Normative Ideals Research Articles

Identity and value orientations of student youth in various ethnocultural groups

The article presents a brief theoretical analysis of the concepts of “identity” and “value orientations”, and provides the results of an empirical study on the problem of identity and value orientations of student youth. The purpose of the article is to present the results of a study of the relationship between the components of identity and value orientations of student youth in the context of cross-cultural analysis. The components of identity and value orientations in samples of Russian and Buryat respondents were studied. Correlations between identity and value orientations have been identified. Participants. 100 Russian and 100 Buryat university students. 200 persons in total. Methods (tools): S. Schwartz’s value questionnaire, identity questionnaire in 16 categories (M.S. Yanitsky et al., 2018), mathematical and statistical processing using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient rs. The results of the study showed that there are similarities and differences in the correlations of the structure of value orientations of the subjects of the represented ethnocultural groups at two levels (normative ideals and individual priorities). The results obtained showed that the identity and value orientations of students in each group have their own characteristics. But no unique national characteristics were found among representatives of Russian and Buryat youth. Correlation analysis revealed that the hierarchy of values of students from both cultures contains values such as conformity, kindness, stimulation, independence, hedonism, and achievement. Negative correlations were identified between the identity components “Citizen of one’s country”, “Follower of one’s religion”, “Resident of a given city” with the value orientations “Kindness”, “Stimulation”, “Traditions”, “Independence”, “Safety”, “Power”, "Achievements".

Yogalebrities: The postfeminist, fashionable construction of ‘psychic life’ on social media

The appeal and impact of social media influencers within contemporary consumer culture has been a much-explored topic in fashion and media research. However, there are limited studies of yogalebrities – celebrity yoga practitioners who gain global visibility and following through branded product endorsements and modelling contracts – despite their leading role within the culturally and economically significant wellness industry. Furthermore, while the existing scholarship considers the intersections between consumer culture and spirituality, it is yet to grant due recognition to the active production and consumption of fashionable spiritual feminine identities produced on and through prevalent social media. Drawing on the combined insights from media, fashion and feminist studies, we discuss how yogalebrities represent and perpetuate normative ideals about femininity and its spiritual dimensions. We ground the discussion in the analysis of two different cases of yogalebrities: celebrity influencer Sjana Elise and micro-influencer Jessamyn Stanley. We demonstrate how they fold entrepreneurial opportunities into self-actualizing, self-branded intimate narratives to seek legitimacy and commercial success, and how their audience engagement capitalizes on, commodifies and stylizes spiritual values that underpin western yoga philosophy. By documenting these complex tactics, we contribute to fashion studies’ and feminist media studies’ understanding of the mediatized and increasingly fashionable psychic life of women.

Faculty Members' Perspectives on Organisational Identity: Digital Leadership of Universities of Nineveh Governorate

Study purpose. This study aimed to identify and determine the level of DL implementation by heads of physical education and sports science departments and the extent to which DL contributes to organisational identity in universities in Nineveh, Iraq. A descriptive survey method was used and the study involved faculty members in colleges and departments. Materials and Methods. Data were obtained from 92 participating members. A structured questionnaire related to organisational identity was used, consisting of five dimensions (strength of identity, normative identity, utilitarian identity, mental image, and pride). Data were analysed for participants' responses in the form of percentages, arithmetic averages, and statistical data using SPSS version 21. Results. The results showed that the high level of DL application was for innovation and knowledge, at 83% and 73.7%, respectively. There was a positive and statistically significant relationship between DL application and organisational identity, respectively, and 82.5% for pride and 77% for normative identity, the most important dimension of organisational identity. There was a positive and statistically significant relationship between DL and its dimensions (innovation, persuasion, knowledge) and organisational identity of higher education (p<0.05). Conclusions. The study concludes the adoption of DL and organisational identity by department and college leaders as a result of high adoption of innovation and knowledge, in addition to normative identity, pride, and scientific method in dealing with lecturers. It was found that there is a significant relationship between DL and its organisational identity dimensions.

Generative AI and the politics of visibility

Proponents of generative AI tools claim they will supplement, even replace, the work of cultural production. This raises questions about the politics of visibility: what kinds of stories do these tools tend to generate, and what do they generally not? Do these tools match the kind of diversity of representation that marginalized populations and non-normative communities have fought to secure in publishing and broadcast media? I tested three widely available generative AI tools with prompts designed to reveal these normative assumptions; I prompted the tools multiple times with each, to track the diversity of the outputs to the same query. I demonstrate that, as currently designed and trained, generative AI tools tend to reproduce normative identities and narratives, rarely representing less common arrangements and perspectives. When they do generate variety, it is often narrow, maintaining deeper normative assumptions in what remains absent.

Mexican hospitality migrants and the spatial and geographic regulation of mobility

Mobility (and control over it) is partially mediated by migrant capital and how it is evaluated across time and space. This study draws on the concept of multiple migration – wherein migration is viewed as potentially multidirectional and open-ended over the life course – to examine the plight of male, Mexican hospitality staff globally on the move. These participants are unique in that they had experience working as hospitality staff in different countries under different legal classifications. In the US they were undocumented, in Mexico they were deported nationals, and in Canada they were received as temporary migrant workers. Their accounts bring different mobilities – illegal, forced, contract, and returned – under one analytical frame to illuminate how mobilities are spatially and geographically regulated. As the article details, their mobility depended on the resources they accrued during migration and whether these resources could be converted into relevant capital, with class, gender and race significant mediating factors. When contextualised, their accounts offer unique insights into immigration controls, transnational labour regimes, political economy and how access to capital shapes gendered identities and hierarchies. Their evaluations vis-à-vis other (global) workers also mediated their legal incorporation, governed by normative ideals that shape prospects and life outcomes in the current economy.

Two Tales of the Energy Commons Through the Lens of Complexity

Abstract The Energy Commons embody the small-scale generation of renewable energy by groups of citizens. Existing scholarship and the European Union’s rules on the internal governance of citizen and renewable energy communities envision the Energy Commons as making the energy transition more democratic, equitable, inclusive, and local. Based on empirical research on citizen-led energy generation in Germany, this contribution examines the extent to which Energy Commons in practice live up to these normative ideals, why they partially fail to do so and how regulatory change can enable Energy Commons to converge to these ideals. This contribution sets out different types of Energy Commons and assesses how each type performs against scholarly expectations and the EU rules on their internal governance. It identifies the complexity of the energy sector as the main obstacle to achieving said normative ideals and sketches guidelines for regulatory change to reduce this complexity.

Relationship between teachers' professional identity and career satisfaction among college teachers: role of career calling.

Professional identity has been found an important determinant of career satisfaction of employees working in various fields. Teachers' professional identity is a relatively less explored domain. Considering the importance of teacher's career satisfaction, the current study was designed to test the role of career calling in the relationship between teachers' professional identity and career satisfaction. A sample of teachers (N = 300) with (n = 115) men and (n = 185) women was recruited from the colleges of Sargodha City, Pakistan with an age range from 24 to 45 (M = 31.3, SD = 6.4). A purposive sampling technique was employed for data collection. Variables of the present study were operationalized through the Professional Identity Scale, Brief Calling Scale, and Career Satisfaction Scale. Path analysis revealed that normative identity did not have any direct or indirect effects on career satisfaction and career calling. Whereas affective and efficacy identity demonstrated significant positive direct effects on career calling whereas career calling had significant positive direct effect on career satisfaction. Efficacy identity also had a significant positive direct effect on career satisfaction. Finally, both affective and efficacy identity had significant positive indirect effects on career satisfaction via career calling. The findings of the current study may help in devising plans to improve the career satisfaction of teachers working in the higher education sector.

De-westernizing public relations: A comparative and global perspective on the influence of personal and patronage relationships across the world

This article highlights diversity and pluralism in the field of public relations. It challenges the normative ideals that books have traditionally taught us about how communication between organizations and their public should be. A review of the importance of personal and patronage relationships in non-western countries from every continent (Latin America and Southern Europe, China, India and Sub-Saharan Africa) shows a rich and complex reality about how communication happens. It reveals that we do not live in a perfect, predictable world – not necessarily a negative factor, but rather a source of richness. This should not be surprising news since the United States, Canada, Australia and western EU countries represent approximately just 8 per cent of the world population. A main diversity factor in strategic communication is the importance of patronage relationships, often ignored or minimized in books on the subject. Offering multiple perspectives aims to show how the importance of considering the construction of personal relationships as part of the strategic menu of organizations should not be stigmatized or considered an undesired outcome to eradicate. In most societies, patronage relationships and personal relations play a large role when organizations build relationships with their public.

Visualizing Voices: Exploring the Use of Architectural Visualization to Present Complex Qualitative Findings

In this paper, I discuss the promising use of visual architectural drawings to present findings of qualitative studies, particularly when dealing with a complex, multidimensional human experience. I examine an interdisciplinary integration between qualitative research and architecture that embraces visual elements. I propose using visual drawings borrowed from architecture as a tool to present deep meanings of human experience within a social phenomenon and make the findings visually transparent. The architectural drawings offer distinct views: one provides an overall view of the building, while the other exposes its hidden layers. I employ this visual means to highlight deep meanings obtained from two salient metaphors in the participants’ stories concerning normative identity conflict. This new practice of the importance of using visual means to present findings is consistent with contemporary discussions in sociology about how qualitative findings can be made more transparent and visible to diverse audiences. While this unique use of visual architecture means is still rare, I suggest that their implementation can contribute to innovation and contemporaneity in presenting qualitative findings. The insights of the present paper invite qualitative researchers to utilize visual interdisciplinary means to present findings that engage diverse audiences and enrich qualitative methodological discourse.

Theatre as a Transcultural Event: Notes on European Identity

ABSTRACT The subject of intercultural exchange is complex and demands that we keep the basic issues that shape our views of the world in mind. And one of these basic issues is what we mean by “European identity.” The ideological concerns over the norms of identity became necessarily entangled in the post-1989 interests and agendas of Europe’s various nations. So the great challenge for us as academics as well as for the policymakers in Brussels and Strasburg is to focus on these dialectics. European identity is too varied to be a unitary and homogenous thing; indeed, one of the battles within it is between the advocates of a unitary identity and those who see the whole as a complex that is irreducible to a unified identity. In this article I explore how the theatre, in the aftermath of the Second World War, served as a laboratory for the investigation, analysis, and constuction of dramatic models that became a means of transcultural communication. As attested by the continuing success of the experimental approaches of Brecht, Grotowski, La Mama, and Suzuki, this endeavour reflected the struggle of people from different cultural backgrounds to understand and accept each other. One of the reasons the theatre continues to have the potentiality to promote transcultural integration is that it deals in concrete particulars with universal resonances. As I will demonstrate with examples from my own work in various countries, the production and directing of plays by these and other dramatists shows that it is only in the performance—by transforming the familiar into the unfamiliar, by making the habitual and customary seem strange and unexpected—that the motives, relationships, and events enclosed in the written play are released so as to stimulate the audience to re-examine their own contemporary realities. Transcultural theatre thus creates dramatic experiences that are adequate and responsive to the changing world of migration and mobility in which both practitioners and audiences actually live. As such it offers the kind of transcultural education that promotes communication and understanding and that fosters an open-eyed and open-hearted attitude to the changing realities of Europe.

Correctional Officer Reflections on How to Address Incarcerated People’s Unmet Needs in Canadian Prisons

ABSTRACT Although incarcerated people best understand their needs and rehabilitative processes, the current study explores how correctional officers (COs) understand the needs of people in their custody and care to support their reentry and incarceration experience. Given COs are the lifeline of incarcerated people, penal scholarship should value their input as an essential resource for recognizing what incarcerated people need to desist and prepare for reintegration when imprisoned. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 28 COs employed in Atlantic Canada, we contextualize and report on what COs believe are the (often unmet) needs of incarcerated people. More specifically, intending to learn what COs desired in the design of a new replacement prison in a Canadian Atlantic province, we found COs emphasized meeting prison residents’ unmet needs – often over their own – with results centralizing incarcerated people’s physical and mental health needs, availability of meaningful rehabilitative, vocational, and cultural-specific programming, and access to recreation and fresh air. We discuss the actualization of each programmatic construct, recognizing prison society is unique and programming and practices must respond to the positionality of incarcerated people and their lived experiences rather than normative ideals about social living.

Ethnicity and UK graduate migration: An identity economics approach

AbstractThis paper reports on the employment migration behavior of non‐White ethnic minority graduates in the United Kingdom for the 2018/2019 graduation cohort, which is the last cohort to enter the labor market before the COVID‐19 pandemic. Using data from the new Graduate Outcomes survey and controlling for a rich set of background characteristics, the findings indicate that ethnic minority graduates are more likely than their White counterparts to find work in ethnically diverse areas of the United Kingdom after leaving higher education. An identity utility framework is then formalized that combines identity economics with traditional approaches of human capital theory and job search theory. A test of an ethnic identity‐based hypothesis reveals that Asian, Black, and Mixed‐background graduates are comparatively more likely to migrate to areas with higher ethnic diversity levels, rather than less diverse areas. In addition to traditional explanations based on human capital theory and job search theory, this paper argues that these patterns are best explained by ethnic identity norms, which introduce a preference for working in ethnically diverse places. However, the results should be interpreted with some caution because of concerns related to heterogeneity within the ethnic group classifications used in the paper and possible omitted and unobserved variables.

Navigating Multiple Identities for Positive Change Through Organizational Listening

Organizational listening is critical in times of change, especially for organizations that must meet diverse stakeholder interests. Organizations’ views on who they are—whether they are altruistic or self-oriented entities—may shape organizational listening practices in meaningful ways. To explore the undertheorized topic of organizational listening, we conducted a mixed-method sequential explanatory study. Drawing on survey and interview data from 122 U.S. nonprofits, we found an organization’s utilitarian identity for economic value creation is only related to practical motivation to engage in listening, whereas a normative identity for social mission is related to listening motivation, information analysis, and information integration. In addition, we found that organizational listening fully mediates the relationship between organizational identity and organizational change potential and implementation, indicating positive change would most likely occur through soliciting and incorporating stakeholder inputs. These results contribute to theorizing organizational listening and suggest implications for navigating multiple identities in organizational change processes.

There but not really involved: The meanings of loneliness for people with chronic illness

Loneliness is one of the most pressing and rapidly growing contemporary social challenges around the world. Yet we still lack a good understanding of how loneliness is constituted and experienced by those most affected. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 40 people with chronic illness who were experiencing loneliness to explore what loneliness means to them and how it impacts in their daily lives. Drawing on ideas around liquidity and performativity, we identified the relational, temporal and social layers of loneliness. Our analysis revealed the interconnectedness of chronic illness and loneliness in participants’ daily lives, as well as how chronic illness shifts temporal orientation, and transforms interpersonal relationships and relationship with self, contributing to the experiences of loneliness. Though participants described the many social conditions that restricted their opportunities for social participation, giving them a sense of being left behind and spectating the social life of others, a rhetoric of loneliness as a problem and responsibility of the individual was still prominent. A narrative of the need to perform social connection emerged in the absence of meaningful social bonds with others. We argue that normative ideals of wellness and positivity circulating in chronic illness communities and society more broadly are implicated in the experience of loneliness for people with chronic conditions. We conclude by considering how more expansive representations of how to live well with chronic illness may be important in reducing personal and collective loneliness.

Methodologizing Transnationality: Relational Writing as Collective Inquiry

How can we take transnationality as a space of in-betweenness to generate new possibilities, moving beyond geographically bounded spans between countries? This article presents five authors’ collective inquiry on transnational positionalities, which we practiced through the relational, transformative, and reflective writing of the self in a community space. We staged the collaborative writing into two processes: the emergent process of thematic writing and the relay writing. Interweaving “I” and “we” voices that cannot be captured through categorical thinking, our collaborative quest resists normative identity politics, proposing writing as a method of collective inquiry for the nuanced understanding of the transnationality that embraces flows, margins, and uncertainties. Collaborative writing, we argue, is a transformative opportunity for methodologizing transnationality and decolonizing qualitative inquiry.

The Post-Public Sphere and Neo-Regulation of Digital Platforms

This article discusses the post-public sphere and the regulation of platforms that have had disruptive effects on democracy. Platformisation means that the normative ideals for a political public sphere set out by Jürgen Habermas face a distinctive challenge. “Neo-regulation” is an evolving adaption by states that reflects the urgent need to address platformisation and digitalisation more generally. In conditions of geopolitical competition, notably between the China and US, attempts by various states and the EU to establish a neo-regulatory order has developed a significant national security dimension, which is highly relevant for the regulation of digital communication. Policing borders and content is an ever-present focus in all political regimes, whether characterised as democratic or authoritarian. Applying Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory to internet regulation, the argument is illustrated by reference to current British regulatory practice. At the level of the state, the “regulatory field” is shaped by national and global forces. Although the British case has specific characteristics, the underlying analysis has general relevance for comparative research.

Unconferencing methodology as a cultural disrupter in higher education: Enabling reflections on promoting inclusivity, diversity, and equitable spaces

In applying the collective mind to challenges in higher education, there is hope for innovative solutions. HELTASA’s approach to adapting the unconference methodology during the annual learning and teaching (un)conference in 2021 demonstrated its vision to reflect on a re-imagined inclusive higher education using the questions: Sivela phi? (where do we come from?), Si phi? (where we are?), and Siya phi? (where are we going?). This paper reflects on how the unconferencing methodology was used as a cultural disrupter during the HELTASA’s (un)conference. We identify with ‘culture’ as emphasising active meaning-making instead of unchanging, static ideas by homogenous groups. ‘Culture’ is dynamic, and it changes over time. In the context of unconferencing methodology, cultural disruption refers to a deliberate effort to challenge and disrupt traditional cultural norms and values to promote greater inclusivity, diversity, creativity and problem-solving. The unconference is intended to disrupt current thinking and practices in conferences and open higher education spaces for creative, critical dialogue and innovation. Cultural disruption plays a transformative role in deconstructing established norms of knowledge, identity, and practices within higher education. The unconference seeks to challenge the prevailing power dynamics inherent in higher education and mirrored in traditional conferences by adopting a participant-driven and focused approach. The unconference supports the notion of collective thinking or collaboration, which re-frames knowledge boundaries as dynamic inter-relationships with due weight given to reflective ways of knowing (Brown, 2015). This paper uses the Reflection and Critical Thinking Model by Mugumbate, et al. (2021) as a framework to explore and understand how cultural disruptions were implemented and experienced during the planning and execution of the (un)conference itself. This paper critically reflects on the HELTASA (un)conference Call, cultural representations, presentation types, and structure of the unconference to share possible cultural disruptions. This paper's reflections delve into the effectiveness of unconferencing in higher education as a potent tool for cultural disruption in relation to power dynamics, participation, individual and collective thinking, and the imperative of amplifying diverse voices. Unconferencing, through its disruption of cultural norms and values, can promote greater innovation and creativity by enabling the incorporation of a wider range of perspectives and ideas. Additionally, unconferencing can create more inclusive and equitable spaces where traditionally marginalised voices are provided a platform to be heard and represented.

Recognition, Education, and Civic Equality: Uncovering the Normative Ideals of the Welfare State

Recognition, Education, and Civic Equality: Uncovering the Normative Ideals of the Welfare State

The Cost of Gender Identity Norms: Evidence from a Spouse Tax Credit

The Cost of Gender Identity Norms: Evidence from a Spouse Tax Credit

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH APPS AND EMPOWERMENT – A CONTRADICTION?

FemTech apps have billions of users globally. Yet, despite their popularity, we know little about these apps, often developed outside controlled and regulated healthcare. While these apps have been criticised for lacking privacy and for enforcing normative ideals on women, they are often marketed in terms of female empowerment. In this presentation, we present our analysis of the empowering potential of menstruation and pregnancy apps. We ask: How do these apps represent reproductive health? What kinds of empowering qualities are present in them? Are there any aspects of the technology that (inadvertently) counteract the empowering purpose? We investigate this through a comparative design investigation using what we call critical app-walkthrough methodology together with researcher use-diaries. We show in our analysis that there are three critical ways in which these apps represent reproductive health events to users through design. We analyze; 1) interface metaphors used to represent temporality, 2) datafication of reproductive health through input and output for intimate data tracking and 3) finally the ways predictions convey certainty over uncertainty and the implications of this. From our results, we present four design sensitivities meant to inspire designers to design for other types of period tracking experiences that might better empower bleeders; support lived temporalities, embrace uncertainty, empower the self, and design less.