Search results for " agency"
showing 10 items of 206 documents
Constructing relational space in early childhood education
2014
This paper examines early childhood education (ECE) by applying and developing relational-spatial perspectives on everyday life in educational institutions for young children. The aim is to investigate the dynamic process of construction of space and to illustrate with selected empirical episodes how this process occurs in ECE. Drawing on authors such as Soja and Bourdieu, the starting point for the analysis is that space is socially produced in everyday interactions in a process that intertwines the physical environment and concrete objects, personal interpretations of physical and cultural space, and cultural and collective views about space in ECE. We illustrate this process with ethnogr…
Parental agency and related emotions in the educational partnership
2017
This study investigated the understudied issue of parental agency and related emotions in the educational partnership in the context of Finnish early childhood education and care. We asked (i) what types of parental agency can be identified in the educational partnership and (ii) in what ways emotions are related to these types of agency. The narrative method was used to analyse the interview data of parents of children with difficulties in self-regulation. The findings indicate that parental agency in the educational partnership varied from proactive and confrontational to hindered. Typically, pleasant emotions were related to proactive and unpleasant emotions to confrontational parental a…
Damned If You Do and Damned If You Don’t: Two Masters
2018
Available online: 05 June 2018 We study common agency problems in which two principals (groups) make costly commitments to incentives that are conditioned on imperfect signals of the agent's action. Our framework allows for incentives to be either rewards or punishments. For our basic model we obtain a unique equilibrium, which typically involves randomization by both principals. Greater similarity between principals leads to more aggressive competition. The principals weakly prefer punishment to rewards, sometimes strictly. With rewards an agent voluntarily joins both groups with punishment it depends on whether severe punishments are feasible and cheap for the principals. We study whether…
Multiproduct trading with a common agent under complete information: Existence and characterization of Nash equilibrium
2014
This paper focuses on oligopolistic markets in which indivisible goods are sold by multiproduct firms to a continuum of homogeneous buyers, with measure normalized to one, who have preferences over bundles of products. Our analysis contributes to the literature on private, delegated agency games with complete information, extending the insights by Chiesa and Denicolò (2009) to multiproduct markets with indivisibilities and where the agent's preferences need not be monotone. By analyzing a kind of extended contract schedules -mixed bundling prices- that discriminate on exclusivity, the paper shows that efficient equilibria always exist in such settings. There may also exist inefficient equil…
(A)moral Agents in Organisations? The Significance of Ethical Organisation Culture for Middle Managers’ Exercise of Moral Agency in Ethical Problems
2017
This paper investigates qualitatively the significance of different dimensions of ethical organisation culture for the exercise of middle managers’ moral agency in ethical problems. The research draws on the social cognitive theory of morality and on the corporate ethical virtues model. This study broadens understanding of the factors which enable or constrain managers’ potential for moral agency in organisations, and shows that an insufficient ethical organisational culture may contribute to indifference towards ethical issues, the experiencing of moral conflicts, lack of self-efficacy and morally disengaged reasoning. In contrast, a healthy ethical culture can contribute to motivation to …
The multiple roles of national exams in the certification, governing and support of learning and instruction in Norwegian secondary education.
2018
Hvilke roller har eksamen i norsk grunnopplaering? I Forskrift til opplaeringslova framgar det blant annet at eksamenskarakteren skal fastsette kompetansen til eleven ved slutten av opplaeringen i faget. Denne artikkelen viser imidlertid at policydokumenter og policyutviklere har en rekke forventninger til hva man skal oppna ved a ha eksamen og hva man skal kunne benytte eksamensresultater til. I et samspill mellom teori og empiri identifiser artikkelen tre roller for vurdering: a sertifisere, styre og stotte laering og undervisning. Dette begrepsapparatet brukes til a analysere bade eksamens formelt definerte formal, og tilsiktede og utilsiktede funksjoner ved eksamenssystemet. Artikkelen …
The Performance Evaluation of Polytechnic Higher Education Institutions: Tensions and Reconfigurations Resulting from the Adoption of Specific Metrics
2017
Aligned with the binary structure of the higher education system in Portugal, divided into universities and polytechnics, the Government acknowledged, in 2014, the need to identify distinct performance indicators/metrics aiming at a more accurate assessment of the effect and quality of the action developed by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). For the Polytechnic Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) it was necessary to define «(...) performance indicators that address the production, transfer and diffusion of knowledge» (FCT, 2014: 1), aiming to measure «(...) the applied research and the cultural production activities as well as their impact on the region where they [PHEIs] are located…
Gendered Migratory Pathways: Exploring the Work Trajectories of Long-Term Romanian Migrants
2018
This chapter analyzes the work trajectories of Romanian returnees who lived and worked for a long period of time in other EU countries. To understand the evolution of the work dimension of migrants’ lives, the chapter is built on subjective evaluations of their work experiences before migration, during their stay abroad, and upon return. The qualitative methodology and homogenous sample allow us to employ a gendered perspective on the relationship between international migration and individuals’ work trajectories. Employing a classical sociological distinction between agency and structure, the chapter illustrates four contrasting patterns of work trajectories. Agentic models are differently…
Varieties of agencies during working life changes
2020
The aim of this study is to shed light on the varieties of workers´ agencies in working life change situations, which is an under-researched topic in the literature of workplace learning and in working life studies. The research questions are what kinds of agencies there are to be found when workers encounter changes and how the different kinds of agencies are connected together. The understanding of agency is grounded on the subject-centered socio-cultural approach, whereas the methodological approach is based on applying life-course perspective on research material consisting of 48 working life narratives written by Finnish adults. The narratives are analyzed by abductive content analysis…
Instytucjonalny wymiar ochrony granic zewnętrznych Unii Europejskiej w kontekście bezpieczeństwa państw członkowskich
2018
Celem artykułu jest analiza problemu funkcjonowania instytucji zapewniających ochronę zewnętrznych granic Unii Europejskiej pod kątem zagwarantowania bezpieczeństwa jej państwom w kontekście współczesnych wyzwań. Do chwili, kiedy zaistniał kryzys migracyjny istniało bowiem przekonanie, że Unia Europejska stworzyła instytucjonalne warunki dla skutecznego zapewnienia bezpieczeństwa swoich granic. UE to przestrzeń, w obrębie której realizowana jest swoboda przemieszczania się obywateli, wyrażona poprzez swobodę podróżowania, podejmowania pracy, studiowania czy zamieszkiwania w wybranym kraju Unii. Realizacja tej swobody nastąpiła w wyniku zniesienia kontroli na wewnętrznych granicach UE. Jedna…