Professional Imagination Research Articles

Palvelutarpeiden arvioinnin yhdenmukaisuus perhesosiaalityön ja lastensuojelun rajapinnoilla

Consistency and variability in child welfare assessments at the juncture of family services and child welfare The study examines assessments of children’s and families’ referrals to public social services and whether they differ between child welfare workers across the country. The focus is on how child welfare workers assess the referral as being an issue either for family or child welfare services and whether the assessments differ in any significant way. The data is drawn from 28 group interviews with 120 professionals based on a vignette, the nature of data being that of professional imagination. The findings highlight a shared approach to the vignette as child welfare workers orientate towards finding more information and testing it and meeting each family member in similar ways. They withdraw from any fixed interpretation of the case without any interaction with family members. It is argued that when prioritizing service-users’ equality and consistency of...

Beyond the Genome: Genetically Modified Crops in Africa and the Implications for Genome Editing

ABSTRACTGenome editing — a plant‐breeding technology that facilitates the manipulation of genetic traits within living organisms — has captured the imagination of scholars and professionals working on agricultural development in Africa. Echoing the arrival of genetically modified (GM) crops decades ago, genome editing is being heralded as a technology with the potential to revolutionize breeding based on enhanced precision, reduced cost and increased speed. This article makes two interventions. First, it identifies the discursive continuity linking genome editing and the earlier technology of genetic modification. Second, it offers a suite of recommendations regarding how lessons learned from GM crops might be integrated into future breeding programmes focused on genome editing. Ultimately, the authors argue that donors, policy makers and scientists should move beyond the genome towards systems‐level thinking by prioritizing the co‐development of technologies with farmers; using plant material that is unencumbered by intellectual property restrictions and therefore accessible to resource‐poor farmers; and acknowledging that seeds are components of complex and dynamic agroecological production systems. If these lessons are not heeded, genome‐editing projects are in danger of repeating mistakes of the past.

Editorial Technologists as Engineers of Journalism’s Future: Exploring the Professional Community of Computational Journalism

Editorial technologists, such as developers, designers, or data specialists represent novel interdisciplinary computational journalism positions in newsrooms. Drawing on field theory, this explorative study evaluates the character of the professional community of editorial technologists by analyzing their discussions in the peer conference “SRCCON” over four years (2016–2019). Findings indicate that editorial technologists are united by the goal to improve journalism. They critically reflect on their roles and strive to augment their agency in the field through normalizing their computational skills, accumulating social capital, e.g., by building enduring relationships in newsrooms, and gaining symbolic capital. Instead of pressing to enforce technological adoption at all costs, editorial technologists acknowledge their responsibility towards the editorial office, news organizations, audiences, and society at large. These responsibilities form the core of their doxa, which is why we conceive of editorial technologists as a community of accountable engineers of sociotechnical change in journalism. Editorial technologists’ collective professional imagination aims at overcoming the inert processes, hegemonic structures, and restrictive culture of journalism.

Use of Computer Information Technologies in the Training of Border Guards of Specialty "Telecommunications and Radio Engineering"

Experience shows that the use of computer and information technology in the study of border guard cadets of general technical disciplines increases the share of independent work and activation of cadets, has a positive effect on the formation of their technical thinking, and imagery of certain phenomena and processes in memory enriches the perception of educational material and its technical understanding. As practice has shown, this type of lesson as a practical lesson is a form of independent cadet activity. Performing a practical task, cadets actively operate with the acquired knowledge, skills and abilities, carry out search activities. The research was carried out on the example of conducting a practical lesson with border guards of specialty Telecommunications and Radio engineering using a graphical editor Microsoft Office Visio. The purpose of this lesson was to combine cadets' graphic work on the construction of basic electrical radio products on the plane using computer technology and maintaining active cadet intervention in the process of creating basic electrical circuits directly on the personal computer screen. The use of computer and information technologies in teaching of border guard cadets of general technical disciplines opens the possibility of using a personal computer as a means of improving the educational process in higher military education and the formation of technical skills, promotes the development of technical thinking, professional imagination.

Improving psychological technologies for the development of professional reflection in future teachers

This article provides information on how to prepare future educators for the profession, how to develop their professional reflection, and how to improve the psychological technology of reflection. The formation of professional training in a person is first determined by the composition of the professional imagination, concepts, and then to the specialty. acquisition of relevant knowledge, skills and abilities, decision of professional qualities and the degree of professional adaptation. Vocational adaptation - the mastery of the requirements of the future professional activity of the future specialist in the conditions of objective and subjective education, adaptation to the process of activity is the level of professional competence.

Formation of Professional Imagination in the Process of Implementation of Technical Disciplines with the Aid of Modern Information Technologies

The article describes the peculiarities of the use of information technology in teaching the discipline "Descriptive geometry, engineering and computer graphics". SolidWorks in combination with traditional teaching methods was used to develop professional imagination as a necessary intellectual quality of bachelors of the specialty "Road Transport", at the stage of improving the professional and moral and psychological support of the activity of the personnel of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGSU). The work combines drawing work on a drawing sheet with the use of information technologies and retains active cadet intervention in the process of creating volumetric images directly in a graphic editor. The paper demonstrates the peculiarities of the cadets' acquisition of practical skills in creating volumetric models with SolidWorks tools and the development of detail drawings. The main criteria for the selection of individual tasks are substantiated: complex nature and clearly expressed geometric orientation. The objects selected for imaginary transformations were simple geometric shapes and volumetric bodies. On the basis of the developed psychological tests the influence of the means of performing technical tasks with the use of a graphic editor on the formation and development of the professional imagination of cadets is determined. The use of SolidWorks Graphic Editor has fostered professional imagination, spatial and logical thinking, and has developed a desire for technical and professional activity which provided the opportunity to perform various technical tasks quickly and professionally and to increase the country's defense capability.

Attributions of ethical responsibility by Artificial Intelligence practitioners

ABSTRACTSystems based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) are increasingly normalized as part of work, leisure, and governance in contemporary societies. Although ethics in AI has received significant attention, it remains unclear where the burden of responsibility lies. Through twenty-one interviews with AI practitioners in Australia, this research seeks to understand how ethical attributions figure into the professional imagination. As institutionally embedded technical experts, AI practitioners act as a connective tissue linking the range of actors that come in contact with, and have effects upon, AI products and services. Findings highlight that practitioners distribute ethical responsibility across a range of actors and factors, reserving a portion of responsibility for themselves, albeit constrained. Characterized by imbalances of decision-making power and technical expertise, practitioners position themselves as mediators between powerful bodies that set parameters for production; users who engage with products once they leave the proverbial workbench; and AI systems that evolve and develop beyond practitioner control. Distributing responsibility throughout complex sociotechnical networks, practitioners preclude simple attributions of accountability for the social effects of AI. This indicates that AI ethics are not the purview of any singular player but instead, derive from collectivities that require critical guidance and oversight at all stages of conception, production, distribution, and use.

Iatrogenic dys-appearance: first-person accounts of chronic neuromuscular disease reveal unintended harms of treatment

Background: Quantitative methods and a biomedical concept of the body dominate research in physiotherapy, and physiotherapists’ knowledge of best practices is usually valued higher than patients’ knowledge/values. Yet qualitative research on the lived experience of chronic neuromuscular disease can provide valuable insights for treatment priorities. The concepts of bodily ‘dys-appearance’ (Leder) and ‘eu-appearance’ (Zeiler) provide a foundation.Methods: Two first-person accounts of living with chronic neuromuscular disease were subjected to close thematic analysis.Results: Well-intentioned efforts on the part of healthcare providers to follow ‘best practices’ can result in unintended harm to patients’ wellbeing, particularly in the form of what we term iatrogenic dys-appearance.Conclusions: Guidelines are suggested for future research and practice in physiotherapy, including a critical ethics and holistic respect for patients’ knowledge about their bodies/lived experience. Literature about illness, especially life writing, provides a potentially useful tool for developing the empathetic imagination of healthcare professionals.

I fondatori di startup in Italia tra agency e struttura

Innovative startups have been subject matter for discussion for some years now by the media and private and public actors who decide to invest in young entrepreneurs as a way of new employment and economic growth. Innovative entrepreneurship, although not yet significant in the Italian economy, has a significant impact on the construction of young people’s professional imagination and is often entrusted – at least symbolically – to the fate of the Italian economy. The research aims to provide descriptive evidence on the factors that have favored the spread and the success/failure of innovative startups in Italy. The authors propose an interpretive framework that refers to the presence of human and social capital at individual level, but also to the supply of some collective goods at local level. The analysis is based on an original data set collected through two online surveys to startups founders and a secondary analysis of the innovative startups registered in the special section of the Register of Companies created ad hoc at the Chambers of Commerce.

Moving beyond the metaphor, reaching beyond the rhetoric: Social work education in a changing environment

This article explores Australian social work's engagement with environmental concerns through a review of scholarly literature and professional documentation, and suggests the professional imagination and espoused professional identity of social work practice as expressed in Australian social work education share significant common ground with the concerns of sustainability education. This raises the question of why it is that social work has yet to infuse, embed, or otherwise engage with the adoption of the principles of education for sustainability. The review found that social work has developed some momentum in negotiating challenges emerging as a consequence of climate change and other forms of complexity, but remains educationally challenged by the imperatives that follow commitment to sustainability in practice. To move beyond the metaphorical sense in which social work has previously used the term ‘environment’ requires re-framing of social work education's purview, and rethinking of the approaches used to incorporate sustainability concerns into professional practice qualifications. Principles of inquiry based learning and sustainability education are suggested, as the next step towards integrating and embedding the concerns of the future with revised social work praxis.

Letters from the future: an exercise with child welfare predictions

The article presents an empirical exercise about predictions in child welfare. In the exercise, social workers imagined letters which they could receive from a child and his/her parents in five years’ time. The children had been in care for one year at the moment of letter-writing. When the social workers wrote the imaginary letters, they used their professional imagination, based on practice knowledge and experience, and were involved in a role-play. The analysis of the letters (34 from ‘children’ and 33 letters from ‘parents’) demonstrates four themes shared by the letters: ordinary life, family contacts and return home, social problems as shadows and assessment of the placement. Two narratives were performed: the narrative of future of ordinary life and that of the troubles. It is suggested that imaginary letters are helpful in highlighting practitioners’ sense of the future, professional imagination as well as the empowering and critical points in practice.

From Disabled Students to Disabled Brains: The Medicalizing Power of Rhetorical Images in the Israeli Learning Disabilities Field.

The neurocentric worldview that identifies the essence of the human being with the material brain has become a central paradigm in current academic discourse. Israeli researchers also seek to understand educational principles and processes via neuroscientific models. On this background, the article uncovers the central role that visual brain images play in the learning-disabilities field in Israel. It examines the place brain images have in the professional imagination of didactic-diagnosticians as well as their influence on the diagnosticians' clinical attitudes. It relies on two theoretical fields: sociology and anthropology of the body and sociology of neuromedical knowledge. The research consists of three methodologies: ethnographic observations, in-depth interviews, and rhetorical analysis of visual and verbal texts. It uncovers the various rhetorical and ideological functions of brain images in the field. It also charts the repertoire of rhetorical devices which are utilized to strengthen the neuroreducionist messages contained in the images.

Confronting the Dark Side of Higher Education

In this paper we philosophically explore the notion of darkness within higher education teaching and learning. Within the present-day discourse of how to make visible and to explicate teaching and learning strategies through alignment procedures and evidence-based intellectual leadership, we argue that dark spots and blind angles grow too. As we struggle to make visible and to evaluate, assess, manage and organise higher education, the darkness of the institution actually expands. We use the term ‘dark’ to comprehend challenges, situations, reactions, aims and goals, which cannot easily be understood and solved by agendas of quality assurance and professionalisation of higher education. We need to understand better why gender issues or ethnic conflicts emerge, and why students take up arms, within an institution which is thought to be inclusive, inviting and open to all kinds of people and cultures. And we need to study the educational potential of days of boredom or isolation, caught up in daily routines of teaching or studying which do not lead anywhere or give way to any productive work. These matters have not been sufficiently researched and conceptualised as meaningful in themselves. We aim here to open a space for insights through the concept of darkness presented in this paper. In order to make educational darkness palpable we draw on the philosophies of darkness found in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Emmanuel Levinas. Through those philosophies we argue that the growing darkness within higher education is not a symptom we should fear and avoid. Having the ability and courage to face these darker educational aspects of everyday higher education practice will enable students and teachers to find renewed hope in the university as an institution for personal as well as professional imagination and growth.

Leveraging Employee Value Proposition for Organizational Effectiveness

Employee Value Proposition (EVP) has caught the imagination of HR professionals across the globe as a determinant of organizational effectiveness. In simple terms, EVP can be defined as sum of all the tangible and intangible rewards/benefits that employees receive for their contribution to the companies where they work. Employees are more likely to contribute to organizational success by using their discretionary efforts if they perceive that their employers are willing to offer greater value in the bargain. EVP has been closely linked with the overarching HR agenda of attracting, retaining and engaging the highly talented employees who have the competencies to realize the organizational vision and mission. This paper provides a holistic framework for applying EVP to harness human capital in contemporary organizations to gain or retain competitive advantages. The authors have relied on the secondary literature to make sense of EVP in the context of current trends and practices revolving around talent management aimed at profitability and viability of the organizations in the long term.

Carolina Blues: President Obama and the 2012 Campaign in North Carolina

Illinois Senator Barack Obama, candidate for the U.S. presidency won the 2008 election and the state of North Carolina; a notably southern state with its own pernicious racial history. NC had hesitantly given Senator Obama its electoral blessings with a slim 14,177 margin of victory over Arizona Senator John McCain. Obama earned 2.14 million (49.7%) voters to McCain‘s 2.12 million (49.38%) in 2008. Senator Barack Obama had achieved a stunning accomplishment in a state that has been but an electoral dream for most modern Democratic presidential candidates. His achievement came as the result of forming a coalition of African Americans, women, youth, and white independent voters.Four year later, President Obama narrowly lost to Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the state of North Carolina. Pundits and political analysts often point to President Obama‘s electoral successes nationally as the result of several key factors that substantiated his 2008 and 2012 campaigns as models of efficiency and effectiveness: 1) the most technologically driven campaign in political history; 2) campaign funding that exceeded even the wildest imagination of political professionals; and 3) favorable demographics with the expanding number of racial minorities and Unaffiliated (not associated with political parties) voters. What led to President Obama‘s failure to achieve what candidate Obama managed to do in North Carolina? President Obama lost what many saw as an increasingly blue state which prompted dreams of North Carolina advancing toward a new era of progressive politics.

Losing my profession: Age, experience and expertise in the changing newsrooms

The article examines how the crisis in journalism was experienced in the Finnish newsrooms in the spring of 2010. Based on interviews conducted in six newsrooms, this article highlights changes in journalistic practices, and the ways in which these changes have affected professional identity and journalistic expertise, in particular, in terms of age. The change does not affect everyone in a similar way. Its implications are experienced differently according to the position and work history of individual journalists. The article points out two particular factors that had a specific impact on shaping the boundaries of the journalistic profession, and notions of journalistic identity, skills and values. These are the concurrent processes of the move towards convergent newsrooms and the implementation of pension packages to downsize the newsrooms. With the implementation of pension packages as a solution to downsize newsrooms, age became the defining factor for professional identity, capacities and skills in the Finnish newsrooms. This particular time of change was also characterized by the implementation of new technology in the newsrooms. Thus, the measures taken in newsrooms emphasized speed, technological skills and youth as characteristics that were needed to compete in the changing and increasingly convergent media markets. It is argued that journalistic identity is tightly bound to its practice. Changes in practice are reflected in professional identity and the qualities that are valued within the profession. During this time of transition, the older journalists, particularly, struggled to hold on to their professional values and notions of expertise when, in practice, they had difficulties in bringing their expertise into use in the new technology-centered newsroom structure. Research highlights the multiplicity and complexity of change, where taken-for-granted positions are challenged and put into circulation. It provides insight into changes in the professional imagination and shared journalistic values.

Siren songs or path to salvation? Interpreting the visions of Web technology at a UK regional newspaper in crisis, 2006–2011

A 5-year case study of an established regional newspaper in Britain investigates journalists about their perceptions of convergence in digital technologies. This research is the first ethnographic longitudinal case study of a UK regional newspaper. Although conforming to some trends observed in the wider field of scholarship, the analysis adds to skepticism about any linear or directional views of innovation and adoption: the Northern Echo newspaper journalists were observed to have revised their opinions of optimum Web practices, and sometimes radically reversed policies. Technology is seen in the period as a fluid, amorphous entity. Central corporate authority appeared to diminish in the period as part of a wider reduction in formalism. Questioning functionalist notions of the market, the study suggests cause and effect models of change are often subverted by contradictory perceptions of particular actions. Meanwhile, during technological evolution, the ‘professional imagination’ can be understood as strongly reflecting the parent print culture and its routines, despite pioneering a new convergence partnership with an independent television company.

Eradication of hospital-acquired venous thromboembolism

Pulmonary embolism (PE) causes nearly 200,000 deaths annually in the United States alone. The magnitude of the risk for acquiring venous thromboembolism (VTE) in U.S. hospitals is staggering (1). About 8 million Medical Service and 4 million Surgical Service patients are at moderate or high risk for developing VTE each year (2). The surgeon General has declared that PE is the most preventable cause of death within hospitals (3). Thus, a spotlight shines brightly on quality control and quality improvement practices within American hospitals (4) to ensure that maximum effort is exerted to prevent PE and deep venous thrombosis (DVT). A convergence of passionate advocates (5), including health care providers, patients, and governmental authorities, will transform the status quo and enable eradication of hospital-acquired VTE. Catalysts for VTE eradication are listed in Table 1. Failure to prevent in-hospital PE and DVT will no longer be tolerated. For example, Medicare and Medicaid will have stopped reimbursing hospitals for incremental care needed to treat postoperative total hip or knee replacement patients who develop VTE (6). Whether this new policy is wise or equitable is debatable (7), but its influence in augmenting VTE prophylaxis and in decreasing the rate of postoperative VTE is undeniable. We have entered a new era that focuses on venous disease. This contemporary heightened awareness to VTE prevention constitutes a remarkable achievement. Only a decade ago, VTE was an orphan disease which received only a modicum of attention from major cardiology, pulmonary, and haematology specialty societies. Major organisations representing these specialties were concerned about VTE but did not embrace the field as a top priority. Transformative champions who had argued in favour of paying more attention to preventing venous thrombosis had to compete with more forceful voices that favoured emphasis on more traditional core subject matter for each organisation. Examples are acute coronary syndrome for cardiologists, asthma/chronic lung disease for pulmonologists, and leukaemia/lymphoma for haematologists. Venous disease education tended to be handled as an “afterthought.” Discussion of VTE’s wide scope and potential for harm did not capture the imagination of professionals or the public. Apathy was a common response when the subject of VTE was raised. There was no unifying push toward universal protection of hospitalised patients against DVT and PE.

MAPPING PROFESSIONAL IMAGINATION

Journalism research has a long tradition of making sense of professional practices from the perspective of the everyday routines of news work. This article seeks to make a contribution to this literature by mapping out how the professional community of journalists interprets the current change and future challenges of their trade. The paper uses the conceptual framework offered by Bourdieu's field theory, but moves beyond it by suggesting that symbolic capital in the journalistic field is also connected to broader social imaginaries, beyond the limits of the field. Against this background, the article maps out empirically some of the limits of the “professional imagination” of journalistic culture by a close reading of interviews with mid-level managing editors in Finnish newspapers. The article describes the professional journalistic field as a culture, i.e. as a sense-making system which adapts journalism to contextual changes but which cannot be seen as simple reflection of these changes.

Putting Consumers to Work

Co-creation is a new paradigm that has captured the imagination of marketing and management professionals and scholars. Drawing on Foucault's notion of government and neo-Marxist theories of labor and value, we critically interrogate the cultural, social, and economic politics of this new management technique. We suggest that co-creation represents a political form of power aimed at generating particular forms of consumer life at once free and controllable, creative and docile. We argue that the discourse of value co-creation stands for a notion of modern corporate power that is no longer aimed at disciplining consumers and shaping actions according to a given norm, but at working with and through the freedom of the consumer. In short, administering consumption in ways that allow for the continuous emergence and exploitation of creative and valuable forms of consumer labor is the true meaning of the concept of co-creation.