Browsing by Person "Johnson, Karl"

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Activism, Art & Archiving at the Edge
(UHI, 2021-04-02) Johnson, Karl
Shetland’s Up Helly Aa fire festival is likely well-known to readers and contributors to the Edge blog, but they may be less familiar with the local upset caused when four schoolgirls wanted to participate in the Lerwick franchise of the event. This is a story of activism, art and archiving at the Edge of the World.
Choose your driver: How Super Mario Kart helps explain Bourdieusian sociology
(Springer, 2021-08-27) Johnson, Karl; Barnes, Naomi; Bedford, Alison
Playing Super Mario Kart, driving around the Mushroom Kingdom, I suspect that sociologist Pierre Bourdieu must have been a consultant at Nintendo. Bourdieu’s theorising of fields of power and social distinction inform contemporary understandings of institutional structures, the accumulation of different forms of capital, and hierarchical social status. Mario’s iconic and influential video game replicates some of the fundamental points in Bourdieu’s literature, via the common factors of life goals, challenging environments, gathering resources and group ranking. The theoretical framework derived from Bourdieu has been applied to understandings in education and politics, occupational therapy, health and nutrition, and beyond. Notably, while video games would have been classed as an illegitimate or ‘low’ form of culture by Bourdieu, his framework is one of the most cited in sociological understandings of the relationship between cultural consumption and social groups. In Bourdieusian terms, the coins and power-ups [economic capital] collected while karting around the tracks [fields] of the Mushroom Kingdom [society] require players to develop expertise [cultural capital] in how and when best to use them. Doing this effectively, to win races and achieve the prestige [symbolic capital] of top ranking, depends on [habitus] a combination of the experience of the driver and the capabilities of their kart, and their competency in the driving conditions of the track. This chapter will explore how gamers are performing a scaled-down version of our everyday process of social distinction. Bourdieu probably would have hated it.
The Cult of Marvel’s Loki(s), and their (Queer) Redemption
(Routledge, 2025-10-29) Johnson, Karl; Wilson, Carl; Piatti-Farnell, Lorna
Marvel’s Loki is a hero, a villain, a Young Avenger and a Dark Cabal member; a child, an adult, and an alligator; Prince (and Agent) of Asgard and King of Jotunheim; bi/pansexual and genderfluid; an architect of Ragnarök and sacrificial saviour of New Asgard; a Sorcerer Supreme and a Presidential candidate known variously as the God of Evil, Lies, Mischief, Outcasts, and Stories. Each iteration of the 60+ year-old character is a legitimate and concurrent variant of Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirbys’ original creation, occupying canonical positions within the wider transmedial, multiversal and more-or-less linear Marvel narrative (McMillan 2021; Wolk 2021).
Don’t Panic: Common Sense and the Student Voice in a Transitional Guide
(Edinburgh Napier University, 2017-03-01) Christie, Hope; Johnson, Karl
The Scottish Enhancement Theme of Transitions has largely been explored by institutions in terms of pre/post undergraduate degree, with a tangential focus on employability. Less considered are transitions between and through undergraduate levels, despite the impact they have on successful student engagement and retention (Whittle, 2015). To ensure positive transition through their degree, students must be engaged in dialogue with staff and have the opportunity to influence curriculum adaptation and development (Bovill, Cook-Sather, & Felten, 2011). Having experienced the Honours year from both a student and tutor perspective, the authors developed Don’t Panic: The Psych/Soc Student’s Guide to Fourth Year. A practical response to student concerns, the guide was designed to reflect the final year ‘life cycle’ with the simple aim of offering honest advice and encouragement to psychology and sociology students at Queen Margaret University (QMU), as an informal companion to the dissertation handbook. Development is ongoing, and following dissemination activities the guide has attracted interest from students and faculty across the United Kingdom and beyond. It is apparent that several institutions lack such a form of support for final year students – and while Don’t Panic is not presented as the solution to all transitional problems, it can serve as an example of innovation to empower the student voice. Don’t Panic has led to the author’s increasing involvement in, and understanding of, issues relating to learning and teaching, access and retention. They reflect on these matters in academic and professional literature, through the prism of their own student-to-staff transitional experience.
Fuel for the Fire: Tradition and the gender controversy in Lerwick’s Up Helly Aa
(Edinburgh University Press, 2019-10-31) Johnson, Karl
Shetland’s world-famous Viking-themed Up Helly Aa fire festival is a distinctive celebration of community and heritage. Recently media attention and local debate has begun to focus on an ongoing controversy surrounding the exclusion of women and girls from participating in certain roles in the town of Lerwick’s Up Helly Aa event. This paper provides some insight into the developing situation and critically examines the claims of heritage and tradition in the face of accusations of locally sanctioned discrimination. With input from members of the grassroots organisation Up Helly Aa for Aa, who campaign for gender equality in the festival (and which the lead author is a member of), the opportunity is taken to provide the perspective of those challenging the status quo.
Learners or consumers? Exploring the grade gap between widening participation and non-widening participation students
(Open Access Publishing Association, 2025-05-26) Jones, Sian; Taylor, Louise; Johnson, Karl
Students from widening participation (non-traditional) backgrounds are increasingly entering higher education, yet they are typically awarded lower grades than non-widening participation students. This gap was explored from a social identity theory perspective to examine two key student identities that impact performance: university student (positive impact), and educational consumer (negative impact). Students were studying in a mass-consumer cultural context, Scotland, United Kingdom. A moderated moderation model was used to test the hypothesis that a consumer identity would have a negative impact on the relation between university student identity and grades, and that this would be more harmful for widening participation students compared to non-widening participation students given their increased social identity conflicts. An online questionnaire was completed by 133 widening participation and 100 non-widening participation students (85% women, mean age 22.6 years). As expected, the model was significant. For widening participation students, the positive relation between university student identity and grades reduced (disappeared) when students had a stronger consumer identity. For non-widening participation students, however, there were no relations among the variables, thus the hypothesis was partly supported. These findings suggest that a consumer identity contributes to the grade gap between these student groups, and that institutions should support students to resist developing an educational consumer identity in mass-consumer cultural contexts.
Social Justice in Shetland’s Fire Festivals, and the role of Public Sociology
(Queen Margaret University, 2022-07-26) Johnson, Karl
In 2018, four schoolgirls had their application to participate in the junior spin-off of a famous cultural event rejected by a group of adult men, re-igniting long-held tensions in the Shetland Isles. As an islander concerned with the future progress and prosperity of my home, and as a public sociologist at QMU, I joined a local grassroots activist group to try to help tackle a local problem of inequality.
The Sociologist’s Apprentice: An islander reflects on their academic training
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2022-04-12) Johnson, Karl; Addison, Michelle; Breeze, Maddie; Taylor, Yvette
Reconfiguring imposter syndrome from an individual to a public feeling involves questioning who can access higher education and who can claim a legitimate academic identity. The author reflects on their transition from a rural island working-class background to lecturing at a university in central Scotland, while critically questioning assumptions that successful and recognised academics must tick expected career development boxes and amend their presentation of self. By demonstrating how anxiety, imposterism and internal conflict mark the habitus and mental health of someone torn between trying to secure an academic career, following a mentor and honouring their own classed and place-based sense of identity the chapter contributes to current debates on the social and political dimensions of imposter syndrome in HE via the lens of apprenticeship.
Student – Public – Sociologist: On dialogue with our first public, and in widening access to higher education
(Bristol University Press, 2020-09-14) Johnson, Karl; Scandrett, Eurig
What (and who) works in widening participation? Supporting direct entrant student transitions to higher education
(Taylor & Francis, 2018-11-09) Breeze, Maddie; Johnson, Karl; Uytman, Clare; This work was supported by Queen Margaret University and their internal Widening Student Participation and Retention (WISeR) board.
This article considers support programmes for direct entrant (DE) student transitions as a widening participation strategy. We reflect upon one induction and support project with 27 students transitioning from further education into the second year of undergraduate social science degree programmes in a Scottish university. We use focus group data to discuss what works (barriers to successful transitions, project successes and limitations) and primarily who works; how responsibility for supporting DE student transitions is distributed and which students benefit. Original findings confirm existing evidence that becoming an ‘independent learner’ is a challenge for DE students. However, analysis problematizes and significantly expands existing understandings of relationships with staff and peer support, and contributes new insight into how the materiality and everyday logistics of the university relate to DE student transitions. We argue for more institutionally embedded approaches to supporting student transitions, including resourcing academic staff to develop and provide this support.