The Importance of Belonging: Learning from the Student Experience of Democratic Education

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 733-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max A. Hope

This article grew out of an extensive piece of grounded theory research that explored students’ experiences of democratic education. A small democratic school in the south of England is used as a case study. Students in this school experienced a strong sense of belonging—to the school itself, with teachers, and with peers. This appeared to make a significant contribution to school outcomes. Data indicated that students’ sense of belonging was in part influenced by the democratic nature of the school, including its style of leadership. This resonated with existing literature. This article outlines key features of the school alongside empirical data about belongingness. A brief review of literature is provided. It concludes with a series of recommendations for practitioners.

Author(s):  
Ville Alkkiomäki ◽  
Kari Smolander

This chapter introduces QSE, the Qualitative Service Elicitation method. It applies qualitative research procedures in service elicitation. Service engineering practice lacks lightweight methods to identify service candidates in projects with tight schedules. QSE provides a systematic method to analyze requirement material in service-oriented systems development with a feasible effort. QSE uses the procedures of the grounded theory research method to elicit service candidates from business process descriptions and business use case descriptions. The chapter describes the method with examples and a case study.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (20) ◽  
pp. 11387
Author(s):  
Itzhak Aviv ◽  
Irit Hadar ◽  
Meira Levy

In this age of digital transformation, knowledge-intensive organizations strive to improve business outcomes and sustainability by improving their knowledge-intensive business processes (KIBPs) to obtain a competitive advantage. Many researchers have claimed that KIBP enhancement is possible through knowledge management (KM) initiatives supported by an effective KM infrastructure. Current KM infrastructures deal with formal KM procedures, where knowledge is created, stored, assimilated, and disseminated. Such activities, however, are designed to be performed outside of the business process. KM infrastructures are expected to be more effective when they include specific real-time knowledge procedures integrated into the operational flow of KIBPs. This paper explores how modern KM infrastructures can support KIBPs, considering both formal and operational KM procedures. Our study’s essential contribution is the conceptual KM infrastructure framework (KMIF) developed based on grounded theory research. This infrastructure provides a systematic and robust approach, starting from the ground up, for structuring organizational knowledge assets across a range of KIBP environments. We define operational knowledge procedures directly involved in KIBPs, adding a layer to KM infrastructures beyond the formal knowledge procedures. A mixed-method case study was conducted to demonstrate and evaluate the proposed KMIF for enhancing business outcomes and sustainability of knowledge-intensive organizations.


Author(s):  
Forget Chaterera-Zambuko

This chapter challenges information management researchers to employ the grounded theory research approach as it is detailed, rigorous, systematic, and flexible. The approach also permits researchers to go beyond the conventional thinking by allowing the emergence of new conceptual models, theories, and framework(s) on the subject under investigation. The chapter provides a discourse on the key features of grounded theory and the two fundamental schools of grounded theory. The overall aim of the chapter is to explain the applicability and rationale of grounded theory in researching information centres. As such, the chapter discusses the perceived challenges of using grounded theory, debates the place of literature in a grounded theory study, and explores the issues of research population, sampling, and sample size in a grounded theory research. Other essential aspects discussed in the chapter are the concepts of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. The chapter also demonstrates how data in a grounded theory study should be analysed and processed.


Author(s):  
Matthew Gibson

This chapter outlines the importance of pride and shame as emotions for understanding and analysing social, cultural, and psychological processes in interpersonal interactions. It makes the case for the relevance of pride and shame in professional practice, while outlining the research that has been undertaken to date on these emotions in the field of social work. This provides details of the ethnographic case study that was used in constructivist grounded theory research to investigate the role of pride and shame in child and family social work. This chapter then outlines the details of the study that is used as the foundation for the book and summarises the following chapters.


Author(s):  
Ville Alkkiomäki ◽  
Kari Smolander

The chapter introduces QSE, the Qualitative Service Elicitation method. It applies qualitative research procedures in service elicitation. Service engineering practice lacks lightweight methods to identify service candidates in projects with tight schedules. The QSE provides a systematic method to analyze requirement material in service-oriented systems development with feasible effort by utilizing the procedures of the grounded theory research method to elicit service candidates from business process descriptions and business use case descriptions. The chapter describes the method with examples and a case study.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
N G Mugovhani ◽  
Lebogang Lance Nawa

This article discusses and raises awareness about the socio-economic plight of indigenous musicians in South Africa. Through a qualitative case study of the Venda musician, Vho-Talelani Andries Ntshengedzeni Mamphodo, dubbed the “Father of mbila music,” the article highlights the fact that the welfare of Black South African artists, particularly indigenous musicians in South Africa, is generally a precarious affair. Their popularity, at the height of their careers, sometimes masks shocking details of exploitation, neglect, and the poverty they are subjected to, which are exposed only after they have died. Empirical data identifies this as a symptom of, among other things, cultural policy and arts management deficiencies in the promotion of indigenous music. The article aims to find ways to redress this unfortunate situation, which is partially a product of general apathy and scant regard that these artists have perennially been subjected to, even by their own governments, as well as some members of their societies. All these factors mentioned are compounded by ignorance on the part of South African artists. Part of the objective of this study was to establish whether the exposition of the Vhavenda musicians is a typical example of all Black South African indigenous musicians and, if this is the case, whether the suggested ways to redress this unfortunate situation could contribute to or play a role in alleviating the plight of such artists in the entire country.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-387
Author(s):  
Jenni Mikkonen ◽  
Ira Lahovuo

Prior studies have recognized the importance of events in destination branding, but the focus has been on the roles of mega-events or sport events, while smaller cultural and freetime events have received far less attention. The stakeholder involvement in destination branding has also been attracting interest lately by many researchers, but there is lack of knowledge on how to utilize events in the branding processes. This study aims to fill the research gap through a case study in the South Savo region, eastern Finland. The purpose of this study is to examine the roles events have in destination branding, and how events are involved in cocreating the destination brand. The empirical data were collected through 13 semistructured interviews of event organizers and local tourism developers. The study identified four different roles and several involvement methods. The findings revealed the importance and potential of organized events in the branding, but it also revealed that they are not yet effectively utilized at the destination. However, there is a consensus about the importance of stakeholder involvement and a common will towards involving events in the branding process. The findings of this study can be utilized by tourism developers and stakeholders to improve destination branding processes.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 490
Author(s):  
Yan-Feng He ◽  
Chie-Peng Chen ◽  
Rung-Jiun Chou ◽  
Hai-Feng Luo ◽  
Jin-Xiong Hou

Over generations, economic development has accelerated traditional settlements in Taiwan while losing traditional culture. In Hakka villages, this is manifested in the changes in defensive spaces, the ‘spirit of place,’ and land use. Although some progress has been made through research into related issues, a correlated view has been missing. To explore the connection between the ‘spirit of place’ and defensive spaces in Wugoushui, a traditional representative settlement in Taiwan, this paper probes three questions: What are the changes in defensive spaces? What are the changes in the spirit of place? What are the connections between them? Taking the sixteen criteria of secure defensive space as the theoretical foundation, through more than a year of structured observations and in-depth interviews with ten representative residents, and based on context analysis and site analysis of the information collected, this paper has concluded that, although the actual functionality of Wugoushui settlement’s spiritual, behavioural, and physical defences have disappeared, cultural characteristics related to the settlement traditions, including religious beliefs, trust, sense of belonging, street network, nodes, institutions, territory, and social networks, constitute a concrete manifestation of the defensive space and the spirit of place as of today. This research contributes to developing a theory of the relevance of the spirit of place to the defensive space of settlements from a sustainability perspective and improving the cultural preservation and land management of traditional settlements.


2021 ◽  
pp. 107808742110215
Author(s):  
Felipe Link ◽  
Andrés Señoret ◽  
Felipe Valenzuela

Current urban neoliberalism processes have shaped and changed contemporary cities, including the local scale’s built environment and social relations. This article aims to study how such transformations affect local sociability by analyzing the effects of neighborhoods’ morphology and socio-demographic characteristics on different forms of interactions and how they affect the sense of belonging. Taking the Metropolitan Area of Santiago, Chile, as a case study, we gathered secondary data on urban morphology and surveyed ten neighborhoods to measure sociability patterns. The results obtained from multilevel logistic regression models show that time living in the neighborhood and public pedestrian space is the most critical factor affecting neighborhood sociability. Moreover, instead of local ties, public familiarity is the form of sociability with the most substantial effects on a sense of belonging. We conclude that recent neighborhoods, formed by neoliberal urbanization, tend to discourage neighborhood sociability and a sense of belonging.


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