Social Constructionist View Research Articles

Disability, Affordances, and the Dogma of Harmony: Socializing the EE-Model of Disability

AbstractRecent years have seen increased interest among 4E cognition scholars in physical disability, leading to the development of the EE-model of disability. This paper contributes to the literature on disability and 4E cognition in three key ways. First, it examines the relationship between the EE-model and social constructivist views that address the bodily reality of disablement, highlighting commonalities and distinctions. Second, it critiques the EE-model’s focus on individual strategies for expanding disabled persons’ affordance landscapes, arguing that disability policy should integrate insights from both the EE-model and social constructivist approaches. Finally, it assesses the EE-model against the “dogma of harmony.” We argue that while the EE-model’s focus on active human-environment collaboration is valuable, it can inadvertently perpetuate this dogma. We contend that integrating certain social constructivist insights can help the EE-model avoid the dogma of harmony.

Sectoral brand management: a social constructionist approach in the business-to-business market

Purpose Sectoral brands are umbrella brands created to represent all companies’ products belonging to a country’s economic industry abroad to enhance their export performance. This study aims to explore the development of a sectoral brand model through the optic of the social constructionist perspective. Besides, this study also proposes to apply the model to a sectoral brand case in the business-to-business market. Design/methodology/approach The authors have developed a systematic qualitative literature review to provide a theoretical basis for the attributes chosen to compose the social constructionist sectoral brand management (SCSBM) model. To apply the model, the authors have conducted a series of 17 in-depth semi-structured interviews with the association’s managers that constitute the sectoral brand development, the director of the branding consultancy firm and specialists on place branding. Findings The authors present the SCSBM model, highlighting that sectoral branding should be seen as a dynamic and continuous process with the integrated participation of all industry stakeholders. Moreover, the authors have applied the model to the Brazil Fashion System brand. Research limitations/implications The main contribution to theory is the link between sectoral brand management and the social constructionist approach, being the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to propose this connection. SCSBM model extends previous work on sectoral brands by adopting a social constructionist view. Practical implications The SCSBM model might contribute to marketing professionals willing to develop sectoral brands across multiple economic sectors and geographies. Originality/value The study’s originality lies in developing the first model, which adopts a social constructionist approach to sectoral brands.

“Truth,” “lies,” and beyond: epistemological prerequisites for a constructive political discourse

Building on methodical constructivism, the paper examines the differences between trans-subjectively founded (objective) reality, merely intersubjectively agreed (social) reality, and subjective reality in the narrow sense, and refutes the social constructivist view according to which every representation of reality only offers a distorted image of reality, so that all representations of reality stand side by side on an equal footing. Admitting that socially constructed reality is necessarily selective and therefore an interpreted (meaningful) reality, the paper argues that truth vs. falsehood is not the only criterion by which a construction of reality can be measured. Although the discourse about meanings cannot be a discourse about whether they are true or false, constructions of reality can nonetheless be questioned for their appropriateness for constructive problem solving. Political discourse, however, is all too often not about problem solving, but about gaining power, maintaining power, and using power in order to enforce one’s own positions. Appropriateness then gets replaced by mere expediency, and populist politicians drive this to a perfection in which their careless handling of truth is only the tip of the iceberg. At the base of the iceberg, there is the refusal of coexistence and the destruction of reasonable common ground, and the primary question that arises for social research is that of social pathologies that help populists’ (subjective) reality to become shared by (at least) parts of society.

Librarians as Teachers: A Reflection on Practice, Identity, and the TPACK Framework to Enhance Professional Practice

ABSTRACT Teaching and librarianship are interrelated. This paper explores the author's experiences and views of working as a librarian in higher education, within the Australian University context. It perceives Australian University libraries and librarianship as aligning with Social Constructivist views on learning. Through drawing on information from professional practice, this paper considers the professional identities of librarians in a third-space paradigm, including in contributing to doctoral supervision. It examines teachers as curators and sees this observation of teaching yielding the view of librarians as teachers explicitly. It touches on the author's new awareness of librarians and their role in supporting assessment for learning. The paper puts forward the author's use of reflective practice to enhance teaching, and shares experiences in using the Technology Pedagogy Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework to ensure reflective practice is focused.

The discursive construction of corporate identity in the corporate social responsibility reports: A case study of Starbucks.

Both corporate identity and corporate social responsibilities are of strategic importance to companies’ reputation and competitiveness. From a social constructivist view, identity is constructed in discourse. Therefore, this study sets out to investigate how corporate identity is discursively constructed in corporate CSR communication. Taking Starbucks as an example, this corpus-assisted study explores how Starbucks deploys nomination, predication, and intensification strategies and the corresponding linguistic resources to discursively construct itself and its main stakeholder groups in the CSR reports from the perspective of Discourse-Historical Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis. Also, how Starbucks addresses or presents issues in which scandals or problems reside is investigated. The findings show that Starbucks explicitly constructs itself as the supportive care-taker of the partners, faithful deliverer of good customer experience, powerful helper of poor farmers, and CSR-conscious selector of suppliers, who takes a strongly committed and proactive CSR stance through the discourse. However, behind such discursive construction are the hidden ideologies and corporate agenda of a capitalistic nature, with Starbucks veiling the power dominance and unequal power relations. This study not only contributes to the understanding of the discursive construction of corporate identity, but also helps raise peoples’ awareness of the power game at play behind the corporate discourse.

Ecological systems theory and second language research

“Context” has been increasingly featured and acknowledged in second language (L2) research because L2 teaching is recognised to be shaped by the environments in which it is situated. Numerous theoretical perspectives were introduced to L2 research that aim to capture the contextual forces at work in teaching and learning, including but not limited to Activity Theory, Complexity Theory, and Sociocultural Theory. Activity Theory holds that a learner's motives (human needs directed towards an object) are highly malleable, subject to the influence of such contextual variables as institutional rules, community, tools and artefacts available (see Leont'ev, 1978, 1981 who popularised Activity Theory from Sergei Rubenstein's founding and also Engeström's more current work in 1999). Complexity Theory, which has been widely adopted in both physical and social sciences, originates from physics (Martin et al., 2019). Complexity Theory was later introduced into L2 research by Diane Larsen-Freeman who posits that language learning is not only a process but a volatile and emerging system that is shaped by components of the system (e.g., learners, teachers, schools) engaging in constant and vibrant interactions (Larsen-Freeman, 2014). Sociocultural Theory highlights the sociocultural contexts where learning takes place (Lantolf, 2000; Vygotsky, 1978). Informed by a social constructivist view of learning, key concepts such as scaffolding (e.g., teachers’ support for learners) are put forward. In particular, Vygotsky argues that communication plays an indispensable role in language learning. Extrapolating Vygotsky's work to L2 research, Swain (2006) claims that languaging, dialogues among learners to discuss issues in L2 learning, is an important process of learning a L2.

Karma chameleon: Exploring the leadership complexities of middle managers in the public sector

While leadership is one of the most discussed concepts in the social sciences, there is a need for more scholarly research that examines the ambiguous leadership position of middle managers, and how their leadership work is perceived in practice. In this article, we follow the recent research turn of adopting a social constructionist view of leadership, and make use of metaphors to answer the following research question: how are middle managers in the public sector managing the expectations and demands from both top management and subordinates, and what are some of its consequences? We study this in the public sector, a context of particular importance but one that has often been neglected in previous research. Through a qualitative in-depth case study, based on observations, interviews, and organizational documents, our findings show that middle managers were trapped in the way they moved between being constructed as a leader and a follower, along what we call a leader-follower pendulum, and in the way they enacted two different leadership metaphors: the buddy and the commander. These aspects jointly contribute to a complex and ambiguous situation for middle managers, which in turn gives rise to alienation and the constant strive to fit in, something that we metaphorically refer to as “karma chameleon.”

To telework or not to telework: Does the macro context matter? A signalling theory analysis of employee interpretations of telework in times of turbulence

AbstractHow do workers make sense of telework and respond to it in turbulent times? This study of a consultancy firm in Spain, during the 2008 financial crisis, explores employee interpretations of telework in the context of major macro‐economic disruption. We draw on signalling theory to consider telework as a signal sent by the organisation and argue that the environment in which the signal occurs changes employees' interpretations. While telework is generally understood as an employee‐centred practice, we find that in an economic crisis it is also interpreted as a potential threat for employees. Therefore, the meaning of telework is not predetermined, but continually shaped socially considering events beyond the boundaries of the firm. We propose adopting a social constructivist view to consider human resource (HR) practices as objects experienced and interpreted within their wider social contexts. We shed new light on signalling theory and HR studies by offering insights on the relevance of the signalling environment for interpreting messages, and bring forth the concept of “external fit”.

Making Sense of Decision Making in Invasion Team Sports - A Teaching/Learning Perspective in Physical Education

Since the 1990s, decision making (DM) in sports has been extensively investigated, particularly through expert players' decisions made mostly in standardized contexts but also, to a lesser extent, in naturalistic settings. The purpose of this article is to re-examine the teaching/learning of decision making in invasion team sports in light of the contemporary research conducted with high-level performers. First, following a brief overview of the situation awareness (SA) construct, three decision making (DM) perspectives are presented: information processing (IP), naturalistic DM, and ecological dynamics (EcoD). In a second major section, invasion-team-sports (ITS) SA in PE is examined with regard to SA components and the differentiation of five SA facets. In a third major section, presenting implications for ITS DM learning in PE, the teaching/learning of ITS-DM is discussed with regard to beginner- and novice-level players in Physical Education. Constructing a shared reference-framework for DM through team reflection on game-play situations is also considered, namely with regard to critical-incidents analysis and unexpected play-occurrences. In a context of the teaching/learning of DM in ITS in school, the authors submit that precedence should be given to information processing and to recognition-primed perspectives. Resort to mental representation networks and recognition of familiar configurations of play is critical to establish situation awareness and learn to make appropriate decisions. Such an option fits well with a social constructivist view of DM learning. Keywords: invasion team sports, decision making, situation awareness, information processing, recognition-primed process

Social Skills of Pupils with Mild Intellectual Disability: Do Peer Tutoring, Storytelling and Gender Play a Role?

Background: This research examined the significant main effect of peer tutoring, storytelling, and gender, on the social skills of pupils with mild intellectual disability. Using the Social Development Theory of Lev Vygotsky as the rationale for this study, the acquisition of social skills is viewed as based on a social constructivist view of learning. Methodology: The study sample consisted of thirty-four pupils with intellectual disability, purposively selected from three schools in Ibadan Metropolis, and randomly assigned to one of the peer tutoring, storytelling, or control groups. Thirty sessions were held over ten weeks with the peer tutoring and storytelling experimental groups only. A social skills performance scale was administered before and after the intervention to collect data from these three groups. An analysis of covariance was used to examine the data collected. Results: Findings based on the analysed data revealed that there was a significant statistical difference between pre-test and post-test results of the three groups. The effect of gender on social skills of participants was significant, as was the interaction effect of treatment and gender. Conclusion: Recommendations based on the finding of this study are that peer tutoring and storytelling be adopted for teaching social skills to pupils with mild intellectual disability, and that pictorial illustration be used to enhance their reading skills.

Government Agencies and their Discourses of Flood Disaster Preparedness: Impact on Response, Action and Community Empowerment

One of the severe global threats facing the world today is flooding. Similarly, Malaysia is faced with monsoon and flash floods which are the most severe "climate-related natural disasters" for the country. The Malaysian government is the main stakeholder and provider of aid in every stage of disaster. Consequently, the involvement of flood risk communities is said to be minimal and overlooked. Researchers have also stated that there is still a lack of research on human involvement and response. Thus, addressing these gaps, we take on a social constructionist view to situate flood disaster as a social practice and discourse to investigate how government officials ‘talk’ about their involvement in flood disaster mitigation and management. Our analysis is based on the perspective that their ‘talk’ evokes specific disaster discourses which relate to the different ways of understanding flood disaster, and that these discourses in turn shape and impact their response and action for flood mitigation and management as well as community empowerment. To this end, we adopt Van Leeuwen’s representation of social actors and social action framework to identify the disaster discourses drawn upon by the officials. The findings show that government officials employ various discourses that draw on the ‘ traditional framework of relief and rehabilitation ’ and a ‘ top-down government centric approach ’ that focus less on community empowerment. We see a need for the inclusion of a ‘ discourse of shared responsibility ’ that is part of a ‘ proactive approach ’, and sees all parties as partners, and in particular, flood risk communities.

Civil society legitimacy as a balancing act: competing priorities for land rights advocacy organisations working with local communities in Kenya

ABSTRACT While INGOs are known for having to balance competing demands in their quest for legitimacy, this article discusses a similar balancing act for local organisations working directly with communities in the field. Building on the social constructivist view that legitimacy is actor and context dependent, we examine how various parties perceive the legitimacy of three land rights advocacy organisations in Kenya. While regulatory and cognitive legitimacy have societal relevance, we found them to be of secondary importance to local communities, who primarily value pragmatic and political legitimacy sources such as adequate representation, demonstrable output, responsiveness, and visibility in the field.

An enactivist reconceptualization of the medical model

ABSTRACT According to the medical model that prevails in the Western world, mental disorder is a form of illness, parallel to bodily illness, which can be diagnosed by a doctor on the basis of symptoms and administered treatments designed to “cure” it. However, it seems clear that how we understand “disorder” is influenced by cultural norms and values. Theorists associated with the so-called anti-psychiatry movement have gone so far as to claim that ‘mental illness’ simply is the accepted term for behaviors and experiences that are problematic or do not fit the cultural norm. In my view, however, this social-constructionist view downplays and obscures the very real difficulties encountered by subjects with mental disorder. I argue that rather than rejecting the medical model altogether, we should revise the model by utilizing insights from the enactivist approach in philosophy of mind. An appeal to the enactivist notions of autonomy, sense-making, and adaptivity, I propose, can help us to (a) account for mental disorder’s normative aspect, so that we can navigate a middle way between the medical model and an anti-psychiatry stance; and (b) understand the way in which the neurobiological, social, and existential dimensions of mental disorder are integrated.

Love, Fear, and Disgust: Deconstructing Masculinities and Affective Embodiment in Pregnancy Guides for Men

Employing a material discursive approach, this article deconstructs advice within published guides to pregnancy and birth written by men for men. We deconstruct the representation of feelings and emotions in men during this period rejecting essentialist and social constructionist views of gendered emotionality. We find the texts are saturated with emotional advice, which is ambivalent and resorts to forms of essentialism that obscure male vulnerabilities and leave male forms of power intact. While men can expect to feel love, fear, and disgust, the case for male calm and stoicism is reconstructed, threatening dire consequences if he fails. Our study makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the affective assemblage that accompanies men who are now expected to care during pregnancy, labor, and birth. Men are constructed as having an embodied experience that cannot be admitted to, ensuring that hegemonic masculine understandings reinforce gendered constructions of care, caring and emotions during pregnancy, labor and birth.

Does Medicine Have Common Goals? An Analysis of US Medical Organizations’ Ethics Statements

A philosophical framework defines medicine. Multiple competing frameworks lead to varying and sometimes conflicting understandings of the physician-patient relationship, medicine's goals, and physicians' duties. The objective of this study is to categorize the various goals, identify the underlying philosophical framework, and determine inconsistency among US medical organizations. Twenty-five American Board of Medical Specialties-related organizations, the American Medical Association, and the American Osteopathic Association were searched for key goal-related terms in their ethics-related statements. Direct goal statements were also analyzed. Key terms were grouped as physician-centric/objective (best interest, treat disease, prevent disease, cope with illness, health care/promotion) representing the traditional ends of medicine, patient-centric/subjective (welfare/well-being, patient benefit) reflecting social constructionist methodology, or relational (services to humanity, medical/patient care). Each organization was characterized overall as traditional, social constructionist, or relational. Inconsistency was defined as the smaller between the social constructionist and traditional with relational possibly inconsistent. Definitions of key terms and references to philosophical frameworks were reviewed. Twenty-two organizations were included; 73 percent of statements as a whole reflected a social constructionist model with 18 percent having traditional ends and 9 percent a relational framework. There was an 18 percent to 27 percent inconsistency among organization statements as a whole; 68 percent of organizations had direct statements; 47 percent of direct statements reflected a social constructionist methodology, 33 percent the traditional ends, and 20 percent the relational model; 33 percent to 53 percent of direct statements were inconsistent among organizations. No definitions of key terms or explicit references to philosophical frameworks were found. There is substantial inconsistency regarding the direct goals of medicine without any definitions of key terms. This inconsistency and lack of clarity underlie disagreement regarding physicians' roles and their duties. Clear core goals such as treat and prevent disease would consistently define the physician-patient relationship, restore medicine's objectivity, and provide a distinct understanding of physicians' obligations. American medical organizations use a multiplicity of terms and have substantial inconsistency regarding the direct goals of medicine with neither a clear underlying theoretical basis nor a definition of key terms. Our analysis suggests the most common theoretical basis for the goals of medicine was the social constructivist view followed closely by the traditional ends of medicine (e.g., treat and prevent disease) and finally the relational model. The authors contend that the traditional ends of medicine are the best option for a core mission of medicine whereby the physician-patient relationship is consistently defined, and a physician's duties derived.

Bridging the gap between non-professional subtitling and translator training: a collaborative approach

ABSTRACT The impact of technology on audiovisual translation has been enormous, and it continues to change not only audiovisual production and distribution models but also the profile of the translator and the concept of audience. The development of new digital technologies has led to the emergence of internet communities of non-professional translators who subtitle popular TV series and films using freeware and sharing their collective intelligence. This article describes a teaching project which investigates the potential benefits of integrating activities inspired by non-professional subtitling into a formal teaching context. Making the most of their knowledge as fans as well as of their linguistic skills and socio-cultural awareness, students work in teams to produce interlingual subtitles for different episodes from a variety of TV series, including comedy, medical drama, crime and science fiction. Such collaborative approach, based on a social constructivist view of translator training, has important pedagogical implications for areas such as translator competence, student motivation and learner autonomy.

The steering effects of citations and metrics

PurposeThis paper aims to understand the nature of citations and metrics in the larger system of knowledge production involving universities, funding agencies, publishers, and indexing and data analytic services.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the normative and social constructivist views of citations are reviewed to be understood as co-existing conditions. Second, metrics are examined through the processes of commensuration by tracing the meanings of metrics embedded in various kinds of documents and contexts. Third, the steering effects of citations and metrics on knowledge production are discussed. Finally, the conclusion addresses questions pertaining to the validity and legitimacy of citations as data and their implications for knowledge production and the conception of information.FindingsThe normative view of citations is understood as an ideal speech situation; the social constructivist view of citation is recognised in the system of knowledge production where citing motivations are influenced by epistemic, social and political factors. When organisational performances are prioritised and generate system imperatives, motives of competition become dominant in shaping citing behaviour, which can deviate from the norms and values in the academic lifeworld. As a result, citations and metrics become a non-linguistic steering medium rather than evidence of research quality and impact.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the understanding of the nature of citations and metrics and their implications for the conception of information and knowledge production.

Toward a personology of green consumers: An application of personal projects

AbstractWith the aim of enriching the personology of green consumption, this paper draws from a social constructionist view of identity to propose the construct of personal projects as an adequate analytical unit for the study of green identity to explain the adoption of sustainable lifestyles. Using the personal project analysis methodology in a study with 103 adults and 510 personal projects, the current paper examines the thematic structure of personal projects that are more strongly associated with the adoption of sustainable consumption (SC); in addition, this study tests the mediating role of personal projects in the relationship between self‐transcendence values and SC and the moderation of project manageability in the relationship between personal projects and SC. The results show that the formulation of sustainable personal projects is significantly associated with the adoption of SC and that personal projects mediate the relationship between self‐transcendence values and SC. The results also suggest the moderating role of stressfulness. The paper shows the potential of personal projects as an analytical construct with which to study green consumers' identity.

Guidelines as governance: Critical reflections from a documentary analysis of guidelines to support user involvement in research.

Although guidelines to regulate user involvement in research have been advocated and implemented for several years, literature still describes the process as challenging. In this qualitative study, we take a critical view on guidelines that are developed to regulate and govern the collaboration process of user involvement in research. We adapt a social constructivist view of guidelines and our aim is to explore how guidelines construct the perception of users and researchers and thus the process of involvement. Twenty-two guidelines published between 2006 and 2019 were analyzed iteratively. The analysis focuses on values which are emphasized in the guidelines on the distribution of entities, knowledge, and tasks between users and researchers. The analysis indicates that users and researchers are constructed differently; researchers are mainly constructed as responsible initiators and caretakers, while users are constructed as powerless and vulnerable. The guidelines portray the collaboration process as harmonious and assume a normative perspective. In doing so, challenges described in the literature related to power imbalances are not addressed. Based on these findings, we ask if these guidelines might function to maintain existing power imbalances between users and researchers.

Cohesive Plurality

Following Peter Elbow’s work on ‘resonant voice’ or ‘presence’, this essay examines the seldom-explored resonance between a text and its writer in the moment of its creation. The essay asks what the boundaries and content of this space might look like, and how this knowledge might positively affect the creative product. It challenges the popular search for a writer’s ‘voice’, instead positing that each writer has a perpetually shifting internal plurality of voices, which unifies the constructivist and social constructionist views of the self. By arguing that the resonance between writer and writing is the experience of this plurality coming to harmony, the essay posits that to create such a resonance involves a balance of simultaneously relinquishing control to the internal choir and learning how to better conduct it.