Implementing English Education Policy in Japan: Intersubjectivity at the Micro-, Meso-, and Macrolevels

Introduction: The opposition of structure and agency

This paper argues that that much published tourism and hospitality research has had little influence on tourism or hospitality practice especially with regard to the problems of sustainability because of a failure to use systems thinking to guide research questions and approaches. This critical review and conceptual paper demonstrates how a systems thinking approach could be used to improve both the relevance of, and theoretical development in, tourism and hospitality research in the area of sustainability. This paper reviewed recent published research into tourism’s social impacts to demonstrate the power of taking a systems approach to map out the research problem area. It then critically reviewed the use of concepts from psychology in published research into guest engagement in sustainability programs in hospitality businesses to demonstrate the value of systems thinking for organising theoretical concepts. In both of the reviewed areas the overwhelming conclusion was that the majority of the research lacked both practical relevance and was based on inappropriate or deficient theoretical understanding.

Using systems thinking to improve tourism and hospitality research quality and relevance: a critical review and conceptual analysis

This paper outlines two models for understanding the roots of adult safeguarding/adult support and protection (ASP) policy and practice, and considers the strengths and limitations of each model in an educational context. The ‘discovery’ model understands ASP policy to be a response to a growing societal awareness of a phenomenon called ‘harm’ to ‘adults at risk’. It understands ASP practice to be triggered by the discovery of an instance of that phenomenon. The ‘construction’ model understands ASP policy to reflect a particular characterisation of the problem(s) at stake, contingent on particular historical, cultural and political influences. It understands ASP practice to be actively engaged in re-constructing ‘harm’, ‘adults at risk’ and ‘ASP’ itself. The discovery model is argued to be useful in delivering a clear, basic message to practitioners about harm and abuse, particularly where time and the potential for interaction in educational contexts are limited. The construction model is argued ...

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Discovery or Construction? Theorising the Roots of Adult Protection Policy and Practice

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of geopolitics by offering a heuristic framework to understand the “geo” in geopolitics. The approach integrates economic and strategic processes with transformations of physical geography by emphasizing the role of context and the mutual construction of geography and politics. Understanding foreign policy choices requires a theorized contextualization that sees all geopolitical decisions being limited by the interaction of economic, strategic, and physical contexts. Geopolitics is situated within the structures and imperatives of the capitalist world-economy and defined as the process of controlling geographic entities; specifically, regions, networks, and places. Geopolitical activity occurs within three related contexts; specifically, geostructural, geostrategic, and geophysical. The geographic entities and contexts are constructed by geopolitical activity, and frame such activity, in a non-deterministic and mutually constitutive fashion. The framework is illustrated by a brief discussion of Australia’s foreign policy orientations in the Indo-Pacific region.

Introduction: The opposition of structure and agency

Citations

Implementing English Education Policy in Japan: Intersubjectivity at the Micro-, Meso-, and Macrolevels

Using systems thinking to improve tourism and hospitality research quality and relevance: a critical review and conceptual analysis

Discovery or Construction? Theorising the Roots of Adult Protection Policy and Practice

Putting the “geo” into geopolitics: a heuristic framework and the example of Australian foreign policy

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