Professional Struggles Research Articles

TRA_Professional trans-linguistic discernment in early childhood language education:

How to sensibly educate young children in and through the language(s) they live by? In an era of increasing linguistic variation and change, this burning question keeps emerging in educational practices of the early years and is addressed in this paper, mapping a professional trans-linguistic discernment.
 Linguistic variation is a long time a fact, rapidly increasing in all parts of the Swedish society, including early years’ education. Yet, monolingual traditions of linguistic preservation are persisting. The Swedish language legislation aims at safeguarding both the Swedish language and Sweden’s linguistic plurality, ambitions reflected in the preschool curriculum. Aspirations to support children’s development of all their languages are internationally acknowledged as progressive, but the language issue as entangled in early childhood practice is multifaceted.
 The study is inspired by posthumanist applied linguistics and by contemporary philosopher Jonna Bornemark’s discussion of a professional discernment as a compound competence built in interaction with both experiences and theoretical knowledge, but also feelings and the human senses. These bodily dimensions of discernment make the concept particularly interesting to explore in relation to professions working with young children, where the close relationship between lexical language(s) and other bodily expressions is often made particularly prominent and where the teacher body may be considered a both caring and teaching ‘tool’.
 RQ1. What challenges and queries emerge at the intersection of practicing curricular linguistic assignments and meeting the linguistic and other diversities of concrete educational practices in early childhood?
 RQ2. What characterizes a professional discernment in relation to such challenges and queries?
 Data are produced through focus group interviews with early childhood educators and analyzed through a post-qualitative methodological approach.
 The results indicate that professionals struggle with how to support the development of languages that they do not themselves speak, and that the support of other mother tongues than Swedish sometimes seems to need to be done at the expense of the Swedish language. Additionally, children’s preference of English, not as a mother tongue, but as a "lingua franca" is pointed out as an emerging phenomenon in groups of children who do not share a common language and where Swedish speakers are a minority. Despite the wide use and special position of English in Sweden, it is still considered a foreign language and not specified in the linguistic assignments of the preschool curriculum.
 Professionals of early childhood language education are urged to think and act situationally and judiciously, in relation to local practices and different layers of linguistic and other needs, rather than to what may previously be defined and demanded at a generalized level. This, what may be labeled a professional trans-linguistic discernment, differs from recent years’ focus in education on standards and accountability, with an emerging instrumental understanding of teachers who implement and ensure routines, i.e., for language teaching in the early years. It is discussed what encouraging a professional, trans-linguistic discernment may practically, theoretically, and politically require.
 Keywords: professional discernment, translanguaging/translinguistic, linguistic variation/change, posthumanist applied linguistics, post-qualitative methodologies

A human resource professional perspective of strategies to accommodate employees with mental health conditions in the workplace in South Africa.

The South African Labour Relations Act, specifically the Code of Good Practice (CGP) advocates against the discrimination and unfair dismissal of individuals with mental health conditions in the workplace. However, little is known about the implementation of these national policies within the workplace, especially from the perspective of the employer rather than the employee. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of how human resource practitioners accommodate and support individuals with mental health conditions in the workplace. Eleven participants (Human Resource Professionals) participated in the study. The researchers utilized semi-structured interviews where the data was analysed by means of thematic analysis to formulate themes. Three themes emerged depicting the participants' experiences and perceptions of barriers and facilitators which influenced their return to work: The themes that emerged through thematic analysis consisted of 1) Challenges perceived by Human Resource personnel that influences work participation; 2) The influence that workplace accommodations and support structures have on the work participation; 3) The prevalence of policies and laws that are available in theworkplace. The study highlighted that Human Resource Professionals struggle to interpret and implement labor related polices that aid in employing individuals with mental health conditions in the workplace. It is important to implement strategies that will assist Human Resource practitioners in understanding how to implement such policies to successfully accommodate individuals with mental health conditions in the workplace.

A misinterpreted psychoanalyst: Herbert Silberer and his theory of symbol-formation.

The primary aim of this article is to give a more detailed exposition of the cultural, personal, and theoretical contexts in which the Viennese psychoanalyst, Herbert Silberer's theories were born. When assessing the broader picture that this approach offers, it can be concluded that Silberer was an innovative thinker who inspired several of his contemporaries. Recognized in many respects by the society and scholars of this time, he represented quite a different viewpoint that was significantly influenced by several forms of Western esoteric thinking. Yet his main aim was to contribute to the field of psychoanalysis and develop a theory in which rationalistic psychoanalytic interpretations were combined with nonreductive approaches to mystical experiences. Silberer's name is frequently mentioned in a specific context in which his tragic suicide is emphasized rather than his innovations. Upon evaluating the materials recording Silberer's private life, it seems very likely that his suicide was not triggered by the criticism of Freud alone. Silberer's family affairs, his relationship with his father, and his financial and professional struggles could have all contributed to his tragic decision. This paper contends that Silberer's oeuvre deserves greater attention and must be evaluated based upon its own merit.

Feasibility and acceptability of an online intervention to enhance hopefulness among oncology professionals.

Patients prefer medical communication including both hopefulness and realism, though health-care professional (HCPs) struggle to balance these. Providers could thus benefit from a detailed personal understanding of hope, allowing them to model and convey it to patients. Additionally, given that hope is associated with lower levels of burnout, HCPs may benefit from tools designed to enhance their own personal hopefulness. Several investigators have proposed offering HCPs interventions to augment hope. We developed an online workshop for this purpose. Feasibility and acceptability of the workshop were assessed in members of the SWOG Cancer Research Network. Three measures were used: the Was-It-Worth-It scale, a survey based on the Kirkpatrick Training Evaluation Model, and a single item prompting participants to rate the degree to which they believe concepts from the workshop should be integrated into SWOG studies. Twenty-nine individuals signed up for the intervention, which consisted of a single 2-hour session, and 23 completed measures. Results from Was-It-Worth-It items indicate that nearly all participants found the intervention relevant, engaging, and helpful. Mean ratings for Kirkpatrick Training Evaluation Model items were high, ranging from 6.91 to 7.70 on 8-point scales. Finally, participants provided a mean rating of 4.44 on a 5-point scale to the item "To what degree do you believe it may be useful to integrate concepts from this workshop into SWOG trials/studies?" An online workshop to enhance hopefulness is feasible and acceptable to oncology HCPs. The tool will be integrated into SWOG studies evaluating provider and patient well-being.

Bringing queerness to the surface: Truman Capote’s November 1971 screenplay adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

Truman Capote occupied a queer position as an openly gay man adapting F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby for the screen in the homophobic Hollywood system of the early 1970s. In January 1972, Paramount Pictures rejected Capote’s Gatsby screenplay and dismissed him from the film entirely. In this study, I investigate a tenuous claim that has circulated for decades: that Capote was fired from the project because he wrote Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker as queer characters. I argue that Capote deployed what Alexander Doty calls ‘working-within-the-system tactics’ to suggest queerness that would be apparent to viewers accustomed to interpreting media outside of dominant codes dictated by heteronormative conventions, while also using what licence he had to incorporate more explicitly queer moments. This article contributes to research on Capote’s manuscript with a close reading of queerness in the text, and an account of the personal and professional struggles related to queer identity that Capote faced while developing the script.

When Leadership Attacks: Stories of Surviving the Worst Bosses

Inspired by the stories of negative leadership encounters curated in When Leadership Fails (Morris & Edmonds, 2021), the current symposium continues the plight to identify, deconstruct, and process leadership at its worst. Leadership from the worst bosses can span the gamut from mere ineffectiveness to extreme unconscionable behavior (Normore & Brooks, 2016). It often emanates from self-centered personality traits that trigger indifference, arrogance, intemperance, envy, and greed (Walker & Kutsyuruba, 2016). It can include bullying, humiliation, manipulation, deception, and harassment. At times it is abusive in the form of ongoing verbal and nonverbal hostility (Tepper, 2000). It may present as unethical leadership when bosses act without a moral compass (Aboyassin & Abood, 2013). It can even involve organizational sabotage in the form of absenteeism, deception, or stealing (Einarsen, Aasland, & Skogstad, 2007). We understand experiences with poor leadership and bad bosses significantly impact individual and organizational outcomes (Aboyassin & Abood, 2013). The damage can be long-standing, affecting victims and witnesses even if they move onto new supervisors, departments, or organizations. Bosses and their bad leadership can incite anxiety that increases perceived exposure to negative leadership behaviors going forward and how employees respond to such behavior (Tepper, 2000). Employees who endure these experiences are more likely to interpret unfavorable actions as abusive, even if they are not. They may also be more prone to respond negatively to critical actions and decisions. The symposium serves as a direct response to calls from Johnson (2018) for leaders to combat evil by stepping out of the shadows, Edmonds (2021) for addressing the dark side of the leadership spectrum and associated consequences, and Klenke (2008) for qualitative documentation of leadership experiences that shape communities, organizations, and nations. In the spirit of Sims & Hughes (2018), we seek to meet the needs of the modern workforce by empowering employees and reimaging approaches to leadership. These stories of surviving bad bosses were deconstructed in the same vein previous works (Carmeli & Sheaffer, 2008; Kellerman, 2004; Normore & Brooks, 2016) unpacked leader failure and bad boss behavior—to promote learning, employee healing, and leader development. In the symposium, Dr. Sharon Lassiter reflects on lessons learned from surviving bad bosses in educational leadership. She recounts professional struggles with two different supervisors at opposite ends of the charisma spectrum. She examines how leader ineffectiveness, lack of vision, poor communication, and micromanagement (among other things) provided critical experiences that taught her the value of power and necessity of coping mechanisms. Dr. David Sippio tackles the underpinnings of workplace bullying. He explores the roots of toxic, bullying leadership behavior in the tyrannical, destructive philosophy of American slavery. He integrates reflections on his personal encounters with these bad bosses with critical analysis of how these ideas evolved in leadership theory. Through it all, he offers strategies to combat the personal anxiety and bewilderment that can result from exposure to these leadership practices. Through case study analysis, Dr. Comfort Okpala explores abusive leadership in the context of an unstable organization. High employee turnover was the result of ineffective managers and lack of accountability. Incompetence, self-centered, micromanagement, and intimidation emerged as themes to describe how participants experienced abusive supervision. Forming alliances and being authentic emerged to describe strategies used to navigate the abusive work environment. Dr. Heidi Marshall grapples with the effects of toxic masculinity on women in the workplace. She dissects poor leadership fueled by harmful motives and the aftermath. In processing her own psychological distress, she identifies the lasting impact of these experiences. With experiences that run the gamut of struggling to articulate what happened to disengaging with the work environment, she unravels the damage caused by bad bosses. We owe the utmost gratitude to our contributing authors. Thank you for sharing these experiences. Thank you for trusting us to relay them to the leadership community in this way. We value your time, scholarship, and reflection. Lonnie R. Morris, Jr., PhD, is a seasoned scholar-practitioner with 20+ years of leadership and service to higher education in an array of administrative, consulting, and teaching capacities. He has coached, trained, and taught managers and executives in a myriad of areas including change management, group and team development, leading virtually, ethics, organizational culture, and leadership assessment. He is an assistant professor of organizational leadership and business psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Communications can be directed to [email protected]. Cynthia M. Sims, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Human Resource Development at Clemson University. Her research focuses on the ways gender and diversity influences the enactment of leadership in the workplace. She was recognized with an Emerald Literati Award, Highly Commended 2019 for a research publication. Dr. Sims is the Founder Director of Clemson's gender equity leadership development and mentoring program for faculty an ADVANCE initiative. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Sims was employed with a U.S. Fortune 100 company, serving as the Director of Staff Operations, Director of Learning and Performance Improvement, and Director of Human Resources. Wendy M. Edmonds, PhD, is an experienced organization development professional with expertise in instructional design and leadership development. She develops courses and trainings for both public and private sectors working with agencies such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Department and Health and Human Services, the Center for Mental Health Services, and the University System of Maryland. Her research is anchored in leader–follower relationships. She is the 2018 recipient of the Chair Academy's Idahlynn Karre Exemplary Leadership Award. Dr. Edmonds is a human resource development professor with more than 15 years experience in higher education. She merged her experience in instructional system design and her extensive research in organizational leadership to create customized “Followership,” workshops.

Organizational politics and professional struggles in nursing

RESUMO Objetivo: analisar as lutas profissionais entre entidades organizativas da enfermagem, no Rio de Janeiro, durante o processo eleitoral do Conselho Regional de Enfermagem (gestão 1990-1993). Método: estudo histórico. Utilizamos matérias jornalísticas, documentos normativos, legislações e entrevistas semiestruturadas com cinco profissionais de enfermagem que participaram desse processo. A interpretação dos achados foi apoiada pelos conceitos de habitus, campo, capital, e poder simbólico de Bourdieu. Resultados: as alterações no Código Eleitoral do citado conselho, sob influência da gestão (1987-1990), candidata à reeleição, influenciaram na divulgação e nos critérios de elegibilidade, dificultando a ampla participação, especialmente, da Associação Brasileira de Enfermagem Seção Rio de Janeiro. Considerações finais: a enfermagem, nesse período, gerou um campo de disputas relacionadas às posições de poder e de gênero, o que se evidenciou no processo eleitoral estudado, que ressaltou o uso de estratégias limitantes por parte de um grupo, dificultando a participação de toda a categoria.

Organizational politics and professional struggles in nursing.

to analyze the professional struggles between nursing organizational entities, in Rio de Janeiro, during the Regional Nursing Council's electoral process (1990-1993 administration). historical study. We used journalistic articles, normative documents, legislation and semi-structured interviews with five nursing professionals who participated in this process. Interpretation of findings was supported by Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field, capital, and symbolic power. Electoral Code changes of the aforementioned council, under the influence of administration (1987-1990), candidate for re-election, influenced the disclosure and eligibility criteria, making it difficult for broad participation, especially of Associação Brasileira de Enfermagem Rio de Janeiro Section. nursing, in this period, generated a field of disputes related to positions of power and gender, which was evidenced in the electoral process studied, which highlighted using limiting strategies by a group, making it difficult for the entire category to participate.

“Als het gedrag op de voorgrond staat”: De paradox van probleemgedrag in de jeugdhulp

(EN) Within the field of youth care and child protective services, professionals struggle with the number of youths who are being refused for treatment due to the risk of physical aggression. Their complex behaviour problems have often developed from unsafe or neglecting environments, child abuse, or other interpersonal trauma. Still, the fear of unsafety caused by their aggressive behaviour continually stands in the way of treatment of their externalizing symptoms. The current article addresses this paradox by emphasizing the importance of interpreting this behaviour in relation to the underlying causes, such as traumatic experiences and the development of Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Four elements are discussed in order to break this cycle of rejection and unsafety, namely: (1) co-regulation in the dyadic relationship (2) setting boundaries without rejecting the person, (3) trauma treatment, and (4) professionalisation of youth care professionals.

Women on top? Challenging the “mancession” narrative in the 2010s chick flick

ABSTRACT The term “mancession” appeared after the economic crisis, spreading the false assumption that men were more affected by the recession than women. This discourse was fuelled across different US media outlets, including film. Some genres, such as the corporate melodrama, supported this rhetoric directly, while others did so more obliquely, as is the case of the chick flick, which pivoted to the trope of the successful working woman during the 2010s. While some contemporary films seem to pander to the myth of the “mancession” by showing women getting ahead in their careers while men fall implicitly or explicitly behind, this article argues that there is an increasing number of chick flicks that highlight sexism and gender inequality at the workplace, challenging postfeminist images of female success and empowerment. The essay analyzes how post-2008 (but pre-pandemic) working woman chick flicks downplay traditional concerns in the genre, such as romance, and open their scope to focus on women’s professional struggles, deploying the “mancession” narrative only to expose its contrivance, thus showing a greater feminist awareness than many of their predecessors often do.

Near, far, wherever you are: reflections on studying and teaching international law

ABSTRACT Under the thematic umbrella of A World of Struggle, this article reflects on the struggles we, the Chinese international law researchers, experience and live with. The professional struggles, of mine and of those that I have observed, might offer an easy entry point for discussing Chinese international lawyers and the China topic in a world of struggle. The article further invites my fellow international law teachers in China to imagine a mode of teaching (and engaging with) international law that breaks away from the purely instrumental understanding of law. The article suggests that, it would benefit our approach to international law by paying particular attention to at least concrete episodes of violence in the world around us and in our own assumptions and understandings of the world and ourselves, the material surrounds we inherited, as well as our ways of living and being.

Sağlık Çalışanlarının Covid-19 Bilgi Düzeyinin Pandemi Sırasında Sosyal Yakınlık ve Riskten Kaçınma Davranışlarına Etkisi

Healthcare professionals struggle with disease on the front lines by risking their lives in all pandemics. The main purpose of this study is to determine the effect of the COVID-19 knowledge level of employees on social closeness and risk avoidance behaviors during the pandemic. A hospital-based cross-sectional research design was used in the study. The research universe consisted of all healthcare professionals of two public hospitals providing secondary care in Ankara. The convenience sampling method was preferred in the survey. The total number of questionnaires evaluated and used to analyze the data is 521. It has been determined that the direct causal effect of the COVID-19 knowledge level of health professionals on risk avoidance behaviors is positive and 0.29 units. In comparison, the direct causal effect on the social closeness behaviors is positive and 0.17 units. In addition, a significant relationship was found between female gender and risk avoidance behavior. The level of knowledge experienced among healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 epidemic increases their tendency to show risk avoidance and social closeness behaviors.

Professionals' Self-Reported Difficulties towards Integrating Dual Task Training in Care for People with Parkinson's Disease.

Background: Despite the growing use of dual task training (DTT) in clinical practice with people with Parkinson Disease (PD), there is still limited evidence on how to best implement it. Data regarding professionals’ difficulties when integrating such practices are critical as a first step to generate further guidance on how to apply it. The aim of this study was to identify the difficulties perceived by professionals to integrate dual task in their practice. Methods: A descriptive, observational and cross-sectional study was conducted using a web-based survey. Convenience sampling was used to recruit exercise and healthcare professionals working with people with PD through various social media channels. Data were collected and then analyzed thematically using the method of constant comparisons. The study report follows the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) checklist. Results: Of the 205 eligible responses, 68.8% were Physiotherapist. The majority of the participants reported having Parkinson-specific training (91.7%) and 59.0% applied DTT in individual one-on-one sessions. We identified ten categories of difficulties faced by professionals. Conclusions: Professionals struggle to integrate DTT into PD clinical care. Challenges were identified and the most significant refer to difficulties in managing the chronicity of the disease and lack of patient compliance with home exercises. Understanding current challenges towards dual task exercise will help to reflect upon strategies to be applied effectively and safe.

Racial Trauma in Civil Rights Representation

Narratives of trauma told by clients and communities of color have inspired an increasing number of civil rights and antiracist lawyers and academics to call for more trauma-informed training for law students and lawyers. These advocates have argued not only for greater trauma-sensitive practices and trauma-centered interventions on behalf of adversely impacted individuals and groups but also for greater awareness of the risks of secondary or vicarious trauma for lawyers who represent traumatized clients and communities. In this Article, we join this chorus of attorneys and academics. Harnessing the recent civil rights case of P.P. v. Compton Unified School District, we illustrate how trauma-informed lawyering can both advance civil rights and provide healing for affected communities and individuals. In so doing, we focus our analysis on the use of racial trauma evidence in the Compton school litigation specifically and in contemporary civil rights representation more generally. Building on our prior work on race, cultural trauma, and civil rights lawyering, we investigate the meaning of racial trauma for individual, group, and community clients and for their legal teams while detailing the importance of establishing a trauma-informed practice for today’s civil rights lawyers. This litigation-based investigation shows that sociolegal meaning is bound up in the struggle to accommodate community violence-centered racial trauma advocacy within traditional lawyering processes and legal ethics frameworks. Often overlooked, that ethical and professional struggle affects the form and substance of lawyer decisionmaking and discretion in civil rights cases.

A time for self-care? Frontline health workers’ strategies for managing mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

Frontline healthcare workers have experienced detrimental mental health impacts during the COVID-19 pandemic including anxiety, emotional distress, stress, fatigue, and burnout. But little is known about how these healthcare professionals take care of their own mental health in the midst of considerable personal, occupational and social disruption. In this article, we use qualitative data from an Australian national survey to examine the self-care strategies frontline healthcare professionals employed to manage their mental health and wellbeing during the crisis. Findings reveal how healthcare workers sought to adjust to disruption by adopting new self-care practices and mindsets, while encountering numerous personal and professional struggles that undermined their capacity for self-care. Feeling socially connected and valued were critical dimensions of caring for self, illustrating the importance of locating self-care in the social domain. These findings, we argue, highlight the need to expand conceptions of self-care away from those that focus primarily on the individual towards approaches that situate self care as collective and relational.

Clinical Ethics from the Islamic Perspective : A qualitative study exploring the views of Jordanian doctors.

Like other Arab countries, Jordan must find ways of responding to the rapid processes of change affecting many aspects of social life. This is particularly urgent in healthcare, where social and technical change is often manifested in tensions about ethical decision-making in the clinic. To explore the attitudes, beliefs and concerns relating to ethical decision-making among health professionals in Jordanian hospitals, a qualitative study was conducted involving face-to-face interviews with medical personnel in four hospitals in Amman, the capital of Jordan. Data were analysed thematically in relation to a pre-existing set of ethical categories. Interviews were conducted with thirty-eight doctors covering most medical specialities. Five major themes emerged from the interviews: ethical awareness, ethical issues, the impact of religion on ethical decision-making, practical and theoretical resources for ethical decision-making, and challenges. While uncertainty was expressed about some aspects of Western approaches to ethics, participants strongly supported adoption of a range of Western bioethical principles, including cultural and ethical diversity, along with adherence to Islamic religious norms. A range of serious ethical challenges facing the Jordanian health system were identified, covering social, legal, managerial, and technical issues. Ethical decision-making in Jordan is complex, having to accommodate the needs of patients, the opinions of doctors and their families, the views of religious authorities, managerial considerations, and both local norms and international standards. Health professionals struggle with three sets of tensions that emerge out of the struggle between traditional, community-embedded forms of social organization and the demands generated by globalization and the influence of Western culture: the tensions between tradition and modernity, conservatism and pragmatism, and religion and secularism. Doctors in Jordan prefer approaches to ethical decision-making that realize a balance between the extremes, although the exact nature of where that balance should lie remains uncertain.

Digital populism, digital newswork and the concept of journalistic competence: the Philippine condition

The new environment for Filipino journalists is a difficult terrain to navigate: Professionals struggle to establish themselves as a source of information in the time of technological disruptions, digital populism, tighter market competition, labour precarities and the political pressures of an increasingly authoritarian regime. This provided the context for the subsequent discussion on journalistic competence: What competencies are most important for Filipino journalists given this status quo? More importantly, how should the concept of journalistic competence be viewed, conceptualised or interrogated given the current conditions that affect or threaten journalistic practice? The discussion on competencies was anchored on extant research, a survey with Filipino journalists and data from in-depth interviews with selected experts worldwide. The prominent elements of journalistic competence in the Philippines were identified and discussed vis-à-vis factors and conditions that influence journalism competence such as journalistic roles, media systems, popular attitudes towards news and educational infrastructure.

Once in a Hundred Years: Does COVID-19 Present an Opportunity to Restructure the Professional Image of the Social Worker in Israel?

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed social work in the limelight alongside the various medical professions and has created a rare opportunity for transforming the oppressed image of the profession. Based on a broad perspective—historical, social and political—we show how the development of a collective needs-conscious identity can lead to active protests on the part of social workers against their condition. This process is brought into sharp focus by critical analysis of media reports on the protests held by social workers in Israel in July 2020. An analysis of the struggle points to a number of factors that are responsible for its success: creating a collective consciousness with respect to the profession and the use of anger (as against fear); increasing the visibility of the profession in the public eye and the media; developing a dialogue that defined the party responsible for oppressing the status of the social workers; highlighting the ramifications of this oppression not only on the social workers but also on society as a whole; and using rhetoric that enabled the professional struggle to be ended and collaboration to be continued. The significance of these findings and their theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

“From a chef’s perspective or what I can sell on the menu?” Exploring culinary professionals’ attitudes toward specialty beef production and barriers to adoption

ABSTRACT This research aims to understand the attitudes and values of culinary ‘innovators’ already working with ‘local’ or ‘grass-fed/finished’ beef. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with specialty chefs and butchers in the Rocky Mountain Region based on the hypothesis that they operate as opinion leaders and understand that the benefits of, and barriers to, implementation of their current meat program is crucial for successfully introducing new products, such as Rocky Mountain Legume-Finished beef. Interviews revealed that professionals struggle with being ‘conscientious’ and ‘sustainable’ while still providing a consistent product for their customers. Although a few chefs spoke of setting ‘hard limits’ and ‘high standards’ for products, this did not emerge as a financial reality for other chefs or customers. In order for alternative sources of beef to be truly viable, beef production must address both environmental and economic concerns, while providing a consistent product in terms of taste and quality. Understanding the concerns of culinary professionals allows alternative ranching and agricultural production methods to be tailored as a viable for beef producers.

Detecting Perceived Barriers in FLSA: The Socio-Psycholinguistic Study of EFL University Learners

Speaking is an essential and fundamental aspect of human Language. By acquiring and learning language, individuals can speak and conversate with each other, transmit information and interact. However, in practical aspects, it is somehow, difficult for second and foreign language learners to practice English in their day-to-day life. Despite being competent in their relevant field, many people and professionals worldwide endeavor and struggle due to lack of good communication and speaking skill. Language disorders can be one of the hindrances for many people including EFL university leaners. This study was guided by socio-cultural theory of Vygotsky, comprehensible input hypothesis of Krashen and foreign language anxiety theory of Horwitz. By adopting semi-structured interviews and focus group discussion technique, this study unveiled the psychological, cognitive and socio-cultural perceived hindrances that cause foreign or second language speaking anxiety in Pakistani EFL university learners. The participants of this study were recruited from public sector university in Lahore, Pakistan and were non-English majors (N=8) and aged between (20-26). The collected data was analyzed by employing content analysis technique. The findings indicated that speaking anxiety can originate from students’ own self-perceptions related to thinking process, cognition and linguistic issues such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, unfamiliarity with topics, genre, psychological and affective factors like anxiety, anxious and introvert personality, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, pre-university language experience, time pressure, fear of negative evaluation, instructors’ remarks; socio-cultural factors like lack of comprehensible input and exposure to TL, gender, and role of parents, geographical background, social status and were detected as speaking anxiety inducing factors. This study ventures to contribute to the existing literature on foreign language speaking anxiety among Pakistani EFL university learners. Thus, it can be practically implied from the above-mentioned factors that maximum exposure to English is of great importance and when learning process is mediated by more knowledgeable others and a person or a learner is scaffolded in the company of more knowledgeable others (parents or teachers) he gets the targeted results. Furthermore, friendly classroom environment can be very effective in overcoming speaking disorders and anxiety. The findings of this qualitative research have practical implications for second and foreign language EFL learning.