745 research outputs found
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The emergence of an ethic of care in rural Kenyan schools? Perspectives of teachers and orphaned and vulnerable pupils
In the context of HIV, there is considerable debate about the role of schools and teachers as potential sources of care and support for vulnerable children. This qualitative research examines âcareâ as experienced and practiced by pupils and teachers in rural Western Kenya. In primary and secondary schools, interviews were conducted with 18 teachers and 57 orphaned and vulnerable pupils, alongside Photovoice. Drawing on thematic analysis and an âethic of careâ theoretical perspective, we unpack the informal caring practices of teachers within resource-constrained settings. The research provides glimpses of schools as spaces of care, participation and support for orphaned and vulnerable pupils. Recognising and providing institutional support for the development of an ethic of care in schools may help to tackle the considerable educational barriers facing girls and boys who are orphaned and vulnerable and move âcareâ closer towards the centre of educational policy and practice in the global South
Feeling our way: academia, emotions and a politics of care
This paper aims to better understand the role of emotions in academia, and their part in producing, and challenging, an increasingly normalized neoliberal academy. It unfolds from two narratives that foreground emotions in and across academic spaces and practices, to critically explore how knowledges and positions are constructed and circulated. It then moves to consider these issues through the lens of care as a political stance towards being and becoming academics in neoliberal times. Our aim is to contribute to the burgeoning literature on emotional geographies, explicitly bringing this work into conversation with resurgent debates surrounding an ethic of care, as part of a politic of critiquing individualism and managerialism in (and beyond) the academy. We consider the ways in which neoliberal university structures circulate particular affects, prompting emotions such as desire and anxiety, and the internalisation of competition and audit as embodied scholars. Our narratives exemplify how attendant emotions and affect can reverberate and be further reproduced through university cultures, and diffuse across personal and professional lives. We argue that emotions in academia matter, mutually co-producing everyday social relations and practices at and across all levels. We are interested in their political implications, and how neoliberal norms can be shifted through practices of caring-with
The complications of âhiring a hubbyâ: gender relations and the commoditisation of home maintenance in New Zealand
This paper examines the commoditization of traditionally male domestic tasks through interviews with handymen who own franchises in the company âHire a Hubbyâ in New Zealand and homeowners who have paid for home repair tasks to be done. Discussions of the commoditization of traditionally female tasks in the home have revealed the emotional conflicts of paying others to care as well as the exploitative and degrading conditions that often arise when work takes place behind closed doors. By examining the working conditions and relationships involved when traditionally male tasks are paid for, this paper raises important questions about the valuing of reproductive labour and the production of gendered identities. The paper argues that while working conditions and rates of pay for âhubbiesâ are better than those for people undertaking commoditized forms of traditionally female domestic labour, the negotiation of this work is still complex and implicated in gendered relations and identities. Working on the home was described by interviewees as an expression of care for family and a performance of the ârightâ way to be a âKiwi blokeâ and a father. Paying others to do this labour can imply a failure in a duty of care and in the performance of masculinity
Student accounts of space and safety at a South African university: implications for social identities and diversity
Transformation efforts in South African higher education have been under increased scrutiny in recent years, especially following the last years of student activism and calls for decolonization of universities. This article presents data from a participatory photovoice study in which a group of students reflect on their experiences of feeling safe and unsafe at an urban-based historically disadvantaged university. Findings highlight the way in which historical inequalities on the basis of social identities of race, class, and gender, among others, continue to shape experiences, both materially and social-psychologically, in South African higher education. However, and of particular relevance in thinking about a socially just university, participants speak about the value of diversity in facilitating their sense of both material and subjective safety. Thus, a diverse classroom and one that acknowledges and recognizes students across diversities, is experienced as a space of comfort, belonging and safety. Drawing on feminist work on social justice, we argue the importance of lecturer sensitivity and reflexivity to their own practices, as well as the value of social justice pedagogies that not only focus on issues of diversity and equality but also destabilize dominant forms of didactic pedagogy, and engage studentsâ diverse experiences and perceptions
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Making Sense of Family Deaths in Urban Senegal: Diversities, Contexts, and Comparisons
Despite calls for cross-cultural research, Minority world perspectives still dominate death and bereavement studies, emphasizing individualized emotions and neglecting contextual diversities. In research concerned with contemporary African societies, on the other hand, death and loss are generally subsumed within concerns about AIDS or poverty, with little attention paid to the emotional and personal significance of a death. Here, we draw on interactionist sociology to present major themes from a qualitative study of family deaths in urban Senegal, theoretically framed through the duality of meanings-in-context. Such themes included family and community as support and motivation; religious beliefs and practices as frameworks for solace and (regulatory) meaning; and material circumstances as these are intrinsically bound up with emotions. Although we identify the experience of (embodied, emotional) pain as a common response across Minority and Majority worlds, we also explore significant divergencies, varying according to localized contexts and broader power dynamics
Engaging with childhood: student placements and the employability agenda.
Employability is a particular organising narrative within the global, neoliberal economic discourse, with increasing relevance across different educational contexts. For universities in the UK, student employability, that is the readiness of students to gain and maintain employment and contribute to the economy, is a significant feature of accountability with employability outcomes increasingly used by students in making their decision of which university to attend. Yet little attention is paid to the organizing power of the employability agenda and to university studentsâ participation in that agenda apart from focussing on knowledge and skills relevant to gain employment. This is particularly concerning in university programmes that develop professionals who work with children.
Placement, gaining knowledge, skills and experience in the places where children and young people are found, is a common aspect of employability being embedded within programme curricula. This article explores the organising power of the employability agenda for children and young people in a context of university placements. Focused on student experiences on placement in primary school settings in the north of England analysis considers studentsâ engagement with their own learning and the children who are essential to that learning
Ethical considerations when involving older people in public service participation processes
In the United Kingdom, as in many other countries, New Labour governments have heavily promoted different forms of âservice-user involvementâ in decision making about public services. The current orthodoxy would appear to be that involvement activities carry with them de facto benefits that are both affirmative and empowering. However, relatively little research has been carried out into considering the real impact (emotional or otherwise) of involving citizens in such processes. In this paper, the findings from a small-scale qualitative study led the authors to reflect that when outcomes of consultation are undesired and that when the precise role of those involved is left unclear in terms of purpose, responsibility and accountability, people can be left with powerful, often uncomfortable, feelings. The ethical dimensions of involving people without adequate, prior preparation or ongoing support are discussed, with suggestions made as to how public organisations can take an ethically sound approach to participation. Drawing on research ethics, and informed by the ethics of care, methods through which the potentially harmful effects of involvement can be mitigated are proposed
Analysing the professional development of teaching and learning from a political ethics of care perspective
This paper uses Trontoâs political ethics of care as a normative framework to evaluate
a model of teaching and learning professional development. This framework identifies
five integrated moral elements of care â attentiveness, responsibility, competence,
responsiveness and trust. This paper explicates on each of these elements to evaluate
the piloting and implementation of a teaching and learning professional development
model at a South African higher education institution. The political ethics of care was
found to be a useful normative framework for a group of higher educators to reflect on
the process of engaging in teaching and learning professional development in that it
revealed the importance of differential power relations, the importance of working
collaboratively and being attentive to the needs of both caregivers and care receivers.Web of Scienc
Care of the oldâA matter of ethics, organization and relationships
The world stands on the threshold of a demographic revolution called global ageing. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the population aged 60 and over is expected to increase from today's 650 million to an estimated 2 billion by 2050. Alongside demographic changes, dramatic changes can also be observed in older people's services. The shift has resulted in reduced government spending on caring for ill and frail older people in health care. Today, many governments have developed strategies to keep older people living well in their private home for as long as possible and have replaced long-term care institutions with residential homes. The aim of this study was to illuminate the meaning of caring for older people as experienced by health care students and professionals working in this field. Interviews were carried out with 17 women and one man, aged 21â65 years; six were Registered Nurses (RN), six were Enrolled Nurses (EN) and six were nursing students. The interviews were analyzed with a phenomenological hermeneutical approach and provided three themes and eight sub-themes: Ethical moral self with sub-themes âmeeting the needs of the oldâ, âpliability towards the oldâ, and âdifficulties in meeting aggressivenessâ; Organizational and co-workers ethical moral actions with sub-themes, âco-workers who are offensiveâ, and âsupportive and non-supportive leadersâ: The relation with the old persons and their relatives with sub-themes âfellowship and closeness in the relationâ, âuncertainty and fear in the relationâ, and, âdemands from the older personsâ close relativesâ
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