Relinquishment Of Control Research Articles

How much circus is allowed? – Challenges and hindrances when embracing risk in physical education

ABSTRACT Introduction: Research has indicated that Physical Education (PE) is often characterized by teacher-centred teaching (e.g. Byra 2006; Tinning 2010), where the pupils follow instruction and perform pre-established movements (Karlefors and Larsson 2018). Pupils are expected to listen, do as they are told, and follow rules (Fitzpatrick and Russell 2015; Quennerstedt 2013). PE teaching has been described as an act of control (Quennerstedt 2013), and teachers face the dilemma of letting go of control and still having enough control to make sure that the lesson smoothly moves forward (Alfrey and O’Connor 2020). However, when the pupils are given more power and the teacher applies student-centred teaching, the pupils get to come up with ideas and make decisions (e.g. Byra 2006; Garrett and Wrench 2018; Mattsson and Larsson 2021). This is significant because it can develop PE and contribute to meaning making among pupils and their experiences of movement. This article aims to analyse the use of exploratory circus assignments in PE teaching and to discuss this in relation to current school norms. Biesta’s (The Beautiful Risk of Education [Paradigm Publishers 2014]) concept of risk, which means not knowing the outcome, is used. The article problematizes pupils’ own ideas and suggestions in relation to prevailing norms in school. What happens when pupils participate in teaching based on exploratory circus assignments? Exploration, playfulness, and expression were focused, and the lessons were characterized by the absence of primary focus on competitiveness as a counterweight to traditional PE content. Methods: A research teacher (a university teacher with experience teaching school PE and circus) conducted 10 lessons together with 20 pupils (aged 10) and their PE teacher using exploratory circus assignments. Data was collected through participant observation, video observation, and field diary. The data analysis generated three themes, Following instruction, Limited exploration, and Shared power, that were reviewed in relation to the theoretical framework. Results: The results show that the research teacher and the PE teacher resisted embracing risk in PE due to the prevailing norms and what Biesta (2014) describes as the practice of schooling. They focused on keeping the pupils in order rather than being flexible and open to unknown outcomes. The exploratory circus assignments involved risk to different extents, and the research teacher's tendency to embrace risk increased over time. Her letting go of control enabled her to embrace risk. It did not mean a total relinquishment of control, but rather not having exclusive control over the decision-making and meaning-making processes. When she shared the power with the pupils, new and other movements could be explored. The results show that pupils’ actions can be more educative than what teachers initially consider. Conclusion: Teachers need to relinquish control to conduct teaching which embraces risk. Doing so enables them to share power with the pupils, which allows pupils to explore and discover different ways of moving and using the material. Exploratory circus assignments can enable risk embracement in PE and function as a way for teachers to reflect upon pedagogical considerations and practice the sharing of power with their pupils.

The role of spirituality in family adjustment and resilience among Puerto Rican families post-Hurricane Maria

ABSTRACT Natural disasters continue to devastate families and communities across the United States. An important aspect of family resiliency within a disaster context is the role spirituality plays in how families make sense of their experience. Using an arts-based visual research approach, this study explored the role of spirituality in the psychosocial adaptation of displaced Puerto Rican families who resettled in Orlando, Florida post-Hurricane Maria. Three main themes emerged: spirituality through 1) the relinquishment of control, 2) sense of empowerment, and 3) stabilization and security. The data suggest that spirituality plays a critical role in how Puerto Rican families make sense of their displacement experience and find the strength and motivation to adapt and move forward. The findings provide important insights for community-based organizations and religious leaders regarding how Latino families spiritually cope and navigate resettlement after a natural disaster.

When Loss is More: From Managed Decline to Adaptive Release

ABSTRACT Within the heritage sector there is widespread recognition that the accelerating effects of climate and other changes will necessitate reconsideration of the care of at-risk places and properties. Heritage organisations and agencies are developing new ways to identify and measure future threats, and to prioritise resources accordingly. For some designated assets, it is becoming clear, it may be necessary to manage processes of decline and transformation. Drawing on insights gathered from conversations with natural and historic environment practitioners and regulators, this paper highlights current practice and policy around managed decline, with a focus on the English context. In seeking to address some of the limitations of current approaches, this paper introduces a new conceptual framework: adaptive release. Adaptive release, as presented here, reflects a decision to accommodate the dynamic transformation of a heritage asset and its associated values and significance, with reference to wider landscape settings. The focus is on iterative management over extended timeframes, involving some relinquishment of control and a commitment to ongoing monitoring and interpretation. The concept of adaptive release is presented provisionally, rather than prescriptively, to expand the range of options available to natural and historic environment professionals in responding to inevitable change.

Findommes, Cybermediated Sex Work, and Rinsing.

IntroductionFinancial domination involves the payment of cash or gifts from a wish list by a money slave to a money mistress, financial dominatrix, or findomme. Boundaries for findommes working through webcam and video-call services may be more fluid than via text-based modes since the domme engages in more visible displays, and modification of language, voice, and feelings to fulfil the fantasy for a client. We explore the nature of findomme work and its relationship to BDSM to understand how the interaction progresses and how the boundaries, of reasonable and permissible behaviour which affect both incoming and outgoing interactions between people, are maintained.MethodsThe study was in two stages. The first stage was a survey of online findommes (n = 56) in UK and the USA. For the second stage, we explored the experience of findommes (n = 195) on money-slavery websites and social media feeds using netnography as an observation method with cisgender male, female, and transgender participants.ResultsOur analysis reveals how findomme interaction progresses from text-based interaction to virtual face-to-face and voice communication. We show financial domination to be on a continuum from being a lifestyle choice in the BDSM community that reaps financial benefits to a purely economic and legitimate form of commercial labour. Although financial domination clearly elicits sexual arousal for clients, the relationship can also be exclusively psychological and focus on the relinquishing of control to a money mistress for a prescribed period.ConclusionThe findings also show how personal boundaries are negotiated and enhance understanding of how the microculture of findomming interacts with other microcultures. By demystifying the process of financial domination, we clarify its relationship with other microcultures and add to the growing body of literature that destigmatizes consensual erotic labour.ImplicationsThese findings show how online support, in a decriminalised environment, enabled new and ‘instadommes’ to set and maintain healthy boundaries for enhanced physical and psychological well-being, and the research provides valuable insight into sex work that is safely carried out in online spaces by a large number of participants so adding to the growing body of work on decriminalization.

Moving Together: Supporting Attachment in Parent-Toddler Dance Classes

ABSTRACT Parent-Toddler Movement Class (PTMC) is a structured dance curriculum that introduces movement to toddlers and caregivers. Using a qualitative methodological approach, the present study investigated how PTMCs supported the attachment of 27 caregiver-toddler dyads. The children ranged in age from two- to three-years-old and were students enrolled at The School at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn, New York. Each dyad participated in at least one of three cycles of eight, 45-minute sessions of PTMC. The central findings of this study identified a relationship between the caregiver’s attunement, goodness of fit, and relinquishment of control with subsequent growth in the secure base behaviors of their toddler. Further, PTMC served as an opportunity for dyads to invest and devote time to experience joy together. The application of the theoretical underpinnings and research findings of this study to one’s teaching practice are also discussed.

Towards a Conceptual Framework of Entertainment Law for the Twenty-First Century

Throughout the history of entertainment, there have been only three goals of the state’s regulatory focus: health and safety concerns; content and cultural control; and monopoly power restrictions on those who control the media. The first has been to require health and safety standards comparable to businesses of all industries. It is the second and third goals of government regulation that make the entertainment industry stand apart. The second goal reflects the continuing state interest in managing the national culture first introduce through laws regulating theatrical players and the printing press. The third goal reflects the state’s interest in assuring that the individual and corporate influences on the media and culture do not grow too powerful. Governments use competition and antitrust laws to regulate the economic power and anti-competitive practices of the media empires. The technological innovations in computing and mobile devices provide for dramatically different solutions to monetize the digital marketplace and shape the culture of the society. The twenty-first century media streamers in film, television, music, and print will be very different from their counterparts from the previous decades. And just as the technology for delivery has changed, so have the powers of the U.S. government to control the content and manage the competition among the industry leaders. What has stayed the same is the innovative spirit that began with Gutenberg and fueled the invention of the camera, movie projector, phonograph, radio, and television. It informed the growth of the computer, the PC, the Internet, and the modern streaming services. At each stage, the media’s power to entertain, educate, persuade, and shape has remained unchallenged. Technology and culture are at a tipping point, just as they were when piracy triggered the end of the Stationers’ Company and the development of copyright law or the end of the Motion Picture Patents Company and the rapid growth of the motion picture industry. The printing press, the theatrical performance, the motion picture, and the TV show illustrate again and again that the medium is the message. From the middle ages forward, governments and society has learned to accept the relinquishment of control over the media and the power of the media companies to shape culture. In the coming years, those who best understand the implications of streaming, mobile devices, and new technologies will lead in its development. This article provides a conceptual framework to approach entertainment and the regulation of entertainment — entertainment law — from its historical origins and normative objectives. In most cases, these efforts apply at the margins because culture is simply too powerful a force to do more. Nonetheless, an understanding of the implications for entertainment law regulation will help the producers, regulators, and consumers of entertainment to understand the power of entertainment law and the foreseeable development of the law in the early twenty-first century.

Examining power, knowledge and power relations in a science research apprenticeship

The science laboratory is a politically entrenched space where complex power relations interplay while social agents learn about the rules and routines to ensure safety, precision and reproducibility in research work. This paper presents a case study of two Singaporean students undergoing apprenticeship in a 3-year school-based School Scientist Programme. They engaged in an open and authentic science inquiry involving chemical synthesis in the school’s science laboratory under the apprenticeship of an in-house School Scientist who started the programme. The goals of this paper are to offer an alternative—critical and nuanced—lens to the dominant positivist and social constructivist discourse about science research apprenticeship. Using visual ethnography approach, we collected videos and photographs of the students’ and School Scientist’s interactions during the science research over the first 18 months of the programme. The study documented critical events that showed shifts in control over knowledge construction and mastery of the chemical synthesis craft as the science research progressed. This paper contributes to the Foucauldian theory of power in offering an alternative view to the dialectical explanation of power and knowledge. First, it shows that while there is an overall gain in knowledge of chemical synthesis increased during the apprenticeship, the power relationship fluctuates when a different genre of chemical synthesis work was introduced. The fluctuation is related to the overtaking and relinquishing of control (power) with the latter leading to the construction of knowledge. Second, we show how the power relationship, involving the interplay of power and knowledge between the expert and apprentice, is more interconnected and complex. The findings of this study have implications for teachers who want to plan and enact authentic science inquiry with their students.

The Push and Pull of Autonomy

Organizations characterized by knowledge work will experience pressures from a variety of sources to provide increasing levels of autonomy to employees. Furthermore, as the nature of work has changed, the manifestations of employee autonomy have become more complex and varied. Although a great deal of literature exists on the effects of various types and facets of autonomy, these literatures focus almost exclusively on individual-level effects. On the organizational side however, we suggest that the increasing trend toward various forms of employee autonomy presents a tension for organizations as they struggle to reconcile this relinquishing of control with organizational leaders’ inherent desire for more control. We explore how managers and supervisors of knowledge work manage the inherent conflict between employee demands for autonomy and organizational needs for control, especially as it relates to the management of complexity and fairness issues. Furthermore, we discuss how this tension has important implications for research and practice.

The constraints on full privatization: International evidence

Using a cross-country sample of 406 non-financial firms in 44 countries, we examine, based on firm and country level data, the decisions of governments to resort to gradual, staggered sales that result in full privatization. We report that 168 firms over the 1995–2009 period were fully privatized. It takes seven years on average for a government to completely privatize an SOE. Using the Cox proportional hazard model, we find that full privatization is a slower process in collectivist societies and when political constraints and employment protection laws are more stringent. Finally, we document a positive effect of full privatization on firm outcomes (namely, risk-taking, efficiency, profitability, and growth), supporting previous theoretical and empirical arguments that full relinquishment of control and ownership is required in order to change firms’ objectives.

Of instrumentalisation of life and the vitality of matter

The cental question explored is what kind of aesthetics strategies can be employed by artists for a post-human world. The growing field of synthetic biology reinforces the pervasive influence of the engineering mindset and aesthetics within the life science laboratories, at the very same historical moment that the artistic interventions have also entered into these spaces. The scientific laboratory, in which artists (as well as engineers) are located, thus cannot be viewed in isolation but is positioned within larger cultural networks that are organised around the maximisation of utility, efficiency and profit. The paper examines the tension between what can be referred to as the engineering aesthetics characterised by the desire and judgement of creation and control versus the aesthetics of vibrancy and agency of matter based on planned utilitarian futility excess and relinquishing of control.

Economic reforms, corporate governance and privatization method as determinants in performance changes of new privatized firms: the case of MENA countries

This paper aims to provide the determinants of how privatization works in some selected Middle East North Africa countries. Using a sample of 75 new privatized firms we examine the performance changes in countries namely Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey. We document a significant increase in profitability, efficiency and output as well as a decrease in leverage. We also identify that these improvements vary with economic reforms and environment, effectiveness of corporate governance and the privatization method used. In particular, financial liberalization and control relinquishment by the government are associated with higher efficiency and output. Furthermore, foreign participation and the use of share issue privatization as divestment method appear to have a positive impact on efficiency and output changes. Additionally, the use of private sales is related to a significant decrease in leverage. Finally our results highlight the importance of economic reforms, corporate governance and the choice of privatization method in explaining the post privatization changes in performance.

Crossing the River by Touching Stones?: The Reform of Corporate Ownership in China

The privatization of Chinese enterprises in a low-legal-protection environment raises the question as to how minority shareholders are assured that their capital will not be expropriated. This paper sheds some light on this issue by examining the influence of controlling shareholders on the corporate performance of listed firms from 1997 to 2006. The first main finding is that firms controlled by local governments are more valuable to minority shareholders, whereas firms controlled by individuals are less valuable. The second main finding is that the post-WTO-accession relinquishment of control from local governments to private shareholders appears to have reduced corporate performance.

Relating to Ourselves without a Self: Eckhart and Neuroscience

This paper questions models of identity that take individual consciousness as a focus, comparing the understanding of subjectivity in Eckhart's work to that found in recent empirical studies of the forms and mechanisms of social cognition. The argument begins by questioning the instrumental purpose of recent research into meditative states. Researchers in this field pursue a goal-orientated agenda, which is in stark contrast to Eckhart's non-agenda and relinquishment of control. A close reading of Sermon Q69 then shows how Eckhart challenges our intellectual habits and first-person perspective, suggesting that what he calls our ‘intellect’ can be without instrumental assumptions: pure surprise. In the last part, the paper compares Eckhart's exhortation that we intelligently accept insecurity with recent research into automated responses and mirror neurons. The findings of this research present a model of human identity comparable to Eckhart's: one which questions the focus on consciousness and control associated with Cartesian and Kantian models of human identity.

Analyst following of privatized firms around the world: The role of institutions and ownership structure

We examine which factors affect the decision of analysts to follow newly privatized firms as well as the factors that determine the extent of that following. Contrary to traditional private firms, privatized firms harbor particular uncertainties related to the government's commitment toward privatization. The first-stage estimation shows that the decision by analysts to initiate coverage of newly privatized firms is positively influenced by lower political risk, better judicial efficiency, better information disclosure, and effective extra-legal institutions in the country. Conditional on the decision to initiate coverage, the second-stage results indicate that the extent of analyst following is more important: (1) when there is control relinquishment by the government, (2) when there is more participation by foreign investors and employees, and (3) for those larger firms in nonstrategic sectors. Finally, analysts' coverage is negatively related to postprivatization ownership concentration and underpricing. This latter result runs counter to the existing evidence on private firms—that is, that underpricing “buys” coverage.

The adaptive role of perceived control before and after cancer diagnosis: A prospective study

Cancer is generally considered a low-control situation. Stability of perceptions of control before and after cancer was examined, as well as the adaptive value of maintenance versus relinquishment of control in the psychological adjustment to cancer. This study, conducted in the northern Netherlands, was carried out in a prospective design with four assessment points (one pre-morbid and three post-morbid assessments) involving semi-structured interviews and self-report questionnaires. Ninety-nine newly diagnosed cancer patients all aged over 57 years completed all four assessment points. We found that perceptions of control declined before and after disease, possibly as a consequence of the diagnosis of cancer. Further, maintenance of control after cancer diagnosis was related to lower levels of psychological distress 6 and 12 months after diagnosis. These results suggest that maintenance of perceptions of control is beneficial to the psychological adjustment to cancer.

Governance and Performance of Spanish Privatised Firms

This paper analyses the effect of the Spanish privatisation process on the performance and corporate governance of the firms that were privatised through public offerings over the 1985–2003 period. Using conventional pre‐ versus post‐privatisation comparisons, we do not find significant improvements in privatised firms' profitability and efficiency. However, our results do suggest a change in firms' ownership structure and in the characteristics of Boards of Directors after privatisation. Firms' ownership concentration decreases as a consequence of the relinquishment of control by the State and the Boards of Directors are restructured with the creation of new specialised committees and the incorporation of more executives.

The Perianesthesia Experience From the Patient’s Perspective

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perianesthesia experience from the patient's perspective. An existential phenomenological approach using Pollio's interpretive framework was used. Interpretations were conducted, in part, in a research group. The purpose of the interpretation was to recognize patterns or themes in an experience. Participants were asked to describe specific experiences that stood out for them because experiences which stand out are those that are meaningful. Ten participants (5 males, 5 females) ranging in age from 23 to 66 years were interviewed using phenomenological techniques. The interpretation found the perianesthesia experience to be grounded in self, others, and time, which become figural through experiences of control. Each participant relinquished control, lost control, or strove to gain or maintain control during their surgical experience. The perception of death lurking crossed into figural experiences as well. Images of death, while grouped predominantly with self, were interpreted as the ultimate loss of self, others, and time. Loss of control of self, the relinquishing of control to others, and the temporal experience of control may contribute to perianesthesia stress and anxiety. Nurses in the perianesthesia period have many opportunities to help patients with issues of control.

Chance, choice and control: Lay debate on prenatal social sex selection

Assisted reproductive technologies are typically positioned as increasing the range of choices open to the healthcare consumer, thereby enhancing ‘reproductive freedom’. In this paper, we question the equivalence of reproductive choice and personal freedom in ethical theory, using results from a project investigating how lay people make ethical evaluations about the new genetic and reproductive technologies. We took the topic of social sex selection by preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), and used group discussions and interviews in the north-east of England to trace how lay people develop and express their ethical evaluations, and to identify the implicit or explicit normative framework that gave rise to their opinions on prenatal sex selection. There was a striking level of ambivalence towards choice in general and reproductive choice in particular. Participants offered few positive statements and numerous reasons why reproductive choice might be problematic. Our participants’ argumentation shares with mainstream bioethical analysis the weighing of the possible harms of prenatal sex selection for social reasons against the harm of restricting reproductive freedom. However, unlike most secular–liberal bioethicists, many of our participants concluded that prenatal sex selection is undesirable because it is an expression of parental preference instead of a response to the future child's need. Our interpretation of their reasoning is that they work from an ideal of “good parents”, one of the features of which is the relinquishing of control over their children, except to protect them from harm. This voluntary self-limitation does not indicate reduced autonomy, because parental autonomy can only operate within the limits set by this relational framework. We suggest that a model of relational autonomy captures our lay participants’ framing of the problem better than a more traditional understanding of autonomy. Our study also shows that in appropriately structured discussion of bioethical issues, lay people can articulate reasons for their opinions that are grounded in sophisticated and morally relevant concepts.

Liberalization, corporate governance and the performance of privatized firms in developing countries

This paper seeks to provide an answer to the following question: when and how does privatization work? Using a sample of 230 firms headquartered in 32 developing countries, we document a significant increase in profitability, efficiency, investment and output. Our analysis shows that the changes in performance vary with the extent of macro-economic reforms and environment, and the effectiveness of corporate governance. In particular, economic growth is associated with higher profitability and efficiency gains, trade liberalization is associated with higher levels of investment and output, while financial liberalization is associated with higher output changes. Further, control relinquishment by the government is a key determinant of profitability, efficiency gains and output increases. Finally, we find higher improvements in efficiency for firms in countries in which stock markets are more developed and where property rights are better protected and enforced. These results for a sample of developing countries differ from those reported in a contemporaneous study by D'Souza et al. [D'Souza, J., Megginson, W.L., Nash, R.C., 2001. Why do privatized firms improve performance? Evidence from developed countries. Unpublished working paper. University of Oklahoma] which focuses on developed countries. These diverging findings suggest that privatization in developing countries indeed obeys to particular constraints and has a dynamic of its own.

Liberalization, Corporate Governance and the Performance of Newly Privatized Firms

This paper seeks to provide an answer to the following question: When and how does privatization work? Using a unique sample of 189 firms headquartered in 32 developing countries, we document a significant increase in profitability, efficiency, investment and output. Next, using univariate tests, we show that changes in performance are related to economic reforms and conditions and to corporate governance. For example, we find that privatization yields better results when it is preceded by stock market and trade liberalization. The results of a regression analysis then indicate that macroeconomic and corporate governance variables explain post-privatization performance improvements. In particular, economic growth, control relinquishment by government and foreign ownership are key determinants of profitability changes. We also find higher improvements in efficiency and output for firms from countries with more developed stock markets and where the protection of property rights is better. Finally, our results suggest that trade openness is an important determinant of post-privatization increase in investment.