Children’s participation in research on sensitive topics: addressing concerns of decision-makers

ABSTRACT

Although there is general agreement about children’s engagement in social research, some researchers continue to experience challenges when seeking approval and support for children’s participation from a range of adult stakeholders, particularly when the research involves a sensitive topic. These challenges may reflect different perspectives, conflicting interests, needs or expectations. This paper explores factors that influence the decision-making of key stakeholder groups, including Human Research Ethics Committees, parents and organisational representatives. Building on the kind of objective, rational reasoning that underpins much ethical decision-making, the findings, from interviews with 42 participants across stakeholder groups, draw attention to influential issues grounded in perceptions of: the institution and researcher undertaking the research; the project itself; children’s characteristics and contexts. Collectively, such issues point to the critically important role of mutually respectful relationships between researchers and stakeholders as the basis for designing and implementing ethical research that gives close attention to stakeholder concerns.     

The enemy as the unthinkable: a concretist reading of Carl Schmitt’s conception of the political

This article offers an unconventional interpretation of Carl Schmitt’s conception of the political. It first identifies two alternative readings – an ‘exceptionalist’ and a ‘concretist’ one – to make the claim that in the late 1920s he laid the foundations for a theory of politics that overcame the flaws of his theory of exception. It then explains why the concretist reading provides an insightful key to Schmitt’s take on the relationship between politics and law as a whole. Despite this, the chief aim of this analysis is not interpretive. Rather, the article claims that such a paradigm change was related to Schmitt’s pondering on the elements that were menacing to draw the experience of modern statehood to an end even more seriously than any upheavals and revolutions. For he came to the conclusion that the mere claim to political self-sufficiency on the part on non-state social entities was able to defy the idea of the state as the political entity par excellence. While these reflections urged Schmitt to reformulate many features of his conception of the political, the article contends that this particular juncture in his production sheds light on a crucial feature of contemporary politics.     

国外旅游目的地竞争力研究综述

随着世界范围内旅游目的地竞争的日益激烈,旅游目的地竞争力正逐渐成为国内外研究的热点领域。国外旅游目的地竞争力研究起步早,已经较为成熟,主要包括旅游目的地竞争力概念的界定、影响因素的分析以及竞争力的评价等。本文通过对国外旅游目的地竞争力的研究文献的梳理和回顾,重点分析了旅游目的地竞争力的影响因素和竞争力评价研究,并指出了未来研究的方向。     

武陵源世界遗产地的旅游网络构建和发生演变初探

本研究以武陵源世界遗产地为例,通过实地考察和深度访谈,运用产业集群理论对武陵源旅游的网络进行构建和研究分析。研究结果发现,武陵源旅游已经形成了一个复杂的、动态的、开放的、具备创新特征的网络,而这种具备创新特征的网络的形成对于武陵源旅游的集群化发展和保持持续竞争力具有重要意义。最后,文章提出促进目的地旅游网络发展的建议。     

移民的行动抉择与网络依赖--对温州侨乡现象的社会学透视

有关温州侨乡的研究并不多,仅有的少数研究认为,温州侨乡之所以有那么多人不断地涌向海外,是因为那里存在着"炫耀消费"和"相对失落感".本文从社会网络依赖和行动选择两个层面来解释温州侨乡现象,认为温州侨乡之所以持续存在,是因为社会网络对行动路径的影响造成的,而炫耀性消费和相对失落感仅仅是表象.