reflexivity

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reflexivity

the capacity possessed by an account or theory when it refers to itself, e.g. the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of sociology
(particularly in ETHNOMETHODOLOGY and SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM) the idea that our everyday practical accounts are not only reflexive and self-referring but also socially constitutive of the situations to which they refer. On this view, reflexivity is a capacity possessed by social actors which is decisive in distinguishing human actors from animals.

It is a feature of reflexive social accounts and theories of all types that these accounts may also act to reproduce or to transform those social situations to which they refer.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Reflexivity

the property of a binary (two-place, two-term) relation that expresses the fact that the relation holds pairs of objects with identical components—that is, that the relation holds between an object and its “mirror image.” In other words, a relation R is said to be reflexive if for any object x from its domain of definition, xRx is satisfied.

The most important typical examples of reflexive relations are relations of the equality type—such as identity, equivalence, and similarity—(because any object is equal to itself) and the relations ≥ and ≤ of nonstrict order (because no object is less or greater than itself). [22–152–3; updated]

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Moderating Effect of Top Management Team Reflexivity

Learning, trust, and creativity in top management teams: Team reflexivity as a moderator

Reflexivity becomes an important tool for reflecting upon the appropriateness of one's methodological choices, especially because of the general orientation present in most qualitative studies, which proposes that researchers must immerse themselves into the reality under study.

GUIDELINES FOR QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES: CONTROVERSY AND POSSIBILITIES/DIRETRIZES PARA PESQUISAS QUALITATIVAS EM ESTUDOS ORGANIZACIONAIS: CONTROVERSIAS E POSSIBILIDADES

These discussions also question pre-existing understandings of capital, agency, identity and reflexivity. For the sake of clarity, each case study is linked back to the theoretical framework used throughout the research which, although at times feels a little repetitive, is nonetheless important in order to understand the nuances of each offenders desistance process.

Offending and Desistance: The Importance of Social Relations

In this paper, I consider one aspect of the unconscious dimensions of fieldwork--the researcher's unconscious--and situate this project within the broader projects of reflexivity and positionality in qualitative research, where researchers attend to the role they play in affecting, and even constituting, their objects of study.

Anxiety and phantasy in the field: The position of the unconscious in ethnographic research

The practice of reflexivity is important because it helps researchers raise their awareness of these issues (Bishop & Shepherd, 2011).

How the I shapes the eye: the imperative of reflexivity in global service-learning qualitative research

This moment of reflexivity is most apparent during cultural or social crises.

Reading Pierre Bourdieu after William Pietz

During the course of the study, our analysis also revealed reflexivity to be a latent concept guiding our discussions.

Assessment as reflexive practice: a grounded model for making evidence-based decisions in student affairs

Gold (2008) and Shoemark's (2009) writings prompted the author to deepen personal reflexivity as a mid-level practicing clinician and novice researcher.

The intimate simplicity of group singing: a reflection of practice

This discussion therefore considers these common pitfalls of research with trans people through examining: the benefits and costs of the philosophies commonly underpinning such research; the issues with researcher reflexivity which may fail to ensure ethical practice; and how the common notion of 'giving a voice' as the benefit of the research to participants consists of problematic power relations.

Researching trans people: Ethics through method

First, the PHIRIC working group's propositions on reflexivity are ambiguous and unrepresentative of the literature on this theme over the past few years.

Reflexivity in PHIR: let's have a reflexive talk!

Moreover, the findings of DaSilveira (2007) and DeSouza and Gomes (2005) pointed out a list of indicators of dialogic reflexivity in the level of syntactic structure, listing as main sentences the types 'question', 'question-answer', 'assertion-denial', 'exclamation'.

Narrative and dialogical reflexivity: an approach between writing and inner speech/Narrativa e reflexividade dialogica: uma aproximacao entre escrita e fala interna