Multiple Realities Research Articles

DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING WORK

The school curriculum plays a fundamental role in the civic education of students, directly influencing their skills and social values. Through formal education, the curriculum contributes to the development of critical, reflective and participatory skills, necessary for conscious action in society. Civic education involves not only theoretical knowledge, but also the construction of practices and attitudes that promote democratic coexistence and respect for diversity. Thus, education focused on citizenship must consider cultural, ethical and political aspects, promoting the active engagement of students. The general objective of this article is to analyze how the school curriculum contributes to the civic education of students. The specific objectives are: - to identify the pedagogical practices present in the curriculum that foster citizenship; - to verify the presence of content that encourages critical thinking and social participation; - to evaluate the importance of interdisciplinarity in the construction of a civic education. The research problem that guides this study is: In what way does the school curriculum contribute to the civic education of students? The methodology used was bibliographic, based on a literature review of works that address the relationship between school curriculum and citizenship. The results indicate that a curriculum that integrates democratic principles, social values, and practices of mutual respect favors the development of critical and participatory citizens. The discussion reinforces the need for an interdisciplinary approach that takes into account the diversity and multiple realities of students. It is concluded that the school curriculum must be constantly reviewed and adapted to meet social demands and to educate individuals capable of acting ethically and responsibly in society, fully exercising their rights and duties as citizens.

Framing the Multi-Centre Qualitative Research Design as a Novel Methodology for Nursing and Healthcare Research: Reflections and A Methodological Discussion.

To discuss the multi-centre qualitative methodology as a unique design, articulate its guiding paradigm/theoretical perspectives, and highlight its methodological and methodical issues. A secondary objective is to generate further scholarly discourse regarding the multi-centre approach within the broader qualitative research tradition. Methodological discussion. Rather than an emphasis on only experiences, the multi-centre approach is presented as a unique design which also focuses on uncovering why a phenomenon or problem exists and perceptions regarding the phenomenon/problem. With its focus on capturing multiple subjective realities, the multi-centre qualitative design is arguably underpinned by pragmatist constructivism which offers a robust framework for researching phenomenon in a way that is both theoretically informed and practically relevant. Methodologically, the multi-centre qualitative research design emphasises a problem-centred enquiry, collaborative approach and rigorous study protocols, systematic site selection, contextual immersion and sensitivity and methodical flexibility. With the rapidly evolving nursing and global health landscape, the multi-centre design lends itself to exploring and capturing perceptions on a larger scale compared to single site studies. Careful planning, availability of adequate resources, rigorous protocols and quality assurance plans are critical to ensuring its success. The multi-centre approach offers the possibility of undertaking the same study across multiple settings/locations which has the potential to improve representation and strengthen transferability. This methodological discussion offers clarity regarding the use of the multi-centre approach and offering strategies for its subsequent uptake in nursing and healthcare research. Not applicable. No patient or public contribution.

Trans-cending Parenthood: Lived Experiences of Parents Raising Transgender and Gender Expansive Children

This Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study, informed by the application of queer theory, examined eleven parents’ narratives about raising Transgender and Gender Expansive (TGE) children. The subjective experiences of these parents’ transcendence into parenting a TGE child informed one superordinate theme, the impact of living in a conventional society on the unique parenting experiences of raising TGE children. Evoked by the superordinate theme, the subtheme socio-cultural-political influences, encompasses preconceived ideas and assumptions experienced by each parent as they navigate raising a TGE child within a conventional society. Other subthemes include internalizing cishet norms and safety concerns, cishet language and cognitions on gender, and protective feelings and reactions to family and community judgments which demonstrate the multiple realities of each participant. The final subtheme, peer-led play support group, embodies these parents’ involvement in an affirming space. This data, and the meaning made from it, align with the realities of each participant and their experiences as a collective to inform this paper, which concludes with implications for supporting parents of TGE children and considerations for future research.

The End of Quantitative Research in Social Work? The Threat Posed by Postmodern/Critical Theory's Increasing Colonization of Academia

Quantitative research plays an instrumental role in facilitating health and wellness. Effective interventions are developed, assessed, and refined through the application of logic and empirical evidence in a scientific milieu characterized by diverse views. However, the increasing colonization of academic discourse by postmodern/critical theory (PCT) may undermine foundational concepts upon which quantitative research rests. The postpositivist tradition in which quantitative methods are embedded emphasizes probabilistic truth, logic, empirical evidence, and the interplay of diverse, frequently conflicting perspectives. Conversely, some currents of thought within PCT emphasize multiple realities, intuition, personal stories of lived experience, and the exclusion of views that challenge PCT tenets. The increasing adoption of these concepts in academia may limit or even delegitimize quantitative research as currently practiced in social work. We conclude by arguing that social work clients are best served by a scientific discourse that values multiple theoretical frameworks, research methodologies, and scientists operating from different social locations.

Rummaging on a Research Method

Rummaging on a research method is a review article on qualitative research method. It briefly presents what qualitative research is, its philosophical perspectives, paradigms and parameters, nature and features, how to generate qualitative data and analyze them, rigour and quality in qualitative research. It draws the conclusion that qualitative research is really good in the field of social and educational research to develop quality in teaching, learning and research. Furthermore, it was explored from the study that qualitative research method is subjective in nature. It uncovers and discovers rich data and reality in a naturalistic context. It is both reflexive and communicative. It has its deep faith on multiple realities. It is highly rigorous in terms of process to unearth in-depth information out of a phenomenon. It aspires to make a quest for maintaining quality in the field of research.

Research on Animal Communication Ethics of Platform Media

Digital media has a comprehensive penetration of ordinary people's daily life by virtue of the presence of diverse forms and multiple realities, and reshapes human perception, realizing the impact on people's cognition. Therefore, for the ordinary audience who are "separated" and have no "animal experience", the cognition of animals comes from the construction of animals by digital media to a large extent, and this construction itself is divorced from the imagination of animals in real natural life. Based on the analysis of the current communication practice of animal short videos and live broadcasts, this paper attempts to explore the problems existing in the construction of the relationship between animals and humans by digital media, and through specific cases to demonstrate the domestication logic of human beings and animals behind animal short videos and live broadcasts, as well as the spiritual hallucination and "ambiguity of human beings and animals" caused by the spectacular drama and entertainment of animals with the help of digital media .

Entre o fascismo e o autoritarismo conservador. O regime do Estado Novo nos manuais escolares portugueses de história (1975-2023)

In Portugal, the dictatorial Estado Novo regime (1933-1974) ended with the Carnation Revolution of 25 April, which put an end to thirteen years of colonial war on several fronts. Since then, the regime has been the subject of an intense historiographical debate that has ultimately covered its multiple dimensions and realities. Part of this debate has focused on its possible “fascist” nature. The aim of this text is to use a comparative methodology (qualitative and quantitative) to analyse post-25 April history textbooks to see how the approach to the dictatorship might have evolved.

Spatiotemporal mobility network of global scientists, 1970–2020

The mobility of scientists, manifested by movements to new academic institutions, grows with globalization and plays a crucial role in individual careers, institutional productivity, and knowledge dissemination. Current research on scientists’ mobility focuses on aggregated levels such as inter-country mobility, with little attention paid to fine-grained institutional level, leading to a simplified spatial portrayal of the mobility. To fill the gap, we take scientists in geography as examples, and reconstructed their dynamic mobility network among institutions from 1970 to 2020 based on massive literature metadata. Our findings reveal the spatial mobility pattern that is now dominated by North America, Western and Northern Europe, East Asia, and Oceania, with the trend of intensification, multipolarity, and inequality over time. Specifically, the mobility network exhibits clear community structure largely constrained by spatial proximity and national borders. We also uncovered a universal downward mobility pattern embedded in the hierarchical structure. Our quantitative analysis further suggest that mobility is facilitated by multiple realities, including spatial, cultural, and scientific proximity, institutional rankings and national economic levels, cooperation, and visa-free policies, with varying dynamics. These results contribute to spatiotemporal insights into the mechanisms of scientific development in theory, and the basis for talent policymaking in practice.

Development and Usability Evaluation of Transitional Cross-Reality Interfaces

The concept of Transitional Cross-Reality Interfaces where a user can seamlessly transition across the Reality-Virtuality-Continuum dates back to the introduction of the Magic Book in 2001 but recently gained new research momentum since head-mounted displays advanced by combining the former distinctive concepts of augmented reality and virtual reality into a single device. New technological capabilities require new ways of developing applications to satisfy user requirements. Especially in the context of operating in multiple realities, developing AR/VR applications is not a trivial task. In this context, the development of Transitional Cross-Reality Interfaces remains a complex engineering problem that requires specific methods, concepts, and tools. To address this problem and provide a systematic development approach, we propose a conceptual framework for both developing and evaluating Transitional Cross-Reality Interfaces. To evaluate our solution, we implemented a Transitional Cross-Reality Interface based on our framework and evaluated it with both the measurements provided by the framework and additional questionnaires. We found high usability and interesting transitional behavior of users indicating the usefulness of the proposed framework as an underlying software architecture for Transitional Cross-Reality Interfaces.

Perspectives on Health and Health Education

This study highlights different perspectives on health education. The naturalistic/bio-medical, functionalist, post-modernist, and Marxist perspectives on health and health education were all looked at in this study. The analysis is based on both published and unpublished materials, including online sources. Desk inquiry is the method used for analyzing the literature. Based on biological function and statistical normality, the naturalistic/bio-medical perspective regards health as belonging to a medical origin. By using an organismic illustration, the functionalist perspective emphasizes protecting social equilibrium and stability in order to explain human societies and social phenomena. While pursuing health and health education, the post-modernist perspective emphasizes the multiple realities of human health and class struggle. Each perspective offers a unique lens for understanding health and health education, emphasizing the importance of considering individual and societal contexts.

Concepts that fit in a (Roman) hand

Abstract The Roman author Lucius Anneus Seneca (4 BC–65 AC), the main representative of Stoic philosophy in Latin literature, wrote several tragedies in verse in which the Latin noun manus ‘hand’ has a remarkable incidence, almost doubling the occurrence of other terms more related to tragic themes, such as scelus ‘crime’ or mors ‘death’. This paper is based on the hypothesis that this high frequency is linked to the concept of embodiment as well as on the metonymies and metaphors used in Seneca’s figurative language to encode abstract concepts. The occurrences of the term manus in a corpus composed of Seneca’s dramatic and philosophical texts have been analysed, paying attention to the metonymic and metaphorical contexts where it appears. As a result, it has been observed that this word can refer to multiple realities such as individuals, actions, identity, control, or power.

The Durban University of Technology Faculty of Health Sciences Decentralized Clinical Training Project: Protocol for an Implementation Study in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

The Durban University of Technology (DUT) Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, is embarking on a project to implement a Decentralized Clinical Training Program (DCTP). The DUT FHS DCTP project is being conducted in response to the growing demands of students requiring clinical service placements as part of work-integrated learning. The project is also geared toward responding to existing gaps in current practices related to the implementation of a DCTP, which has mainly been through traditional universities providing training to medical, optometry, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy students. In South Africa, a DCTP is yet to be implemented within the context of a university of technology; it is yet to be implemented within health science faculties that offer undergraduate health science programs in mainstream biomedicine and alternative and complementary disciplines. We aim to design, pilot, and establish an effective DCTP at the DUT FHS in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Participatory action research comprising various designs-namely, appreciative inquiry, qualitative case study design, phenomenography, and descriptive qualitative study design-will be used to conduct the study. Data will be collected using individual interviews, focus group discussions, nominal group technique, consensus methodology, and narrative inquiry. Study participants will include various internal and external stakeholders of the DUT, namely, academic staff; students; key informants from universities currently using successfully established DCTPs; academic support staff; staff working in human resources, finance, procurement, and accounting; and experts in other disciplines such as engineering and information systems. Overall, 4 undergraduate health science programs-namely, Radiography, Medical Orthotics and Prosthetics, Clinical Technology, and Emergency Medical Care and Rescue-will be part of the project's pilot phase. Findings from the project's pilot phase will be used to inform scale-up in the other undergraduate programs in the DUT FHS. The project is being implemented as part of the university's strategic objective of devising innovative curricula and pedagogical practices to improve the mastery, skill set, and competence of health science graduates. The study has currently commenced with the situational analysis, consisting of engagement with external stakeholders implementing DCTPs. The data to be generated from the completion of the situational analysis are anticipated to be published in 2024. This project is envisioned to facilitate collaboration among the universities of technology, traditional universities, Ministry of Health, and private sector for clinical placement of undergraduate health science students in health establishments that are away from the university, thereby exposing them to real-life experiences related to health care. This will facilitate authentic learning experiences that will contribute to improved competencies of graduates in relation to the health needs of society and the multiple realities of the South African health system. PRR1-10.2196/52243.

Transforming a synchronous community of collaborative critical inquiry into co-performing construction of professional development in education

ABSTRACT This paper reports a university instructor’s critical evaluative rethinking for inspiring teaching and re-development of a course for schoolteacher professional development at times of crisis, from local socio-political movements to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The instructional mode was expected to revitalise schoolteachers’ collaborative critical inquiry in multiple digital realities of a synchronous blended learning community when university campuses and schools were closed during the pandemic. A qualitative case study was adopted to evaluatively, critically, and collaboratively unpack the effects of rethinking in response to the challenge. The participants included the instructor and 25 schoolteachers. The findings highlight the inspired rethinking of synthesising emerging elements of collaborative critical inquiry in connection to the philosophical underpinning and practical structure of the Community of Inquiry framework. The course was innovatively infused with the interdependent presences of the framework towards transactional cycles of professional teaching and learning in the community. This sheds new light on the effects of co-performing construction of teaching towards deep learning experiences on professional development. The main implication of the co-performing construction is trustful cohesion of common professional identity for professional development across educational levels.

Are the Kids Alright? Helping Children Thrive Through Divorce Using Narrative Therapy

While there are negative stereotypes against children who have been through divorce, research indicates that there are a wide range of potential outcomes children can experience after their parents’ divorce. Research indicates that there are at least four protective factors that lead to positive mental health and social outcomes for children of divorce: (a) external social support, (b) self-reliance and grit, (c) positive relationships with parents, and (d) resilience and self-compassion. These protective factors are then illustrated through a narrative therapy framework, which focuses on multiple possible realities, meaning making, perception of the client as the expert of their own experience, and the role of dominant discourses in the client's life and clinical intervention. A clinical vignette is then presented, depicting a teenage girl whose parents have divorced after an especially turbulent marriage. Narrative therapy's strength is that it helps the client develop cognitive distance between their sense of self and the problems they are experiencing. However, some limitations to this presentation are that it is highly theoretical and requires further quantitative research to explore the effects of narrative therapy on clients whose parents are divorced. Further research is required to explore the wide spectrum of outcomes children can experience after divorce and how clinicians can help children reach more positive outcomes.

A call for theory-inspired analysis in qualitative research: Ways to construct different truths in and about healthcare.

Over the last 50 years, there has been significant development of qualitative research and related methods in healthcare. Theoretical frameworks support researchers in selecting appropriate research approaches, proceduresand analytical tools. However, the implications of the choice of theory are sparsely elucidated. Based on a text excerpt from a public debate article, the study aimed to show how different theory-inspired analytical perspectives produced varied understandings of the same text. The study presented three subanalyses inspired by Bourdieu's sociological theory, Lazarus and Folkman's psychological theoryand utilitarian ethics, respectively. The analyses showed that by using different theoretical analytical perspectives in inductive processes, an immediate interpretation of the text was not obvious. It became possible to spot the underlying meta-theoretical assumptions, as the interpretations were not taken for granted or indisputable. Our analyses suggest that different theoretical lenses lead to different interpretations of the same empirical material, recognising the existence of multiple truths or realities. Thus, utilising a theoretical perspective in inductive analyses can enhance transparency and rigour because the analytical optics are made explicit to the reader. This allows the reader to follow the analysis processes and comprehend from which theoretical starting point a truth arises.

Gaze and reflexivity in postcolonial cinema: the pragmatic turn in critical tourism studies

This article examines the theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical integration of postcolonial cinema into critical tourism education. These works help viewers understand the influence of film as a primary source of postcolonial gaze, with the goal of decolonizing tourism studies. Postcolonial cinema reconnects geographic inquiry with the impacts of colonialism and postcolonialism on people and places in specific localities and across regions. Critical pragmatism is presented as synthesizing critical theory’s emphasis on listening, reflecting, and deliberating and traditional pragmatism’s emphasis on practice and place, as well as mixed research methods and multiple realities. Critical reflexivity is explored in critical tourism studies as relocated in pragmatist thought and a basis for abductive methodology and pedagogy. Abductive methodology is identified as a basis for addressing complex tourism issues and researcher positioning, while abductive pedagogy creates transformative learning environments where shared dialogue generates new knowledge. Critical pragmatism, enriched with gaze and reflexivity honed through postcolonial cinema, addresses perceived ontological and ‘realist’ deficiencies in critical tourism studies, while offering an alternative philosophical framework for informing and contrasting popular epistemologies and methodologies.

The Social Construction of the Banjar Ethnic Society Toward the Radap Rahayu Dance

The Radap Rahayu is a ritual dance performed today by the Banjar ethnic group in Gambut District, Banjar Regency, South Kalimantan. It is used for traditional Banjar rituals, such as weddings, bathing, and building erections. This research aimed to describe the importance of the Radap Rahayu dance for the Banjar people and its relation to their well-being and spirituality. This qualitative research used a theoretical framework established by Berger and Luckmann (1990). Through the social construction theory, the researchers explored how the Banjar people make sense of their culture and express their spirituality through art. The informants were determined using purposive sampling on 25 individuals, and data collection was conducted through observations and in-depth interviews. The data was analyzed using thematic analysis and reviewed based on existing literature. The findings showed that the function and meaning of the Radap Rahayu dance, according to the Banjar people, are not merely an art performance but a vital ritual integrated into their daily lives. The researchers identified limbai movement, spiritual meaning, spiritual beings, and guardian crocodiles as domains of social construction. This aligns with the framework, highlighting that a phenomenon displays multiple realities.

Ontological complexity of interpolity orders: the encounter between Chosŏn and Tibet in Qing

This article examines the ontological complexity of interpolity orders with a focus on peripheral polities in the Qing order. Existing multiculturalist studies of the Qing order emphasized diverse cultural representations of a single imperial reality, lacking an understanding of multiple realities experienced by peripheral participants. Our analysis reveals the ontological complexity—rather than cultural diversity—of the Qing order, in which multiple ontological agents experienced different lived worlds, from the encounter between Chosŏn Korean envoys and the Tibetan Panchen Lama at Emperor Qianlong’s birthday ceremony. By analyzing the Chosŏn envoy member Pak Chiwŏn’s travelog and Tibetan records, we argue that the Chosŏn envoys with Confucian ontology experienced the Panchen Lama as a subhuman, while the Lama experienced the envoys as ignorant lay beings. Observing this ontological dissonance, Pak Chiwŏn criticized the Qing court’s appropriation of peripheral ontologies and proposed experiencing other ontologies to foreground the presence of the pluriverse in the interpolity order. Beyond the Qing, an ontological approach will help reveal heterogeneous lived worlds of interpolity orders and reconceptualize interpolity order under the condition of ontological complexity.

The common curricular base and the systematic gap: an evaluation of the contents of the 6th grade mathematics textbooks of the public schools of Santarém-PA, Brazil

The implementation of the National Common Curriculum Base (NCCB) had a significant impact on the content and pedagogy of mathematics textbooks in primary and secondary schools. These skills and competencies emerge vertically as goals in a content proposal common to all Brazilian schools. Specifically, in the teaching of mathematics, the lack of a referent that incorporates a priori forms (mathematical symbols) transforms the act of teaching-learning into a dynamic of transmission of systematically empty contents, devoid of real and applicable meaning. This absence of real-world, culturally relevant examples in textbooks affects students' learning experiences. Therefore, this study analyzes two mathematics textbooks for the 6th grade of primary school and assesses their alignment with the new NCCB guidelines. We chose the Fraction and Numerical Expression content for comparison. We cut out and describe the relationship between the skills and competencies of the new NCCB and the exercise proposals of each book from the perspective of the contents. The analysis reveals a dissociation between content and reality in the book Taláris (mathematics for primary school – last years) promoted by a systematic void derived from the absence of examples that relate to real-life situations. Finally, it is pointed out that the responsibility of adapting the contents to the multiple realities and demystifying the values lies with the teachers. This highlights the need for teacher training and qualification in the face of new challenges in schools in Santarém – PA, Brazil.

When Numbers Run Out

In the early 2000s, authorities in Sweden and Denmark recognised that their personal identification numbers were about to run out but followed different interventions to resolve the same issue. In this paper, I start from these cases to analyse personal identification numbers as methods for knowing and governing populations. I draw on two assertions from the study of methods within STS: Methods are performative, and they produce multiple objects and realities. I demonstrate how such identification numbers enact individuals and populations simultaneously, and I identify a fundamental tension between them: one emphasising the representational potential of the part and another favouring the coherence of the whole. I conclude that issues surrounding personal identification numbers in use across all Nordic countries can be traced back to a fundamental tension in addressing individuals that is impossible to resolve via technical fixes, although those interventions are crucial to keeping the systems operational.