scholarly journals Dis/embodied leadership : intersections of leadership and social class

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael R. Halliwell
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Body Work ◽  
Discursive Leadership ◽  
Class Privilege ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Embodied Practice

One weakness with the discursive leadership to date is the failure to explore ways in which material conditions also shape leadership (Fairhurst, 2009). Further, Dougherty (2011) argued that discursive constructionism without a consideration of material conditions is middle class privilege. By privileging the discursive over the material, discursive leadership could be reproducing social inequalities, which relates to issues of social class. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand how leadership and social class become mutually constructed through the interplay between discourse and materiality. The concepts of text work and body work are used to understand how social class is linked with the types of work an individual does. Similar to white-collar/blue-collar distinctions, text work refers to jobs that emphasize the use of communication, and body work refers to jobs that emphasize more physical labor (Dougherty, 2011). A thematic narrative analysis was applied to stories about leadership that were told during interviews with a total of 21 participants (10 body workers and 11 text workers), and observations added context and thick description to participants' narratives about leadership. The theory of Language Convergence/Meaning Divergence provided a lens for understanding how meanings for leadership diverge based on different material experiences in day-to-day work. Findings indicate that discursive and material conditions of work interact to construct different meanings for leadership. Text workers emphasized communication in their constructions of leadership, while body workers constructed leadership more as an embodied practice. Additionally, compared to text workers, body workers demonstrated a more nuanced understanding of leadership that integrated a concern for discursive processes in addition to emphasizing material conditions.

scholarly journals Exploring the Etiological Pathways of Problematic Pornography Use in NoFap/PornFree Rebooting Communities: A Critical Narrative Analysis of Internet Forum Data

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitra Chasioti ◽  
James Binnie
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Causal Connections ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Pornography Use ◽  
Online Persona ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
Crisis Of Meaning ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Everyday Living

AbstractProblematic pornography use (PPU) has been extensively studied in terms of its negative implications for various life domains. The empirical literature reveals measured outcomes of interpersonal and intrapersonal dysfunction in participants’ everyday living, supporting its classification as a disorder. The increasing number of complaints around PPU opens the door to the creation of online self-help rebooting communities. This qualitative study aimed to provide a better understanding of this behavior by investigating potential etiological pathways contributing to the onset of PPU, as they were expressed by members of the online NoFap/PornFree self-help communities with self-perceived PPU. The critical narrative analysis reveals a complex web of mutually informing causal connections. The dialectical relationship between situational resources, material conditions, and an embodied spectator gives rise to an online persona with motivations of self-exploration, experimentation, and socializing. A sense of vulnerability rendered the use of pornography as a means of escape and validation. Furthermore, commitment to abstinence, framed by the notions of recovery and relapse, was found to be a major factor for maintaining distress. The study highlighted the need for a thorough understanding of the etiological pathways of PPU for a more effective and targeted intervention. Moving beyond biomedical conceptualizations suggests an intervention whereby PPU is placed in a context of a crisis of meaning.

Being a retailer: narratives not on display

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Damian Ruth ◽  
Frances Gunn ◽  
Jonathan Elms
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Narrative Approaches ◽  
Actual Nature ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Business Setting ◽  
Strategy As Practice ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Retail Entrepreneurs

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the everyday tasks and activities undertaken by retailer entrepreneurs and owner/managers when they strategize. Specifically, it interrogates the nature of the intuitive, idiosyncratic strategic agency of a retail owner/manager.Design/methodology/approachThrough adopting a combination of phenomenological and narrative approaches, focussing on illuminating the everyday operational and strategic practices of one retail entrepreneur and owner/manager, a richly contextualized, ideographic account of the procedures and outcomes of their strategizing is provided.FindingsBy revealing narratives that are seldom obvious – often kept behind the counter, and not on display – the authors are able to unravel the social reality of the retailer's decision-making, and the influences of identity, connections with customers and community, emotions and the spirit, and love and family. This study also illuminates how entrepreneurs retrospectively make sense out of the messiness of everyday life particularly when juggling the melding of personal and business realities.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper explores the experiences and reflections of the decision-making of one retail entrepreneur manager within a particular business setting. However, the use of an ideographic approach allowed for an in depth investigation of the realities of strategic practices undertaken by a retail owner that may be extrapolated beyond this immediate context.Originality/valueThis paper develops original insights into the retailer as an individual, vis-à-vis an organization, as well as nuanced understanding of the actual nature of work undertaken by retail entrepreneurs and owner/managers. To this end, this paper contributes to the “strategy-as-practice” debate in the strategic management literature, and to narrative analysis and advances insights to the perennial question: “what is a retailer?”.

scholarly journals "What's in a Lunchbox?": A Story About New Zealand Ideals of Health, Social Class and Ethnicity Told Through Sandwiches and the Children Who Eat Them

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Carla Rey Vasquez
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Ethnic Exclusion ◽  
Dominant Component ◽  
Food Identity

<p>Through an ethnographic investigation of school lunchboxes, this thesis explores if and how difference and Otherness is understood by children. In three urban New Zealand primary schools I examine how children construct, affirm and/or challenge social inequalities and issues of inclusion by looking at the contents, concepts, narratives and activities related to the consumption and sharing of their lunch food. Literature dedicated to social class (Bourdieu, 1984) and identity (Rikoon, 1982; Stern, 1977) has documented the way in which food is creatively used to reaffirm unity and belonging within minority groups (Camp, 1979; Abrahams & Kalcik, 1978). In contrast to this approach, I review the role of food as a ‘safe space’ (Mercon, 2008: 5) where diversity may be allowed to symbolically exist for the purpose of affirming the unity of the nation state, while ultimately muffling deeper social differences. The thesis thus questions the assumption that food, identity and social cohesion are conceptually linked. My overall argument centres on the “humble” sandwich, which I claim is constructed as the core, dominant component of the lunchbox, mutually constituting nutritional, social class and ethnic tropes, practices and values. I assess the discourses, behaviours and symbolism that historically situates the sandwich as iconicaly or emblematically “Kiwi”, contending that via the creation of a dychotomized system (i.e. healthy, good, skinny, well-behaved, energetic, Kiwi versus junk-food, bad, fat, naughty, sick, Other) children are enculturated into the logics of work and socialized to be compliant with structures of inequality. Thus, while the sandwich appears equally accessible to all, the differences in its production can result in practices of class based distinction (Bourdieu, 1984) and ethnic exclusion (Hage, 2003). However, my analysis also reveals that children are not mere subjects of structure, but that they reproduce, challenge, mediate, and re-shape these discourses and behaviours.</p>

scholarly journals "What's in a Lunchbox?": A Story About New Zealand Ideals of Health, Social Class and Ethnicity Told Through Sandwiches and the Children Who Eat Them

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Carla Rey Vasquez
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Ethnic Exclusion ◽  
Dominant Component ◽  
Food Identity

<p>Through an ethnographic investigation of school lunchboxes, this thesis explores if and how difference and Otherness is understood by children. In three urban New Zealand primary schools I examine how children construct, affirm and/or challenge social inequalities and issues of inclusion by looking at the contents, concepts, narratives and activities related to the consumption and sharing of their lunch food. Literature dedicated to social class (Bourdieu, 1984) and identity (Rikoon, 1982; Stern, 1977) has documented the way in which food is creatively used to reaffirm unity and belonging within minority groups (Camp, 1979; Abrahams & Kalcik, 1978). In contrast to this approach, I review the role of food as a ‘safe space’ (Mercon, 2008: 5) where diversity may be allowed to symbolically exist for the purpose of affirming the unity of the nation state, while ultimately muffling deeper social differences. The thesis thus questions the assumption that food, identity and social cohesion are conceptually linked. My overall argument centres on the “humble” sandwich, which I claim is constructed as the core, dominant component of the lunchbox, mutually constituting nutritional, social class and ethnic tropes, practices and values. I assess the discourses, behaviours and symbolism that historically situates the sandwich as iconicaly or emblematically “Kiwi”, contending that via the creation of a dychotomized system (i.e. healthy, good, skinny, well-behaved, energetic, Kiwi versus junk-food, bad, fat, naughty, sick, Other) children are enculturated into the logics of work and socialized to be compliant with structures of inequality. Thus, while the sandwich appears equally accessible to all, the differences in its production can result in practices of class based distinction (Bourdieu, 1984) and ethnic exclusion (Hage, 2003). However, my analysis also reveals that children are not mere subjects of structure, but that they reproduce, challenge, mediate, and re-shape these discourses and behaviours.</p>

scholarly journals My Sister, Our Stories: Exploring the Lived Experience of School Leavers through Narrative and Poetics

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Davis ◽  
Jennifer Pepperell
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Adult Female ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Educational Experiences ◽  
Sibling Relationship

The purpose of this study was to explore the educational experiences of two adult female siblings who are both school leavers. Through the use of thematic narrative analysis, sibling narratives and poetic re-presentations, their stories were developed. These stories represent the participants’ experiences of prior schooling and their current commitments to education. While each story conveyed a profound similarity in terms of prior schooling, contrasting narratives were illustrated through description of transitional moments and sibling relationship. The analysis also explored the intersections of race, gender, and social class within educative moments of the life experiences of the participants.

The Myth of Quality

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-117
Author(s):  
John Wei
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
The State ◽  
Queer Communities

This chapter deals with social inclusion and exclusion along the lines of cultural capital and social distinctions underlined by social class migration and mobilization. Drawing upon sociological analyses of various forms of human capital and academic inquiries into the issue of suzhi (“quality”), this chapter analyzes the ongoing social stratifications in China’s queer communities that have reproduced larger social inequalities. Through an investigation of an “upward” online queer community, it argues that the state-engineered discourse of suzhi has to some extent expired, but the lingering myth of “quality” continues to underline queer social distinctions and social interactions online and on the ground.

Psychological distress and work and home roles: a focus on socio-economic differences in distress

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 725-736 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. MATTHEWS ◽  
C. POWER ◽  
S. STANSFELD
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Distress ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Gradient ◽  
Psychological Status ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Explanatory Factors ◽  
Work Factors ◽  
The Impact

Background. Home and work factors have been linked to psychological status, but less is known about their contribution to social inequalities in psychological status. We examine whether social inequalities in psychological distress can be explained by work–home factors and whether the impact of these potential explanatory factors is similar for men and women.Methods. Data are from the 1958 British birth cohort study. We sought to explain social class differences in psychological distress at age 33. Explanatory factors were classified as work–home roles: i.e. employment, marital status, domestic responsibility, children and elderly care; and work–home characteristics: i.e. job-strain, insecurity, unsocial working hours, youngest child's age, number of children and level of involvement in childcare.Results. A social gradient in psychological distress was found: odds ratios for classes IV and V v. I and II were 2·65 (men) and 3·02 (women). Work factors had consistently stronger associations with psychological distress and with social class among men than women. Work factors had a greater impact on class differences in psychological distress in men. Associations for home roles and characteristics were less consistent and their combined effect on class differences in distress was negligible for both sexes.Conclusion. Explanations for the social gradient differ for men and women. Work may be more important for men than women, but the impact of home factors was not strong during the early adulthood of this cohort.

scholarly journals ‘The whole week comes down to the team sheet’: a footballer’s view of insecure work

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Roderick ◽  
James Schumacker
Keyword(s):  
Front Line ◽  
Team Games ◽  
Employment Situation ◽  
Constant Tension ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Conditions Of Work ◽  
Work And Employment ◽  
Professional Footballer ◽  
Job Task

This ‘On the front line’ article focuses on the work and employment situation for an insecure, individualized sports worker whose main job task is fundamentally and publically collaborative. The narrative offers a realistic and nuanced understanding of the material conditions of work for a journeyman footballer and defies sociological ideas associated with attachment and identification to work, which are frequently and implicitly connected to this profession. So while physical and skilful dimensions are commonly foregrounded, the testimony of (now retired) professional footballer James Schumacker lays bare not only the uncertainties and instability of this job, but also specifically the constant tension between securing fixed-term employment and being selected for first team games: making the ‘team sheet’.

scholarly journals School Selection and the Social Class Divide: How Tracking Contributes to the Reproduction of Inequalities

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-490 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anatolia Batruch ◽  
Frédérique Autin ◽  
Fabienne Bataillard ◽  
Fabrizio Butera
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Achievement Gap ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Selection Function ◽  
The Social ◽  
Role Of Teachers ◽  
School Selection

Selection practices in education, such as tracking, may represent a structural obstacle that contributes to the social class achievement gap. We hypothesized that school’s function of selection leads evaluators to reproduce social inequalities in tracking decisions, even when performance is equal. In two studies, participants (students playing the role of teachers, N = 99, or preservice and in-service teachers, N = 70) decided which school track was suitable for a pupil whose socioeconomic status (SES) was manipulated. Although pupils’ achievement was identical, participants considered a lower track more suitable for lower SES than higher SES pupils, and the higher track more suitable for higher SES than lower SES pupils. A third study ( N = 160) revealed that when the selection function of school was salient, rather than its educational function, the gap in tracking between social classes was larger. The selection function of tracking appears to encourage evaluators to artificially create social class inequalities.

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