Informal Efforts Research Articles

Promoting Heritage Language: A Phenomenological Study on the Approaches Used by Cordilleran Students

Heritage languages are crucial to identity and community cohesion, but they face a threat from dominant global languages in education, media, and mobility. This threatens their transmission between generations and risks their survival and evolution. This phenomenological study aimed to investigate the approaches utilised by university students in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) in one of the universities in Northern Philippines to promote their heritage languages. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 purposively sampled participants who met specified inclusion criteria. Thematic analysis uncovered four main strategies students employ: intergenerational family transmission, interpersonal sharing and storytelling, informal peer teaching and exchange, and online dissemination. Findings reveal the vital role of families in developing heritage language proficiency through exclusive daily use and active transmission across generations. Students leverage interpersonal interactions and storytelling to affirm cultural identities and foster belonging. Peer teaching enables organic exchange and retention through translation, lessons, and collaborative projects. Interactive online platforms provide expanded reach for promoting heritage beyond local communities. Overall, promotion occurs through interconnected familial, social, educational, and virtual modes that empower students as change agents counteracting assimilation pressures. This contributes to identity formation, pluralism, and sustaining marginalised traditions often excluded from formal domains. Recommendations include an integrated approach reinforcing students' informal efforts through heritage programmes, intergenerational activities, media guidance, policy support, and community collaboration. Formal initiatives should strategically nurture familial foundations and amplify student-driven promotion spanning diverse spheres.

Racial burdens in the work experiences of state-supported Black chaplains

To understand and improve the experiences of Black chaplains, it is essential to consider how they experience and are integrated into their workplaces. This article draws from interviews with ten Black chaplains in the military and prisons. In light of historic, state-sanctioned, discrimination in these institutions, we ask how these chaplains experience their workplaces racially. All experience racial burdens in the workplace as part of being the first or only Black chaplain or in response to overt racial discrimination. They identify few to no formal workplace efforts to support them as Black chaplains and spoke of resistance to informal efforts that have been tried over the years. State and federal workplaces must recognize the racial burdens Black chaplains’ experiences and take action to respond to and support these systemic workplace issues.

Effective Written Communication for Successful Management

Effective written communication is a critical part of management success. Before beginning to write, the manager should consider the importance of the document, its intended audience, the goals to be achieved, and the tone. The most important factor for successful writing is clarity so the recipients correctly understand the message and know what they should do. Careful editing for all types of errors is a must including involving others in the editing process. The manager should consider using the many free tools that are available to improve writing. Two specific tips are: always give the reason for reading the document in the first sentence and use a flat, factual style to communicate negative news. Finally, remember that any poorly written communication, even informal efforts such as emails and social media posts, can have negative management consequences.

(Un)claiming rights, resources, and ocean spaces: Marine genetic resources and area-based management tools in high seas governance negotiations

After years of informal efforts, the parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) are negotiating an international legally binding instrument to address governance gaps that have impeded attempts to conserve biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ). Though these discussions were initiated in response to concerns about biodiversity, states have used them to advance competing claims regarding rights of access, ownership, and control of ocean spaces and resources. This paper examines how states have discussed ocean space in negotiations regarding area-based management tools (ABMTs) and marine genetic resources (MGRs) at the first three intergovernmental conferences regarding biodiversity in ABNJ. ABMTs, which have become widespread in governing ocean space for conservation, are premised on an ontological framing that ocean space can be divided by geographical boundaries into territories for management. MGRs, on the other hand, are newly recognized governance objects that cross existing spatial boundaries: between areas of national and international jurisdiction, between the seafloor and water column, and between the ocean and the laboratory. Through their mobility, MGRs reveal how territorial forms of governance over material resources intersect with other forms of exclusion, control, and rights-based institutions, suggesting the need to develop creative management regimes that go beyond territorial approaches.

Civil-military cooperation to contain COVID-19 epidemic in Israel- Lesson learned

Abstract Issue Public Health Services (PHS) has a major role in controlling COVID-19. As the epidemic propagated, and due to limited resources, PHS in Israel reached it capacity to contain the outbreak. Following a political decision in June 2020, the Home Front Command (HFC) of the Israeli Army was assigned to integrate in operating the National epidemiological efforts, while the PHS remained responsible for policy, setting guidelines and supervision. Problem The civilian PHS and the military HFC had to establish cooperation, institute new hierarchical structure and divide the responsibility, despite the differences in organizational cultures, financial and human resources. Additionally, inter and intra organizational interests had to be resolved. Results Formal and informal efforts were needed to bridge between the two organizations, while utilizing the comparative advantage of each agency. PHS has experience in controlling outbreaks, well-established intra-organizational communication, high professional identity, commitment and familiarity with different populations in Israel. HFC is a flexible, creative, learning and fast-responding organ, experienced in controlling emergencies and has well-established chains of command. HFC is supported by IT and intelligence officers. Organizational disadvantages had to be resolved. PHS is deficient in resources, has limited capacity in operating staff during irregular hours, and is obliged to share the health leadership and authority with the army. HFC has to confront high rotation of its manpower, difficulty in succumbing to non-military guidelines and regulations and possible mistrust between the army and special populations, such as Arabs or ultra-religious Jews. Lessons Civil-military epidemiological cooperation can boost the National response in containing epidemics. Policymakers from each agency should use leadership skills to encourage integration while being sensitive to the needs and expectations of all participants. Key messages • Civil–military epidemiological cooperation boosts the National response in containing epidemic. Mutual organizational sensitivity is crucial for constructive integration by leaders from each agency. • Civil–military epidemiological cooperation boosts the National response in containing epidemic. Mutual organizational sensitivity is crucial for constructive integration by leaders from each agency.

A Plea for the Preservation of Early BASIC Game Programs

Based on a consideration of the outlooks of the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT), Actor-Network Theory (ANT), as well as theories in the philosophy of technology, this critical essay is an argument for a greater recognition of the need to preserve significant early computer games written in BASIC and to provide improved public access to these programs. Although many of these programs have been preserved and presented to the public by hobbyists, there are significant gaps that have the potential to prevent recognition by future researchers of the pivotal role played by non-corporate actors in the early development of the video-game industry. Such informal efforts at curating these items so that they can be easily accessed are also limited by copyright laws. Effectively addressing these issues requires increased support from museums and scholarly institutions.

Has Financial Knowledge Increased in the United States?

This study explores financial knowledge patterns from 2009 to 2018, focusing on objective and subjective knowledge, overconfidence in financial knowledge, and “Don’t know” responses. We used four waves of National Financial Capability Study (NFCS) datasets. Objective financial knowledge was lower in 2018 than in 2009, and the proportion of individuals who were overconfident was higher in 2018 than in 2009. The mean number of “Don’t know” responses to objective knowledge questions increased consistently over the period. Most of these patterns persisted when we controlled for household characteristics in regressions. The lack of increases in financial knowledge despite formal and informal educational efforts raises the question as to whether existing efforts for formal and informal education are sufficient.

LEVELS OF FINANCIAL LITERACY IN TERMS OF THE ETHNICITY, GENDER, RELIGION AND LOCUS OF CONTROL OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

During the pandemic, people must be adept in managing their private finances. Good money management skills are determined by the individual’s financial literacy. This research has five purposes. The first is to describe the level of financial literacy of college students. The second is to evaluate and analyze the different levels of financial literacy in terms of ethnicity. The third is to evaluate and analyze the different levels of financial literacy in terms of gender. The fourth is to evaluate and analyze the different levels of financial literacy in terms of religion. The fifth is to evaluate and analyze the different levels of financial literacy in terms of locus of control. This research samples 212 respondents majoring in English teacher training and education in four private universities. Because of this, this research evaluates the T value on the following variables: ethnicity, gender, religion, and locus of control. This research reveals a difference of financial literacy skills in terms of gender and locus of control. No different levels of financial literacy were found in terms of ethnicity and religion. In the future, there needs to be an improvement of financial literacy through formal and informal efforts. Keywords: ethnicity, Gender, religion, locus of control, financial literacy

Market women’s informal peacebuilding efforts in Ekumfi-Narkwa, Ghana

ABSTRACT This study examines market women’s participation in peacebuilding in the Ekumfi-Narkwa community in the Central Region of Ghana. In peacebuilding, women are often considered victims and passive targets for aid, rather than contributors to the process. Many studies and peacebuilders have neglected the critical role played by women in the informal sector in peacebuilding, especially at the local level. This study examines how local women help build everyday peace in their community through informal means. Twenty women and four men were purposively selected and interviewed. The results show that women in the informal sector draw on bonding and bridging social capital to improve peacebuilding processes in their community. Although the women studied were not well organised and did not have much formal education, they were able to contribute to peace in their community by creating and using informal social networks/bonds. We argue that women’s societal positions are aspects of social capital that make women agents of “everyday peace” who mobilise to aid informal peacebuilding efforts in the community. However, their efforts are not being recognised and supported in organising peacebuilding activities, especially during conflict.

Korean Bibimbap mothers’ family language policies (FLPs) for their children’s bilingualism in Australia

Abstract The influential role of parents has long been acknowledged as a key contributor to children’s bilingual development. Parents’ home-based informal efforts to foster children’s bilingual abilities are described as family language policies (FLPs). The important connection between bilingualism and FLP has been established, but to date there are few studies concerning Korean immigrant families in Australia, highlighting their unique cultural values. According to traditional Korean cultural values, mothers play a central role as An-hae (the sun inside) to facilitate their children’s language development (Kim, 2006). This study aimed to create a clearer picture of Korean mothers’ beliefs about bilingualism and their FLPs. The participants were six Korean mothers with their children attending a community language program in Sydney. There are two data sets for this study: a six-weeks’ FLP daily log of each family and a focus group interview. A thematic analysis of these data revealed the richness and specificity of FLPs for bilingual development. This paper concludes with implications for a future research agenda.

Southern sustainability initiatives in agricultural value chains: a question of enhanced inclusiveness? The case of Trustea in India

Recent studies have shed light on the emergence of Southern sustainability initiatives in commodity-based value chains. These initiatives position themselves as countering the exclusionary nature of many global multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs), as critically analysed by previous studies. However, a common theoretical perspective on the inclusiveness of MSIs is still lacking. By drawing on the theory of regimes of engagement, we develop a theoretical framework which helps understanding the overt and subtle practices of including or excluding different stakeholders in MSIs. We apply this framework to ‘Trustea’, an Indian MSI for sustainable tea production, to further investigate the ‘inclusiveness paradigm’ of Southern sustainability initiatives. Our findings highlight the complexity of stakeholder engagement across the different phases of Trustea’s development, from initiation and code development to formal launch and roll-out. We find that different types of engagement can exist in parallel. Justifiable engagement is expressed in the participating organisations’ reference to a shared common goal of Trustea, whereas familiar engagement is linked to the rootedness of the individuals involved in the Indian tea industry. Strategic engagement, in turn, comes to the fore through the strong emphasis on developing an Indian code for sustainable tea production and promoting adoption among tea growers. The importance of reaching this objective has led to the replication of exclusionary patterns also noted for global MSIs, as small-scale producers and other weak actors have been largely excluded from decision-making processes, despite informal efforts aimed at substitution of representation.

Shortcomings of Rapid Clinical Information Dissemination: Lessons From a Pandemic.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to an acceleration of clinical information dissemination to unprecedented speeds, a phenomenon only partially explained by formal efforts of the scientific community. These have ranged from the establishment of open-source platforms for review of article preprints to the elimination of journal paywalls for COVID-19-related publications. In addition, informal efforts that rely on various modern media platforms that promote, repackage, and synthesize information have played substantial adjunctive roles, many of which did not exist during the severe acute respiratory syndrome pandemic of 2003. Although these latter efforts have greatly bolstered the speed of knowledge dissemination, their unregulated nature subjects them to risk for facilitating the spread of misinformation. In our opinion, the role of modern media in influencing clinical knowledge dissemination was not adequately examined even before the pandemic and therefore remains largely unchecked. In this article, we examine the spread of information in the field of COVID-19 and neurologic disorders, develop a simple model that maps various modern media tools on to the dissemination pipeline, and critically examine its components. Through this exercise, we identify opportunities for the scientific community to regulate and safeguard the clinical knowledge dissemination process, with implications both for the pandemic and beyond.

Public Support for Increasing Women and Minority MPs

AbstractMost democracies fail to provide equal representation and tend to have an overrepresentation of men from the upper class and the majority racial or ethnic group. We investigate public support for increasing the number of women and indigenous Māori members of parliament (MPs) in the New Zealand Parliament, both in general and through specific mechanisms such as quotas and reserved seats. We offer three explanations: descriptive (group identity), substantive (issue alignment), and symbolic (socioeconomic and political equity concerns). Using data from the 2014 New Zealand Election Study, we found that shared identity (descriptive) matters for all measures of increased representation, but especially for Māori respondent support of increased Māori MPs. Support for increasing the proportion of Māori MPs is also strongly driven by substantive concerns, as measured by support for keeping the Treaty of Waitangi in law. Support for increasing the number of women MPs is driven most strongly by symbolic concerns (measured as increased government social spending and efforts to reduce income differences). Overall, respondents favor retaining the current number of reserved seats for Māori MP representation, whereas informal efforts (rather than quotas) are strongly preferred for increasing the number of women MPs.

Shadow organising: emerging stakeholder collaboration in higher education to enhance quality

ABSTRACTMuch research is currently addressing how to establish, maintain and govern stakeholder collaboration in higher education. In this article, the concept of shadow organising, i.e. stakeholder imitation of formal educational provision, is introduced to illustrate bottom-up, proactive ways to connect multiple autonomous organisations and stakeholder groups within and outside universities (such as professional bodies, employers and student unions). The article exemplifies the concept of shadow organising by analysing emerging stakeholder collaboration in legal education. The case illustrates the collaborative but informal efforts of a range of supporting actors. The results show that the actors are connected to each other through concrete and practical actions, instead of agreements, regulations or partnerships, which have stabilised into a widespread latticework of interlinked activities: training law students, hiring law graduates, supervising learning processes and instituting quality control. Simultaneously, however, actors maintain their distinctive roles, identities and mandates without initiating official collaboration or a common discussion of objectives and rationales.

Chains of trust: Energy justice, public engagement, and the first offshore wind farm in the United States

Public acceptance of renewable energy technologies (RETs) is critical to the broader adoption of these technologies and reducing the role of fossil fuels in electricity generation. Recent investigations into the public engagement processes surrounding RET projects reveal certain procedural deficits, especially concerning procedural fairness and stakeholder trust. With this in mind, we analyze two engagement processes that led to the Block Island Wind Farm, the first operational offshore wind farm in the United States. Through semi-structured interviews we identify certain procedural techniques that allowed process leaders to first build public trust in themselves, then in the process, and ultimately in the outcome. This chain of trust was fostered through informal efforts of process leaders to meet stakeholder expectations concerning process leaders’ ability to work for the public interest, provide meaningful engagement opportunities, and to produce non-discriminatory outcomes. This case study highlights the potential of such informal actions to meet stakeholder expectations and build trust, while also empirically demonstrating specific techniques that future process leaders could employ to increase stakeholder acceptance of RETs.

Non‐job work/unpaid caring: Gendered industrial relations in long‐term care

This article explores the operation of gender and industrial relations in long‐term care work or nursing home work, ‘from within’ the experience of the predominantly female workforce in seven unionized facilities in Canada. Drawing on qualitative case study data in non‐profit facilities, the article argues that the main industrial relations challenges facing long‐term care workers are that their workplace priorities do not fit within existing, gendered, industrial relations processes and institutions. This article starts from the experience of women and threads this experience through other layers of social organization such as: global and local policy directions including austerity, New Public Management, and social and healthcare funding; industrial relations mechanisms and policy; and workers’ formal [union] and informal efforts to represent their interests in the workplace. The strongest themes in the reported experience of the women include: manufacturing conditions for unpaid work; increasing management and state dependence on unpaid care work; fostering loose boundaries; and limiting respect and autonomy as aspects of care work. The article extends the feminist political economy by analysing the links between the policies noted above and frontline care work. Building on gendered organizational theory the article also introduces the concept of non‐job work and suggests a fourth industrial relations institution, namely the needs and gendered expectations of residents, families and workers themselves, operating within the liminal spaces in care work.

Mosaic governance for urban green infrastructure: Upscaling active citizenship from a local government perspective

Compact urban development, social demands and austerity measures are increasing pressures on urban greenspace. Meanwhile, active citizens, defined as voluntary individuals or groups who self-organize to contribute to urban green space development, provide ecological and social benefits to urban societies. This has inspired local governments to seek collaborations with non-state actors, including active citizens. However, the diverging aims, place-specific focus, and varying expertise of active citizenship may inhibit its contribution to ecological connectivity and upscaling beyond the local scale.In this paper, we investigate how “mosaic governance” has potential as a framework for understanding active citizenship, its potential for upscaling and its relationship to strategic UGI planning. Using the policy arrangements approach, we analyse the role of discourse, resources, actors and rules of the game in the upscaling of active citizenship. Based on eight empirical cases from seven European cities, we analyse the diversity of collaborations between local governments and active citizens in greenspace development.The cases show how active citizens can significantly contribute to UGI planning and implementation, for example by developing large parks with volunteers or designing a network of green corridors. The cases reveal multiple ways citizens and local governments benefit from collaborations, as well as different pathways for upscaling innovative discourses and practices from local communities to formal policy or to other cities. To enable upscaling, UGI planning needs to combine long-term, more formalized and higher-scale strategic approaches with more incremental approaches that correspond with localized, fragmented and informal efforts of local communities. While collaborations between municipalities and active citizenship is not without its difficulties, the examples of upscaling in our cases demonstrate the transformative power active citizens may have towards a more green, just and democratic city.

Environmental regime effectiveness and the North American Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

Scholars and practitioners around the globe are grappling with how to improve the effectiveness of complex, transboundary, and multilevel environmental regimes. International environmental agreements (IEAs) have been around for decades yet achievements and outcomes have not met expectations. While international relations scholars have primarily focused on the effectiveness of agreements between states, public policy scholars have been interested in outcomes at a variety of scales including international, national, sub-national, and local across various environmental policy domains and at the instrument and program levels. This article presents findings from a case study of environmental regime effectiveness that uses a modified version of the Oslo-Postdam solution to assess the effectiveness of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, a long-standing, bilateral international environmental agreement between Canada and the USA. The findings indicate that there is a need to more broadly define international environmental agreements in complex transboundary systems to include both formal and informal regime features and multilevel governance efforts and to focus on specific policy goals and ecological outcomes associated with IEAs. This case also illustrates the potential to modify the Oslo-Postdam approach by combining expert assessment and data collection methods with traditional policy analysis and program evaluation methods in assessments of environmental regime effectiveness.

Street Justice: Graffiti and Claims-Making in Urban Public Space

It is getting increasingly difficult to avoid the notion that justice claims are not limited to the formal venues of law or even the public accountability processes of journalism, but are also expressed in everyday activities of public outreach. We can see this outreach in informal efforts toward mass communication, in graffiti and Internet communication (and connections between the two, as we will see) oriented toward passers by and browsers, consumers of information, the possible-to-convince sympathizers of the plights of others. This non-professional realm of justice claims tells us something about the extent to which justice is experienced and expressed outside the law, but at the same time through the influence of law. Human rights in particular can be seen as a source of inspiration and expression of new and emerging forms of rights-consciousness and the public expression of grievance. This consciousness, in turn, relates to the popular dynamics of human rights lobbying and a corresponding awareness of humanity as a reference point for what is fair, equitable, and honorable, grounded as they are in the “soft” processes of persuasion and mass influence.

Engaging multilevel stakeholders in an implementation trial of evidence-based quality improvement in VA women's health primary care.

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has undertaken primary care transformation based on patient-centered medical home (PCMH) tenets. VHA PCMH models are designed for the predominantly male Veteran population, and require tailoring to meet women Veterans' needs. We used evidence-based quality improvement (EBQI), a stakeholder-driven implementation strategy, in a cluster randomized controlled trial across 12 sites (eight EBQI, four control) that are members of a Practice-Based Research Network. EBQI involves engaging multilevel, inter-professional leaders and staff as stakeholders in reviewing evidence and setting QI priorities. The goal of this analysis was to examine processes of engaging stakeholders in early implementation of EBQI to tailor VHA's medical home for women. Four inter-professional regional stakeholder planning meetings were conducted; these meetings engaged stakeholders by providing regional data about gender disparities in Veterans' care experiences. Subsequent to each meeting, qualitative interviews were conducted with 87 key stakeholders (leaders and staff). Stakeholders were asked to describe QI efforts and the use of data to change aspects of care, including women's health care. Interview transcripts were summarized and coded using a hybrid deductive/inductive analytic approach. The presentation of regional-level data about gender disparities resulted in heightened awareness and stakeholder buy-in and decision-making related to women's health-focused QI. Interviews revealed that stakeholders were familiar with QI, with regional and facility leaders aware of inter-disciplinary committees and efforts to foster organizational change, including PCMH transformation. These efforts did not typically focus on women's health, though some informal efforts had been undertaken. Barriers to engaging in QI included lack of communication across clinical service lines, fluidity in staffing, and lack of protected time. Inter-professional, multilevel stakeholders need to be engaged in implementation early, with data and discussion that convey the importance and relevance of a new initiative. Stakeholder perspectives on institutional norms (e.g., gender norms) and readiness for population-specific QI are useful drivers of clinical initiatives designed to transform care for clinical subpopulations.