Digital Commons Network^™

Review Of The International Play Policies And Their Contribution To Supporting A Child's Right To Play, Fiona Armstrong, David Gaul

Articles

Play is recognised as a fundamental children's right protected by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Despite legal and constitutional requirements for ensuring children's right to play, there are few international policies dedicated to play. This paper seeks to use a critical discourse analysis lens to compare the current international policies dedicated to play and identify examples of good practice and perceived barriers to the successful development and implementation of play policies.

An Evaluation Of Ireland’S Sustainable Freight Transport Policy, Xu Zhang, Eoin Plant, Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos

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Background: The Irish government has put forth sustainable transport policy measures, yet the emphasis is mainly on the active travel and sustainable mobility for passenger transport. Contrariwise, freight transport has not received equal consideration in policy measures, regulatory frameworks, and support schemes towards the low-carbon transition. This study seeks to address this imbalance. Methods: The paper proposes an adaptation of the ASI framework for freight transport and assesses the applicability of a number of international sustainable transport measures based on their potential sustainability impact if adopted in Ireland. The research applied a Policy Delphi Method to a heterogeneous …

Re-Thinking The Coronavirus Pandemic As A Policy Punctuation: Covid-19 As A Path-Clearing Policy Accelerator, John Hogan, Michael Patrick Howlett, Mary P. Murphy

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This article joins with others in this special issue to examine the evolution of our understanding of how the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic impacted policy ideas and routines across a wide variety of sectors of government activity. Did policy ideas and routines transform as a result of the pandemic or were they merely a continuation of the status quo ante? If they did transform, are the transformations temporary in nature or likely to lead to significant, deep and permanent reform to existing policy paths and trajectories? As this article sets out, the literature on policy punctuations has evolved and helps …

The Critical Juncture Concept’S Evolving Capacity To Explain Policy Change, John Hogan

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This article examines the evolution of our understanding of the critical junctures concept. The concept finds its origins in historical intuitionalism, being employed in the context of path dependence to account for sudden and jarring institutional or policy changes. We argue that the concept and the literature surrounding it—now incorporating ideas, discourse, and agency—have gradually become more comprehensive and nuanced as historical institutionalism was followed by ideational historical institutionalism and constructivist and discursive institutionalism. The prime position of contingency has been supplanted by the role of ideas and agency in explaining critical junctures and other instances of less than transformative …

Discursive Constructions Of Professional Identity In Policy And Regulatory Discourse, Gerard Fealy, Josephine Mary Hegarty, Martin Mcnamara, Mary Casey, Denise O'Leary, Catriona Kennedy, Pauline O’Reilly, Rhona O’Connell, Anne-Marie Brady, Emma Nicholson

Articles

Aim

To examine and describe disciplinary discourses conducted through professional policy and regulatory documents in nursing and midwifery in Ireland.

Background

A key tenet of discourse theory is that group identities are constructed in public discourses and these discursively constructed identities become social realities. Professional identities can be extracted from both the explicit and latent content of discourse. Studies of nursing's disciplinary discourse have drawn attention to a dominant discourse that confers nursing with particular identities, which privilege the relational and affective aspects of nursing and, in the process, marginalize scientific knowledge and the technical and body work of nursing. …

Interculturalism In Higher Education In Ireland: An Analysis From A Strategy, Policy And Practice Perspective, Brid Ni Chonaill

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Education is instrumental in preparing students to participate in increasingly diverse Irish, European and global societies, with higher education having a part to play in the process. Issues around migration and cultural diversity have gained less attention in the higher education sector in Ireland than at primary and post primary level with a few notable exceptions. Higher education is regarded as having a “critical role” to play in terms of “enriching Ireland’s cultural life, nurturing our understanding of our own national identity and that of other cultures and belief systems” [1]. Influenced by developments at European Union level, the approach …

Using Rapid Reviews In Nursing And Midwifery Research: An Example From A Study Commissioned To Inform Policy-Making, Denise O'Leary, Mary Casey, Laserina O’Connor, Diarmuid Stokes, Gerard Fealy, Denise O’Brien, Rita Smith, Martin Mcnamara, Claire Egan

Articles

Aim: To illustrate the potential use of rapid review approaches in nursing and midwifery research by presenting a worked example from a study conducted to inform policy decision making.

Background: Rapid reviews, which can be defined as outputs of a knowledge synthesis approach that involves modifying or omitting elements of a systematic review process due to limited time or resources, are becoming increasingly popular in health research. This paper provides guidance on how a rapid review can be undertaken and discusses the strengths and challenges of the approach.

Data source and research design: Data from a rapid …

A Discursive Institutionalist Approach To Understanding The Changes To The Irish Social Partnership Policy After 2008., John Hogan, Nicola A. Timoney

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Employing the critical juncture theory (CJT), a discursive institutionalist approach, this paper examines the nature of the changes to social partnership policy at the end of the decade of the 2000s. Did these changes constitute a transformation in social partnership policy, or were they a continuation of a previously established policy pathway? The CJT consists of three elements – economic crisis, ideational change, and the nature of the policy change – that must be identified for us to be able to declare with some certainty if the changes to social partnership policy constituted a critical juncture. In this context, ideational …

Arts And Humanities Research, Redefining Public Benefit, And Research Prioritization In Ireland, Andrew Gibson, Ellen Hazelkorn

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This article looks at the effects of a national policy of research prioritization in the years following Ireland’s economic crisis. A national research prioritization exercise initiated by policymakers redefined the purpose of higher education research, and designed policies in line with this approach. Placing research for enterprise to the fore, it emphasized the economic value that subjects could return on state investments. This article examines the post-crisis policy of prioritization, its relationship with and effects on arts and humanities research, and how the notion of the benefit of research can be broadened while still addressing economic needs. It draws on …

Efficacy Of A National Hydrological Risk Communication Strategy: Domestic Wastewater Treatment Systems In The Republic Of Ireland, Paul Hynds, Owen Naughton, Eoin O'Neill, Simon Mooney

Articles

A significant body of research has focused on the role of domestic wastewater treatment systems (DWWTSs) as sources of human-specific aquatic contaminants in both developed and developing regions. However, to date few studies have sought to investigate the awareness, attitudes and behaviours of DWWTS owners and the efficacy of associated communication initiatives. The current study provides an examination of a public national engagement campaign undertaken in the Republic of Ireland which seeks to minimise the impact of DWWTSs on human and ecological health via concurrent inspection and information dissemination. Overall, 1634 respondents were surveyed using a ‘‘before and after” study …

Resolving The Policy Paradox: The Case Of Biofuel Production In Ireland, Alan Gilmer, Mark J. Mcgarrity, Vivienne Byers

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the status of policy design and policy implementation in the biofuel sector in Ireland. The focus of the work addresses the overarching operational context of the biofuel sector in Ireland and the role of different actors in shaping and resolving inconsistencies in policy outlook and practice. Design/methodology/approach – This study used a qualitative research approach involving a series of semi-structured interviews with members of the relevant sub-groups concerned. This study sought to address two questions – whether current or proposed policy is likely to affect consumption of indigenous biofuel feedstocks …

Experiences Of Computer Science Curriculum Design: A Phenomenological Study, Art Sloan, Brian Bowe

Articles

This paper presents a qualitative study of twelve computer science lecturers’ experiences of curriculum design of several degree programmes during a time of transition from year-long to semesterised courses, due to institutional policy change. The background to the study is outlined, as are the reasons for choosing the research methodology. The main findings are presented and the implications of the study described. The methodology chosen was hermeneutic phenomenology. The data were the texts of interview transcripts of the twelve participant lecturers. The experiences that emerged from analysis of the data grouped naturally in identifiable and presentable themes and these themes …

Crisis And Policy Change: The Role Of The Political Entrepreneur, John Hogan, Sharon Feeney

Articles

This paper seeks to investigate the inner mechanics of policy change. It aims to discover how ideas enter the political arena, and how endogenous forces within the policy making environment transform ideas into new policies. The central hypothesis is that in times of crisis, new ideas emanate from a number of change agents, but in order for any of these ideas to enter the institutional environment, one specific agent of change must be present: the political entrepreneur. Without political entrepreneurs, ideational change, and subsequent policy change, would not occur. The paper sets out a framework for identifying and explaining the …

An Anthology Of Enterprise Policy In Ireland, William Gorman, Thomas Cooney

Articles

Ruane and Gorg (1996: 37) remarked that 'any careful comparison of the Irish economy with other economies in the European Union immediately focuses on two key features of Ireland's pattern of industrial development: the enormous significance of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the very high export ratios in the Irish manufacturing sector among foreign-owned companies. These two features have not developed by accident, but are directly related to the industrial strategy which Ireland has pursued over the past forty years, namely, of promoting export-led growth in Irish manufacturing through various incentives and of encouraging foreign companies to establish manufacturing plants …

Institutional Mission Vs. Policy Constraint?: Unlocking Potential, Ellen Hazelkorn

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The research-intensive and competitive knowledge society is putting HEIs (higher education institutions) under the spotlight. While many HEIs around the world do not proclaim or wish to be research-intensive institutions the majority desire to intensify their research activity because it is seen as a sine qua non of higher education. Accordingly, HEIs are busy making critical strategic choices concerning human resources, the research environment, the teaching-research nexus, organisational and management structure, and funding. Governments are also making choices, using policies and financial instruments to help shape institutional mission, priorities and HE systems. But if governments genuinely desire to widen access …