Norma R A Romm
Biographic Data
| ID | 250277 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Norma R A Romm |
| GIVEN NAMES | Norma R A |
| FAMILY NAME | Romm |
| SIGNATURE | ROMM N R A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of South Africa |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1722-9720 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Revisiting Social Psychology as History Towards Research as Relational Future Forming
In this article, I scrutinize Gergen’s argument (Gergen in J Personal Soc Psychol 26(2):309–320, 10.1037/h0034436, 1973) that conventional Western-originated psychological science, by seeking to uncover universal law-like regularities of human behaviour in society (akin to those supposedly discoverable in nature), ambiguous phrasing reflection on the potential consequences of this enterprise in society. I link this to his arguments in various tex…
Towards eco‐systemic living
The paper reflects on the lessons from two case studies in order to discuss (1) how they address Ostrom's eight principles and (2) implications for social, economic and environmental challenges. The two case studies are of forest communities in Venda in South Africa and Ciptagelar, West Java, discussed in terms of their social, environmental and economic approaches. In both cases, the communities see themselves as related to nature; in the case o…
African Youth’s Visioning for Re-inventing Democracy in the Digital Era
This article discusses the African cohort’s contribution to the “re-inventing democracy in the digital era” project, funded by a UN Democracy Fund. The project involved almost 100 youth from five regions of the globe in deliberating upon the future of democracy, using a methodology called structured dialogical design. We explain the utility of this methodology for aiding processes of deliberative democracy. We focus on the Africa cohort’s (collec…
Justifying Research as Conscious Intervention in Social and Educational Life
In this article, I expand on Mertens' advocacy of the transformative paradigm for social research, where research is consciously geared to the advancement of social justice. I indicate certain links with Indigenous paradigmatic approaches to "knowing," where legitimate knowing is rooted in a quest to enhance relationality in the web of relations in which we as knowers and actors are enmeshed. In considering how we might justify associating knowin…
Mixed Methods and Cross Disciplinary Research
Balancing Individualism and Collectivism
Social Dominance Theory
Social dominance theory (SDT) as expounded by Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto (1999) takes as its starting point that human societies tend to be structured as group‐based hierarchical systems, with dominant groups having access to a disproportionately larger share of valued material and symbolic possessions. SDT identifies age , gender , and arbitrary‐set bases of hierarchy and oppression (with “arbitrary” bases being centered on socially signifi…
Research Processes Directed Towards Social Development
Nurturing research relationships
In this article we offer an account of a research-and-intervention project – called The 500 Schools Project: Making Schools Better – in which we were involved in various capacities. We focus on the design of this project in terms of its links with what Mertens in various publications calls the ‘transformative paradigm’. Further, we discuss the way in which Tlale tried to carry out the transformative remit in a particular case by his encouraging p…
Narratives of agency
In this article, we locate the Kha Ri Gude South African Mass Literacy Campaign within the context of the problem of illiteracy and exclusion in South Africa, while concentrating on various post-apartheid initiatives designed to give visually challenged adults the opportunity to become literate. We shall provide a detailed account of focus group sessions organised in 2012; the aim of these sessions was to explore the experiences of blind literacy…
Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Possibilities for Re-envisaging Globalization
Indigenous cultural orientations across the globe offer some groundwork for us to recognize the essential connectivity of all planetary life, including human and non-human dynamisms. Furthermore, Indigenous Wisdom as it manifests across the world (for example, in the cultural symbols of Indigenous people in Africa, of Native/Indian Americans in America, and of Aboriginals in Australia) can be seen as offering an approach to knowing and being that…
Employing Questionnaires in terms of a Constructivist Epistemological Stance
In this article, I delve into what it might mean to employ questionnaires without regarding them simply as a way of attempting to discern relationships of correlation or causality between defined variables (as in positivist and post-positivist conceptions of questionnaires). I shall consider the implications of researchers using questionnaires on the basis of alternative paradigmatic orientations. I shall discuss, in particular, interpretivist st…
Revisiting Social Dominance Theory
Active research towards the addressal of HIV/Aids in the informal economy in Zambia
In this article we offer an account of research undertaken for the International Labour Organization (on behalf of the National Aids Council in Zambia) in relation to HIV/AIDS and the informal economy in Zambia. We concentrate on how we tried to operate in terms of a conscious recognition of (and acceptance of responsibility for) our complicity as inquirers (together with others) in the development of the unfolding situations being explored. We i…
Caricaturing and Categorising in Processes of Argument
Charges of caricature have been levelled recently by contributors to this journal in the course of their conducting debates about epistemological questions. The argument developed here is that these charges themselves express different epistemological positions. In exploring these differences, I indicate my preference for seeing the term 'caricature' as a symbolic device pleading for experimentation with alternative avenues of argument, rather th…
Becoming More Accountable
This article provides a response to Hammersley and Gomm's article entitled Bias in Social Research (1997). Hammersley and Gomm's proposed conception of bias is rooted in a particular view of the pursuit of scientific knowledge - a view which they call nonfoundationalist. The way in which Hammersley and Gomm account for their nonfoundationalist view and the way in which they level critiques against relativism and standpoint epistemology, are chall…
The Methodologies of Positivism and Marxism
Positivism as a theory of science - Comte, Popper, summary positivism in sociology - the definition of sociological knowledge, the logic of sociological investigation, of observation, the practical utility of sociological knowledge, summary Marxist realism as a theory of science - Keats argument, summary Marxist realism in sociology - the definition of sociological knowledge, the logic of scientific investigation, of investigation, the practical …
The Methodologies of Positivism and Marxism
Focusing on the methodological principles which underlie sociologists' study of social reality, this text offers clarification and outlines how the different approaches to study originate from various
Critical Systems Thinking
Active research towards the addressal of HIV/Aids in the informal economy in Zambia
In this article we offer an account of research undertaken for the International Labour Organization (on behalf of the National Aids Council in Zambia) in relation to HIV/AIDS and the informal economy in Zambia. We concentrate on how we tried to operate in terms of a conscious recognition of (and acceptance of responsibility for) our complicity as inquirers (together with others) in the development of the unfolding situations being explored. We i…
Becoming More Accountable
This article provides a response to Hammersley and Gomm's article entitled Bias in Social Research (1997). Hammersley and Gomm's proposed conception of bias is rooted in a particular view of the pursuit of scientific knowledge - a view which they call nonfoundationalist. The way in which Hammersley and Gomm account for their nonfoundationalist view and the way in which they level critiques against relativism and standpoint epistemology, are chall…
Revisiting Social Dominance Theory
Caricaturing and Categorising in Processes of Argument
Charges of caricature have been levelled recently by contributors to this journal in the course of their conducting debates about epistemological questions. The argument developed here is that these charges themselves express different epistemological positions. In exploring these differences, I indicate my preference for seeing the term 'caricature' as a symbolic device pleading for experimentation with alternative avenues of argument, rather th…
Employing Questionnaires in terms of a Constructivist Epistemological Stance
In this article, I delve into what it might mean to employ questionnaires without regarding them simply as a way of attempting to discern relationships of correlation or causality between defined variables (as in positivist and post-positivist conceptions of questionnaires). I shall consider the implications of researchers using questionnaires on the basis of alternative paradigmatic orientations. I shall discuss, in particular, interpretivist st…
The Methodologies of Positivism and Marxism
Focusing on the methodological principles which underlie sociologists' study of social reality, this text offers clarification and outlines how the different approaches to study originate from various
The Methodologies of Positivism and Marxism
Positivism as a theory of science - Comte, Popper, summary positivism in sociology - the definition of sociological knowledge, the logic of sociological investigation, of observation, the practical utility of sociological knowledge, summary Marxist realism as a theory of science - Keats argument, summary Marxist realism in sociology - the definition of sociological knowledge, the logic of scientific investigation, of investigation, the practical …
The Methodologies of Positivism and Marxism
Focusing on the methodological principles which underlie sociologists' study of social reality, this text offers clarification and outlines how the different approaches to study originate from various
Becoming More Accountable
This article provides a response to Hammersley and Gomm's article entitled Bias in Social Research (1997). Hammersley and Gomm's proposed conception of bias is rooted in a particular view of the pursuit of scientific knowledge - a view which they call nonfoundationalist. The way in which Hammersley and Gomm account for their nonfoundationalist view and the way in which they level critiques against relativism and standpoint epistemology, are chall…
Caricaturing and Categorising in Processes of Argument
Charges of caricature have been levelled recently by contributors to this journal in the course of their conducting debates about epistemological questions. The argument developed here is that these charges themselves express different epistemological positions. In exploring these differences, I indicate my preference for seeing the term 'caricature' as a symbolic device pleading for experimentation with alternative avenues of argument, rather th…
Active research towards the addressal of HIV/Aids in the informal economy in Zambia
In this article we offer an account of research undertaken for the International Labour Organization (on behalf of the National Aids Council in Zambia) in relation to HIV/AIDS and the informal economy in Zambia. We concentrate on how we tried to operate in terms of a conscious recognition of (and acceptance of responsibility for) our complicity as inquirers (together with others) in the development of the unfolding situations being explored. We i…
Revisiting Social Dominance Theory
Employing Questionnaires in terms of a Constructivist Epistemological Stance
In this article, I delve into what it might mean to employ questionnaires without regarding them simply as a way of attempting to discern relationships of correlation or causality between defined variables (as in positivist and post-positivist conceptions of questionnaires). I shall consider the implications of researchers using questionnaires on the basis of alternative paradigmatic orientations. I shall discuss, in particular, interpretivist st…
Narratives of agency
In this article, we locate the Kha Ri Gude South African Mass Literacy Campaign within the context of the problem of illiteracy and exclusion in South Africa, while concentrating on various post-apartheid initiatives designed to give visually challenged adults the opportunity to become literate. We shall provide a detailed account of focus group sessions organised in 2012; the aim of these sessions was to explore the experiences of blind literacy…
Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Possibilities for Re-envisaging Globalization
Indigenous cultural orientations across the globe offer some groundwork for us to recognize the essential connectivity of all planetary life, including human and non-human dynamisms. Furthermore, Indigenous Wisdom as it manifests across the world (for example, in the cultural symbols of Indigenous people in Africa, of Native/Indian Americans in America, and of Aboriginals in Australia) can be seen as offering an approach to knowing and being that…
Research Processes Directed Towards Social Development
Nurturing research relationships
In this article we offer an account of a research-and-intervention project – called The 500 Schools Project: Making Schools Better – in which we were involved in various capacities. We focus on the design of this project in terms of its links with what Mertens in various publications calls the ‘transformative paradigm’. Further, we discuss the way in which Tlale tried to carry out the transformative remit in a particular case by his encouraging p…
Social Dominance Theory
Social dominance theory (SDT) as expounded by Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto (1999) takes as its starting point that human societies tend to be structured as group‐based hierarchical systems, with dominant groups having access to a disproportionately larger share of valued material and symbolic possessions. SDT identifies age , gender , and arbitrary‐set bases of hierarchy and oppression (with “arbitrary” bases being centered on socially signifi…
Balancing Individualism and Collectivism
Mixed Methods and Cross Disciplinary Research
Justifying Research as Conscious Intervention in Social and Educational Life
In this article, I expand on Mertens' advocacy of the transformative paradigm for social research, where research is consciously geared to the advancement of social justice. I indicate certain links with Indigenous paradigmatic approaches to "knowing," where legitimate knowing is rooted in a quest to enhance relationality in the web of relations in which we as knowers and actors are enmeshed. In considering how we might justify associating knowin…
African Youth’s Visioning for Re-inventing Democracy in the Digital Era
This article discusses the African cohort’s contribution to the “re-inventing democracy in the digital era” project, funded by a UN Democracy Fund. The project involved almost 100 youth from five regions of the globe in deliberating upon the future of democracy, using a methodology called structured dialogical design. We explain the utility of this methodology for aiding processes of deliberative democracy. We focus on the Africa cohort’s (collec…
Towards eco‐systemic living
The paper reflects on the lessons from two case studies in order to discuss (1) how they address Ostrom's eight principles and (2) implications for social, economic and environmental challenges. The two case studies are of forest communities in Venda in South Africa and Ciptagelar, West Java, discussed in terms of their social, environmental and economic approaches. In both cases, the communities see themselves as related to nature; in the case o…
Critical Systems Thinking
Revisiting Social Psychology as History Towards Research as Relational Future Forming
In this article, I scrutinize Gergen’s argument (Gergen in J Personal Soc Psychol 26(2):309–320, 10.1037/h0034436, 1973) that conventional Western-originated psychological science, by seeking to uncover universal law-like regularities of human behaviour in society (akin to those supposedly discoverable in nature), ambiguous phrasing reflection on the potential consequences of this enterprise in society. I link this to his arguments in various tex…
Sociology (17 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Social science (8 works) · Community Health and Development (5 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Politics (5 works)