Theoretical Orientation Research Articles

“Bridging the Skill Gaps”: Analyzing the Mismatch between Hospitality Education and Industry Needs in Uganda

This is a persistent problem of skill mismatch between graduates and employers’ needs in the Ugandan hospitality industry, resulting in skill deficits that hamper employability and industry advancement. Identifying the causes of these skill gaps is the aim of this study, together with establishing recommendations to narrow the gap existing between hospitality education and the industry. The study adopted the qualitative case study research design and sampled 26 respondents from recent hospitality graduates and employers, educators or trainers, and policymakers in Kabale District, Uganda. The findings were encoded through thematic analysis. Theoretical orientation is scant with practical and interpersonal skills. Some employers also reported a concern that more attention should be paid to enhancing the practical readiness of graduates at workplaces and that there should be an increased dialog between educational institutions and employers in the hospitality sector. According to the results of the study, there is a need for a closer connection between curricula and industry demands, interconnecting the abilities needed for practical work and soft skills. Recommendations include increasing communication between teachers and supervisors from industry, enhancing internship programs, and including practical aspects. It is recommended that such collaborations be promoted through policy and funding to guarantee the appropriate match of education to the labor market requirements. These steps are relevant for reducing the existing skill gap and making graduates fit for employment opportunities in the industry

Counselors’ theoretical orientations and competencies in counseling women

AbstractThe current study examined the relationship between theoretical orientations and competencies in counseling women among professional counselors. Counselors currently meeting clients were recruited from professional counseling organizations, and the responses from 265 counselors were analyzed using structural equation models. Results indicated that a stronger psychoanalytic orientation predicted lesser competencies in counseling women, while stronger humanistic, feminist, and multicultural orientations predicted higher competencies in counseling women. The study highlights the need for counselors to integrate theoretical orientations with social justice perspectives to better serve women.

Why was Hungarian so Important for Brian?

Brian MacWhinney started to study Hungarian for a psycholinguistic perspective from the 1970s on. The paper surveys his work on the unfolding of child morphology based on diary data, his experiments on morphological productivity in children of different ages, and his experiments on sentence processing in children and adults. By studying the unfolding of morphology, the emergence of sentence interpretation patterns, and the processing of relative clauses Brian MacWhinney certainly made two services to Hungarian psycholinguistics. He provided the domain with rich data for anyone coming from all theoretical orientations. At the same time, by relying on some peculiarities of the structure of Hungarian, he has put Hungarian into the center of discussions about the status of rules, the analytic and holistic approaches of sentence processing, and in general the import of a functionalist attitude towards language.

Theoretical and methodological orientations and positions of the problem of translation: on the example of philosophical texts

In the article the basics of the affiliation between philosophy and translation in connection with modern developments and changes in philosophy and translation were examined. The authors highlight the main reasons contributing to the deep transformation of humanitarian meanings, which are of particular interest and relevance. The purpose of the study is a philosophical view of the changing factors in the translation problem. The explanation of the concepts of “philosophy and translation” was reviewed. The authors interpret translation as a category of social philosophy. The main growth points for thoughts about the transfer of one of the central concepts of linguistics to the core of a broad interdisciplinary scientific discussion and its elevation to the category of social philosophy were reflected in its changed role and function. The authors also consider translation as an important factor in reviving cultural diversity and stimulating the growth of human creativity. It is concluded that the interpretation of translation as a factor that has a significant impact on a person requires consideration by the social philosophymethods. A methodology for analyzing important sociocultural phenomena, based on the dialectical ideais proposed. The main research method is the double opposition “philosophy—translation”. This approach includes the need to pay close attention to the connections between the whole and its important parts, which increases the relevance of analyzing the connections between them. Within this idea, the key conclusion is that philosophical categories are derived from real relations to science.

Cognitive-Discursive Didactic Sequence to Strengthen Inferential Reading of Elementary School Students

Currently, students in basic secondary school in Colombia have a low performance in reading comprehension at the inferential level. This pedagogical proposal aimed to strengthen the level of inferential reading of students who attend elementary school, through the application of a didactic sequence from the cognitive-discursive perspective. Theoretically, the concepts proposed by Cisneros, Olave and Rojas regarding four types of inferences were assumed. Likewise, the theoretical orientations of Van Dijk (1978), Solé (1992) and Martínez (2002) were taken into account to support the cognitive-discursive perspective adopted in the study. Methodologically, the qualitative approach was used with the action research method, and techniques such as observation, questionnaire, field diary and didactic sequence were used. In relation to the results, it is evident that the participants in the closing questionnaire increased significantly compared to the four types of inference evaluated, thus demonstrating greater interpretation when facing the texts.

Moving towards justice and equity: Interdisciplinary dismantling of ableism and racism in special education

ABSTRACT This special issue engages with the reality and consequences of the harms and benefits of special education with a focus on racial disproportionality. It draws upon the diverse disciplinary, methodological, and theoretical orientations and positionalities of the contributing authors to better understand how ableism and racism are key factors related to the disproportionality problem. Our hope is that these papers will provide researchers, practitioners, and policymakers new lines of inquiry and praxis, challenging assumptions about the purpose and scope of special education and developing an emancipatory and inter disciplinary reimagining of special education equity research.

JLT-Gespräch: Die Praxis der Literaturtheorie

Abstract JLT Talks offers a new format for discussing current topics in the field of literary theory. It was inspired by the focus of this special issue, which foregrounds the practice of literary theory. Although the amount of praxeological work has increased in recent years, there are only a few studies that deal specifically with literary theory. The participants in the discussion – Eva Geulen, Steffen Martus, and Carlos Spoerhase – explore the challenges facing a practical analysis of literary theory. They discuss what it might mean to move from the concept of theory to the concept of theorizing, and where the expected advantages and possible deficits of a praxeological approach and reconstruction of theorizing might lie. One focus is put on the questions of how theorizing can be conceptualized, which indicators are to be assumed, to what extent it differs from other practices in literary studies, and which forms and norms of theorizing should be analysed praxeologically. The discussion outlines a spectrum of theorizing practices, ranging from the establishment and implementation of ›grand theories‹ and the theoretical reflection of conceptual foundations to smaller-scale practices, such as abstraction and generalization. In addition, the analytical view of the activities and claims associated with ›theory‹ is distinguished from literary theorists’ self-reflection (self-understanding). Various features are discussed which indicate practices of theorizing, including abstracting, generalizing, explaining and disciplining scientific exchange. In addition, the discussants consider to what extent there are different ›degrees‹ of theorizing, and emphasize the need to distinguish between theory as a result and theory as an activity or process. As proposed, theorizing can be understood as an activity that shapes processes of literary research as a whole and is determined by the subject matter. It becomes clear that practices of theorizing should not be viewed in isolation, but rather in their interplay with other practices, especially practices of interpretation. Further questions that are addressed include the following: What do ›grand theories‹ with general explanatory claims such as deconstruction or systems theory achieve, and to what extent have they changed literary studies? How can theorizing be better conveyed in university teaching? The ›standard‹ approach – reading theoretical texts, deriving methodological consequences from them, and applying them to literary texts – is considered to be inadequate. Instead, in teaching, stronger emphasis should be put on theorizing as an intellectual and collaborative activity. This could be achieved by integrating practices of trial and error into the teaching of theory. The advantage of a theoretical orientation, in the sense of abstraction as well as the generalization of problems and statements, is undisputed, especially with regard to communication and exchange with the international academic community: a common theoretical basis seems to promote international exchange, while facilitating interdisciplinarity. Nevertheless, the question arises as to whether there is a certain ›level of theory‹ that guarantees international and interdisciplinary connectivity. What costs are associated with a specific level of generalization? To what extent is the development of abstract ›grand theories‹ driven by a striving for symbolic capital? Finally, the notorious question of the material required for a comprehensive praxeological analysis of theorizing is addressed.

Teaching the Critical Comparative Study of Religion as Engaged Global Citizenship

ABSTRACTIn this article, I make a case for bridging what I see as the competing demands faced by teacher‐scholars in higher education: our institutional orientations, our students' motivations, and our aspirations as scholars and educators. I contend that teaching about religion, broadly understood, regardless of theoretical and methodological orientation (be it within religious studies, for example, or theology, or philosophy of religion, or ethics, etc.) can be an impactful experience in the practice and cultivation of engaged global citizenship. Drawing from my own courses, and my use of the Reacting to the Past (RTTP) roleplay pedagogy, I show how a critically self‐aware practice is foundational to this goal, and how an integrated cross‐cultural comparative and collaborative method provides a powerful tool to accomplish this in dynamic and equitable ways.

Documenting the air

The air sustains, connects and conditions our lives and has been of growing relevance to social scientists adopting an atmospheric approach to social life. Nonetheless, in screen studies, air’s critical uptake has so far been limited to narrative cinema, leaving it undertheorized in non-fiction filmmaking. In this paper, I introduce theories of the air that flow from the broader rise of atmospheric socio-aesthetic theories and suggest that it is possible to understand the air as an agent in the relationship between a filmmaker and their practice, and the film and its viewers. To make this argument, I first present a theoretical orientation to air as it is implicated in the non-fiction filmmaking process, before considering how the air has been understood in film scholarship, and how it has been taken as a subject of filmmakers working in experimental traditions. I then consider two bodies of non-fiction filmmaking through this aethereal lens. The first is Margaret Tait and her concept of ‘breathing’ with the camera, and the second is Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah’s And Still, It Remains (2023). In these analyses, I argue that thinking aethereally allows us to consider the co-construction of documentarian, document and viewer.

Forming our grief rhythm: The relational window of tolerance for bereaved parents.

The shared loss of a child can present challenges to couple relationships as both partners attempt to cope with their own grief and their partner's grief. In this longitudinal qualitative study, five bereaved parent couples participated in 13 total interviews, revealing coregulatory interactions surrounding their shared loss. Using thematic coding and grounded theory analysis, their reflections were organized into three interrelated process themes: regulating self, regulating other, and forming our grief rhythm. This article explores the complexity of the last theme "forming our grief rhythm" in-depth, and a new theoretical orientation, the relational window of tolerance, is introduced to examine how couples coregulate both fragile and stable states within their shared grief. The reflections of bereaved parents indicated that prolonged "dual fragile states" and prolonged "imbalanced states" may hinder relationship quality. In order to regain relationship stability, couples learned to trade off supporting one another and/or to resonate with one another in their shared pain. Implications for future research and clinical practice are discussed, focusing especially on how to integrate individual and relational needs into grief therapy frameworks.

Grappling with Infidelity: The Experiences of Therapists

A presentation of infidelity has been described as one of the most challenging issues to work within couple therapy. Yet the subjective experiences of therapists as they engage with couples working through infidelity remains poorly understood. We undertook a grounded theory study building on the Person of The Therapist (POTT) model to explore this phenomenon. Eight therapists with up to 20 years’ professional experience who drew on a range of professional theoretical orientations formed our sample. Our analysis led us to conclude that the concept of ambivalence best captured and described therapists’ experiences of working with infidelity. We identify three distinct facets of this theme and developed a model of its trajectory over the course of the therapeutic process. In this way, our work contributes to our understanding of how therapists deal with infidelity and provides some much-needed guidance for therapists working in this field.

Exploring influences of supervision on psychotherapists’ professional development: correlates across career-level cohorts

ABSTRACT This exploratory study aims to extend and strengthen the empirical base for supervision as a facilitator of professional growth, as outlined in an established conceptual model, by exploring its correlates among psychotherapists across their entire professional career. Ratings of the impact of supervision by 6267 psychotherapists of different professions, theoretical orientations, and career levels in many countries who were currently in supervision were correlated, separately for each of five career cohorts, with aspects of their treatment experience, work situation, and personal characteristics. Large percentages of psychotherapists at all career levels, including senior psychotherapists, engaged in supervision and rated its impact on their development positively. Growth-facilitating supervision was associated broadly but moderately in all career cohorts mainly with interpersonal aspects of therapists’ treatment experience, with supportive work settings, and with caring and expressive personal characteristics. Some differential findings among cohorts also reflected potential developmentally based functions of supervision. The implications of results were considered both for supervisory practice, training and for future supervision research.

Childhoods, Cultures, and Critical Qualitative Inquiry: Researching the Political and Life Worlds of Children

The purpose of this special issue is to present work that moves beyond the dominant logic of childhoods as imposed on those who are younger, and instead, to demonstrate how critical empirical qualitative investigations that honor, as well as answer, the complex political and life worlds of children in the present and the past offer a way forward; a path that supports communities and the public institutions important to them so that all children can thrive and become the persons they want to be. To do so, these articles draw on different theoretical and methodological critical orientations and traditions to broadly consider the ways in which cultural studies rooted in critical qualitative research can generate knowledges that expand conceptualizations of/for multiple worlds of children/childhood. In doing so, these pieces examine the contemporary, multiple, and immanent cultural worlds and life conditions of children and notions of childhood—both past and present. Such work speaks to the complex, and often unjust, worlds of children and childhoods, and in doing so, the authors propose and illuminate discourse, policy, and relationship changes and actions required to address the complex pressing needs faced by children across a range of communities and/or public institutions.

Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Clinical Guide to Navigating Diagnostic Pluralism.

The controversies surrounding the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and International Classification of Diseases have generated significant debate across the psy-sciences. This debate has been further fueled by the launch of the Research Domain Criteria as a framework to facilitate advances in neuroscientific research, a renewed emphasis on dimensional models of psychopathology, currently exemplified by the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology, and development of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual by the psychodynamic community. In this article, we provide a clinical overview of recent debates surrounding categorical and dimensional approaches to psychiatric diagnosis, offer a critical assessment of proposed alternatives, and discuss how clinicians can navigate a plurality of diagnostic frameworks. Our discussion emphasizes that diagnostic frameworks need to be contextualized within the process of a comprehensive clinical evaluation, and their advantages and disadvantages should be understood in relationship to the theoretical orientations and practical needs of clinicians.

An Exploration of Unique Mental Health Challenges and Resilience Factors within the LGBTQ+ Community: A Systematic Review

Mental health challenges in the LGBTQ+ community pressing issues as it impact the overall health status. Despite the concerns raised on the discrimination, bias and stereotypes, new challenges arise, implicating challenges to the health sector. The present review of evidence focuses on the resilience factors and the unique mental health challenges faced by members of the LGBTQ+ community. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) were used to identify, select, appraise and synthesize evidence in the present review, whereas the Sample, phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation and Research type (SPIDER) protocol guided the selection of eligible studies to be reviewed. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach was used to rate the certainty of evidence about the unique mental health challenges and resilience factors within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQ+) community. Initial article search was limited to English publications and performed on electronic databases, including Google Scholar, ProQuest, PubMed, and Web of Science. The Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool was used to examine the risk of bias in the individual studies. Risk of bias assessment was performed on the domains, including due to the randomization process, bias due to deviations from intended interventions, bias due to missing outcome data, bias in the measurement of the outcomes, bias in the selection of the reported result, and the overall risk of bias, reflecting the overall risk of bias of the included studies. A qualitative synthesis of results was considered in the present systematic review. The evidence was contrasted and compared against the existing knowledge and theoretical orientation. The present review found that poor dissemination of interventions and implementations are unique mental health challenges among the LGBTQ+ community. The poor implementation and dissemination of interventions substantiate psychological distress, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts and deteriorates quality of life. The web or internet-based implementation of cognitive behavioral therapy emerged as effective resilience factor in the management of mental conditions among members of the LGBTQ+ community. Keywords: LGBTQ+, mental health, treatment, cognitive behavioral therapy, resilience factors, anxiety, depression, and interventions

Machine (network) learning in K-12 classrooms

In times when machine learning (ML) and other artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are expanding the role and definition of network learning in schools, this short paper reports from a practice-centred research project that explores how K-12 teachers affect and are affected by educational technologies with AI. Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, data-driven and decision-making systems with ML are already entering various educational policy and practice realms, often underpinned by promises of automation and personalization. A growing number of research, drawing from the theoretical orientations and empirical approaches from Science & Technology Studies is increasingly unpacking such promises as well as addressing controversies directly related to the constitutions of ML AI in education. Still, little research explores the adoption of data-driven AI technologies in classrooms from a socio-material, networked learning stance. This short paper introduces such work (in progress) drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Sweden. Guided by the ontological and methodological approaches of Actor-Network-Theory (ANT), the study focuses on the interactions in K-12 classrooms between commercial ML technologies and teachers. Methodologically this means engaging with both human and non-human actors through ethnographic approaches striving for very specific descriptions of interactions within the actor-network and its enacted realities. Preliminary findings from the first of two envisaged case studies in which a ML-based teaching aid in mathematics was tried out in 22 classrooms indicate how compensatory and contradictory actions and accounts emerge within the network of heterogeneous actors. Human actors seem to compensate for the algorithmic actions of the specific educational technology with ML. This is however not a fait accompli but a continuous and unsettled process in the making between humans and the (non-human) technology. Preliminary results also suggest how controversies of ML algorithms in teaching aids, such as their lack of transparency and algorithmic “governance” play out in authentic learning contexts. In conclusion, the paper argues that theoretical and methodological principles of ANT grant for non-deterministic narrative of the heterogeneous nature of educational practice and have the potential to open the black-box of machine learning in the emerging networked learning settings of K-12 classrooms.

E. S. Skoblikova, a linguist and a teacher (to mark the centenary of the scientist’s birth)

The article characterises the scientific legacy of Professor E. S. Skoblikova (1 June 1924 – 12 August 2016), a prominent Russian linguist, a specialist in modern Russian syntax, Russian dialectology, Russian orthography. The scientist authored monographs, university textbooks and manuals, series of articles on basic linguistic disciplines. She also compiled and edited the posthumous editions of university textbooks and fundamental scientific works of Professor A. N. Gvozdev, a corresponding member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR. The relevance of E. S. Skoblikova’s scientific works is determined by the distinctive feature of the theoretical and methodological orientation of her works, namely the adherence to the traditional approaches in resolving controversial issues and the interconnection of scientific and pedagogical thought. This principle remains significant in the conditions of the equally important principle of scientific pluralism.

Exploring the theory and ethics of autoethnographic social research with adult survivors of childchood sexual abuse (CSA)

This paper deals with the phenomenon of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) as an experience of those overpowered by it in the past: the survivors. It introduces on-going autoethnographic social research, on survivors of CSA by a survivor of CSA. The theoretical foundation and context of the research is delved into in detail, before giving an outline of ongoing research of the author. The empowerment theory is used as the main theoretical orientation, tagging other related concepts onto it, before linking it to the research methodology. This practice is autoethnographic and arts-based, as well as activist, as it has the aim at being a tool to empower both the participant and researcher alike. Ethics of such research are considered and ethical approaches are proposed, in order to strike a balance between protection and safety, as well as participation and visibility. This paper frames the act of abuse as overpowering, and focuses on the subsequent process of empowerment, post-abuse. The research has two main agendas: to keep the body in the forefront of the investigation, defined as every part of the human body, including the mind; and the survivors' process of empowerment. The paper ends with conclusions and considerations based on the theoretical framework but also the hypothetical, not yet conducted part of the research. This paper gives an insight into the process of research development, a snapshot of the journey of a novel researcher.

Towards a digital zemiology

Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2019) represents an unprecedented shift in modes and asymmetries of power. Operating within and through the digital sphere, this new era of capitalism has drastic implications for our understandings of modern surveillance, corporate power, and social control. The digital, in its diffuse simultaneously online and offline form, represents the spatialisation of control within which the user and the data they produce are commodified and their identities consolidated and dissected into knowable, marketable demographics which, once reassembled, no longer represent the human being once behind them (Hammond, 2016; Brusseau, 2020). The digital represents a new frontier of harm production, as user-generated data is exploited to serve corporate interests and the normalisation of digital surveillance has given way to user apathy and technological reliance, undermining user autonomy and opportunities for resistance, while commodifying not only our identities but the entirety of the human experience. Within this context an opportunity emerges to develop a zemiology informed by the digital context that can confront the deepening harms of technologisation and consider the future of resistance. By interrogating the intersection between developments in digital technology and harm production, this article aims to acknowledge the proliferation of normalised corporate surveillance through a development in capitalism (Zuboff, 2015; 2019), and to outline opportunities for theoretical development presented by the digital context, drawing upon works within zemiology (Pemberton, 2016), surveillance studies (Murakami Wood, 2007; Murakami Wood and Ball, 2013), postphenomenology (Ihde, 1990; Verbeek, 2011; Wood, 2021; 2022), and disconnection studies (Kuntsman and Miyake, 2022), to present an invitation to both a unique theoretical orientation and an emerging field of study: digital zemiology.

How Can We Study Change Processes in Psychotherapy While Addressing Its Interactive Nature

Does the empathy or personality of psychotherapists influence the way they do therapy? Is the therapeutic relationship the key to success? Questions such as these are commonly shared in Change Process Research (CPR) and outcome studies. However, these statements, posed in descriptive cross-sectional terms, often imply the use of strategies grounded in causal-linear explanatory models. The present study offers an alternative tool to measure elements of psychotherapy in dynamic, interactive, and interdependent terms. With nine observational categories defined under analytical-behavioral lens, the Acoveo System is an instrument designed to detect the potential functions of verbal exchanges that take place in the psychotherapeutic context from any theoretical orientation. A guide to its application is provided, and its usefulness is elaborated on two of the pivotal common factors in change process research: empathy and therapeutic alliance.