scholarly journals The impact of young people's participation in events

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliza Hixson

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the social impact that two events, the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Clipsal 500, have on young residents (16-19 years old) of Adelaide. The purpose of this paper is to examine how young people participate in these events and how this affects their sense of involvement in the event and contributes to their identity development. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed methods approach was adopted in which focus groups and questionnaires were conducted with secondary school students. As an exploratory study, focus groups (n=24) were conducted in the first stage of the research. The results of the focus groups were used to develop a questionnaire that resulted in 226 useable responses. The final stage of the research explored one event in further depth in order to determine the influence of different participation levels. Findings – This study found that young people demonstrated more involvement in the Adelaide Fringe Festival and their identities were more influenced by this event. Further investigation of the Adelaide Fringe Festival also indicated that level of participation affects the social outcomes gained, with those participating to a greater degree achieving higher involvement and increased identity awareness. This is demonstrated through a model which aims to illustrate how an event impact an individual based on their role during the event. Originality/value – This paper applies two leisure concepts in order to analyse the impact of events. Activity involvement is a concept which examines the importance of the activity in the participant's life. Also of importance to young people is how activities contribute to their identities, especially because they are in a transitional period of their lives.

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongfeng Liu

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the social impact of major sports events perceived by host city residents using Shanghai as an example. Design/methodology/approach – Exploratory factor analysis based on 450 valid questionnaires. Findings – Research revealed six impact factors including four positive ones: “image and status,” “international exchange and cooperation,” “economic and tourism development,” and “infrastructure development.” In addition, two negative ones are also identified as “inconvenience of life” and “environment pollution and security concern.” Taken as a whole, the local residents in Shanghai have a relative positive perception of the impact of major sports events. Four out of six impact factors were significantly predictive of the attitude toward future bidding of major sports events. Originality/value – The existing literature mainly examined social impact of specific events through case study, and little is known about the overall perception of major sports events in general. Accordingly, this paper seeks to bridge the gap by taking an event portfolio approach using Shanghai as an example.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-279
Author(s):  
Tine Buffel ◽  
Patty Doran ◽  
Mhorag Goff ◽  
Luciana Lang ◽  
Camilla Lewis ◽  
...  

Purpose This paper aims to explore the social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on issues facing older people living in urban areas characterised by multiple deprivation. Design/methodology/approach The paper first reviews the role of place and neighbourhood in later life; second, it examines the relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and the impact of COVID-19; and, third, it outlines the basis for an “age-friendly” recovery strategy. Findings The paper argues that COVID-19 is having a disproportionate impact on low-income communities, which have already been affected by cuts to public services, the loss of social infrastructure and pressures on the voluntary sector. It highlights the need for community-based interventions to be developed as an essential part of future policies designed to tackle the effects of COVID-19. Originality/value The paper contributes to debates about developing COVID-19 recovery strategies in the context of growing inequalities affecting urban neighbourhoods.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 168-178
Author(s):  
Magdalena Paul

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the methodological issues around developing a quantitative research instrument of the social impact of Polish public libraries. The results of the use of this instrument to survey users of Mazovian Province, Poland, are summarized as an example of its use. Design/methodology/approach The research focused on informational, educational and participatory aspects of social impact on the sidelines leaving cultural heritage issues. “Impact” and “social impact” were defined according to ISO 16439:2014. Information and documentation – methods and procedures for assessing the impact of libraries. The research instrument included questions both about the activities taken in libraries by its users and the benefits they gained. The questionnaire also contained questions which allowed to control the variables such as frequency of using libraries, socioeconomic factors and cultural practices. To describe dependencies, various statistical tests were applied. The study was conducted on the group of 1,098 users of 38 public libraries between February and June 2017. Findings Younger and people from smaller towns felt more benefits from using libraries. There are significant differences between types of benefits people of various age, financial status and household size experienced. People who went to libraries and other cultural institutions often experienced more benefits. The more a person performs activities in libraries, the more benefits he or she has. Some added value of particular activities is also visible. Research limitations/implications Despite the efforts and the size of the sample, it is not representative of the population of library users in the Mazovian Province (mainly due to the data collection method – auditory survey). Originality/value Studying the social impact of the libraries in Poland is still at its beginning. The presented research is, therefore, exploratory in terms of cognitive and methodological value.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Deif

Purpose There is no argument that using games (gamification) is an efficient way of learning in higher education. The questions, though, are which gamification approach is most suitable at that level and how to assess its suitability? This paper aims to attempt to partially answer these two questions, in the context of lean thinking education. Design/methodology/approach The paper offers an assessment criteria to investigate the impact of lean gamification based on the evaluation of motivational, cognitive and social processing during games. In addition, a study is conducted among selected games using these assessment criteria. The study included statistical as well as comparative analysis. The study was based on a sample of undergraduate students learning various lean thinking concepts through physical games over the course of six months. Findings Results showed different interaction levels between the three evaluation criteria depending on the type and design of the lean game. The reported scores and analysis drew various lessons on how to use gamification in the context of lean teaching, outlined some best practices in lean games design and suggested recommendations in mapping lean games from industrial domain to higher education domain. Research limitations/implications The scope of this research was bounded by the sample size of students as well as the selected nine lean thinking games. Larger pool of students as well as other lean thinking games can offer further insights and confirm the outlined ones. Practical implications The presented work will help lean thinking educators in higher education to better understand the student dynamics associated with engaging them in this type pf pedagogical approach. It will help guiding lean thinking games’ designer on how to better cater for this segment of lean thinking learners. Finally, it will aid in promoting lean gamification as an effective learning tool. Social implications The social impact is achieved through enhancing lean thinking education to a wide number of students. This will positively impact the society through the application of the effective lean tools at different stages, levels and places in these students’ life experiences. Originality/value This study offers one of the very few applications in gamification assessment in the context of lean thinking. Furthermore, it integrates the social processing criterion for the first time with the classical two other criteria (motivation and cognitive) used in games education assessment. Finally, it offers new insights for lean thinking game designers for higher education learners.


2021 ◽  
Vol 239 ◽  
pp. 00004
Author(s):  
Izabella Kovacs ◽  
Sorin Simion ◽  
Alin Irimia ◽  
Ligia Ioana Tuhuţ ◽  
Gheorghe Daniel Florea

The impact of transition periods is experienced by the local population and economy as a result of mining activities closure and dismissal of a large number of workers followed by diversification of employment and career reorientation opportunities. The aim of the paper is to highlight the impact generated by closure of mining operations on local society and economy as well as identifying opportunities for harmonious development of communities in the Jiu Valley. Following the assessment of the social impact of mining activities closure, we found a rising tendency of unemployment rate among the middle-aged population that did not benefit from vocational retraining and the growing tendency of young people to leave the region for strictly economic reasons leading to widespread social aging.


Author(s):  
Alketa Bulku

Immigration is a growing phenomenon in the recent years with its characteristics on the social groups which are mainly involved and with its impact on the educational level of children also. The life of Roma children is associated with a lot of economic and social problems. They often move inside or outside the country for a more normal life. Frequent changes have their own psycho-social impact on children, as the most sensitive category of the society. They often suffer the long-term consequences which influence the progress of their education and future. Multicultural education and inclusive education are considered to be a good opportunity for marginalised groups offering equal education opportunities in the destination country the same as in their native country, but still they come across some difficulties. This is a qualitative research which aims at giving an analysis about the impact of immigration on the multicultural education and on the inclusion of children within the education system. What happens to these children once in the destination countries and how do they adapt their old experience? What is the impact of this transition on their emotions? The case study was performed through the: theoretical study of the phenomenon, monitoring, students, parents, educators and focus groups’ interviews. This study is focused on the primary and low secondary school students. This study introduces some evidence provided by children, educators and parents, proving that returning back to your home country does only enrich their life experience. It does not have a clear positive effect on their education and inclusion to the education process.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Ruff

Purpose This study aims to examine the role of devices in assessing the social impact of an organization. The study examines the effects of device and analyst expertise on the contents and conclusions of the report. Design/methodology/approach Six impact reports based on the same data from the same organization were compared to each other, to the charity data and to the devices used. Specific attention is paid to the role of the device’s sociomaterial form and discursive entanglements. Findings The six reports assessed the impact differently from each other and in ways that were consistent with the devices used. The devices performatively reconfigured the charity in impact reports through a series of omissions and misrepresentations which could be traced to the discourses hardwired into the devices themselves. The devices did not simply present the same impact assessment to different audiences or for different purposes, but (mis)represented the charity in specific ways aligned with the discursive entanglements. Research limitations/implications The performativity of sociomaterial impact devices has implications for how researchers approach the study of impact measurement. Practical implications In this study, faithful adherence to an impact device led to greater omissions and misrepresentations than less expert impact assessments. Analysts should be supported to identify biases in their devices and be aware of sorts of omissions and misrepresentations that may result. Faithful adherence may not be the mark of rigorous analysis. Originality/value Performativity of impact measurement devices is explored with a unique data set.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Metwaly Ali Mohamed Edakar ◽  
Ahmed Maher Khafaga Shehata

Purpose The rapid spread and severity of the coronavirus (COVID-19) virus have prompted a spate of scholarly research that deals with the pandemic. The purpose of this study is to measure and assess the coverage of COVID-19 research on social media and the engagement of readers with COVID-19 research on social media outlets. Design/methodology/approach An altmetric analysis was carried out in three phases. The first focused on retrieving all papers related to COVID-19. Phase two of the research aimed to measure the presence of the retrieved papers on social media using altmetric application programming interface (API). The third phase aimed to measure Mendeley readership categories using Mendeley API to extract data of readership from Mendeley for each paper. Findings The study suggests that while social media platforms do not give accurate measures of the impact as given by citations, they can be used to portray the social impact of the scholarly outputs and indicate the effectiveness of COVID-19 research. The results confirm a positive correlation between the number of citations to articles in databases such as Scopus and the number of views on social media sites such as Mendeley and Twitter. The results of the current study indicated that social media could serve as an indicator of the number of citations of scientific articles. Research limitations/implications This study’s limitation is that the studied articles’ altmetrics performance was examined using only one of the altmetrics data service providers (altmetrics database). Hence, future research should explore altmetrics on the topic using more than one platform. Another limitation of the current research is that it did not explore the academic social media role in spreading fake information as the scope was limited to scholarly outputs on social media. The practical contribution of the current research is that it informs scholars about the impact of social media platforms on the spread and visibility of COVID-19 research. Also, it can help researchers better understand the importance of published COVID-19 research using social media. Originality/value This paper provides insight into the impact of COVID-19 research on social media. The paper helps to provide an understanding of how people engage with health research using altmetrics scores, which can be used as indicators of research performance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-266
Author(s):  
Ahmed Tahiri Jouti

Purpose Bringing more impact seems to be a real issue for social initiatives and organizations requiring the adoption of new approaches. The paper aims to define an integrated approach for building, maintaining and upgrading Islamic social finance and sustainable ecosystems. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents a conceptual framework based on case studies and literature review describing the methodology and the necessary steps to build sustainable ecosystems. Findings The paper shows the impact of building social finance ecosystems on tackling social issues. It emphasizes the idea that solving social issues is everybody’s business – from governments to businesses – and that those initiatives require sufficient Sharīʿah-compliant funding to achieve sustainability goals. Research limitations/implications The paper does not focus on the Islamic world experiences in building ecosystems serving social causes. Practical implications The paper gives an overview on how collaboration between the different social oriented organisations can enhance the social impact of the different initiatives. The aim is to ensure adequate financing to all the ecosystem components during the whole lifecycle. Social implications The suggested approach of building sustainable ecosystems can serve as a way to assess the existing social initiatives and practices to find relevant combinations targeting more impact. Originality/value In the social sphere, the idea of building ecosystems has been explored in different ways but never in a way that gathers all the components including finance providers, coordinators and the different types of initiatives. The paper adapts the ecosystem concept to the Islamic finance specificities.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 176-185
Author(s):  
Steven Hirschler

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of EU citizens’ exposure to UK immigration practices currently operating on non-EU migrants in the wake of the Brexit referendum. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on recent literature analysing the impact of immigration as a factor in voter decision making during the Brexit referendum. It challenges Hollifield’s (1992) concept of the “liberal paradox” through an analysis of private security firms’ roles in contributing towards the expansion of immigration control markets. The paper concludes with a review of migrant experiences within prisons, detention facilities and dispersed housing for asylum seekers. Findings The findings suggest that the abandonment of EU citizens’ freedom of movement into the UK will result in their exposure to a privatised immigration control regime that contributes to the commodification of immigrants at the expense of human welfare. Originality/value This paper provides a conceptual link between the role of immigration in the Brexit referendum and the implications of expanding the population of persons subject to immigration control to include EU immigrants. It draws on current debates about privatised social control markets to illuminate the social impact of valorising migrant bodies.


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