Sociohistorical context and adult social development: New directions for 21st century research.

The concept of ‘agency’ is regularly put forward as an analytic tool to help understand, evaluate and act upon places around the world, through social development policies and programmes ostensibly designed to support or increase children’s agency. This article reflects on empirical research into children’s agency spanning a range of international contexts over two decades and offers new insights through critical engagement with a growing body of work on the ‘localisation’ of social development and humanitarian responses in international settings. It suggests that the largely normative ways in which the concept of agency is invoked as an analytic tool for understanding human experience universally effectively renders children’s agency invisible to us. This is because it is more a description of a particular discourse than something which actually helps us to understand and make visible children’s socio-culturally grounded ‘agentic practice’ from place to place. This article argues for new directions in research and practice to localise agency that are critical to the central commitments of interpretive social science. These new directions include (a) a new research agenda which can go beyond children’s ‘own perspectives’ to the discovery, description and analysis of agency in socio-cultural terms, to ensure it can function as an analytic tool for learning about socio-cultural phenomena which help animate local concepts of agency; and (b) the development of agency-related policies and programmes that are grounded in such locally situated concepts of agency developed through understanding local socio-cultural systems rather than externally derived socio-cultural assumptions about childhood and children’s agency.

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New Directions for 21st-century Portuguese Cinema

Aniki Revista Portuguesa da Imagem em Movimento ◽

10.14591/aniki.v8n2.811 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 275-280

Author(s):

Hilary Owen

Keyword(s):

21St Century ◽

New Directions

Book review of Reframing Portuguese Cinema in the 21st Century. Volume 1, published in 2020 by Agência da Curta Metragem.

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“Preamble” to a Constitution for New Confederation of European nations: text and context

Public Administration ◽

10.22394/2070-8378-2021-23-1-51-55 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 51-55

Author(s):

DAVID ENGELS ◽

Keyword(s):

Social Development ◽

Middle Ages ◽

21St Century ◽

Political Action ◽

Official Position ◽

Political Program ◽

History Of ◽

Key Policy ◽

Looking Back ◽

The Eu

The idea of protecting the European essence from collapse due to modern challenges (migration, terrorism, tensions between the EU and Asia, threats from the Middle East, discord in relations with Russia) is not new and has been discussed many times by many researchers. The author offers his solution for these and many other challenges. His vision of united Europe is offered in the preamble to the Constitution of a new confederation of European nations. This text is not an official position for political action or propaganda. This message is necessary to broaden the horizons for those Europeans who are accustomed to living for the sake of modern realities, without looking back at the great past of Europe. The author sees the solution to the impending challenges of our time in the history of European states, their economic and social development. The author proposes to Europe - if it wants to survive in the 21st century as a civilization, it needs to return to historical values and traditions that shaped it since the Middle Ages, and moreover, sharply reduce Brussels’ tendency towards centralism. Wherein a close partnership should be maintained between European countries in key policy areas. The proposed preamble appears to be a unifying political program that can act as gathering point for politicians and citizens with different views.

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New Trends in Service Science and Education for Service Innovation

Advances in Marketing, Customer Relationship Management, and E-Services - Progressive Trends in Knowledge and System-Based Science for Service Innovation ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-4663-6.ch001 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 1-21

Author(s):

Michitaka Kosaka ◽

Kunio Shirahada

Keyword(s):

21St Century ◽

Service Innovation ◽

Service Industries ◽

Service Science ◽

Manufacturing Industries ◽

System Science ◽

Service Value ◽

New Directions ◽

Traditional Service ◽

Science And Education

Service science is a new trans-disciplinary science and technology in the 21st century. In this chapter, firstly, new definitions of service and new directions for service are described for innovations in various industries. Service science should cover not only traditional service industries but also important basic industries such as information or manufacturing industries. Then, the importance of a system’s approach to creating service values is emphasized. In particular, system science and knowledge science are important from the viewpoint of maximizing service value. Finally, education for service innovation considering such trends is proposed and evaluated by implementing it as a management course for professionals in business.

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