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This article sets out the findings of a systematic review on research into career guidance policy in the Nordic countries between 2008 and 2022. In total 60 papers were reviewed from across the Nordic region. They focused on national career guidance systems, career guidance systems for young people, the adult guidance system and career guidance for migrants. The corpus proved to be methodologically diverse with studies utilizing a wide range of different research strategies, although important differences were found between academic and grey literature. Most of the papers reviewed were atheoretical, with the remaining, mainly academic, literature drawing heavily on critical theory. The thematic analysis identified four major themes in the corpus: the context for career guidance policy; career guidance provision and practice; technologies of governance; and beneficiaries and outcomes of career guidance policies. The findings are discussed in relation to the strengths and weakness of the corpus and used to propose a research programme for the next 15 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decades of 'feminist' sexual- and gender-based violence (SGBV) policies have produced limited change in southern African SGBV rates. Recent critiques highlight ongoing colonial legacies in such policymaking, arguing that these legacies limit the potential for liberatory change. Further, reflecting on such discourses can highlight reasons behind global public health intervention failure. To promote reflexivity among public health actors who create, reproduce, and implement SGBV policies, this paper presents a critical discourse analysis of how women's empowerment is constructed in foundational global and national health and development policies bearing on SGBV in Zambia. The analysis identifies neoliberal feminist discourses of empowerment: (i) the protection of women, which perpetuates a saviour complex; (ii) the promotion of equality to men, which excludes those deemed unworthy; (iii) the eradication of harmful cultural norms, which challenge the preservation of African values; and (iv) (neoliberal) empowerment through women's attained employment and capital, which empowers women within unequal economic relations rather than liberating women from those relations. The author critiques such neoliberal empowerment discourses for failing to structurally transform the conditions for women's liberation. This paper offers a first step to the dismantling of colonial structures in SGBV policies by unpacking and promoting reflexivity about such discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In focusing on the ‘history’ of the history of cartography, attention is drawn to the need to distinguish between two sources of theory: critical theory, for the way maps are interpreted as historical documents; and a variety of bodies of theory (such as those of the social sciences, humanities, and sciences) for the information derived from maps. The argument touches on the relationship of history, by definition a text‐based (in broad terms) subject, with critical theory, and their common preoccupation with problems of authorship, the importance of context and genre at the empirical level, and the different levels of relevance of theory to the history of cartography. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: ‘Creative learning conversations’, are methodological devices developed in two co-participative qualitative research projects exploring creativity and educational futures at the University of Exeter in England. Sources of evidence: Framed by Critical Theory, the projects, one on dance education partnership, the other on student voice and transformation, sought to open space between creativity and performativity to initiate emancipatory educational change. This was undertaken over the course of five years in English primary and secondary schools, prioritising humanising, wise creativity. Purpose: This paper re-analyses data and methodological processes to characterise and theorise creative learning conversations in terms of social spatiality and dialogue. The characteristics are: partiality, emancipation, working from the ‘bottom up’, participation, debate and difference, openness to action, and embodied and verbalised idea exchange. Main argument: This re-analysis theoretically adapts Bronfenbrenner's ecological model (The ecology of human development; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979) to situate layered engagement. Utilising Lefebvre's conceptualisation of lived space (The production of space; Wiley-Blackwell, 1991) and Bakhtin's work (Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics; ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson; Minneapolis: University of Michigan Press, 1984) on open-ended dialogue, the paper theorises creative learning conversations as producing living dialogic spaces. Conclusions: Creative learning conversations are a way of contributing to change, which moves us towards an education future fit for the twenty-first century. From a living dialogic space perspective, a creative learning conversation is the ongoing process without forced closure of those in the roles of university academic, teachers, artists, students co-participatively researching and developing knowledge of their ‘lived space’ together. Given traditional lethargy in the educational system as a whole commitment to changing education for better futures demands active involvement in living dialogic space, where our humanity both emerges from and guides our shared learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Harun Farocki's lifelong study of the mute language of manual expressions, the human hand is explored not only as a versatile tool, but as a repository of social memory, a topos in the genealogy of the moving image, and a critical agent in the theory and practice of filmmaking itself. While cinema distinguished itself from previous artistic media through its capacity to salvage and store everyday gestures for later scrutiny, accruing a Bilderschatz for future anthropological and archaeological research, it was also integral to an ongoing process that spurred the progressive withdrawal of the human hand from the manufacturing of images. By adopting a double-pronged approach that considers the programming of bodies and images as integrally aligned, the article traces the gradual demise of craftsmanship and the increasing automation of imaging and perception as engaged across a wide range of Farocki's essay films, found-footage compilations and observational documentaries. Taken together, this body of work at once proffers an encyclopedia of gesturing hands, a form of chiro-praxis in its own right, and a search for alternative or forgotten modes of manual communication and collective imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little research has examined public diplomacy as a comparative education issue, particularly regarding social-psychological, economic and political fears or personal and national insecurities. This paper discusses American public diplomacy as a mostly Cold War strategy adapted to post-9/11 national security interests, fears and desires. It further explores differences, similarities, and debates in Canadian media, policy documents and academia, in response to American political, economic and military pressures or demands for a 'North American' (i.e. joint American-Canadian) security approach. From a critical pedagogy perspective the paper argues that modern public diplomacy has been a dubious, pseudo-educational, fear-mongering concept nurtured by academics, politicians and military leaders as part of an American foreign policy, military security and propaganda strategy. The paper further shows that post-9/11 Canada, problematically, adapted its own public diplomacy policies to serve American interests. Further research is needed to examine more closely public diplomacy's impacts on Canadian education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically assesses the implications of the "good governance" program and its underpinning network approach to public governance--that is, the increased reliance on more or less informal networks as a way to mobilize and engage citizens, firms, and organizations in the development, implementation, and monitoring of public policy. We begin by positioning the network approach to public governance within the broader notion of an emerging network society. Second, we present the claim that, on a systemic level, the result of the network paradigm and good governance as a reorientation of the political system from "politics-policy" to "policy-politics." Third, we highlight the normatively ambiguous nature of the network paradigm and good governance, based on a discussion of the two major critical positions: governmentality studies and critical theory. Finally, we suggest some initial guidelines on how to pursue a theory of ethical political action within the parameters of the network paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of board gender diversity (BGD) on financial stability of financial institutions have long been an important topic, creating a rich strand of literature that focuses extensively on banks. Meanwhile, little is known about the implications of BGD on risk in microfinance institutions (MFI). This study aims to fill this gap. Using a data sample retrieved from the MIX Market database spanning the 2009–2018 period and the random-effects estimator, we find that the proportion of female directors on the board is positively associated with financial stability of MFIs measured by the Z-score. The result is robust when using alternative measures of financial stability and BGD, and alternative estimation techniques. In addition, we document a negative relationship between BGD and risk-taking behavior of MFIs. Further, the research result favors the critical mass theory rather than tokenism. Lastly, we find that BGD links with financial stability in a monotonic instead of non-monotonic manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades we have witnessed the increased intellectualization of architecture. What was first a largely autodidactic interest in Heidegger, Bachelard, and Joyce, is now the topic of textbooks, anthologies, seminar papers, with the committed student having to be familiar with the likes of Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Barthes, Jameson, Gramsci, Derrida, Lacan, and now Deleuze. Though the architectural “take” on these philosophers is often inconsistent and spurious, the enterprise as a whole has to be understood within a system that is now almost a century old. Whether it was Le Corbusier’s readings of Friedrich Nietzsche or Eric Mendelsohn’s of Martin Buber, architects often turned to other disciplines, including psychology, Gestalt psychology in particular, to help position themselves within the intellectual determinants of modernity. The “history of theory” is thus more than just a specialized problem of the avant-garde. It is equivalent with the history of modernity. And yet, despite the importance of these exchanges (and despite theory’s increasing self-academizations), it is still difficult for us to easily assess and historicize them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocates of cultural literacy present culture as being of a single weave and as a singular standard that precludes the legitimacy, if not the existence, of other cultural possibilities. The purpose of this paper is to examine how cultural literacy has come to mean a particular form of aesthetic literacy and how that literacy is legitimated. With reference to critical theory, it will be proposed that cultural literacy should take the form of ethnoaesthetic studies of art and culture wherein the value systems of different aesthetic systems are examined, analyzed, and contrasted. In this paper, the following will be discussed: (a) the characteristics of the cash culture and its cash aesthetic, (b) assumptions of universalism that accompany the cash aesthetic, (c) cultural literacy for critical consciousness, and (d) the application of ethnoaesthetics for multiple cultural literacies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the theoretical and practical possibilities of applying a `critical theory' of education to British primary schools It traces the series of misconceptions and misinterpretations of progressive education which, coupled with the neglect of its own emancipatory potential, has allowed it to be discredited by right-wing and left-wing politics Re-establishing a fairer reading of its central tenets and coupling this with the developing concept of a `socially critical primary school' provides for an emancipatory primary education which embraces critical theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the nature of critical theory, its historical development, its connections to sociology and Marxism, and the central debates over its core ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ambiguity surrounding what it means to undertake aesthetic study can be profitably used to gain a perspective on art that is lacking in most art education pro- grams. In this paper a brief background on current developments in aesthetics and on how aesthetics consists of contested concepts is followed by a discussion of three approaches to aesthetics: (1) historical, philosophical aesthetics, (2) aesthetic perception and experience, and (3) aesthetic inquiry. A fourth approach consisting of an emphasis on the contested nature of art will be proposed from the perspective of critical theory. This fourth approach entails an examination of assumptions, of taken-for-granted attitudes, and of the social origins and implications of aesthetic theories, values, and designations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Critical African Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We start from, and expand on, a basic insight in negative dialectic, namely, that our main concern should be with the absolute worst in political life. We then consider how this might have an impact on the way we understand the role and grounds of moral equality. Subsequently, we move on to explain the importance of decency in political morality. Finally, we take a closer look to basic data about global poverty and inequality and what these might tell us in light of our analysis of the foundations of moral equality and its relationship to social cruelty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of whether or not beauty exists in nature is a philosophical problem. In particular, there is the question of whether artworks, persons, or nature has aesthetic qualities. Most people say that they care about their own beauty. Moreover, they judge another person's appearance from an aesthetic point of view using aesthetic concepts. However, aesthetic judgements are not objective in the sense that the experience justifies their objectivity. By analysing Monroe C. Beardsley's theory of the objectivity of aesthetic qualities, I examine whether there are really beautiful and ugly persons in the world. I will criticize the way analytic philosophers judge people and art from an aesthetic perspective. If there are no aesthetic qualities in the world, nobody can judge someone beautiful or ugly without oppression. Aesthetic judgement is exercise of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children are particularly vulnerable to structured inequalities in society. Building on the work of Erich Fromm (1900-1980), this article contends that modern (post)industrial capitalism corrupts the human capacity to operate in the 'being mode'--that is, in altruistic and compassionate ways. Rather, within the individualistic logic of the 'having' mode of existence there are morally empty spaces where children become objectified, separated from caring communities, dominated and measured. The second part of this article will discuss these insights in relation to the significant impact of neoliberal regimes on children's social and physical wellbeing. In particular, it is argued that from the mid-1980s in New Zealand, the restructuring of the welfare state in line with neoliberal ideology has increased the vulnerability of young children to poverty and related issues. The narrow conception of poverty that is integral to the 'having' mode of existence merely serves to justify the ruling ideological neoliberal consensus. It is argued that any genuine attempt at human progress and the elimination of poverty needs to operate outside of this logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a case-study of specific shifts in the view of state responsibility for the less fortunate in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Current welfare policy aims to reduce the state benefits of parents if they do enrol their preschool children in an early childhood centre. I undertake a genealogical investigation and suggest that state anxieties about the disadvantaged are not new: Edu-welfare policies are the last in a long line of attempts to govern state beneficiaries and their children. Economic policies which arose in the specific historical, political and social contexts of the United States, I argue, should not be uncritically imposed as universal solutions to perceived risks to the body politic of other states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main influences in the regulation of animal welfare policy in New Zealand are discussed. Animal welfare organizations on the one hand are intent on improving conditions for animals, whereas government regulatory bodies are more concerned with preserving the status quo. Both types of organizations have allies in academia. Government agencies are largely informed through research from the ‘mandated’ field of Animal Welfare Science, which is characterized by a positivistic framework that tends to support the status quo. Animal Welfare Science can be contrasted with the emerging interdisciplinary field of Human Animal Studies, which continues the tradition of critical theory that questions the positivistic basis of the animal welfare establishment. We conclude that while genuine science, defined as all rational and theoretically informed discourse, could make a difference to animals, the mandated field of Animal Welfare Science serves more to entrench animal suffering than to prevent it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Annals of the Association of American Geographers is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Prominent critical theorists (including Jürgen Habermas) have embraced a radical democratic version of the popular notion of 'global governance without government,' according to which postnational democratization can be achieved without establishing robust firms of postnational statehood. The sources of the argument in Hauke Brunkhorst's recent theorizing are critically interrogated. Brunkhorst's interpretation of the European Union as an emerging case of postnational democracy, his critique of traditional ideas of state sovereignty, and Kelsenian notions about the primacy of global law are criticized. Robust democracy 'beyond the nation-state' will necessarily require the establishment of democratic postnational statehood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses his career as a writer about architecture and as an architectural critic. He states that three factors are contained in architectural criticism, including reporting, journalistic accuracy and critical theory. The author contrasts the architecture criticism practiced in Great Britain with that of the U.S.

The article reports on a symposium that investigated the existence of ethics and values in providing public service. The discussions incorporate critical social theory to establish necessary social changes based on ethics, equality, and democracy. Conventional wisdom and structures are scrutinized in order to provide the optimal public services.

The article traces the contradictions in the current phase of the formation of Global Trade Governance via an inquiry into the discourse surrounding environmental services. The analysis elucidates the inadvertent politicization of environmental services, which paradoxically emerges within a context of attempts to insulate and depoliticize the Trade in Services agenda more generally. It provides an interpretation of this dynamic from a political ecology perspective. As a site of profound definitional problems, the Trade in Environmental Services discourse reveals deep-seated contradictions lodged in social relations with nature. The contradictions are explored via a critical deconstruction of the very concept of ‘environmental services’, which aids the identification of sites of political engagement vis-á-vis the substantiation of ‘global modernity’ through economic integration. The developmental logic of capitalist modernity expands into areas where its contradictory nature becomes, once more, tangible, the subject of a social experience of detrimental forms of relations wit nature, and thus subject to political struggle. The article concludes by illustrating the argument with examples from the Environmental Services Trade agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current research on efficiency wages and transaction costs utilizes models of economic behavior that require a theory of market institutions. Yet the institutional structure of market exchange appears at odds with the neoclassical theory of markets under perfect competition. Both Samuel Bowles/Herbert Gintis and David Levine recognize this as a problem for traditional economic theory. Bowles and Gintis suggest that market power is a prerequisite for the effective utilization of resources within the capitalist enterprise. Levine identifies market exchange with the need for individuals to define for themselves a distinct way of life in order to secure the recognition of others and preserve the integrity of the self. The middle ground between a theory of market power and individual personality formation lies in the inherent social relations governing market exchange. By exploring this middle ground, market exchange can be presented as a set of communicative practices through which individual needs are shaped and power is either challenged or maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proposes a perspective for reorienting educational administrators' concept of administrative training. Importance of critical theory in interpreting culture and its distinct value in understanding education administration in particular; Implications of who does and who does not gain entry to the Kafkan castle of administration, the presence and absence of moral awareness in motives and training, and the level of consciousness among administrators regarding democracy in the workplace.

Two views are outlined on the question of how social theory, and specifically the theory of capitalist society, can and should be relevant to political action. For the 'instrumentalist' view the theory cannot provide political actors with ultimate ends, but can only give them a diagram of the social mechanism which they can use in working out means to those ends. By contrast, for the 'formative' view, which is exemplified by Hegel's view of the role of philosophy in historical change, theory should act as a mirror to social subjects, showing them the nature of their own activity and thereby inducing a transformation in their basic ends. Some ways are discussed in which a theory of capitalism could play such a formative role for its subjects. It is then argued that, in order to play this role effectively, a formative theory of capitalism would need to abstract from any of the putative dynamics internal to capitalism, such as those of globalization and progressive commodification, which are discussed in the following articles. Theory that deals with such tendencies must stand in an instrumental relationship to political action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article replies to Maines' comments on negotiated order theory. Emphasis is given on the strengths of the perspective and the contributions it has on organizational theory. It is not contended that the perspective ignored structural constraints. There are attempts to indicate how neo-Marxian thought, critical theory and a heightened appreciation of the political economy might clarify and modify certain dimensions of negotiated order theory as it has been applied to the field of health care. Considerable attention is given to the historical development of negotiated order theory and symbolic interactionism.