Paradigmatic Frameworks Research Articles

Rethinking the paradigmatic frameworks of performance measurement systems in the light of recurring globalized crises

Rethinking the paradigmatic frameworks of performance measurement systems in the light of recurring globalized crises

A Content Analysis of Qualitative Dissertations in Counselor Education

We conducted a qualitative content analysis on counseling dissertations (N = 250) completed between 2017 and 2018. Identified categories included (a) paradigms, philosophies of science, and theories; (b) research methodologies; and (c) trustworthiness. The results indicated an infrequent use of paradigmatic frameworks and a distinct pattern of trustworthiness strategies.

Paradigms and Practice

AbstractThomas Kuhn's concept of paradigm has long been a part of ordinary parlance in political science. Aside from its role in metatheoretical debate, scholars have enlisted the paradigm concept to explain policy change, particularly in the international political economy (IPE) literature. In this context, policy paradigms are defined primarily in ideational terms and with respect to a specific domain of policymaking. We argue that this stance overstates the ideational coherence of policymaking and runs a risk of reification. We re-evaluate the paradigm concept by drawing a link to the recent literature on norm change that emphasizes the importance of practice and process. This analysis highlights theoretical difficulties in using the paradigm concept, as the relation of ideas to practical logics elides the distinctness of paradigmatic frameworks. Without clear boundaries, paradigms lose much of their analytical purchase. While the paradigm concept initially proved useful in highlighting the role of ideas, it is time to recognize its limits in explaining stability and change in policymaking.

The End of the Classical Paradigms of Law

Goal – the aim of this text is to show the functioning, transformation, convergence and ultimately decline of classical paradigms operating in the legal sphere. Particular attention is focused on the contemporary state of affairs, referring to today’s trends in thought, philosophy and the contemporary way of explaining reality by societies that are carriers of the law. The purpose is to showcase that the today’s changing world is faced with many problems that are completely new to humanity as a whole, and that those problems have the power to affect the legal sphere as well. It proves that despite the belief in the stabilizing function of the law, it itself begins to be questioned, and its iron foundations begin to waver in principle, resulting in spectacular changes in the way we view such non‑negotiable issues as justice, power, order, and the meaning of being. Research methodology – through an analysis of the literature on the subject and by compiling the most important paradigmatic frameworks, a cross‑section of attitudes relevant to understanding the presented issue is made. Score/result – as a result, an observation is made regarding the current state of paradigms operating in the legal sphere. In line with the conclusion, it is stated that in the present world paradigms have mostly lost or are losing their power. They will lose it completely or undergo a transformation. There is also an exhaustion of the power of all grand narratives that must necessarily be taken into account when making any considerations about the embeddedness of law and its validity. Originality/value – the content of the text refers to well‑known paradigms of law that seem to be unshakable elements of Western legal culture. Nevertheless, the analysis of the problems presented in the text shows that the unshakable foundations of law are beginning to degrade, or at least to change, in collision with, above all, contemporary socio‑cultural transformations.

IN THIS ISSUE

It is no news to anybody that the power structures in our world have considerably shifted during the last quarter of a century. Glasnost and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union towards the end of the 1980s brought an end to the bipolar world dominated by the East-West conflict and the Cold War since the aftermath of World War II. The end of the Soviet bloc also paved the way towards an appeasement strategy inthe Southern African sub-region. What was praised as "the end of history", meaning the ultimate victory of capitalism as the uncontested mode of production structuring societies (and classes), however, led to an only short-lived sole hegemony of the main Western powers and in particular the United States (US) during the 1990s. These were the days when 'good governance' became the terminology of a crusade against which regimes were measured and judged. The criteria were based on Western capitalist notions of development as conceptualised and imposed by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs). But as we know, little changed for many towards the better. The problem of affordable access to higher education, a demand erupting these days forcefully on South African campuses, was not least enhanced through policy recommendations in the 1990s, which neglected such investment in the social and intellectual capacity of countries and their people.1)
 While old conflicts were solved, new conflicts and ideologicalbattlefields emerged. The rise of China as the world's next superpower marked the beginning of the 21st century, and the shock waves sent through the world with 9/11 opened a new era of "war against terror", in which human rights were the first victim. Development and security became integral elements of a global governance system, which since the turn of the century set paradigmatic frameworks, first with the Millennium Development Goals and now with the Sustainable Development Goals, while continuous efforts to achieve agreed measures to curb carbon emissions and bring environmental degradation and climate change to a halt have remained futile efforts. The tokenism so far only shows that governments continue to remain loyal to their own agendas. Guided by such shortsightedness, they do not act in solidarity with humanity as an integral part of nature and habitat to increase the chances for survival. Profit maximisation at all costs remains the ultimate goal even if in the long term at too high a price.

Contextualised resistance: The mediating power of paradigmatic frameworks

AbstractAn examination of resistance to the neoliberal dominance over public welfare organisations' operation reveals a situation of stagnation, with the call for critical resistance translated into either sporadic minor practices of isolated professionals or theoretical manifestos that demand major change, but have inadequate effect on policy. Drawing from Sanford Schram's framework of radical incrementalism as a possible challenge to neoliberal hegemony, this study traces the implementation of the Poverty‐Aware Social Work paradigm in the Israeli welfare system. Building on 16 interviews with senior agents at the Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services, this study demonstrates the significance of this critical framework in allowing different agents to challenge the hegemonic standpoint of the Ministry. Thus, it offers a preliminary conceptualisation of contextualised resistance, which operates in the mediated sphere of power exertion, granting minor practices sufficient presence to pave the way for new opportunities for major policy change.

Psychology\u2019s Status as a Science: Peculiarities and Intrinsic Challenges. Moving Beyond its Current Deadlock Towards Conceptual Integration

Psychology holds an exceptional position among the sciences. Yet even after 140 years as an independent discipline, psychology is still struggling with its most basic foundations. Its key phenomena, mind and behaviour, are poorly defined (and their definition instead often delegated to neuroscience or philosophy) while specific terms and constructs proliferate. A unified theoretical framework has not been developed and its categorisation as a ‘soft science’ ascribes to psychology a lower level of scientificity. The article traces these problems to the peculiarities of psychology’s study phenomena, their interrelations with and centrality to everyday knowledge and language (which may explain the proliferation and unclarity of terms and concepts), as well as to their complex relations with other study phenomena. It shows that adequate explorations of such diverse kinds of phenomena and their interrelations with the most elusive of all—immediate experience—inherently require a plurality of epistemologies, paradigms, theories, methodologies and methods that complement those developed for the natural sciences. Their systematic integration within just one discipline, made necessary by these phenomena’s joint emergence in the single individual as the basic unit of analysis, makes psychology in fact the hardest science of all. But Galtonian nomothetic methodology has turned much of today’s psychology into a science of populations rather than individuals, showing that blind adherence to natural-science principles has not advanced but impeded the development of psychology as a science. Finally, the article introduces paradigmatic frameworks that can provide solid foundations for conceptual integration and new developments.

How to Write a Diary in Mao’s New China: Guidebooks in the Crafting of Socialist Subjectivities

The Maoist regime has conventionally been understood as a totalitarian apparatus hostile to the individual. Yet the mass dictatorship also saw the proliferation of guidebooks on how to write a diary. This article is a pioneering exploration of these didactic texts, situating them within a longer Chinese tradition of popular subjectivation. A close reading of the guidebooks in light of their Republican predecessors suggests that the regime simultaneously anticipated the individual’s role as revolutionary agent of change and viewed it with trepidation. Prescribing paradigmatic frameworks for constructing socialist subjectivities, the manuals propagated journal-keeping as a political routine by which to shape the writer’s life and selfhood. Central in these teachings was the desire to mobilize yet monopolize the individual’s conscious agency. At once empowering and constraining, the “how-to” books rendered creative self-reflexivity indispensable—albeit dangerous—to the Maoist agenda, revealing a deep-seated anxiety of the state about socialism’s modern legacies.

Qualitative Research on Interpersonal Violence: Guidance for Early Career Scholars.

The purpose of this article is to offer early career violence scholars guidance on critical aspects of qualitative research, including methodological integrity and research procedures. Throughout this article, we center our discussion on issues of methodological fit, flexibility, safety, and ethics. We overview paradigmatic frameworks that guide methodological decisions and discuss reasons why researchers might choose to use qualitative methods. We then address decisions around recruitment, sampling, and saturation as well as predata collection preparations for conducting interview-based studies. Participant and research team safety and ethics are emphasized, as these issues should be at the core of all decisions in interpersonal violence research. Along with examples from the field of interpersonal violence, we provide references to relevant resources on paradigmatic frameworks, specific qualitative research approaches, and safety and ethics. Throughout, we draw from our lessons learned as qualitative researchers, teachers, and mentors who study intimate partner violence and young adult children exposed to marital violence.

Carer‐related research and knowledge: Findings from a scoping review

The review discussed in this paper provides a unique synthesis of evidence and knowledge about carers. The authors adopted a scoping review methodology drawing on a wide range of material from many different sources published between 2000 and 2016. It offers key insights into what we know and how we know it; reinforces and expands evidence about carers' profile; shows knowledge is uneven, e.g. much is known about working carers, young carers and carers of people with dementia but far less is about older carers or caring for someone with multiple needs. A striking feature of much research is a focus on caring as a set of tasks, rather than a dimension of an, often dyadic, relationship. While there is substantive evidence about the negative impact of caring, the review suggests that links between caring and carer outcomes are neither linear nor inevitable and vary in depth and nature. A reliance on cross-sectional studies using standardised measures is a major weakness of existing research: this approach fails to capture the multidimensionality of the caring role, and the lived experience of the carer. Although research relating to formal support suggests that specific interventions for particular groups of carers may be effective, overall the evidence base is weak. There is a tension between cost-effectiveness and what is valued by carers. Developing robust evaluative models that accommodate this tension, and take account of the dyadic context of caring is a critical challenge. A fundamental deficit of carer-related research is its location in one of two, largely separate, paradigmatic frameworks: the "Gatherers and Evaluators" and the "Conceptualisers and Theorisers." The authors suggest that developing an integrated paradigm that draws on the strengths and methods of existing paradigms, has considerable potential to generate new knowledge and new evidence and extend understanding of care and caring.

Paradigmatic tools for communication scholar–activists: toward a pragmatic and relational epistemology

ABSTRACTScholars of communication who are committed to activism and social justice often do not fit fully into the paradigms of postpositive, interpretive, or critical traditions. Alternately, pragmatism and relational epistemology serve as excellent paradigmatic frameworks. Pragmatism, a tradition of philosophy that focuses on the connection between ideas and action, and relational epistemology, an approach to knowing that highlights the relationships between knowers, both offer valuable tools for scholar–activists. By engaging in communication scholarship oriented toward action and situated in relationships, scholar–activists can strive to draw on broad stakeholder experiences to contribute to interdependent human flourishing.

Trends in the Study of Urban Politics

Urban political study has experienced several critical junctures. Rather than following an incremental path of cumulative development, urban analysis has gone through phases of reframing akin to what Thomas Kuhn called paradigm shifts. The purpose of this article is threefold: (1) to examine paradigmatic frameworks as alterations in urban inquiry, (2) to address the issue of why such shifts come about, and (3) to remind readers that shifts are double-edged, not only bringing new perspective to inquiry but also risking that other significant considerations may be overlooked in the process. Urban paradigms compete for preeminence, and all are in need of ongoing critical reassessment. The hold of any given framework of analysis proves impermanent in part because the underlying urban situation it illuminates is never static. The risk of a lag in analysis is never low.

U(1) and SU(2) quantum dissipative systems: the Caldeira–Leggett Versus Ambegaokar–Eckern–Schön approaches

There are two paradigmatic frameworks for treating quantum systems coupled to a dissipative environment: the Caldeira-Leggett and the Ambegaokar-Eckern-Sch\"on approaches. Here we recall the differences between them, and explain the consequences when each is applied to a zero dimensional spin (possessing an SU(2) symmetry) in a dissipative environment (a dissipative quantum dot near or beyond the Stoner instability point).

Healthcare professionals under pressure in involuntary admission processes.

The main objective of this paper is to describe how quality of care may be improved during an involuntary admission process of patients suffering from Korsakoff's syndrome. It presents an empirically grounded analysis with different perspectives on 'doing good' during this process. Family carers', healthcare professionals' and legal professionals' ways of understanding and ordering this problematic situation appear very different. This could prevent patients from getting the proper care they need, with risk of more suffering and quality of life below the minimum acceptable. All this possibly lead to immoral dehumanizing situations. Firstly, the background of our empirical study is sketched. Secondly, the different perspectives on 'doing good' are summarized and compared. Thirdly, the tensions arising from the different conceptualizations of autonomy and different types of responsibilities of the actors are clarified. A common 'doing good' during involuntary admission necessitates removal of any tensions within the relational network by weighing and balancing the different perspectives on autonomy and the resulting responsibilities. With this in mind, we propose a renewed time/action table for involuntary admission, which tends to address all patients' needs at the right time. The solution presented might help healthcare professionals, who are squeezed in between patients, family carers, legal professionals and overall rules, to create practices in which patients suffering from Korsakoff's syndrome can maintain their dignity and receive the care they need. Earlier interventions, timely and adequate diagnosis, and diminishment of tensions between the different actors by fine-tuning their paradigmatic frameworks are suggested to be part of a solution.

The Dispositions, Abilities and Behaviours (Dab) Framework for Profiling Learners’ Sustainability Competencies in Higher Education

Abstract The concepts of sustainability and sustainability competence are controversial, complex, difficult to define and measure, and have varied meanings for different people and practices. Given the complex nature of sustainability, there is limited availability of paradigmatic frameworks to guide educators in assessing sustainability competencies. This paper introduces the Dispositions, Abilities and Behaviours (DAB) framework, which influenced the design of an intervention in 2013-2014 that profiled sustainability competencies among final year undergraduate students in a higher education institution. The results of the mixed methods study indicate that the DAB framework has good potential as a guide to educators or researchers in understanding and profiling sustainability- related abilities, attitudes and actions (areas of performance) of cohorts of students within higher education settings.

Somatic sensitivity and reflexivity as validity tools in qualitative research

Validity is a key concept in qualitative educational research. Yet, it is often not addressed in methodological writing about dance. This essay explores validity in a postmodern world of diverse approaches to scholarship, by looking at the changing face of validity in educational qualitative research and at how new understandings of the concept might be applied in dance inquiry. With new methodological frameworks, ideas about validity have changed. Through this article, I trace validity in educational research frameworks and discuss appropriate approaches, given the purpose of the research and its paradigmatic frameworks. My big questions are: is validity a key aspect of qualitative research in dance? Do we hold onto the concept of validity as a useful indicator of methodological rigor? Do the traditional criteria for qualitative research change according to the purpose of the research? Or has the idea of validity itself become challenged with newer trends in dance education research in the United States? If so, how do we then assure that qualitative research is valid?

'The Other Side of a Slap in the Face': Judgement and the Ambiguities of Violence in Holocaust Testimony

The Holocaust and the Nazi regime that perpetrated it have long been characterised as paradigmatic frameworks through which to view the subject of (genocidal) violence. Such violence took various forms, from systematic physical harm against the body (individual and en masse) to emotional and psychological trauma through an intentional policy of dehumanisation. However, the fraught issue of the violence of victims toward other victims – which often took place as a result of the racialised hierarchies created by the perpetrators and the various positions of ‘privilege’ allocated to certain prisoners – has attracted minimal critical attention. Drawing on Primo Levi’s concept of the ‘grey zone’, we examine the situations of Jewish prisoners who held such positions, invariably under extreme coercion from Nazi overseers, which raise questions of moral ambiguity, ‘compromise’, and agency in their violence. We take as case studies the testimonies of two Jewish victims who held positions of ‘privilege’ in the Otwock Ghetto and Auschwitz respectively: Calel Perechodnik and Paul Steinberg. Examining their strategies for representing (their own and others’) violence, and the implicit and explicit judgements passed on this behaviour, we argue that engaging with the fundamental problems of judgement and representation in an ethical manner allows for a deeper understanding of violence in the Holocaust. This introduces another potential kind of violence: the violence of representation.

“To Seek New Worlds, for Gold, for Praise, for Glory”: El Dorado and Empire in Sixteenth-Century Guiana

In the spring of 1595, Sir Walter Raleigh undertook an expedition to the north coast of South America with the express purpose of discovering El Dorado, the fabled golden city. Upon his arrival in the area, Raleigh quickly came into conflict with Antonio de Berrío, the governor of Spanish Trinidad, who was gripped by a similar enfermedad doradista. Berrío and Raleigh met at a critical historical moment. Theirs was an inflection point in the trajectory of the European enterprise in the New World, as for a fleeting interval during the decades surrounding the turn of the seventeenth century mutually exclusive paradigmatic frameworks for the future of the colonizing project existed in a delicate balance. Surprisingly, Berrío and Raleigh were more alike than different in their words and actions. Insofar as the men were representatives of the expansionary vanguards of their respective empires, their interwoven narratives offer a vantage point onto the similar ideological crossroads at which the Atlantic ambitions of Spain and England had arrived by the turn of the seventeenth century. The conjunction of Berrío and Raleigh in pursuit of El Dorado crystallized the role of the golden myth in characterizing a wasteful and wanton approach to the subordination of the Americas to European ends with distinct temporal delimitations. Berrío, who died in 1597, would not live to see the end of this moment, but Raleigh would – his second expedition to Guiana in 1617, which would ultimately cost him his head, was already an anachronism.

“To Seek New Worlds, for Gold, for Praise, for Glory”: El Dorado and Empire in Sixteenth-Century Guiana

In the spring of 1595, Sir Walter Raleigh undertook an expedition to the north coast of South America with the express purpose of discovering El Dorado, the fabled golden city. Upon his arrival in the area, Raleigh quickly came into conflict with Antonio de Berrio, the governor of Spanish Trinidad, who was gripped by a similar enfermedad doradista. Berrio and Raleigh met at a critical historical moment. Theirs was an inflection point in the trajectory of the European enterprise in the New World, as for a fleeting interval during the decades surrounding the turn of the seventeenth century mutually exclusive paradigmatic frameworks for the future of the colonizing project existed in a delicate balance. Surprisingly, Berrio and Raleigh were more alike than different in their words and actions. Insofar as the men were representatives of the expansionary vanguards of their respective empires, their interwoven narratives offer a vantage point onto the similar ideological crossroads at which the Atlantic ambitions of Spain and England had arrived by the turn of the seventeenth century. The conjunction of Berrio and Raleigh in pursuit of El Dorado crystallized the role of the golden myth in characterizing a wasteful and wanton approach to the subordination of the Americas to European ends with distinct temporal delimitations. Berrio, who died in 1597, would not live to see the end of this moment, but Raleigh would – his second expedition to Guiana in 1617, which would ultimately cost him his head, was already an anachronism.

Emotions Before Paradigms: Elite Anxiety and Populist Resentment from the Asian to Subprime Crises

Emotional forces shape not only market tendencies to ‘manias, panics and crashes’, but also policy debates as they predispose agents to definitions of state and societal interests. Nevertheless, IR scholars often downplay emotional influences, casting them as secondary to coalitional or cognitive forces. In this article, I address these limitations by disaggregating intersubjective understandings into popularly resonant traditions of thought and elite-based paradigmatic frameworks. Drawing on the insights of Reinhold Niebuhr and Richard Hofstadter, I then argue that elite anxieties regarding populism can engender the ‘technocratic repression’ of emotion from paradigmatic debates in ways that paradoxically render policy less stable and pragmatic. Firstly, such repression obscures the emotional bases of market trends and engenders overconfidence in the ability of monetary fine-tuning to restrain manias and to contain panics. Secondly, in isolating paradigmatic debate from everyday language, technocratic repression frustrates deliberation and can exacerbate populist resentments, requiring the construction of crises to advance change. Shifting to an empirical focus, I suggest that tendencies to technocratic repression in the 1990s and early 21st century engendered overconfidence in monetary fine-tuning. In the post-subprime context, the key question is the extent to which this bias in favour of monetary policy has been reversed, or whether constructions of the subprime crisis have legitimated a revived regulatory stress. In sum, this analysis highlights the reality of emotion as an influence on the international political economy.