forms of social communication activity, including e-mail, provide different type of patterns of e-mail use in management of virtual teams compared to Western countries such as the United States. Not only can CST provide adequate theoretical support for the claim that e-mail use can be varied due to cultural difference when it is used to manage virtual teams, but it can also identify cultural codes such as respect for seniors as a part of the complete information package that can be illuminated during the use of e-mail, by using a CST concept called "critical reflection." A real-life example of the experience of a Korean firm's virtual team in the use of e-mail is analyzed in order to illustrate the CST perspective on cultural differences in the use of e-mail for virtual teams.

Nurses' views on empowerment: a critical social theory perspective.

This is the first study which describes British nurses' views on the concept of empowerment. Despite the frequent call for nurses to empower patients there was no evidence in the literature about British nurses' views. The study was carried out prior to a course exploring empowerment for practice. Focus groups were used to gather the data. Critical social theory and the work of Paulo Freire (1972) and Jurgen Habermas (1971, 1979) was used as a theoretical framework to underpin the enquiry. Taped interview transcripts were analysed thematically. Four categories emerged from the data to provide the framework for the themes: 'empowerment', 'having personal power', 'relationships within the multidisciplinary team', and 'feeling right about oneself'. It is suggested that the nurses in this study manifested signs of being oppressed and striving for liberation. The limitations of the study are identified, but the overall conclusion is that the teaching of critical social theories as an empowerment paradigm is relevant in nurse education today.

Communication Richness in Electronic Mail: Critical Social Theory and the Contextuality of Meaning

Information Richness Theory (IRT) has enjoyed acceptance by information systems researchers throughout the last decade, but recent unfavorable empirical evidence has precipitated a shift away from it and a search for a new theory. Because of this shift, a new definition of communication richness is needed to succeed the IRT definition. Since its inception, IS research on communication richness has been limited to the perspective of positivism and, more recently, interpretivism. In this study, a new perspective to the study of communication richness in computer mediated communication, critical social theory (CST), is introduced. This paper outlines (1) a CST-based definition of communication richness and compares it with positivist and interpretivist definitions of communication richness and (2) a CST-based social action framework for empirical study of organizational communication in any media use situation. The CST definition and framework are used in an intensive investigation of an episode of the managerial use of electronic mail in a company to illustrate how research on communication richness can be conducted from the CST perspective. This illustration also points out the usefulness of the CST perspective in recognizing instances of communication richness in electronic mail communications that would escape detection in not just the IRT perspective in particular, but also positivist and interpretive perspectives in general. Finally, the paper concludes by outlining the potential for future IS research on organizational communication and information technology from the CST perspective. In addition to the specific contribution to the development of a new theory of communication richness in electronic media, this study also contributes an example of CST research on IS and extends the domain of the CST-IS research program.

Interpreting political agendas from a critical social theory perspective

A lthough there has always been ,a shortage of well-educated nurses, the 1987 staffing vacancies brought national attention to this issue. Complex problems have led to this crisis and have subtle implications for the recruitment a.nd retention of professional nurses. Nursing enrollment and availability are linked to economic and social factors that determine nurse income and status. Correcting longstanding wage compression, societal undervaluing of n.ursing, and external perceptions of nursing as a noncognitive endeavor requires some major overhauls in the health care systemincluding some readjustment in the economic and social power of physicians, who historically have encouraged creative alternatives to increasing the supply of well-educated and appropriately paid nurses. Critical social theory is the study of the dominant ideologies present in a society from within a historical context. Inherent in the analysis is the political, economic, and social perspectives that mark a given time period.