Participatory Framework Research Articles

Gender Diversity in Corporate Governance in Serbia: Legal Issues and Potential Remedies

The status of gender diversity in corporate governance (i.e., women's right to be part of corporate bodies) is a very important issue worldwide, including in Serbia. The paper examines women's rights from a historical perspective to address the problem of their social under-representation, especially when it comes to their social role outside the family. Additionally, we investigate the EU and Serbian legal framework for encouraging women's participation on corporate boards, including their status in the Serbian banking and insurance industry. Retrospection, compilation, deduction and induction methods were used in the paper. An in-depth analysis shows that women constitute at least one-third of the membership (at least in one executive board), in the majority of Serbian banks and insurance companies. We notice that the Serbian Gender Equality Act does not encourage greater women’s participation in corporate boards. Thus, there is a need for immediate legal action to mandate women's representation on corporate boards, and to require additional explanation if this legal provision is violated. The traditional understanding of the position of women in society has remained unchanged, but it is noticeable that the accessibility of corporate management to women is improving, although perhaps not enough and equally in all countries and industries.

Constructing Education: a framework for participation to support the effective planning and use of new school spaces.

The purpose of this reflection paper is to present a new framework to guide the process of investment in education infrastructure through participatory planning, and to consider its application to the development of innovative spaces. Financing education infrastructure provides an opportunity to innovate to support student learning, but for this to happen infrastructure and education investments need to be conceived from the beginning as a single, intertwined process. The Constructing Education framework is based on research evidence about the effects of educational environments and theoretical understanding of change. It draws on the issues identified in a series of in-depth reviews carried out in the cities of Espoo, Finland, the department of Seine-Saint Denis, France and Malmö, Sweden, to explore the links between construction and education during the investment process. The intention of the framework is that collaborative actions undertaken at individual, structural and cultural levels ensure a better alignment of design and use so that school spaces built, refurbished or reorganised can be better contributors to students’ learning. This participatory approach to guide investments in infrastructure embeds an education perspective within the standard architectural phases guiding construction. The framework identifies the individual and organisational activities relating to education that need to take place in parallel to the architectural brief, construction, hand-over and post-occupancy evaluation phases, and proposes including the cost of these educational activities in the total costs of the infrastructure project. It proposes for example, that in parallel and in coordination with the development of the brief, the educational vision of the school be developed in consultation with relevant stakeholders, so that the spaces designed reflect the vision of learning endorsed. The construction time can be used to get teachers ready for the new spaces, providing them with the opportunities to test new furniture and practice new approaches in prototype classrooms. The moving-in phase that accompanies the hand-over is conceived as a time to develop the ownership for the new spaces, to ensure they reflect school and community values. Finally, the framework proposes that opportunities for reflection and adjustment in the use of the spaces be promoted all along the life of the building, alongside and then beyond, the architectural post-occupancy evaluations that are conducted to inform the next phase of investments. In the paper, we explain our conceptualisation of the issues and challenges that the framework addresses, discussing these particularly in relation to innovative learning environments. We then reflect on the sufficiency of the framework to respond to differences between nations in the organisation of education systems and their understandings of education.

The Adolescent Concept of Social Participation—A Qualitative Study on the Concept of Social Participation from Adolescents with and without Physical Disabilities

The construct of social participation is still not clearly defined. To reach a better understanding of social participation, the perspectives of adolescents must be taken into account. This study explores the adolescent concept of social participation and expands knowledge of the meaning of subjective components of the term. Thirty-four semi-structured interviews were conducted with adolescents with and without physical disabilities or chronic diseases between the ages of 12 and 17 and analyzed according to grounded theory. Adolescents describe social participation as involving reflexive interaction with their social environment. Furthermore, forming a social environment plays an important role. All components of the concept are embedded in a context that influences the ways adolescents participate. Adolescents differentiate between active and passive forms of social participation. The concept of reflexive interaction is situated within an interdependent structure of components such as the "feeling of belonging" and the feeling of "well-being" among adolescents. The results expand the current state of knowledge regarding the theoretical differentiation of social participation by exploring subjective components of the term. This offers the possibility of supplementing the theoretical frameworks of social participation and supports the understanding of the critical importance of social participation for adolescents.

A Systematic Literature Review on Smart City Project Initiatives for Rural Community Participation

Most democratic governments have prioritizedoffering people more significant input in government decision-making and promoting public participation in policy creation. People and governments may now effectively integrate formerly unsurmountable gaps in their relationships thanks to advances in digital and information technologies. "Smart City" technologies are not a new term in today's urbanizationdevelopment field; however, this "Smart City" technologies term is likely unfamiliar with the rural area, as the rural area is sometimes assumed to perform poorly in the development of innovative city initiatives, which are mostly being pioneered by the local government authority with a focus on a city or urban region. Citizens can now participate in decision-making and policy-making due to the smart city project initiative, which cannot be disregarded entirely; unfortunately, rural population participation remains limited. This conceptual research aims to examine smart city project aspirations for the rural community public participation framework. The author comprehends the importance of including significant public participation in all parts of the planning process. The methodology behind this researchis based on a detailed study of the scholarly literature that has already been done. The conclusions of the research were derived from a number of different reading materials, such as books, journals, and other sources on smart city programsfor public participation in rural areas.

Doing things with discourse in the mediated political arena

Abstract This paper examines the contextual constraints and requirements of discursive action in question-answer-sequences based discourse genres (interviews, Prime Minister’s Questions, People’s Prime Minister’s Questions) in mediated political discourse. It considers the multilayeredness of participation and pluralism of discursive action on the one hand, and the delimiting frame of the dialogic discourse genres on the other. It shows that both have a decisive impact on the participants’ meaning-making processes in context: the inherently unbounded participation framework contributes to pluralism of discursive action, while genre- and media constraints narrow down the scope of production and interpretation. This does not only hold for the stage at which a discursive action occurs in the discourse, but also for its degree of explicitness with regard to presuppositions and felicity conditions.

Silent Epistemologies

Abstract This article presents a conceptualisation of children’s participation rights based on Miranda Fricker’s epistemic injustice. Drawing on research conducted in a secondary school in the UK, the article applies Fricker’s framework, in particular her concepts of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice, to explain some of the reasons for adults’ disquiet around children’s participation rights. Fricker’s concept of testimonial injustice explains how prejudice about a social group results in deflated attributions of credibility to their views and opinions. Hermeneutical injustice occurs when a social group struggles to make sense of their social experiences because of insufficient interpretive resources in the collective social imagination. By applying these concepts to children, I highlight the role of silence in conceptualising children’s right to be heard and to freedom of expression. I present a conceptual framework of participation, informed by epistemic injustice and based on empirical research, in order to bolster children’s participation rights.

A participatory approach to map strategic areas for conservation and restoration at a regional scale

Identifying and mapping strategic areas for conservation and restoration actions are essential initiatives to reduce human impact on biodiversity. However, most spatial prioritization does not involve decision-makers and stakeholders, generating a science-application gap. Here, we describe a participatory framework to map strategic areas for conservation of 27 species and their ecosystems (SASC), and strategic areas for ecosystem restoration (SAER) in a highly diverse region of Bahia, Brazil. We had eleven participatory meetings where scientists, decision-makers and stakeholders discussed and agreed with the project and methodology. The participants chose five prioritization criteria: habitat amount, environmental suitability, fire frequency, permanently protected area amount and diversity of phytophysiognomies, in this order of relevance. We generated technical maps based on these criteria, which were adjusted to 11 SASC and 12 SAER, according to participants’ perspectives. Many decisions taken during this process would hardly be taken in a conventional academic prioritization process, as some demands arose from participants. These maps are the first step for many posterior conservation actions (e.g. reducing agricultural impacts and species trade), therefore, the results were made accessible to the general public. This process provided participants a sense of ownership of the knowledge, as they became active agents in the process.

Taking learner initiatives within classroom discussions with room for subjectification

ABSTRACT This study shows how learner initiatives are taken during classroom discussions where the teacher seeks to make room for subjectification. Using Conversation Analysis, subjectification can be observed when students take the freedom to express themselves as subjects through learner initiatives. Drawing on data from classroom discussions in language and literature lessons in the mother tongue, the authors find that learner initiatives can be observed in three different ways: agreement, request for information, counter-response. A learner initiative in the form of an agreement appears to function mostly as a continuer and prompts the previous speaker to reclaim the turn, while the I-R-F structure remains visible. In contrast, making a request for information or giving a counter-response ensures mostly a breakthrough of the I-R-F-structure and leads to a dialogical participation framework in which multiple students participate. Findings illustrate that by making a request for information or giving a counter-response, students not only act as an independent individual, but also encourage his peers to do so.

PROMOTING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION FOR EFFECTIVE AND ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNANCE

Purpose: To achieve the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), strong political leadership, willingness to change and effective outcome-based governance will be required. Governments must align national policies with the SDGs' scope and complexity. Effective governance is critical to achieving the 17 goals. Good governance will help by creating an environment conducive to collective action, holding actors accountable, and dealing with emerging complex trade-offs between goals. The Kenya Vision 2030's political pillar is "a democratic political system that is issue-based, people-centred, result-oriented, and accountable to the public." This highlights the importance of citizen participation in governance. This study delved into what can be done to promote citizen participation to enhance effective and accountable governance in Kenya.
 Design/methodology/approach applied: Herein, a literature review approach, drawing from published peer-reviewed journal articles and grey literature (working papers, reports from credible databases of research institutions, and official government documents) was employed to elucidate discussions and conclusions.
 Main findings: Tightening the democracy-education nexus, which aims at awareness creation and capacity building, is critical to promoting citizen participation and improving effective and accountable governance. Education promotes political interests and fosters civic skills thereby increasing the likelihood of political participation. An effective civic education teaches citizens about their rights and responsibilities as citizens, as well as the functioning of the government. Civic education in a democracy is self-government education. Democratic self-government entails citizens actively participating in their governance rather than passively accepting the dictums or demands of others. Education, on the other hand, should be linked to inclusivity and diversity. 
 Practical implications: There is a need to develop an informed and empowered citizenry capable of successfully engaging in governance affairs to influence governance outcomes in the best interests of the community and posterity. Capacity building, similarly, should be an ongoing process incorporated into the community participatory framework or institutions at various administrative levels. Furthermore, training must be sensitive to, and target or capture, the community's various social categories' concerns and needs.
 Originality/value: While acknowledging the importance of addressing the status quo and need for citizen participation in governance, this study also delves into mechanisms that can be used to promote citizen participation in an intergenerational and intersectional manner while keeping in mind Kenya's national development blueprint, Vision 2030, as well as the United Nations' Agenda 2030 to "Leave No One, No Place Behind."

Actors, arenas and aims: A conceptual framework for public participation

This paper systematises knowledge of public participation by bringing together existing concepts and theories from planning literature to conceptualise the 3A 3 -framework of participation. The framework presents participation as an emergent phenomenon, shaped by the dimensions: actors, arenas and aims. Each of these dimensions consists of three interacting elements. The framework highlights interdependencies between these elements and reflects them in the light of their embeddedness in planning processes and the wider social, cultural, political, spatial and temporal context. The framework can be used to gain a better understanding of what constitutes the phenomenon of participation. It enables the reflection of different forms of participation and contributes to more nuanced, and context-sensitive conceptions of and approaches to public participation in planning.

A multiple discrete-continuous extreme value model with ordered preferences (MDCEV-OP): Modelling framework for episode-level activity participation and time-use analysis

This paper formulates a novel, multiple discrete-continuous extreme value model with ordered preferences (MDCEV-OP) to analyze multiple discrete-continuous (MDC) choices at a disaggregate level, including the number of instances different alternatives are chosen and the amount of consumption at each instance of choice. In doing so, the proposed model ensures a logically consistent prediction of multiple choice instances of an alternative. Specifically, the model prevents the prediction of positive allocation to the jth instance (i.e., a frequency of j episodes) of a good while predicting zero allocation to the (j-1)th or lower-numbered instances of that alternative. This is achieved by imposing a non-increasing order on the baseline-preference parameters of different choice instances of an alternative. The model results in a conditional likelihood function, where the likelihood arising from the optimality conditions of the utility maximization problem is conditioned on the ordering of baseline marginal utilities. Combining this strategy with independent and identically distributed (IID) Gumbel stochastic terms in the utility functions results in a closed-form likelihood expression that is not much more difficult than that of the MDCEV model. The proposed framework is applied for an empirical analysis of disaggregate, episode-level activity participation and time allocation behavior of non-working adults in Los Angeles, California. The empirical MDCEV-OP model provided better fit and predictive accuracy (in both estimation and validation datasets) for analyzing episode-level activity participation than a disaggregate MDCEV model that does not recognize the logical ordering of episodes. At the same time, the activity-level predictions aggregated from the episode-level predictions of the MDCEV-OP model do not deviate significantly from the predictions of an aggregate MDCEV model. These results highlight the efficacy of the proposed model for analyzing episode-level activity generation and time allocation.

Designing a Framework for Attracting Public Participation in the Iranian Health System: A Comparative and Mixed-Method Study

Background: Public participation strengthens the public presence in healthcare. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the dimensions of attracting public participation in the Iranian health system. Methods: A mixed-method research was conducted from May 2019 to July 2020. A comparative study (using the documents of five countries that were selected purposefully), tool design and validation (through holding two expert panels with the participation of 26 people who were selected based on the inclusion criteria), and finalization of the participation framework (field test with the participation of 283 recruited people based on the inclusion criteria) were performed. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were applied using SPSS-v26 and AMOS-v26. Results: Forty-eight components on five factors, including citizenship rights and customer orientation, socioeconomic factors, communication with people and non-governmental organizations, research and technology, and managerial and organizational factors with impact factors of 0.967, 0.951, 0.957, 0.944, and 0.955 were loaded, respectively. The CFA denoted the approval of the framework with the five mentioned factors. Conclusions: In this study, a framework was developed and approved during different stages. Using this framework, healthcare policymakers can adopt the best strategies for engaging public participation and improving the effectiveness of decisions through evidence-informed policymaking.

Designing for culturally responsive social robots: An application of a participatory framework.

Integrating cultural responsiveness into the educational setting is essential to the success of multilingual students. As social robots present the potential to support multilingual children, it is imperative that the design of social robot embodiments and interactions are culturally responsive. This paper summarizes the current literature on educational robots in culturally diverse settings. We argue the use of the Culturally Localized User Experience (CLUE) Framework is essential to ensure cultural responsiveness in HRI design. We present three case studies illustrating the CLUE framework as a social robot design approach. The results of these studies suggest co-design provides multicultural learners an accessible, nonverbal context through which to provide design requirements and preferences. Furthermore, we demonstrate the importance of key stakeholders (students, parents, and teachers) as essential to ensure a culturally responsive robot. Finally, we reflect on our own work with culturally and linguistically diverse learners and propose three guiding principles for successfully engaging diverse learners as valuable cultural informants to ensure the future success of educational robots.

A Participatory Framework for Plain Language Clinical Management Guideline Development.

Background: Clinical management guidelines (CMGs) are decision support tools for patient care used by professionals, patients, and family caregivers. Since clinical experts develop numerous CMGs, their technical language hinders comprehension and access by nonmedical stakeholders. Additionally, the views of affected individuals and their families are often not incorporated into treatment guidelines. We developed an adequate methodology for addressing the needs and preferences of family and professional stakeholders regarding CMGs, a recently developed protocol for managing congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDG), a family of rare metabolic diseases. We used the CDG community and phosphomannomutase 2 (PMM2)-CDG CMGs as a pilot to test and implement our methodology. Results: We listened to 89 PMM2-CDG families and 35 professional stakeholders and quantified their CMG-related needs and preferences through an electronic questionnaire. Most families and professionals rated CMGs as relevant (86.5% and 94.3%, respectively), and valuable (84.3% and 94.3%, respectively) in CDG management. The most identified challenges were the lack of CMG awareness (50.6% of families) and the lack of plain language CMG (39.3% of professionals). Concordantly, among families, the most suggested solution was involving them in CMG development (55.1%), while professionals proposed adapting CMGs to include plain language (71.4%). Based on these results, a participatory framework built upon health literacy principles was created to improve CMG comprehension and accessibility. The outputs are six complementary CMG-related resources differentially adapted to the CDG community’s needs and preferences, with a plain language PMM2-CDG CMG as the primary outcome. Additionally, the participants established a distribution plan to ensure wider access to all resources. Conclusions: This empowering, people-centric methodology accelerates CMG development and accessibility to all stakeholders, ultimately improving the quality of life of individuals living with a specific condition and raising the possibility of application to other clinical guidelines.

Developing a framework for the participation of nursing managers in the health policy-making process in Iran: A Delphi study.

The aim of this study was to develop a framework for nursing managers to participate in the health policy-making process. Nursing managers must be involved in the health policy process to provide appropriate health services, focus on nursing professional excellence, and improve the performance of the health system. This multimethod research was based on the Delphi study and experts' panel. Faculty members of the nursing, health policy, health services management, and nursing managers working at hospitals were selected via purposive sampling. The data collection tool was a demographic form and an open-ended questionnaire in the first round and a structured questionnaire in the next round. In the two rounds of Delphi, experts discussed and rated items of nursing managers' participation framework in the health policy-making process. At the expert panel session, the framework was finalized with a 12-part checklist. The data were analysed quantitatively using SPSS software version 22. A total of 28 items were entered into the Delphi study. Experts who met the inclusion criteria responded to rounds 1 (n= 20) and 2 (n= 16). Following the two rounds of the Delphi study, 27 items were selected and discussed by experts using a 12-part checklist related to the framework. The final participation framework was divided into five sections: Barriers, facilitators, advantages, disadvantages, and factors affecting the participation of nursing managers in the health policy-making process. In our findings, the relationship between the components of the framework and policy cycle was shown, which should be considered to lay the groundwork for participation. This can lead to health promotion, accountability, and financial participation in the health system, which can improve the proactive involvement of nursing managers in the health policy-making process. The proposed framework can be utilized across the spectrum of nursing, including practice, leadership, and education to enhance the participation of nursing managers in health policy activity.

Chinese Citizens' Impression of India and the Influencing Factors: An Empirical Study Based on a Survey in 2020

Impressions towards foreign countries increasingly play an important role in international relations. While much research has been conducted on other countries' impressions of China and China's impressions of European and American countries, little research has been conducted on Chinese citizens' impressions of India, which is also a mega-developing country. By exploring Chinese citizens' impressions and the influencing factors towards India, it is important to enrich both research and foreign policy formulation in the area of international trust. This study uses descriptive analysis and logistic regression modelling to investigate the factors influencing Chinese citizen's impressions of India through the framework of social identity, political efficacy, political participation, media socialisation, and intergroup contact, based on data from the India sub-subject of the public questionnaire survey conducted by the 2020 ‘Chinese View of the European Union (EU)’ project. The study's findings show that patriotic tendencies are the most influential factor in Chinese citizens' impressions of India. The study results show that variables such as patriotic tendencies, social satisfaction, frequency of internet use, and religious acceptance strongly influence Chinese citizens' impressions of India. In contrast, the hypotheses of some theoretical variables need to be further confirmed as Chinese citizens' impressions of India are slightly lower than those of other large countries such as the US, Japan, and Russia.

Advancement of Tobacco Control in Ghana: Barriers & Opportunities – A Brief Situation Report

Adequate tobacco control in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic cannot be overemphasized. As a Lower Middle-Income Country (LMIC) with peculiar needs, Ghana can strengthen her tobacco control regime by advancing country-specific and resilient programmes. The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) in partnership with WHO embarked on a national project to sensitize law enforcement officers on the existing tobacco control provisions whilst identifying control barriers peculiar to the various regional groupings. The main outcome of this meeting was the development of a tobacco control enforcement plan which defined the framework for regional participation in tobacco control. The next phase of this project is the sustainability of the regional tobacco control units and the exploration of the inclusion of traditional leadership in tobacco control policy implementation. FDA recognizes that there is an important role of Traditional Authorities, Law enforcement agencies and other state agencies as tobacco control advocates. Keywords: Ghana, Tobacco, enforcement, control

Challenging racism in public spaces: Practices for interventions into disputes

In everyday life we may hear someone being racist or saying something otherwise objectionable in a public space. Calling out that person for being discriminatory is generally regarded as morally imperative, yet it is evidently very difficult to do so when one is outside of an ongoing conversation. This article maps some interactional practices overhearers use to enter an ongoing dispute in which there is evident racism. We show how interveners design and time their turns at talk to take a stance against some racism oriented to as egregious or disruptive whilst walking the accountability tightrope. That is, we analyse their efforts to remain ‘outside’ of the dispute and not accountable for their entry. By documenting the design and timing of an intervener's turns, we argue against using a participation framework approach to track participation, and contend that challenging racism, despite one's moral obligation to do so, requires careful coordination between the disputants, overhearers, and the intervener.

A new theoretical engagement framework for citizen science projects: using a multi-temporal approach to address long-term public engagement challenges

Effective citizen engagement is generally accepted as one of the most important steps for the success of citizen science programs. However, there is a lack of a common theoretical framework for recruitment and most projects rely on intuition or trial-and-error to develop their engagement strategies. Effective citizen science engagement needs theoretical participation frameworks and the concurrent action of different engagement roles to implement the framework. Besides, we must consider the various short-term and long-term engagement needs of the communities involved in the project. Furthermore, citizen science platforms are evolving towards infrastructures with technical but also social components to ensure long-term engagement. In this study, we have developed and tested an engagement framework for environmental citizen science projects using a novel approach that combines strategies and theoretical models that have proven efficient in other disciplines, such as human behaviour change and persuasion. Our framework is based on four interconnected pillars that feed each other: theoretical engagement models for behavioural change; social design for citizen science platforms; strategies for maintaining volunteer motivation; and strategies to increment the volunteers’ ability. The combination of these four pillars results in a framework that integrates both short-term and long-term interaction mechanisms. This multi-temporal approach ensures keeping volunteers motivated and engaged for long periods, a requirement for many citizen science-monitoring programs. In addition, the theoretical framework points out the benefits of considering citizen science projects as a collaboration between multiple stakeholders to ensure long-term engagement. These stakeholders include the volunteers, but also new roles such as enabling communities that act as a bridge between volunteers and academia. Specifically, we have successfully tested this framework in a marine citizen science case study that monitors urban beaches. Furthermore, together with the proposed framework, we provide specific guidelines to help managers to design tailored strategies for their citizen science projects.

Understanding the Complexities of Sarawak Women’s Social Participation in Non-Governmental Organizations

Objective - The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of the issues that prevent women from socially participating in NGOs. Methodology/Technique – Qualitative research using in-depth interviews was used to collect relevant data. The findings were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach and discussed within the theoretical framework of social participation. In response to the nature of women’s social participation in Sarawak, the researchers highlighted long, critical answers and discussions by 36 selected participants from various NGOs in Sarawak. Finding –There were four difficulties for Sarawak women’s social participation in NGOs identified in this study. The factors were practical deterrents, a psychological barrier, discrimination and prejudice, and lack of resources. The impeding factors which were grouped in these four categories comprised 16 factors. This study hoped to help the stakeholders develop different strategies for assisting women to be more aware and active in a civil-based society. Novelty –The study highlighted the complex factors of Sarawak women’s social participation in NGOs. These factors show different perspectives on the subject investigation in Sarawak, Malaysia. Furthermore, the adapted qualitative method conducted in this paper is further discussed regarding the complex factors of Sarawak women’s social participation in NGOs. There are many studies conducted exploring political participation. However, studies on social participation that focused on NGOs that are not politically based are very low. Type of Paper: Empirical JEL Classification: D71, D73, Z19. Keywords: Non-governmental organizations; Social Participation; complexities; Sarawak’s Women. Reference to this paper should be referred to as follows: Mahmud, N.B.M; Isnin, N.I; Junaidi, N.H.B; Mahrif, N.B. (2022). Understanding the Complexities of Sarawak Women’s Social Participation in Non-Governmental Organizations, GATR-Global J. Bus. Soc. Sci. Review, 10(3), 114–120. https://doi.org/10.35609/gjbssr.2022.10.3(1)