Postpositivist research in education : theorising social structure in critical and institutional ethnography

This chapter charts the theories and methods being adopted in an investigation of the 'micro-politics' of teacher education policy reception at a site of higher education in Queensland from 1980 to 1990. The paper combines insights and methods from critical ethnography with those from the institutional ethnography of feminist sociologist Dorothy Smith to link local policy activity at the institutional site to broader social structures and processes. In this way, enquiry begins with--and takes into account--the experiences of those groups normally excluded from mainstream and even critical policy analysis.

VIVO as an Institutional Data Registry

The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia, is involved in a number of projects funded by the Australian National Data Service (ANDS). Currently, QUT is working on a project (Metadata Stores Project) that uses open source VIVO software to aid in the storage and management of metadata relating to data sets created/managed by the QUT research community. The registry (called QUT Research Data Finder) will support the sharing and reuse of research datasets, within and external to QUT. QUT uses VIVO for both the display and the editing of research metadata.

Institutional and individual labor market discrimination based on hukou status : an artefactual field experiment

We study discrimination based on the hukou system that segregates citizens in groups of migrants and locals in urban China. We use an artefactual field experiment with a labor market framing. We recruit workers on their real labor market as experimental participants and investigate if official discrimination motivates individual discrimination based on hukou status. In our experimental results we observe discrimination based on the hukou characteristic: however, statistical discrimination does not seem to be the source of this, as status is exogeneous for our participants and migrants and locals behave similarly. Furthermore, discrimination increases between two experimental frameworks when motives for statistical discrimination are removed.

Factors that influence Chinese TEFL academics' research capacity building : an institutional case study

Research capacity building has become a prominent theme in higher education institutions across the world. To build research capacity, it is necessary to identify areas of challenges academics face within the academia. This case study focuses on Chinese teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) academics with the purpose of identifying factors that influence their research capacity building. Six TEFL academics from a Chinese national university were interviewed and institutional research documents were analysed. Findings showed that obstacles and difficulties in conducting research were more related to departmental factors than individual characteristics. The institution was keen on developing a research culture, and encouraged research and publications. Departmental support for research was improving, but it seems that it was more generic than tailored to individual needs. The findings of this study provide implications for research administrators in further supporting TEFL academics’ research capacity building.

Proposed REDD+ project for the Sundarbans : legal and institutional issues

Sundarbans, a Ramsar and World Heritage site, is the largest single block of tidal halophytic mangrove forest in the world covering parts of Bangladesh and India. Natural mangroves were very common along the entire coast of Bangladesh. However, all other natural mangrove forests, including the Chakaria Sundarbans with 21,000 hectares of mangrove, have been cleared for shrimp cultivation. Against this backdrop, the Forest Department of Bangladesh has developed project design documents for a project called ‘Collaborative REDD+ Improved Forest Management (IFM) Sundarbans Project’ (CRISP) to save the only remaining natural mangrove forest of the country. This project, involving conservation of 412,000 ha of natural mangrove forests, is expected to generate, over a 30-year period, a total emissions reduction of about 6.4 million tons of CO2. However, the successful implementation of this project involves a number of critical legal and institutional issues. It may involve complex legal issues such as forest ownership, forest use rights, rights of local people and carbon rights. It may also involve institutional reforms. Ensuring good governance of the proposed project is very vital considering the failure of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded and Bangladesh Forest Department managed ‘Sundarbans Biodiversity Conservation Project’. Considering this previous experience, this paper suggests that a comprehensive legal and institutional review and reform is needed for the successful implementation of the proposed CRISP project. This paper argues that without ensuring local people’s rights and their participation, no project can be successful in the Sundarbans. Moreover, corruption of local and international officials may be a serious hurdle in the successful implementation of the project.

The institutional limits to, and possibility of, understanding young people diagnosed with 'mental disorders', within inclusive teacher-student relationships

A persistent pattern of exclusion of young people with ‘mental disorders’ from school systems, despite the best intentions of schools and teachers, has prompted a call for a more reflexive understanding of their behaviours. This thesis, by describing how institutionally recognised ways of understanding can result in otherwise avoidable moral collisions and exclusion, produces new insights into the nature and processes of understanding required to promote inclusion. These insights were produced through an intensive qualitative examination of a violent classroom episode, identifying key points in the interaction that could make the difference between misrecognition and recognition, turning exclusion into inclusion.

How much is that data in the window? Advertising your research data with QUT Library

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Library offers a range of resources and services to researchers as part of their research support portfolio. This poster will present key features of two of the data management services offered by research support staff at QUT Library. The first service is QUT Research Data Finder (RDF), a product of the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) funded Metadata Stores project. RDF is a data registry (metadata repository) that aims to publicise datasets that are research outputs arising from completed QUT research projects. The second is a software and code registry, which is currently under development with the sole purpose of improving discovery of source code and software as QUT research outputs. RESEARCH DATA FINDER As an integrated metadata repository, Research Data Finder aligns with institutional sources of truth, such as QUT’s research administration system, ResearchMaster, as well as QUT’s Academic Profiles system to provide high quality data descriptions that increase awareness of, and access to, shareable research data. The repository and its workflows are designed to foster better data management practices, enhance opportunities for collaboration and research, promote cross-disciplinary research and maximise the impact of existing research data sets. SOFTWARE AND CODE REGISTRY The QUT Library software and code registry project stems from concerns amongst researchers with regards to development activities, storage, accessibility, discoverability and impact, sharing, copyright and IP ownership of software and code. As a result, the Library is developing a registry for code and software research outputs, which will use existing Research Data Finder architecture. The underpinning software for both registries is VIVO, open source software developed by Cornell University. The registry will use the Research Data Finder service instance of VIVO and will include a searchable interface, links to code/software locations and metadata feeds to Research Data Australia. Key benefits of the project include:improving the discoverability and reuse of QUT researchers’ code and software amongst QUT and the QUT research community; increasing the profile of QUT research outputs on a national level by providing a metadata feed to Research Data Australia, and; improving the metrics for access and reuse of code and software in the repository.

Institutional perspectives on operationalising climate adaptation through planning

Adaptation to climate change is an imperative and an institutional challenge. This paper argues that the operationalisation of climate adaptation is a crucial element of a comprehensive response to the impacts of climate change on human settlements, including major cities and metropolitan areas. In this instance, the operationalisation of climate adaptation refers to climate adaptation becoming institutionally codified and implemented through planning policies and objectives, making it a central tenet of planning governance. This paper has three key purposes. First, it develops conceptual understandings of climate adaptation as an institutional challenge. Second, it identifies the intersection of this problem with planning and examines how planning regimes, as institutions, can better manage stress created by climate change impacts in human settlements. Third, it reports empirical findings focused on how the metro-regional planning regime in Southeast Queensland (SEQ), Australia, has institutionally responded to the challenge of operationalising climate adaptation. Drawing on key social scientific theories of institutionalism, it is argued that the success or failure of the SEQ planning regime's response to the imperative of climate adaptation is contingent on its ability to undergo institutional change. It is further argued that a capacity for institutional change is heavily conditioned by the influence of internal and external pathways and barriers to change, which facilitate or hinder change processes. The paper concludes that the SEQ metro-regional planning regime has undergone some institutional change but has not yet undergone change sufficient to fully operationalise climate adaptation as a central tenet of planning governance in the region.

Responding to a transformative stressor : climate change and the institutional governance of Australian cities

This paper understands climate change as a transformative stressor that will prompt responses from institutional governance frameworks in Australian cities. A transformative stressor is characterised as a chronic large-scale phenomenon which triggers a process of institutional change whereby institutions seek to reorientate their activities to better manage the social, economic and environmental impacts created by the transformative dynamic. It is posited that institutional change will be required as Australian metropolitan institutional governance frameworks seek to manage climate change effects in urban environments. It is argued that improved operationalisation of adaptation is required as part of a comprehensive urban response to the transformative stresses climate change and its effects are predicted to create in Australian cities. The operationalisation of adaptation refers to adaptation becoming incorporated, codified and implemented as a central principle of metro-regional planning governance. This paper has three key purposes. First, it examines theoretical and conceptual understandings of the role of transformative stressors in compelling institutional change within urban settings. Second, it establishes a conceptual approach that understands climate change as a transformative stressor requiring institutional change within the metropolitan planning frameworks of Australia's cities. Third, it offers early results and conclusions from an empirical investigation into the current prospects for operationalisation of climate adaptation in planning programs within Southeast Queensland (SEQ) via changes to institutional governance. A significant emerging conclusion is that early climate stresses appear not to be leading to episodic institutional change in the metropolitan planning frameworks of SEQ.

Operationalising climate adaptation through institutional change : conceptual and empirical insights

Adaptation is increasingly understood as a necessary response in respect of climate change impacts on urban settlements. Australia is heavily urbanised and climate change is likely to impact severely on its urban environments. Accordingly, climate adaptation must become a key component of urban management. This paper is part of a wider project and reports early insights into the problem of how adaptation may be institutionally operationalised within a planning regime. In this instance, the operationalisation of adaptation refers to adaptation becoming incorporated, codified and implemented as a central principle of planning governance. This paper has three key purposes: first, to set out a conceptual approach to climate adaptation as an institutional challenge; second, to identify the intersection of this problem with planning; third, to report on an on-going empirical investigation in Southeast Queensland (SEQ). Informed by key social scientific theories of institutionalism, this paper develops a conceptual framework that understands the metro-regional planning system of SEQ as an institutional regime capable of undergoing a process of change to respond to the adaptation imperative. It is posited that the success or failure of the SEQ regime’s response to the adaptation imperative is contingent on its ability to undergo institutional change. A capacity for change in this regard is understood to be subject to the influence of various internal and external barriers and pathways that promote or hinder processes of institutional change. Specific attention is paid to the role of ‘storylines’ in facilitating or blocking institutional change.

Institutional specifics and unemployment insurance eligibility in Canada : how sensitive are employment duration effects?

The paper examines the influence of unemployment insurance on the duration of employment spells in Canada using the 1988–90 Labour Market Activity Survey. The primary focus of the paper is to evaluate whether estimated UI effects are sensitive to the degree to which institutional rules and regulations governing UI eligibility and entitlement are explicitly modelled. The key result of the paper is that it is indeed important to allow for institutional detail when estimating unemployment insurance effects. Estimates using simple proxies for eligibility indicate small, often insignificant UI effects. The size and significance of the effects rise as more realistic versions of the variables are adopted. The estimates using the eligibility variables incorporating the greatest level of institutional detail suggest that a jump in the hazard rate by a factor of 2.3 may not be an unreasonable estimate of the effect.

A Critical Perspective of the Indonesian Institutional Framework for PPP Toll Roads

The development of toll roads in Indonesia started around 1978. Initially, the management and development of toll roads sat directly under the Government of Indonesia (GoI) being undertaken through PT JasaMarga, a state owned enterprise specifically established to provide toll roads. Due to the slow growth and low capability of toll roads to fulfil infrastructure needs in the first ten years of operation (only 2.688kms/year), GoI changed its strategy in 1989 to one of using private sector participation for roads delivery through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme. In this latter period, PT JasaMarga had two roles, both as regulator on behalf of the private sector as well as being the operator. However, from 1989 to 2004 the growth rate of toll roads actually decreased further to 2.300kms/year. Facing this challenge of low growth rate of toll roads, in 2004GoI changed the toll road management system and the role of regulator was returned to the Government through the establishment of the Toll Road Regulatory Agency (BPJT). GoI also amended the institutional framework to strengthen the toll road management system. Despite the introduction of this new institutional framework, the growth of toll roads still showed insignificant change. This problem in toll road development has generated an urgent need for research into this issue. The aim of the research is to understand the performance of the new institutional framework in enhancing PPP procured toll road development. The methodology of the research was to undertake a questionnaire survey distributed to private sector respondents involved in toll road development. The results of this study show that there are several problems inherent in the institutional framework, but the most significant problem comes from the uncertainty of the function of the strategic executive body in the land expropriation process.

Career implications of multi-layered institutional settings

Project work has grown significantly in volume and recognition in recent decades as projects have ‘become a common form of work organization in all sectors of the economy’ (Lindgren & Packendorff, 2006: 841). This increase in project-based work is just one of the many changes that have been affecting the nature of work, the employment relationship and the associated conceptualization and experience of careers (Baruch, 2004b; Söderlund & Bredin, 2006). A career can be defined as a process of development along a path of work experience and roles in one or more organizations (Baruch & Rosenstein, 1992), and careers involving project-based work take place within multi layered institutional settings. Projects are generally undertaken by small temporary organizations (Ekstedt, Lundin, Söderholm & Wirdenius, 1999; Pettigrew, 2003; Söderlund, 2012) which in turn may form part of larger, permanent entities; involve people drawn from a number of disciplines and organizations; or be formed as partnerships, joint ventures or strategic alliances between two or more organizations (Scott, 2007).

It takes more than good intentions : institutional and attitudinal impediments to engaging young people in participatory planning

While participatory processes have become an important part of planning, young people are a particularly vulnerable group in terms of potential marginalisation and exclusion from effective participation. Including the views of young people in participatory planning is not simply a matter of bringing them into existing processes. Instead, participatory processes must find ways to integrate and accommodate their needs and ways of expressing their views. Without these adjustments young people may simply move from being kept outside the planning process to a situation where, although they are formally included, their claims are not taken seriously and they are not treated with equal respect. In this paper we reflect on the success of a community advisory committee, formed to consider water planning issues, in integrating the views of young people into their deliberations. Using Iris Marion Young’s (1995) ideas of communicative democracy we highlight the challenges and opportunities presented by this participatory approach, as articulated by both the young people involved and the adult participants. We specifically consider how the elements of greeting, rhetoric and narrative were reflected in the committee process. We argue that both planners and adult participants need to ensure that participatory processes allow for the equal engagement of all participants and place equal value on their contributions. Our research shows that this involves both an institutional and attitudinal commitment to include the views of young people. The institutional commitment requires young people to be included in processes and for their involvement to be supported. However, the attitudinal commitment it is equally important and requires that adult participants be prepared not only to accept the views of younger participants but to actively encourage and support their full participation.