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The problem of linking 'explanation' & 'understanding' remains unresolved -- as Weber left it. This paper challenges the view that their reconciliation is impossible, as some theorists have maintained. Their case is that the entities involved -- subjective meanings & objective relationships -- are too ontologically different to be combined. From the stratified ontology of Social Realism, which acknowledges that different properties & powers pertain to different components & levels of social reality, this is no barrier in principle to their combination. However, in practice Realists have not given an adequate account of how 'subjectivity' & 'objectivity' are linked, which also weakens Realism's solution to the 'problem of structure & agency.' This paper offers a refinement: the human power of reflexivity is viewed as mediating between our subjective concerns & our objective social contexts. Reflexive deliberations account for what agents actually do -- and they do not all do the same thing -- under very similar social circumstances. The introduction of reflexivity enables the (socially) objective & the (personally) subjective to be combined into a single account of socially structured & structuring action

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The higher education impact agenda, scientific realism and policy change: the case of electoral integrity in Britain

Pressures have increasingly been put upon social scientists to prove their economic, cultural and social value through ‘impact agendas’ in higher education. There has been little conceptual and empirical discussion of the challenges involved in achieving impact and the dangers of evaluating it, however. This article argues that a critical realist approach to social science can help to identify some of these key challenges and the institutional incompatibilities between impact regimes and university research in free societies. These incompatibilities are brought out through an autobiographical ‘insider-account’ of trying to achieve impact in the field of electoral integrity in Britain. The article argues that there is a more complex relationship between research and the real world which means that the nature of knowledge might change as it becomes known by reflexive agents. Secondly, the researchers are joined into social relations with a variety of actors, including those who might be the object of study in their research. Researchers are often weakly positioned in these relations. Some forms of impact, such as achieving policy change, are therefore exceptionally difficult as they are dependent on other actors. Strategies for trying to achieve impact are drawn out such as collaborating with civil society groups and parliamentarians to lobby for policy change

Residuality and inconsistency in the interpretation of socio-theoretical systems

This article addresses the interpretation and criticism of theoretical systems. Its particular focus is on how to assess the success of theories in dealing with some specific phenomenon. We are interested in how to differentiate between cases where a theory offers an unsatisfactory acknowledgement of a specified phenomenon and those where a theory offers a deeper, more systematic understanding. We address these meta-theoretical issues by developing Parsons’s analysis of positive and residual categories in various respects including a focus on mutual support as the basis of positivity, differentiating synectic (reconcilable) and antinomic (irreconcilable) residual categories, and distinguishing divisions that are central to systems from those between centre and periphery. We also consider how this conceptual toolkit can be put into practice

Administrative Managers – A Critical Link

Institutional responses to changes in the higher education environment have caused movements in the roles and identities of administrative managers in UK universities. These shifts have highlighted the problem for individuals of balancing traditional public service considerations of administration with institutional innovation and development. Administrative managers find themselves not only acting as independent arbiters, giving impartial advice on the basis of professional expertise, but also becoming involved in political judgements about institutional futures. They increasingly undertake an interpretive function between the various communities of the university and its external partners. As the boundaries of the university have become more permeable, administrative and academic management have inter-digitated, and hybrid roles have developed. In undertaking increasingly complex functions, therefore, administrative managers play a critical role in linking the academic and executive arms of governance in the university

A useful savagery: The invention of violence in nineteenth-century England

‘A Useful Savagery: The Invention of Violence in Nineteenth-Century England’ considers a particular configuration of attitudes toward violence that emerged in the early decades of the nineteenth century. As part of a longer-term process of emerging ‘sensibilities,’ violence was, seemingly paradoxically, ‘invented’ as a social issue while concurrently relocated in the ‘civilised’ imagination as an anti-social feature mainly of ‘savage’ working-class life. The dominant way this discourse evolved was through the creation of a narrative that defined ‘civilisation’ in opposition to the presumed ‘savagery’ of the working classes. Although the refined classes were often distanced from the physical experience of violence, concern with violence and brutality became significant parts of social commentary aimed at a middle-class readership. While stridently redefining themselves in opposition to ‘brutality,’ one of the purposes of this literature was to create a new middle class and justify the expansion of state power. By the closing decades of the nineteenth century, as the working classes adopted tenets of Victorian respectability, a proliferating number of social and psychological ‘others’ were identified against which ‘civilised’ thought could define itself

Assessing fitness-to-practice of overseas-trained health practitioners by Australian registration & accreditation bodies

Assessment of fitness-to-practice of health professionals trained overseas and who wish to practice in Australia is undertaken by a range of organisations. These organisations conduct assessments using a range of methods. However there is very little published about how these organisations conduct their assessments. The purpose of the current paper is to investigate the methods of assessment used by these organisations and the issues associated with conducting these assessments

Storytelling in den Vereinten Nationen: Mahbub ul Haq und menschliche Entwicklung

Ausgehend von der Beobachtung, dass Mitarbeiter der Vereinten Nationen eine wichtige Rolle in Prozessen des ideellen Wandels auf internationaler Ebene spielen können, beschäftigt sich dieser Beitrag mit einer bestimmten Form individuellem Einflusses – dem storytelling. Mein Verständnis von storytelling als Einflusstaktik kombiniert dabei kollektive Elemente der soziologischen Praxistheorie mit den reflexiven, akteursbezogenen Überlegungen von Michel de Certeau. Ich analysiere storytelling anhand von drei analytischen Elementen: einem (chronologischen) Plot, einer Reihe von Charakteren und einem interpretativen Thema – die jeweils ihre Wirkung im Zusammenspiel mit der Subjektivität ihres storytellers entfalten. Ich illustriere diese theoretischen Überlegungen mit dem Fall von Mahbub ul Haq, dem es als Sonderberater des United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-Administrators zu Beginn der 1990er Jahre gelungen ist, die Idee der menschlichen Entwicklung im System der Vereinten Nationen und der internationalen Entwicklungspolitik zu etablieren

Identifying educator behaviours for high quality verbal feedback in health professions education: literature review and expert refinement

Background Health professions education is characterised by work-based learning and relies on effective verbal feedback. However the literature reports problems in feedback practice, including lack of both learner engagement and explicit strategies for improving performance. It is not clear what constitutes high quality, learner-centred feedback or how educators can promote it. We hoped to enhance feedback in clinical practice by distinguishing the elements of an educator’s role in feedback considered to influence learner outcomes, then develop descriptions of observable educator behaviours that exemplify them. Methods An extensive literature review was conducted to identify i) information substantiating specific components of an educator’s role in feedback asserted to have an important influence on learner outcomes and ii) verbal feedback instruments in health professions education, that may describe important educator activities in effective feedback. This information was used to construct a list of elements thought to be important in effective feedback. Based on these elements, descriptions of observable educator behaviours that represent effective feedback were developed and refined during three rounds of a Delphi process and a face-to-face meeting with experts across the health professions and education. Results The review identified more than 170 relevant articles (involving health professions, education, psychology and business literature) and ten verbal feedback instruments in health professions education (plus modified versions). Eighteen distinct elements of an educator’s role in effective feedback were delineated. Twenty five descriptions of educator behaviours that align with the elements were ratified by the expert panel. Conclusions This research clarifies the distinct elements of an educator’s role in feedback considered to enhance learner outcomes. The corresponding set of observable educator behaviours aim to describe how an educator could engage, motivate and enable a learner to improve. This creates the foundation for developing a method to systematically evaluate the impact of verbal feedback on learner performance