Narrow Conception Research Articles

Balancing Tourism Development and Sustainability: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach in Tofino over 15 Years

The narrow conceptualization of capitalism is increasingly challenged as destinations recognize the need to integrate equity and resilience into tourism development. Increasingly, destinations have been using tourism to move away from extractive industries and there is no shortage of literature outlining the need for a more inclusive, multi-stakeholder approach to ensure that sustainability is at the forefront of tourism development considerations. Whether destinations are actually moving towards the more sustainable development of tourism is not always evident and rarely are studies of destinations undertaken over time. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to examine qualitative research spanning 15 years using a multi-stakeholder approach to understand impacts, issues, and solutions relating to tourism development in Tofino, Canada. Tofino has achieved notable advancements in financial, natural, and social capital but continues to face gaps in addressing other dimensions of the Community Capitals Framework (CCF). Insights from this research to focus on social, human, and built capital earlier on in tourism planning and development may help other destinations who partially or fully depend on tourism for their livelihood. This paper addresses real-world tourism development challenges and encompasses multiple stakeholder views on sustainable development, socio-political responsibilities, governance, leadership, destination management, policies, and other practices.

Varieties of Populist Attitudes in Brexit Britain: Socio-Political and Psychological Correlates of a New Multi-dimensional Scale

Populism is usually understood as a complex multi-dimensional phenomenon that encompasses different manifestations. However, most studies on the demand-side adopt a parsimonious minimal definition approach that hinders the ability to capture different forms of populism and the variable weight of its components. This article tests a new multi-dimensional strategy to measure and compare populist and pluralist attitudes in the context of Brexit Britain. We explore the relationship between populism and Britons’ socio-political views – on borders, democracy, governance, identity, and the European Union – and psychological traits – such as conspiracy belief, social alienation, justification of political violence, and meaning in life—. Our new Multi-dimensional Populist Attitudes Scale (MPAS) reveals two varieties of populism, ‘aspirational/subversive’ and ‘identitarian/protective’, and a non-populist ‘moderate/pluralist’ archetype. The new items introduced in the MPAS can complement (or become an alternative to) extant scales especially in contexts where populist movements do not fully fit narrow conceptualisations of populism.

Meals, Mealtimes and moments for learning: Assessment of quality in Early Childhood Education and Care services

Abstract Objective: Early education and care (ECEC) is part of the everyday life of most children in developed economies presenting exceptional opportunity to support nutrition and ongoing food preferences. Yet, the degree to which such opportunity is captured in policy-driven assessment and quality ratings of ECEC services is unknown. Design: Abductive thematic analysis was conducted, guided by key domains of knowledge in nutrition literature and examining identified themes within these domains. Setting: ECEC services (n=38) in Queensland, Australia. Participants: Data were a random sample of field notes pertaining to mealtimes and food provision (n=182) collected as evidence to inform quality ratings during assessment visits to ECEC services. Results: The field notes mapped to three theory-driven domains: Provisions, Practices and Education. Reflecting policy specification, health, hygiene, and safety were a key focus but food quality and quantity were not. Assessors noted promotion of child autonomy at mealtimes yet little evidence pertaining to characteristics of educator-child interactions. Conclusions: Despite evidence that childhood nutrition is crucial for optimal development and learning, quality and quantity of food is not directly assessed. Relationships and interactions at mealtimes provide an environment ideal for promoting learning and development yet the policy guiding inspection and assessment of ECEC services directs focus to a more limited lens of safety, hygiene and promotion of ‘healthy foods’. Our findings identify a narrow conceptualisation of mealtimes focused on ‘health’ as limiting the potential to leverage mealtimes as places to support children’s nutrition and attendant development and learning.

Caelum Nullius: Outer Space and the Colonial Logic of Property Rights

Abstract: Reimagining outer space as enclosed and privatized reinforces liberal property rights as universal and necessary to space programs. New space policies mark a return to terra nullius and a narrow conception of land-use that determines property rights. The liberal and colonial logic of property rights affirms hegemonic narratives of space as a limitless environment with no prior property claims. We analyze outer-space policies and the relationships between state and capital. We draw from Anker on Lockean freedom and Nichols on constructing property through theft. We argue that corporate colonization of space reinscribes the logic of settler-colonialism in space exploration.

The (re)production of ‘normal’ sexuality: a study of sexuality education for students with psychological and behavioural challenges in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT Dutch school-based sexuality education, renowned for its progressiveness and positive impact on sexual health, has been criticised for advancing a limited, yet dominant discourse on sexuality shaped by societal and political factors. Critics have argued that it perpetuates a narrow conception of ‘normal’ sexuality tied to neoliberal, secular, able-bodied, white, heteronormative norms. This inadvertently excludes certain social groups, such as people with disabilities. While the exclusion of people with disabilities has been critiqued by crip theory, an unexplored area remains: how does ‘normal’ sexuality manifest itself in tailored sexuality education for students with disabilities? This study focused specifically on children who faced psychological and behavioural challenges. By means of a case study, interviews, observations, and discourse analysis, the research revealed that, despite flexibility, the curriculum and implementation of sexuality education for the members of this group still retains aspects of ‘normal’ sexuality. Based on our findings, we advocate for further exploration of sexuality education for students with special educational needs, incorporating perspectives from individuals with disabilities, teachers and experts. To promote a more inclusive approach to sexuality education, we recommend providing formal training to educators to guide them in navigating these issues in the classroom implementation of sexuality education.

Parental lying to children: A systematic review

AbstractParents lie to their children, for example, to influence children's behavior and emotions (parenting by lying). The aim of this systematic review was to describe the current scientific literature on parental lying, including its prevalence, correlates, conceptualizations, and operationalizations. Through an extensive literature search using PRISMA guidelines, 23 eligible peer‐reviewed empirical papers on parental lying have been found. Many parents are found to lie to their children. However, existing research is characterized by a heterogeneous and narrow conceptualization and operationalization of parental lying, and a focus on problems. Following this, the current empirical evidence points mostly toward associations with maladaptive development. Following a critical analysis of the studies, future research should implement broader conceptualizations and operationalizations of parental lying in non‐retrospective, experimental, or prospective longitudinal research designs on maladaptive and adaptive correlates, to determine the significance of parental lying for children.

Expanding the science of reading: Contributions from educational psychology

The science of reading consists of a large, evolving, and impressive body of evidence about how humans learn to read and how reading should be taught. This body of evidence has accumulated via diverse epistemological perspectives and methods, yet points to undeniable consensus on many issues (e.g., the importance of explicit phonics instruction, the influence of prior knowledge on reading comprehension). Scholars in educational psychology have robust research programs in the area of reading and are well-positioned to contribute to expanding the science of reading beyond narrow conceptualizations that have been popularized in the media or certain policy efforts. In this paper, we introduce a set of contributions to the special issue that is designed to achieve such expansion by focusing on both the descriptive and explanatory aspects of theory, integrating minoritized perspectives, and contextualizing reading processes and outcomes. Additionally, we illustrate how such an expansion can be done specifically with regard to the role of prior knowledge and a conceptual integrative framework of reading that draws on dynamic systems theory. We conclude by highlighting the theoretical advances the special issue offers collectively and discussing directions for future research.

Faces of Power in Organizations: Foundations, Applications, and Extension

Questions of power are core to organizations, organizing, and the conduct of the organized. Organizational research, however, often avoids addressing questions of power in the direct, explicit, straightforward fashion that their theoretical importance would warrant. Mainstream management and organization studies, including work and organizational psychology and organizational behavior, typically limit themselves to basic and narrow conceptualizations of episodic interpersonal power. Building on broader theorizing in political and social science, an integrative literature review has introduced the ‘four faces of power’ to organizational research a decade ago. Albeit frequently referred to, applications of this model seem rare. However, a systematic assessment of the literature is lacking. Against this backdrop, objectives of this contributions are three-fold: First, an overview of foundational theories and taxonomies for the study of power in organizations is provided. Secondly, a semi-systematic review of the uptake of the ‘four faces of power’ taxonomy in the organizational literature is presented. After seven identified applications are summarized, the current state of knowledge and further research needs are discussed. Finally, an extended version of ‘six faces of power’ is suggested. Envisioned is a perspective that puts power into the foreground of organizational research.

Still Engaging, Not Avoiding, Contradictions: Conceptualizing Cooperative Research in Practical, Structural and Epistemic Terms

Abstract Critical methodologies in International Political Sociology (IPS) and its intersecting fields and research traditions have increasingly coalesced around the idea that research should be done in dialogue, and possibly cooperation, with people rather than only about them. Drawing together research under this theme and wider debates on participatory, activist, and action research, alongside our own research experience, this article proposes the notion of cooperative research to capture and further develop this research agenda. In the context of neoliberal academia and its narrow insurance-based conception of research ethics and safety, we argue that cooperative and ethical research can be done and developed further both in the cracks and margins of the system, and in a gradual reform process within it. Starting with a survey of existing traditions and recent advances towards cooperative research, we proceed to unpack what cooperative research looks like in practice and how it benefits the involved parties. The article then explores structural and epistemic obstacles that cooperative research faces within the current institutional, body, and geo-politics of knowledge production. It also reflects on future avenues to productively deal with the inherent contradictions of cooperative research, not only by embracing the “ethos of critique”, but also by trying to make (even small) changes within the Western knowledge production system by promoting, and rendering more legitimate, alternative forms of knowledge and storytelling.

Ability in physical education – No, I can’t discuss it! Insights from lower secondary physical education teachers in Western Australia

Ability has been positioned as a crucial concept in the construction of a subject that is inclusive of and meaningful for all students. Almost two decades since Evans ( 2004 ) called on the field to re-engage in discourse concerning ability, how ability is conceptualised by physical education (PE) teachers remains relatively unexplored. Furthermore, relatively little is known about how understandings of ability are enacted through curriculum, pedagogy and assessment in PE. This research explored these issues with lower secondary PE teachers in Western Australia through self-recorded audio responses to two research questions. Data from 38 participants revealed the struggles that PE teachers had in articulating meanings and representations of ability in PE in their curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices. Findings illustrated a tendency for many teachers to privilege a performative view of ability and focus on the physical domain in discussing ability in PE. While some teachers made reference to skills and dispositions beyond this domain, data affirmed the dominance of narrow conceptualisations of ability in PE and pointed to limited understandings of how broad, fluid and inclusive notions of ability may be embedded in curriculum design, pedagogy and assessment practices. Summative assessment was the most frequent aspect of practice referred to in teachers’ explanations of how understanding of ability was expressed in their practice. The study points to the importance of professional learning and initial teacher education directing attention to ability as a focus for advancing equitable practices in PE and the need for further research exploring enactments of ability.

Postdigital Game-Based Learning: Complexity, Continuity, and Contingency

AbstractDiscourses that establish the potential learning benefits of digital games for schooling too often focus on learning as a product of relations between student and gameplay, adopting overly deterministic positions that have long been associated with digital technologies and education. This paper draws on ideas from postdigitalism to problematise such narrow conceptualisations of digital game-based learning (DGBL). The analysis of one Australian school’s experience of incorporating digital games into their senior English curriculum provides a break from broad generations and allows a focus on the web of relations within which digital games exist when deployed in formal school contexts. An analytical framework which draws on three ideas emerging from postdigital studies is utilized to explore relations of power through which digital games interact as they are played and studied in schools. This analysis suggests that unitary logics about learning and digital games are insufficient and highlights the importance of engaging with the complexity, continuity and contingency in DGBL contexts to combat the hyperbole that surrounds digital games and education. Postdigital attention on actual instances of digital game deployment reveals the fragility of all knowledge claims about these technologies, contributing to a more critical discourse regarding their potential to impact school learning.

Levelling Up, affective governance and tensions within ‘pride in place’

The ‘pride in place’ mission of the UK Government’s Levelling Up agenda has foregrounded the importance of feelings in local and national development strategies. While pride in place gestures to the emotional symptoms of geographical inequality and the so-called left behind, it does not address their structural causes. This article explores how the lens of pride, and the affective governance it demands, has been used to reimagine place in UK policy. We argue that governance has taken a therapeutic and palliative turn, and that the pride in place mission obscures ideological inconsistencies in policymaking. The article explains how the government’s narrow conception of pride as a mechanism of affective governance illustrates tensions in places at different scales: between national and local issues; between public and private spheres; and between individual and collective identities. It claims that a more meaningful understanding of pride must be predicated on people’s collective capacity for felt and emotional responses. Crucially, any metrics for pride must capture that complexity to help restore social infrastructure in places.

Practising Inquiry-Based Instruction (IBI) in Tanzanian Early Years Education: An Assessment of Teachers’ Views and Curriculum Contexts

This study explored teachers’ conceptions and practices of practising inquiry-based instruction (IBI) in early years education and how the curriculum supports IBI integration. Employing a qualitative approach, this study generated data from 37 purposively selected early years teachers from ten schools in Dar es Salaam using interviews and document analysis. It was found that teachers have a narrow conception of IBI. Moreover, teachers rarely integrate IBI in their classrooms due to large classes, unsupportive curriculum contexts, and limited understanding of IBI. Furthermore, the findings revealed that though the curricula objectives and content permit integration of IBI, overemphasis on academic skills such as literacy and numeracy skills limits the integration of IBI.

Pre-enlargement Reform Failures in the Western Balkans: Social and Economic Preconditions of the Rule of Law

In this paper, I investigate the attempts of the European Union to promote and entrench the rule of law standards in the Western Balkans countries. I examine the failures of legal reforms in key policy areas, such as the regulations of judicial independence, the legislative branch of government, vetting and suppression of corruption, that prevent progress in achieving the rule of law standards. I demonstrate how a narrow focus on the judiciary and its performance has harmed the standards. I propose a more specific focus on socio–economic reforms that, at first glance, appear less relevant to the rule of law. These are: higher education reforms, digitalization, decarbonization, and better targeting of anti-corruption measures. More focus on these areas allows a refocusing from a narrow conception of rule of law to other good governance reforms.

Exploring policy coherence to understand limited progress of gender and social inclusion in the energy sector: The case of Nepal

Goal 7 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aims to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030 but securing universal access to energy supplies remains a challenge worldwide. There is increased recognition that gender and social inclusion (GESI) is critical for the transition towards low-carbon energy.Nepal's inclusive 2015 Constitution, and its 2021 federal-level Gender Equality Policy translate this commitment. Likewise, Nepal is committed to SDG 7. Yet energy policy includes only limited provisions for ensuring energy access by marginalized groups and women. This paper focuses on energy policy coherence to identify cohesion between policies and policy instruments at different levels of governance to identify bottlenecks to GESI. Using a policy coherence and feminist policy approach within an energy justice context, it traces the coherence of GESI policy through time and in relation to overall GESI policy objectives. Horizontal and internal coherence are assessed through the parallels/disjoints between energy-related periodic plans, policies, budgets, and GESI aims. The evolution of GESI in energy investments has been slow in part because of a narrow conceptualization of the policy problem and a lack of coherence and synchronization across documents, which undermines implementation of the GESI agenda.

The playing field of empirical facts: on the interrelations between moral and empirical beliefs in reflective equilibrium

AbstractWhat exactly is the role of empirical beliefs in moral reflective equilibrium (RE)? And if they have a part to play, can changes in our empirical beliefs effectuate changes in the moral principles we adopt? Conversely, can empirical beliefs be adjusted in light of certain moral convictions? While it is generally accepted that empirical background theory is of importance to the method of wide reflective equilibrium (WRE), this article focuses on a different aspect, namely the role of empirical beliefs that is intrinsic to the coherence relation of moral beliefs in any (narrow or wide) conception of RE. First, it is shown that in the application of RE, empirical beliefs are crucial to the procedure of matching principles to considered judgments. Changes in our empirical beliefs may therefore upset the relevant coherence relation and motivate changes in the moral principles we adopt. This more detailed account of the interplay between empirical and moral beliefs can help evaluate the overall philosophical appeal of RE. Finally, it is argued that, at least in WRE, the relation between empirical and moral beliefs need not be a one-way street, that is, moral convictions can provide us with some epistemic means of adjudicating between competing empirical descriptions of the world.

Tracing young people's engagements with the diplomacy and geopolitics of a British Overseas Territory

AbstractResearch from political geographers has increasingly identified the diverse actors, practices, and performances of diplomacy, challenging narrow conceptions that had tended to associate them with the state alone. The following paper engages this plurality directly through, on the one hand, its focus on young people as diplomatic actors and, on the other, the diplomacy of a British Overseas Territory (OT)—the Falkland Islands—a polity characterised by its liminal subjectivity between colonial dependency and independent statehood. In 2022, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War, we partnered with the Falkland Islands Government Office (FIGO) in London, to design, deliver and evaluate a national schools' competition. The Falklands Forty Schools Competition (FFSC) culminated in an eight‐day trip to the Islands for seven prize winners. The paper reflects on our role in co‐organising the competition and the opportunities it afforded to observe young people probe and critically question the official narratives presented to them by government representatives. This offered us the opportunity to explore how geopolitical and diplomatic narratives can be projected, negotiated and challenged by young people in the context of a highly curated trip with narrative projection at its heart. We show how young people through their participation in the competition and, more specifically, a trip to the Falkland Islands, were able to identify slippages and inconsistencies in these ‘stable’ narratives related to governance of the Islands. The young people, far from being passive diplomatic ‘delegates’ unquestioningly imbibing the information presented to them were, instead, highly aware of narrative tipping‐points, tensions and slippages in their engagements with government representatives and diplomats.

Press charges: renegotiating free speech and citizenship in post-partition Delhi

ABSTRACT This article examines the conflict between press censorship and free speech in post-partition Delhi, focusing on the Urdu press. It demonstrates how conflicts over free speech became a focal point for the intersection of two fundamental tensions underlying postcolonial state formation—between civil liberties and the authoritarian legacy of colonial rule, and between a secular democracy and a religion-based partition. The article explores the Urdu refugee dailies that relocated from Lahore to Delhi amid the partition upheaval and emerged as significant media voicing refugees’ interests, often at the expense of Muslim residents. Their provocative writings simultaneously challenged the boundaries of free speech and advanced an exclusionary notion of citizenship based on blood-based descent (jus sanguinis). This narrow conception of citizenship, underlying the partition migrations themselves, challenged the secularist vision of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In response, the Delhi administration took actions against the refugee papers, making them central to contemporary struggles over press censorship. By taking the state to court, refugee editors promoted citizens’ right to free speech, but simultaneously advanced a circumscribed notion of ethno-religious citizenship. Navigating this dual role, the article unveils the exclusions and contradictions that marked citizenship formation in the early postcolonial period.

If you were happy and you know it, clap your hands! Testing the peak-end rule for retrospective judgments of well-being in everyday life

The experience sampling method (ESM) and comparable assessment approaches are increasingly becoming popular tools for well-being research. In part, they are so popular because they represent more direct approaches for assessing individuals’ experienced well-being during a specified period, whereas one-time, retrospective evaluations of that episode are believed to introduce systematic biases. Along these lines, the peak-end rule states that the most extreme and recent sensations of an episode disproportionally influence retrospective well-being judgments. However, it has yet to be determined whether such systematic effects found in experimental laboratory studies generalize to retrospective judgments of well-being in everyday life as captured in ESM studies. Across four ESM samples (overall N = 1,889, total measurements = 131,575), we found that retrospective well-being judgments were disproportionately influenced by the peak and end experiences from the assessment period. However, these effects depended on the item framing of the retrospective judgment (global vs. more specific framings) and broad versus narrow conceptualizations of peaks and ends (states, days, and weeks), pointing toward potential ways to mitigate peak/end effects. Our findings emphasize the importance of differentiating between momentary and retrospective well-being assessments and selecting an appropriate measurement approach on the basis of these conceptual considerations.

U.S. mobilization of its domestic diaspora: Strategic leveraging of an un[der]tapped foreign policy resource

AbstractThe historic diaspora diplomacy literature has generally characterized politically active diaspora as foreign agents leveraged by their ancestral homeland to shape the foreign policy of their host nation. As such, diaspora groups have generally been assessed as net negatives on the foreign policy of their host nations, or as working against the common good of the host nation. This work seeks to challenge this narrow conceptualization and demonstrate that, when considered within a broader historical timeline, granted agency, and contextualized within a networked society, emergent mechanisms for state mobilization of diaspora groups to achieve foreign policy objectives become apparent. This work is focused exclusively on political diaspora groups within the United States and investigates select case studies to demonstrate the evolving nature of U.S.–diaspora relations and the opportunities presented as a result. The work concludes with several policy recommendations, derived from lessons learned within the case studies.Related ArticlesBayes, Jane H., and Laura Gonzalez. 2011. “Globalization, Transnationalism, and Intersecting Geographies of Power: The Case of the Consejo Consultivo del Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior (CC‐IME): A Study in Progress.” Politics & Policy 39(1): 11–44. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2010.00281.x.Huijgh, Ellen. 2017. “Indonesia's ‘Intermestic’ Public Diplomacy: Features and Future.” Politics & Policy 45(5): 762–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12221.Singh, Amit, and Amit Sarwal. 2017. “Paraspara, Encounters, and Confluences: India's Soft Power Objective in the Indo‐Pacific Region.” Politics & Policy 45(5): 733–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12222.