Differential access to productive agricultural resources stifles agricultural growth, nevertheless, this persists in developing countries. This study uses the feminist political economy to examine the relationship between gender and access to agricultural resources among maize farmers in Ghana. The research employed mixed methods involving the use of a survey instrument, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. The focus group discussions and key informant interviews involved 40 individuals. A cross-sectional survey of 80 farmers was undertaken using simple random and purposive sampling. The purposive sampling technique was used to select 5 out of 7 operational zones in the Awutu Senya West District. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 24 and NVivo software packages. The findings showed that access to resources such as land, agricultural extension services and information remained gendered. Whereas, access to credit, Information Communication Technology (ICT) and labour remained ungendered. The gendered and ungendered access to productive resources intersects with class, age, education and socio-cultural norms in shaping access to and control over resources. The study recommends that agricultural advisory services must prioritize women of low educational background and class who find themselves in patrilineal societies. This should be done from an intersectional gendered perspective taking into cognizance men and women differential access to productive resources to bridge existing gender gaps in context.

Gendered access to productive resources – evidence from small holder farmers in Awutu Senya West District of Ghana

This article explores university English as a Second Language (ESL) instructors’ attitudes toward translanguaging in the classroom and possible reasons for instructors’ resistance in moving translanguaging ideology into English language teaching pedagogy. Many researchers have forwarded translanguaging as a theoretical and pedagogical approach to language education because of its potential cognitive, social, and affective benefits. A translanguaging pedagogy calls for instructors to affirm the dynamic and diverse language practices that multilingual students utilize as part of their unitary language repertoire. However, because English-only pedagogies, policies, and practices still permeate the ESL classroom, it is critical to understand how ESL instructors’ language ideologies and orientations play a role in shaping their pedagogical practices and classroom language policies. Using Ruíz’s orientations in language planning and translanguaging theory, this study examined the language orientations of five ESL instructors at a major Canadian university based on qualitative data gathered through semistructured interviews. The findings provide insights into instructors’ attitudes toward translanguaging, the relationship between instructors’ language learning experiences and their classroom language policy, and institutional opportunities and constraints. \nLe présent article explore les attitudes des professeurs d’anglais langue seconde (ESL) au niveau universitaire face au translangagisme en salle de classe ainsi que les raisons possibles de leur résistance à l’introduction de l’idéologie translangagière dans la pédagogie de l’enseignement de l’anglais. De nombreux travaux de recherche renvoient au translangagisme comme démarche théorique et pédagogique d’enseignement des langues en raison de ses avantages cognitifs, sociaux et affectifs. La pédagogie translangagière invite les professeurs à soutenir le dynamisme et la diversité des pratiques langagières que les étudiantes et étudiants multilingues utilisent déjà dans le cadre de leur répertoire linguistique unitaire. Toutefois, puisque l’enseignement de l’anglais langue seconde en classe reste imprégné de pédagogies, de politiques, et de pratiques exclusivement anglophones, il est essentiel de comprendre le rôle que jouent les idéologies et les orientations des professeurs d’anglais langue seconde dans la formation de leurs pratiques pédagogiques et de leurs politiques d’enseignement en classe. S’inspirant des orientations de Ruíz en matière de planification langagière et de théorie translangagière, la présente étude examine les orientations linguistiques de cinq professeures et professeurs d’anglais langue seconde dans une grande université canadienne à l’aide de données qualitatives recueillies dans le cadre d’entrevues semi-structurées. Les conclusions de l’enquête aident à mieux comprendre les attitudes des professeurs face au translangagisme, la relation entre les expériences d’apprentissage langagier des professeurs, et leur politique langagière en classe ainsi que les possibilités et les contraintes institutionnelles.

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Translanguaging-as-Resource: University ESL Instructors’ Language Orientations and Attitudes Toward Translanguaging

How does open innovation enhance productivity? An exploration in the construction ecosystem

Adults with hearing loss (AHL) often report feeling fatigued after being in situations that require prolonged listening, an experience referred to as listening-related fatigue. We conducted focus g...

Understanding Listening-Related Fatigue: Perspectives of Adults with Hearing Loss.

The restoration of the livelihood of forest-based communities is an important element of forest conservation. In this study, we developed a framework of restorative justice to critically evaluate the fairness and equity of the management of non-timber forest products (NTFPs), which is often considered an important means of livelihood restoration in forest conservation. The framework, consisting of three tenets—recognitional, procedural, and distributive justice—was applied to an ethnographic study conducted in the Greater Khingan Range—a key site of forest conservation in China. The findings reveal that attempts to commercialize and use NTFPs have failed to achieve restorative justice. From the perspective of recognition justice, which concerns the different viewpoints being considered in decision-making, there is an imbalance in representation—higher-level government's preferences for certain action result in the creation of political projects, even though they are not likely to succeed, whereas local, bottom-up NTFP projects are ignored and under-supported by the government. From the procedural perspective, the lack of engagement of experts and participation of public undermines the quality of NTFP projects and the implementation of NTFP management policies. From the distribution perspective, the opportunities to gain benefits from NTFP projects are not equally distributed between state-owned forestry enterprise (SOFE) workers and non-workers. These findings show that it is important to incorporate fairness and equity issues considerations in the design and evaluation of NTFP projects, and our restorative justice framework provides an analytical basis to do so.

Non-timber forest products as livelihood restoration in forest conservation: A restorative justice approach

The purpose of this paper is to explain the rationale for choosing the qualitative approach to research human resources practices, namely, recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management, rewards management, employee communication and participation, diversity management and work and life balance using deductive and inductive approaches to analyse data. The paper adopts an emic perspective that favours the study of transfer of human resource management practices from the point of view of employees and host country managers in subsidiaries of western multinational enterprises in Ghana.,Despite the numerous examples of qualitative methods of data generation, little is known particularly to the novice researcher about how to analyse qualitative data. This paper develops a model to explain in a systematic manner how to methodically analyse qualitative data using both deductive and inductive approaches.,The deductive and inductive approaches provide a comprehensive approach in analysing qualitative data. The process involves immersing oneself in the data reading and digesting in order to make sense of the whole set of data and to understand what is going on.,This paper fills a serious gap in qualitative data analysis which is deemed complex and challenging with limited attention in the methodological literature particularly in a developing country context, Ghana.

Theophilus Azungah

Papers

Qualitative research: deductive and inductive approaches to data analysis