Engendering Hope: A person-centred reflection on technology and gender

This paper examines instances of recent musical and artistic works and asks to what extent it makes sense to regard certain practices and technologies as gendered. It looks at a number of strategies for making, suggesting that male gender stereotypes are as prevalent and unhelpful (to practitioners) as female ones. It looks at aspects of the working environments of practitioners to determine whether changes in such conditions might alleviate the gender mismatch in enrolment in higher education courses featuring ubiquitous technologies. The paper identifies historical precedents for technology gendering in which readings of such gendering have shifted radically, suggesting they offer scope for optimism in our longer-term reading of the gendered-ness of current practices. The paper also touches on the extent to which a ‘research’ ethos––the foregrounding of the essential human attributes of inquisitiveness and empathy––may contribute to our capacity to tell better, less binary stories of otherness in all its forms.

Intersectional Discrimination in EU Law - a critical reflection

This chapter introduces the concept of intersectionality in its relevance for anti-discrimination law. It illustrates the use (or non-use) of this concept by the Court of Justice, and provides examples of case law ignoring intersectional inequalities. Finally, it proposes to re-frame and re-focus EU anti-discrimination law around nodes of inequalities as a way to better address intersectional inequalities.

Reflection of Qualitative Methods: “memoring” fieldwork experience in organisational research with photographs

The paper is a reflection on the use of photographs in multiple case study research. It explores the crossovers between interpreting visual artefacts, the qualitative approach to case study research in organisations, and the move from cases to theory guided by the grounded theory tenets. The paper proposes an additional use of photographs as a visual method to those in the literature, as a device for data analysis. Photograph-based analysis techniques are explored, using e sequence of individual images and photo collages on case data, moving from interpretation of single to multiple case themes. This makes the case of using photograph analysis as an interpretation device for case research to illuminate theory development.

The Development and Testing of a New Version of the Cognitive Reflection Test Applying Item Response Theory (IRT)

The cognitive reflection test (CRT) is a short measure of a person's ability to resist intuitive response tendencies and to produce a normatively correct response, which is based on effortful reasoning. Although the CRT is a very popular measure, its psychometric properties have not been extensively investigated. A major limitation of the CRT is the difficulty of the items, which can lead to floor effects in populations other than highly educated adults. The present study aimed at investigating the psychometric properties of the CRT applying item response theory analyses (a two-parameter logistic model) and at developing a new version of the scale (the CRT-long), which is appropriate for participants with both lower and higher levels of cognitive reflection. The results demonstrated the good psychometric properties of the original, as well as the new scale. The validity of the new scale was also assessed by measuring correlations with various indicators of intelligence, numeracy, reasoning and decision-making skills, and thinking dispositions. Moreover, we present evidence for the suitability of the new scale to be used with developmental samples. Finally, by comparing the performance of adolescents and young adults on the CRT and CRT-long, we report the first investigation into the development of cognitive reflection.

The time course of conflict on the Cognitive Reflection Test

Reasoning that is deliberative and reflective often requires the inhibition of intuitive responses. The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is designed to assess people’s ability to suppress incorrect heuristic responses in favour of deliberation. Correct responding on the CRT predicts performance on a range of tasks in which intuitive processes lead to incorrect responses, suggesting indirectly that CRT performance is related to cognitive control. Yet little is known about the cognitive processes underlying performance on the CRT. In the current research, we employed a novel mouse tracking mjavascript:void(0);ethodology to capture the time-course of reasoning on the CRT. Analysis of mouse cursor trajectories revealed that participants were initially drawn towards the incorrect (i.e., intuitive) option even when the correct (deliberative) option was ultimately chosen. Conversely, participants were not attracted to the correct option when they ultimately chose the incorrect intuitive one. We conclude that intuitive processes are activated automatically on the CRT and must be inhibited in order to respond correctly. When participants responded intuitively, there was no evidence that deliberative reasoning had become engaged.

Philosophy and Political Engagement: Reflection in the Public Sphere

Do philosophers have a responsibility to their society that is distinct from their responsibility to it as citizens? This edited volume explores both what type of contribution philosophy can make and what type of reasoning is appropriate when addressing public matters now. These questions are posed by leading international scholars working in the fields of moral and political philosophy. Each contribution also investigates the central issue of how to combine critical, rational analysis with a commitment to politically relevant public engagement. The contributions to this volume analyse issues raised in practical ethics, including abortion, embryology, and assisted suicide. They consider the role of ethical commitment in the philosophical analysis of contemporary political issues, and engage with matters of public policy such as poverty, the arts, meaningful work, as well as the evidence base for policy. They also examine the normative legitimacy of power, including the use of violence.

A spatial approach to network generation for three properties:Degree distribution, clustering coefficient and degree assortativity

Social networks generally display a positively skewed degree distribution and higher values for clustering coefficient and degree assortativity than would be expected from the degree sequence. For some types of simulation studies, these properties need to be varied in the artificial networks over which simulations are to be conducted. Various algorithms to generate networks have been described in the literature but their ability to control all three of these network properties is limited. We introduce a spatially constructed algorithm that generates networks with constrained but arbitrary degree distribution, clustering coefficient and assortativity. Both a general approach and specific implementation are presented. The specific implementation is validated and used to generate networks with a constrained but broad range of property values. © Copyright JASSS.

Supporting an ethnic minority woman's choice for pain relief in labour: a reflection

Despite professional expectations for midwives to provide care to women that is founded in equality and recognises diversity (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2015), women from ethnic minority populations consistently suggest that they are not heard (Briscoe and Lavender, 2009; Tobin et al, 2014). This article reflects upon a situation where a Portuguese woman with limited English speaking ability was denied access to epidural anaesthesia as the midwife felt that she could not give valid consent to the procedure without the presence of an interpreter. The midwife’s role within this situation will be reflected upon and implications for midwifery practice identified.