Paradigm Conflict Research Articles

Paradigm Conflict: Village Health Volunteers and Public Health in Thailand

Reformist doctors in Thailand have combined to create a primary health care system in rural areas in which village health volunteers play a major role. Consistent with the WHO whole-of-society approach, these doctors have envisaged a decentralised system that emphasises volunteers as community oriented, self-reliant agents of change. Our ethnographic research in Chiang Mai, Thailand, reveals that these ideals of village health volunteer empowerment have not been realised. Rather, village health volunteers have become entrapped in a hierarchical, top-down health bureaucracy that affords them limited deliberative agency. We argue that this predicament reveals a conflict of paradigms between, on the one hand, an idealised holistic, spiritual dimension of health with village health volunteers as dedicated, self-sacrificing agents of local communities and, on the other hand, the imperatives of state authoritarian interventions in the avian influenza and COVID-19 pandemics, including rigorous public health protocols and epidemiological methods.

КОНСТРУИРОВАНИЕ ОБРАЗА «ЧУЖОГО» В СИБИРСКИХ ЛЕТОПИСЯХ

The study reconstructs the archetypal image of the “alien” in “Siberian Chronicles” based on a continuous quantitative corpus analysis of texts made by digital methods using special software. For a detailed analysis, the archetype of the “alien”, since the early stage of the annexation of Siberia to the Russian state by all indications (a different territory, a different faith, the Siberian Khanate as a military enemy) should be interpreted in the Siberian Chronicles as a paradigm conflict of “us/them” to resolve current socio-political tasks. To test this hypothesis, the classical text of the Siberian Chronicles was digitized, formally reorganized, and then analyzed using the Antconc software package, which determined the frequency of word forms and concordances. Based on such an analysis of the texts, the author concludes that the Siberian Chronicles form a neutral and even respectful image of the enemy. For example, the word form “king” is used in relation to Kuchum on average much more often than to the Moscow sovereign. In addition, the authors of the texts scrupulously approach the description of the Siberian Khanate, dwelling on its institutional characteristics. For the authors of the Siberian Chronicles, the enemy is not personified (first of all, in the image of the Siberian Khan Kuchum), but is embodied in the categories of a “different” political system as a whole. In general, according to the quantitative analysis, it is shown that the Siberian Chronicles construct the image of an “alien” (enemy, other) without a pronounced negative connotation and are not an ideological text that legitimizes the annexation of Siberia to the Russian state through derogatory characterizations of the enemy as a weak and unworthy rival.

ARAB SUNNI DAN IRAN SYI`AH KONTEMPORER : KONFLIK ATAU PERSAINGAN?

This article explains the problems that occur between Sunni and Shi'a schools starting after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. History records that there has been a prolonged conflict which is motivated by political conflict, ideological conflict, paradigm conflict and thought which are factors that hamper reconciliation efforts, given the existence of very painful past events between the two streams. For Shiites, the story of discrimination experienced by Ali ibn Abi Talib until the tragedy of Karbala with the killing of Husein the Prophet's grandson and the story of the Ahlul Bait pain became a very painful social memory. For Sunnis, insults, insults, curses and disbelief aimed at the main Companions of Abubakar, Umar, Uthman and the wife of Rasulullah Aisyah Al-Kubra became the main cause of disharmony in relations between Sunnis and Shiites. Disharmonization has also impacted on relations between countries in the Middle East who competed for influence in the Gulf until now after the Arab Spring.

Lost in translation? Paradigm conflict at the primary-secondary care interface.

Historically, primary care (community and family) medicine has often been viewed as lower status than secondary care (hospital) practice. Current evidence suggests this pattern continues to impact medical practice and education. Medical education has however, yet to fully reflect this power dynamic, with undergraduate training in many institutions maintaining the hegemonic position of secondary care as the prime context for learning. In this paper, we present primary and secondary care as conflicting paradigms of medical practice. Using a sociocultural lens drawing on Figured Worlds theory, implications for medical education are explored. We outline the two paradigms as having distinct epistemologies, identities and practices. Tensions at the primary-secondary care interface can, from a sociocultural perspective, be seen to impact developing identity and day-to-day clinical practice issues such as patient safety. We offer possibilities for engaging with paradigm conflict in meaningful ways and suggest potential changes for future educational policy and practice.

Paradigm Conflict and the Wealth Effects of Blockholder Formation in Private Target Acquisitions

ABSTRACTDecision making in public companies follows an organized structure dominated by risk aversion. The decisions in private entrepreneurial firms tend to be driven by overconfidence and reliance on trial and error. Such entrepreneurial attitudes are reinforced by high levels of profitability. The authors argue that this difference in decision-making paradigms limits the wealth effect of blockholder formation by the profitable private target's owners in mergers and acquisitions. Blockholder formation by private target owners is associated with substantial acquirer shareholder gains in the acquisitions of targets with relatively low and moderate profitability levels. To the opposite, the market reacts to blockholder formation by the owners of highly profitable targets with skepticism. Such announcements are associated with insignificant wealth effects overall and substantial acquirer losses in acquisitions in human capital-intensive sectors whereby disagreements are likely to be consequential. Acquirers understand these wealth effects and reduce the extent of stock financing when acquiring highly profitable targets.

The intra-EU mobility regime: Differentiation, stratification and contradictions

This article analyses the contested nature of the contemporary intra-EU mobility regime after the EU enlargement of 2004 and 2007. Migration from the new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has evolved into one of the main migration flows within Europe, especially to Northern and Western European countries. We will analyse three dimensions of the contested nature of the intra-EU mobility regime. Firstly, we show that the current regime has contributed to a highly diverse and complex nature of contemporary labour migration. Research shows that CEE labour migrants engage in circular and temporary labour mobility, but also in midterm and long-term settlement migration. This diversity challenges contemporary (local) integration policies. Secondly, we address forms of civic stratification, which has become an important dimension of social inequality in Europe. Civic stratification is the result of inequalities in de jure entitlements to social and economic rights or in de facto access to EU citizens' rights. Thirdly, we deal with the contradictions between governance responses to intra-EU mobility at different levels of government. In particular, a paradigm conflict has emerged between the intra-EU 'mobility' frame, which defines free movement primarily as a neo-liberal, economic form of mobility by EU citizens to address temporary unbalances in European labour markets, and the local governance strategies driven by a more 'settlement' frame of intra-EU 'migration' which focuses on integration-related concerns.

The future of evolutionary economics: can we break out of the beachhead?

AbstractThis essay contemplates the possible futures of evolutionary economics in terms of two contrasting images. In the first, the primary research emphasis of the future will continue to be on the topics that have interested evolutionary economists in the past, such as technological change, business behavior, and the role of institutions. Research contributions in these focal areas and in some related areas are briefly characterized. In the second image, there is a breakout from this ‘beachhead’ and a broader conflict with the reigning paradigm, neoclassical economics. Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions provides a framework and stimulus for thinking about the latter case, and the 20th century paradigm conflict in physics provides a baseline for thinking about it. The core strengths of evolutionary economics in the paradigm conflict are noted, and the evolutionary role of intentionality is examined No definitive prediction about the future is offered.

Small Corporations: Better Controlling the Spigot of ‘Red Tape”

Regulation in Australia appears to be increasing at an exponential rate. For small businesses that, are often resource poor and isolated, compliance is a burden. They face a paradigm conflict with regulators, who often are imbued with the objective of maintaining quality standards and perceptions of servicing an industry, while the regulated see regulation as an evil and a cost to doing business. Two case studies illustrate the political minefields in alternative approaches to regulation. Finally, the paper reviews changes in regulation internationally and in Australia and puts forward some innovative options for the future implementation of regulation of small businesses.

Explorations of a Paradox in Curriculum Control: Resistance to Open-ended Science Inquiry in a School for Self-directed Learning

Despite official government srt (in various jurisdictions around the world) for providing students with opportunities to construct their own knowledge within the context of formal schooling, school science systems continue to place greatest priority on teaching and learning of products of science (e.g., laws and theories), while compromising students’ opportunities to develop realistic conceptions about science and expertise for doing science. Based on qualitative data analyzed using constant comparative methods (based on constructivist grounded theory), we found this also to be the case – paradoxically – in a school belonging to the Canadian Coalition for Self-directed Learning (CCSDL). Schools in this coalition espouse, among various goals, enabling students to construct their own knowledge, in ways and directions suiting their individual needs, interests, perspectives, and abilities, in addition to gaining access to knowledge developed by society. The science department within the coalition school in this study experienced considerable difficulty realizing this goal, despite school-level administrative support for a concerted effort to reinvent itself along these lines. Factors that appeared to influence the science department’s efforts included those in each of Schwab’s (1969) educational "commonplaces;” that is, the curriculum, teachers, students, and the milieu surrounding teaching and learning. Further analysis suggests that results can be explained through reference to a Kuhnian (1962/1996) paradigm conflict – in which the school’s administrative and curricular committee and other members of the CCSDL were unsuccessful in convincing members of the science department (who, in turn, appeared to be supported by the provincial government, parents, and students) to make provisions for more student-directed, openended science inquiry. Assuming that student-led scientific inquiry continues to be an important curricular goal, efforts must continue to be made, therefore, to convince members of the mainstream paradigm that it is a worthy goal.

Caring for Jewish PatientsCaring for Jewish Patients

This beautifully succinct work provides a major example of a paradigm conflict that goes to the heart of healthcare delivery in the UK.

Health promotion and health education viewed as symbiotic paradigms: bridging the theory and practice gap between them

A recognized 'paradigm war' exists between the two distinct approaches of health education and health promotion practice. This tension is both unhealthy and unhelpful and is known to have a profound effect on nursing activity. Leading health promotionalists have begun to acknowledge the futility of the stated paradigm tension, realizing that health education and health promotion interventions are not that dissimilar in their origins and intentions. Progressive health education and health promotion programmes acknowledge the interrelatedness of both approaches and seek to incorporate favourable aspects of the two. The aim of this article is to present arguments and stances that help to diffuse/avoid the stated paradigm conflict, as a basis for health education and health promotion reform in nursing. It also seeks to clarify the nature of both health education and health promotion practice so as to avoid contextual confusion. In doing so, this article draws significantly from the author's previous work. This article concludes that the constructive review of any intended health education/health promotion programme lies in the consideration of each approach according to its own relative merits, what is required of the programme, and the nature of the setting in which the intervention takes place.

Spiritual beliefs in bipolar affective disorder: their relevance for illness management

Background: There has been growing interest in investigating religion as a relevant element in illness outcome. Having religious beliefs has been shown repeatedly to be associated with lessened rates of depression. Most of the limited published research has been restricted to elderly samples. Religious coping is thought to play a key role in religion’s effects. Strangely, psychiatric research has neglected this area. Methods: A questionnaire covering religious, spiritual and philosophical beliefs and religious practice was given to a sample of patients with bipolar affective disorder in remission. Results: Most patients often held strong religious or spiritual beliefs (78%) and practised their religion frequently (81.5%). Most saw a direct link between their beliefs and the management of their illness. Many used religious coping, and often religio-spiritual beliefs and practice put them in conflict with illness models (24%) and advice (19%) used by their medical advisors. Limitations: This was a cross-sectional design without a control group and thus it is not possible to determine causal associations from the data set. Conclusions: Religio-spiritual ideas are of great salience to many patients with bipolar disorder and shape the ways in which they think about their illness. Many reported experiencing significant paradigm conflict in understanding and managing their illness between medical and their spiritual advisors. These data suggest that the whole area of religion and spirituality is directly relevant to people living with a chronic psychiatric illness and should be firmly on the discussion agenda of clinicians working with patients with bipolar disorder.

Smoke and Mirrors: Modernist Illusions in the Quantitative versus Qualitative Research Debate

The debate about the selection and proper use of theory, and their impact on validity, is actually an example of sleight of hand. It is a paradigm conflict posing as a debate about substantive issues. Within the diversionary debate, qualitative (inductive) research has been critiqued and declared a-theoretical. This paper engages with this claim and the assertions about the superiority of quantitative (deductive) research and concludes that both positions are redundant. At the outset, all research is deductive and once the data commences to be interpreted and conclusions manufactured, it proceeds as a process driven by a deductive- inductive dialectic. This dialectical manufacturing process is universal and inescapable. At best, a systematic approach to data collection and interpretation only allows for the subsequent partial deconstruction of the research construct. That construct may be valid within the confines of its own manufacturing process, but this does not open the way for claims of the imprimatur of any broader validity.

Inclusion Paradigms and Perspectives: A Stepping Stone to Accepting Learner Diversity In Physical Education

Learner diversity is the focus of this paper. Parallels are drawn among attenlpts to integrate children with disabilities (who have unique motor needs), less skilled learners, and/or disinterested learners. Paul and Ward (1996) propose that debates over inclusion are paradigmatic in that ethical inclusion paradigm proponents (all children should be included) are at odds with comparative inclusion studies (determining whether or not inclusion really works). Application of Paul and Ward's idea about paradigm conflict and other special education perspectives are discussed to draw attention to low skilled and/or disinterested learners as well as to children with disabilities so that the needs of all children are uniformly addressed. When conducting research about learners without disabilities that are currently not fitting into physical education classes, paradigm dilemmas must be avoided. Future studies in physical education should focus on how diverse learners can be accommodated more than on how diverse learners affect other children. Further, physical educators may be better able to serve the needs of all students through coltural/social minority models (Paul, 1998; Sherrill. 1998) and infusion-based curricula (Rizzo, Broadhead, & Kowalski, 1997).

Paradigm Conflict in the Sociology of Service Professions: Midwifery as a Case Study

Functionalist scholars have long regarded health service professions as enjoying special privileges because of their pivotal societal function: quality care of citizens. Fusion of service ethic and technical expertise grants service professions monopoly over possession and transmission of knowledge, autonomy to organize working conditions to their own choosing, and authority over clients and allied occupational groups. Many sociologists remain critical of this functionalist position, however, maintaining that it presents an idealized picture of practising professionals who, for reasons internal or external to themselves, fail to realize their avowed service goal. In this paper I delineate three competing approaches in the post-functionalist debate on service professions - professional dominance, professional decline and patriarchal control. I use an age-old kind of service work, midwifery, to uncover theoretical shortcomings in the various stances profiled. In the third section of the paper, I blend interactionist and state perspectives to conceptualize primary and secondary data on midwives

Post-empiricism and psychiatry: Meaning and methodology in cross-cultural research

Methodological disputes in psychiatry have usually been framed in terms of a positivist-interpretivist paradigm conflict. While traditional cross-cultural psychiatry does indeed endorse a positivist medical model the author argues that a post-empiricist philosophy of science is best able to ‘ground’ the ‘new” cross-cultural approach.

Paradigm Conflict, Types of Conversion, and Conversion Theories

The present paper identifies two predominant perspectives of researchers investigating religious conversion: Agency Assigned to the Convert (active versus passive) and Level of Analysis (intraindividual versus interindividual). A typology of both types and theories of religious conversion is proffered. The Agency perspective is paradigmatic and dichotomizes conversion research. The level of analysis perspective is subparadigmatic and differentiates types and theories of conversion within each of the two larger paradigmatic perspectives. It is argued that the present typology facilitates: 1) an appreciation of the underlying metatheoretical assumptions and conceptual priorities of contemporary conversion researchers, 2) an integrated social psychological understanding of diverse conversion experiences, and 3) an appreciation of how the tension and conflict between the two paradigmatic perspectives tends to reflect and reproduce the larger tension and conflict between status quo and society groups in contemporary American society. Richardson (1985a) has argued that a paradigm has emerged in contemporary studies of religious conversion and is most apparent in conversion studies with either a social psychological or sociological emphasis. The basis for this argument can be seen in the way that conversion is conceptualized. In the paradigm, conversion is generally viewed in passivist and deterministic terms, whereas in the paradigm conversion is generally explained from the standpoint of active agency (i.e., self-directed behavior), personal choice, meaning, and negotiation. In a very real sense, the old and new paradigms provide diametrically opposed ways of conceptualizing the same phenomena.

A case of conflicting paradigms: nursing and reproductive technology.

This article addresses the paradigm conflict between nursing and reproductive technology. This technology is discussed as a conceptual system emphasizing fragmentation and distance, in contrast to the philosophical foundation of nursing, which aspires to holism and connection. The sensory modalities of sight, the paradigmatic sense of distance, and touch, the paradigmatic sense of connection, are considered as they highlight the conflict between nursing and reproductive technology. Particular attention is given to the techniques of ultrasonography and amniocentesis.

Towards the Resolution of Paradigm Conflict

Towards the Resolution of Paradigm Conflict

The Active vs. Passive Convert: Paradigm Conflict in Conversion/Recruitment Research

Conversion/recruitment research has been guided for years by a traditional paradigm assuming a passive subject being converted by external powers over which no control is possible. The traditional model is also quite psychological and deterministic. A new or alternative paradigm has been developing, derived mainly from studies of recruitment to new religions. It posits a more active, meaning-seeking subject who exercises volition in deciding to convert to a new religion. The conflict between the new and the old paradigms is discussed including characterizing the so-called brainwashing model as a modern variant of the traditional paradigm. Also, the idea of an alternative conversion paradigm is contrasted to other theoretical perspectives from recent papers by Lofland and Skonovd and by Long and Hadden.