Showing papers on "Field (Bourdieu) published in 2012"

The network takeover

Abstract: Reductionism, as a paradigm, is expired, and complexity, as a field, is tired. Data-based mathematical models of complex systems are offering a fresh perspective, rapidly developing into a new discipline: network science.

Computational creativity: the final frontier?

Abstract: Notions relating to computational systems exhibiting creative behaviours have been explored since the very early days of computer science, and the field of Computational Creativity research has formed in the last dozen years to scientifically explore the potential of such systems. We describe this field via a working definition; a brief history of seminal work; an exploration of the main issues, technologies and ideas; and a look towards future directions. As a society, we are jealous of our creativity: creative people and their contributions to cultural progression are highly valued. Moreover, creative behaviour in people draws on a full set of intelligent abilities, so simulating such behaviour represents a serious technical challenge for Artificial Intelligence research. As such, we believe it is fair to characterise Computational Creativity as a frontier for AI research beyond all others—maybe, even, the final frontier.

Evaluating teacher evaluation

Abstract: Popular modes of evaluating teachers are fraught with inaccuracies and inconsistencies, but the field has identified better approaches

A Conceptual Development of Simons’ Levers of Control Framework

Abstract: The management control literature has been criticised for having concepts that are ill-defined. This causes mixed empirical results and makes it difficult to build a coherent body of knowledge. The paper addresses this issue by developing an important framework, that of Simons’ Levers of Control, which has been criticised in the past for its vague and ambiguous definitions. Using methods of concept analysis, the paper analyses prior literature to identify ambiguities with the different levers of control and uses examples from prior field studies to illustrate these ambiguities. The paper also analyses the positive and negative dimensions of controls which, although part of Simons’ framework, have remained unexplored. For each ambiguity identified, the paper proposes a solution to improve concept definitions or to clarify the relationship between concepts. The result is a revised framework that explicitly separates managerial intentions for controls and employee perceptions of controls. Managerial intentions are comprised of three levels: 1) types of controls (social and technical) 2) which are organised as four control systems (strategic performance, operational performance, strategic boundaries and operational boundaries) and 3) which can be used diagnostically or interactively, have an enabling or constraining role and can lead to either reward or punishment. Finally, after defining the framework’s concepts and explaining how they interact, the paper concludes by offering avenues for future research.

Learning in the field: Synthesis of research on thinking and learning in the geosciences

Abstract: Learning in the fi eld has traditionally been one of the fundamental components of the geoscience curriculum. In light of the historical value that has been ascribed to fi eld instruction, there is a surprising paucity of scholarly studies that provide the direct evidence to support these claims. The preponderance of literature is descriptive and anecdotal, but in aggregate, these reports reveal a communal experience, which we recognize as “practitioners’ wisdom,” that places a high value on fi eld instruction in the training of geoscientists. We initially review the attributes of learning in the fi eld environment, instructional goals for fi eld instruction, the place of fi eld instruction in the modern geoscience curriculum, and the value that has been ascribed to learning in the fi eld in terms of cognitive and metacognitive gains, aspects of the affective domain, impacts on learning through immersion in nature, and the role of fi eld instruction in providing the foundation for development of skills and expertise in the geosciences. The theory and practice of the cognitive, learning, and social sciences provide further insights into thinking and learning in the fi eld setting in three important domains: (1) embodiment, how body and mind are integrated through interactions within the natural and social environments in which geoscientists work; (2) creation and use of inscriptions (i.e., constructed representations of natural phenomena such as maps, sketches, and diagrams) to explain, confi rm, rationalize, and externalize our understanding of Earth; and (3) initiation into the community of practice that has established accepted norms and practices related to language and discourse, selection and use of tools, ethics and values, and a common understanding of the assumptions, limitations, and uncertainties inherent in the discipline. These insights on how people learn in the fi eld have important implications for what and how we teach in the geoscience curriculum, and they provide a framework to guide future research. Our initial fi ndings indicate that learning in the fi eld results in cognitive and metacognitive gains for students; produces affective responses that have a positive impact on student learning; affords types of learning that cannot be easily achieved in other, more controlled environments; facilitates creation and use of representations of nature (inscriptions) in learning; helps initiate novices into the community of geoscience practice; and provides a solid foundation for development of geoscience expertise. Mogk, D.W., and Goodwin, C., 2012, Learning in the fi eld: Synthesis of research on thinking and learning in the geosciences, in Kastens, K.A., and Manduca, C.A., eds., Earth and Mind II: A Synthesis of Research on Thinking and Learning in the Geosciences: Geological Society of America Special Paper 486, p. 131–163, doi:10.1130/2012.2486(24). For permission to copy, contact editing@geosociety.org. © 2012 The Geological Society of America. All rights reserved. on June 22, 2012 specialpapers.gsapubs.org Downloaded from

Supporting Students' Intentions to Persist in STEM Disciplines: The Role of Living-Learning Programs among other Social-Cognitive Factors

Abstract: Using Social Cognitive Career Theory as a guide, we explored the relationship between students' participation in living-learning programs and their intention to earn a baccalaureate in STEM. We found that STEM-focused programs, in comparison to general forms, held promise in supporting students' intentions to graduate in a STEM field.

Defining the ‘object’ of public relations research: A new starting point:

Abstract: In this article I consider the importance of paradigmatic variety in the scholarly field of public relations. I reflect on the role that both conflict and cooperation between different paradigms play in the development of academic fields, and review definitions of public relations to examine the extent to which both are present in public relations scholarship. Based on this discussion, I consider the assumptions that underpin existing approaches to public relations in order to reveal the ways in which they are connected, as well as differentiated, along a series of continua. I conclude by proposing a new definition of public relations, as flow rather than organizational function, that can accommodate the range of research encompassed by these continua, thereby facilitating greater unity, inclusivity and, I would hope, dialogue in the field.

Under Construction: The Field of Online Deliberation Research

Abstract: How might we describe the development of online deliberation as a field of research and practice? How should we interpret its significance? In this introductory essay to the Special Issue, we argue...

Being strategic, being watchful, being determined: Black middle-class parents and schooling

Abstract: This paper reports on qualitative data that focus on the educational strategies of middle-class parents of Black Caribbean heritage. Drawing on Bourdieu’s key concepts of habitus, capital and field, our focus is an investigation of the differences that are apparent between respondent parents in their levels of involvement with regard to schools. We conclude that, within a broadly similar paradigm of active involvement with and monitoring of schools, nuanced differences in parental strategising reflect whether academic achievement is given absolute priority within the home. This, in turn, reflects differential family habitus, and differential possession and activation of capitals.

Household Finance: An Emerging Field

Abstract: Household finance - the normative and positive study of how households use financial markets to achieve their objectives - has gained a lot of attention over the past decade and has become a field with its own identity, style and agenda. In this paper we review its evolution and most recent developments.

Vulgate accountability: insights from the field of football

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to critically reflect upon the use of the term accountability in the twenty‐first century and its role in “remaking the world in favour of the most powerful” using the theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Lacan.Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines the notion of accountability by analyzing a case study of the hostile takeover of Manchester United Football Club by the Glazer family. The field of football presents an interesting arena in which to study accountability because of its extremely interested and active fans who search for information on every aspect of their clubs. Lacanian theory is drawn upon to add to understanding of the psychopathology which the demands for accountability and transparency place on individuals. Bourdieu's work on illusio is drawn upon to understand the motivations of the field of football.Findings – The paper finds that calls to “hold the most powerful to account” in practice lack political force. Thus the case study demons...

Elias and Bourdieu

Abstract: The primary goal of this article is to uncover the deep-seated conceptual affinities between Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias. The second goal is to demonstrate that, in part because of their diverging sensitivities, when taken together the two authors’ highly compatible approaches yield a vision more fertile than either of their sociological perspectives considered separately. Tracing the intellectual roots of the two author’s three core concepts – habitus, field/figuration, and power/capital – we show how they selectively appropriated from their predecessors. We then outline how each of the two authors used their overlapping triadic approaches to interrogate a range of empirical phenomena. Attempting to make the authors’ unexploited complementarity more tangible, we reflect on a simultaneously Elias- and Bourdieu-inspired approach to the body-centred world of sport. The conclusion argues that looking back at Elias and Bourdieu’s theoretical contributions together can revitalize our conceptualizing and ...

The concept of participation. If they have access and interact, do they really participate?

Abstract: Participation is a concept that is being used in a wide variety of fields, and that has obtained an evenly large range of meanings. This article attempts first to ground participation in democratic theory, which allows introducing the distinction between minimalist and maximalist forms of participation. In the second part of the article, a broad definition of the politics will be used to transcend to logics of institutionalized politics, and to emphasize that the distribution of power in society is a dimension of the social that permeates every possible societal field. Both discussions are then used to describe the key characteristics of participation, and to increase the concept’s theoretical foundation. The article then zooms in on one of these characteristics, namely the difference between access, interaction and participation, as this distinction allows further sharpening the key meanings attributed to participation as a political process where the actors involved in decision-making processes are positioned towards each other through power relationships that are (to an extent) egalitarian.Key words: Participatory theory, democratic theory, politics, power, access, interaction, contingency.

Changing Our Landscape of Inquiry for a New Science of Education

Abstract: In this essay, Gary Thomas argues that education research repeatedly makes a mistake first noted by Dewey: it misunderstands our science This misunderstanding has led to attempts to import various putatively scientific precepts into education inquiry But in reality, he argues, those “scientific” precepts do not characterize scientific endeavor, which is fluid and plural: science flexes to any angle to answer the questions that are posed in any field Questions in education concern worlds of practice and social relations where change and corrigibility draw the parameters for inquiry Education research becomes valuable only when it takes account of the reality of the educational endeavor Thomas urges us to strive to forge a new science of education based on singular and shared understandings of such practice

Placing Graffiti: Creating and Contesting Character in Inner-city Melbourne

Abstract: Debates over definitions of urban graffiti as either ‘street art’ or ‘vandalism’ tend to focus on either contributions to the field of artistic practice or violations of a legal code. This paper explores the place of graffiti as an urban spatial practice—why is graffiti where it is and what is its role in the constructions and experiences of place? Through interviews and mapping in inner-city Melbourne, the paper explores the ways that potential for different types of graffiti is mediated by the micro-morphology of the city and becomes embodied into the urban habitus and field of symbolic capital. From a framework of Deleuzian assemblage theory graffiti negotiates ambiguous territories between public/private, visible/invisible, street/laneway and art/advertising. Graffiti is produced from intersecting and often conflicting desires to create or protect urban character and place identity. It is concluded that desires to write and to erase graffiti are productive urban forces, while desires to promote or pro...

Gendered Agency and Emotions in the Field of Care Work

Abstract: This article examines the gendered effects of the intensification of public sector care work due to neoliberal reforms. It draws on an interview study of Finnish social and healthcare workers to argue that the expectations towards men and women in the reorganized field of care work are different, especially in the case of their emotional involvement in care practices. The article develops a conceptual framework based on Bourdieu’s theory of practice and its feminist developments. We discuss caring as gendered, habitual and emotional work and as a lived social relationship that produces different states of autonomy and dependency for women and men. Our study finds that women in particular face contradictory expectations of being intensely involved in emotion work on the one hand and in the efficient performance of tasks on the other, which creates a clash between their habitus and the field of care work. We further suggest that the clash produces social suffering that is difficult to recognize because the practices in the field reproduce and reaffirm the differences in the emotional habitus of men and women.

Conceptualising higher education research and/or academic development as ‘fields’: a critical analysis

Abstract: This paper calls into question the idea that we can simply think about higher education as a research field and explores different meanings of the term field. It asks whether there are related fields: research into higher education, academic development and disciplinary teaching research, rather than one. The approach of the paper is conceptual, rather than empirical. It draws on the work of Wenger, Becher and Trowler, Bernstein and Bourdieu, all of whom have a claim to help us think about the nature of fields and academics' relationship to them. Each of these theorists highlights different aspects of what we might mean by a field, and thus what it would mean to claim that research in higher education is a field. The paper suggests that there can be no innocent answers to the question of fields because of our implication within them. It argues that there are normative as well as substantive debates about the nature of fields and the questions that can be asked within them.

The Handbook of Mergers and Acquisitions

Abstract: With its inception at the end of the nineteenth century as a means of consolidation and reorganization, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have since become quasi-institutionalized as one of the primary strategic options for organizations, as they seek to secure their position in an ever more competitive and globalizing market place. Despite the optimism surrounding M&A as strategic moves, research on post-merger company performance suggests that most firms engaging in M&A activity do not achieve the sought-after performance targets, either immediately or in the years following the deal. What is it that drives M&A activity when research results do not support the performance expectations of these undertakings? Alternatively, have M&A scholars got it all wrong in the way that M&A performance is measured? Is the topic too complex, enduring, and multifaceted to study? The Handbook argues that the field of M&A is in need of a re-rooting: past research needs to be critically reviewed, and fundamental assumptions revisited. A key issue preventing efforts in the practice and study of M&A from achieving dynamic syntheses has been the disciplinary gulf separating strategy, finance, and human relations schools. The Handbook aims to bridge the hitherto separate disciplines engaged in the study and practice of M&A to provide more meaningful results. Toward this end, the Handbook brings together a set of prominent and emerging scholars and practitioners engaged in the study of M&A to provide thought-provoking, state of the art overviews of M&A through four specific 'lenses' - strategic, financial, socio-cultural, and sectorial approaches. By summarizing key findings in current research and exploring ways in which the differing approaches could and should be 'synthesized', it aims to highlight the key issues facing M&A practitioners and academics at the dawn of the third millennium.

Power and Welfare: Understanding Citizens' Encounters with State Welfare

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Foucault: The Flexible Critique of Welfare 3. Goffman: Interaction and Identity Negotiations 4. Bourdieu: Field, Symbolic Violence and Domination 5. Luhmann: Welfare in Communicative Systems 6. Neo-Institutional Theory: Myths and Legitimacy 7. Risk Theory: Normality, Deviation and Neo-Liberalism 8. Transcending the Approaches

Government Communication: An Emerging Field in Political Communication Research

Abstract: In February 2009, the US Congress passed a US$787 billion stimulus package designed to put the country on the road to economic recovery. Thereafter, managing ‘the stimulus story’ became, as Time magazine reported, ‘a full-time White House preoccupation’ (Scherer, 2009: 31). Obama and his team understood that without a concerted effort to communicate the plan, it would almost certainly fail in the court of public opinion. The quality of government matters for human well-being. Governing necessarily involves constant exchanges of information and communication about policies, ideas and decisions between governors and the governed. Despite its key importance for 21st-century politics, the study of government communication is an under-researched area of political communication studies, finding itself in a kind of theoretical no-man’s land between political communication, public relations and organizational communication research. This chapter examines three related issues. First, it examines what we mean by government communication. This task poses a number of challenges not least that of settling what kinds of institutions count as governmental in the diverse settings of democratic politics.1 Second, the article draws together the distinctive contributions to the study of government communication found in the political communication literature. Third, the chapter argues that perspectives developed by public relations and organizational communication studies may have much to offer political communication scholars studying government communication. Finally, we suggest a number of issues that could form part of a research agenda for government communication (see Sanders, 2011). DEFINING GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATION

Bourdieu and Academic Capitalism: Faculty "Habitus" in Materials Science and Engineering

Abstract: We present Bourdieu's notions of field, capital, "habitus," and strategy and how these concepts apply today in light of academic capitalism using an empirical study of faculty work in one specific field in engineering that exemplifies current tendencies brought by academic capitalism. We conclude with a discussion of practical implications.

The Field of Knowledge and the Policy Field in Education: PISA and the production of knowledge for policy

Abstract: This article is about the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and its actors. It analyses the development and role of PISA as a ‘cultural product’ from the perspective of Bourdieu’s field theory. The authors attempt to answer the following questions: Of which field is PISA the product? In which field and by whom is PISA used and ‘consumed’? The authors argue that the development of PISA is part of a broader transformation of equilibria within the field of (education) knowledge – i.e. a move away from its autonomous pole towards its heteronomous pole. Such a move transforms the very form and shape of the field of knowledge: it has expanded and attracts a growing number of internal and external actors around its heteronomous pole. This (cor)responds to a transformation of the equilibrium within the general field of power, where the ntellectual bourgeoisie (artists, professors, academics, writers) is increasingly subordinated to – indeed, sometimes working for – economic and political interests. The authors further argue that the incorporation of PISA at the level of education policy fields also transforms their form and shape in two main ways. Within policy fields, the diffusion and reception of PISA reinforces a heteronomous understanding of education which is defined mostly in terms of its contribution to external interests. The diffusion of PISA also extends and, in a sense, dissolves the very boundaries of (national) education policy fields. Specifically, the authors underline that such an internationalisation of the education policy fields progresses mainly at their heteronomous poles and through a heteronomous definition of education.

Communication as a social science (and more)

Abstract: As often happens, I submitted my title before I knew what I wanted to talk about. I do want to speak about communication research as a field, but not only as a field of social science. To try to contain communication in actually existing social science would be to reduce it in unfortunate ways. But at the same time, as someone much invested in social science, I harbor hopes that communication research will be deeply and widely integrated into social science more generally. I believe that the intellectually serious study of communication should be transformative for the social sciences.