"WHAT WOMEN LIKE AND WHAT MEN SEEK”: GENDER POLARIZATION IN (PSEUDO) SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSES

This study, inserted in the field of Language and Gender, investigates the reproduction of gender polarization in (pseudo) scientific discourse. In order to do so, we first analyzed a workshop proposal for a research event at a renowned higher education institution in Brazil entitled “What women like and what men seek: the neurobehavioral basis of passion”. In order to have a more contextualized understanding of such workshop, we also looked into the curriculum of the researcher who proposed it (which is available in the Brazilian Lattes platform) as well as a personal blog in which he writes about relationships and his views on related issues. Departing from an analysis grounded on theories of Language and Gender (FAIRCLOUGH, 1995, 2003; CAMERON, 1998; WODAK, 1997), our purpose is to problematize the ways in which scientific discourse may function so as to reinforce gender binarism and gender stereotypes. Indeed, it is possible to conclude that the texts not only reproduce gender polarization but also seem to work to maintain the heterosexual market(BING; BERGVALL, 1996). Moreover, the problem of gender polarization in scientific discourses seems to be related to another kind of binarism: the division between hard sciences and soft sciences. 

Trapped in ideology. The limitations of micro-finance in helping women creating viable micro-businesses

My research asks whether or not micro-finance represents a viable alternative to waged employment for women, as is the current international policy claim. To answer this question, I compared the accounts of 22 micro-finance agency employees in the UK and in Belgium with those of 20 self-employed women who received support from these agencies. The results suggest that there are major differences between what most agency employees imagine being problems for women in self-employment (e.g. lack of confidence, lack of training), and what women actually ex- perience (e.g. competitive markets pressures, low-profit sectors, insufficient regular unpaid helpers in their businesses). The data collected among these 20 women has also revealed that most self-employed women earn low or no income in self-employment, and wage employment would represent a better alternative to meet their needs. My thesis is that the individual’s quest for self-fulfilment at work and the current political argument for the increase of economic growth through micro-businesses have favoured the idealisation of both self-employment and micro- finance for women

The search for alternative knowledge in the post-truth era: Anti-vaccine mobilization during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey

The search for alternative knowledge, conspiracy theories, distrust of expertise and anti-science movements are gaining momentum and post-truth populism is speeding up on the back of fake news. The crisis of truth refers to an era where evidence and objective facts get lost in sentiment, emotion, and personal beliefs. Relying on emotions, creationism, religious beliefs, and common sense over expertise deliberately creates counter-knowledge referred to as pseudo-science, troll-science or fake-science. As the worth of scientific expertise is devalued, the counter-scientific discourses supported through populist political rhetoric help to produce a culture of resistance to science. Our qualitative content analysis of Twitter posts along with the news regarding anti-vaccine arguments from two selected online news sites, revealed three major themes, which we referred to as strategies used by the COVID-19 vaccine deniers in Turkey to disseminate their views. These were: an emphasis on bodily freedom and personal choice and the use of “my body my choice” rhetoric; the denying, devaluing, and shifting of scientific evidence; and the dismissal and/or attacking of alternative views and the deepening of the polarisation between the supporters of the COVID-19 restrictions, vaccine supporters and deniers. We conclude the paper by arguing that there is a link between the distrust of doctors and the anti-vaccination ideas, and the quest for alternative knowledge and expert authority.publishedVersio

Alt-Education: Gender, language, and education across the right

I explore the ideologies of gender, language and education in conservative, Christian Nationalist, and White nationalist mothers groups. I draw on my own family history, as well as on two years of blended ethnographic research in online right wing communities and one year of fieldwork in New Orleans, Louisiana, to look at homeschooling, online schools, and public teachers’ social, linguistic, and educational practices -- what I call Alt-Education. Alt-education is of course a play on alt-right, and refers to the far-right ideology; but it also refers to an alternative to mainstream education, and to education through a broader range of materials and practices such as popular or media education. Alt-education is the ensemble of practices that conservative groups use to educate. It is who teaches, what is taught, how, and how education is discussed. It is how motherhood and femininity shape what is a good teacher. It is how female submission and white male heroism are transformed into facts, and how they are taught through creative and “natural pedagogy.” Last is the ideologies of education, the ways in which its value and practice are understood and used politically. In the first findings chapter, I focus on gender: the ideology of womanhood as motherhood, and mother as natural teacher, and the ways these can link our everyday media use with the fringes of the far-right. Next, I explore education: their opposition between mother and school, and between natural pedagogy and socialist indoctrination.In the third and final findings chapter, I explore far-right curriculum: the world as god’s story, language as a battle for the beautiful, and men as history’s heroes. In between each chapter I include auto-ethnographic “anti-biographies” which draw on my multiple and shifting positionalities as a White woman who grew up with the same kind of alt-education I describe in this text. In the conclusion, I look at the ways in which this conceptual framework helps trace the mainstreaming of far-right ideas, and can be applied to research on misinformation that has become crucial to efforts from public education to public health. Finally, I call for more critical and thoughtful research on the right, one that avoids tropes of the ignorant slack jawed yokel or the wild eyed fundamentalist, and recognizes its intersections with the mainstream

Injecting disinformation into public space: pseudo-media and reality-altering narratives

This paper analyses the context of disinformation in Spain from the perspective of the pseudo-media (i.e., websites that mimic conventional media to offer partisan content based on alternative facts). Using a quantitative (N = 1,143) and qualitative (n = 396) methodology, this research analyses publications from eight Spanish pseudo-media that reach more than 4 million unique users. Results reveal an interest in three topics: vaccination, restrictions and speculation about Covid-19, national politics –focused on criticism against government– and topics related to human rights –mainly LGBTI, gender, immigration– with a total of 58.1% of the content published in four sections (International, Spain, Society, and Economy). The study reveals a growing trend towards polarisation and the use of clickbait techniques in four out of ten headlines. The Internet and social media are the most common sources quoted, while a third of the items lack sources or correspond to opinion pieces. Minorities and vulnerable groups are framed as a social threat, and the presentation of the coalition government as a danger to Spain that must be put to an end, which makes the discourse of these websites in tune with the ideology of the far right wing

Injecting disinformation into public space: pseudo-media and reality-altering narratives

This paper analyses the context of disinformation in Spain from the perspective of the pseudo-media (i.e., websites that mimic conventional media to offer partisan content based on alternative facts). Using a quantitative (N = 1,143) and qualitative (n = 396) methodology, this research analyses publications from eight Spanish pseudo-media that reach more than 4 million unique users. Results reveal an interest in three topics: vaccination, restrictions and speculation about Covid-19, national politics -focused on criticism against government- and topics related to human rights -mainly LGBTI, gender, immigration- with a total of 58.1% of the content published in four sections (International, Spain, Society, and Economy). The study reveals a growing trend towards polarisation and the use of clickbait techniques in four out of ten headlines. The Internet and social media are the most common sources quoted, while a third of the items lack sources or correspond to opinion pieces. Minorities and vulnerable groups are framed as a social threat, and the presentation of the coalition government as a danger to Spain that must be put to an end, which makes the discourse of these websites in tune with the ideology of the far right wing

Exploring the C-SPAN Archives: Advancing the Research Agenda

Exploring the C-SPAN Archives is a collection of path-breaking research studies that use video drawn from the C-SPAN Archives. The book, based on the papers presented at a November 2014 conference, includes chapters that explore issues in presidential debates, minority representation, the presentation of the first ladies, stem research, and innovative ways to analyze video. The book is divided into five parts: Part 1 consists of an overview of and common scholarship using the C-SPAN Archives and how this research advances the conversation after previously published studies. Featured are the ways in which the collection is indexed and tips on how individuals can find particular materials. This section is essential for increased scholarship and pragmatic applications. Part 2 contains applied research using the video collection. Topics in this section include a look at oral histories of minority members of Congress, an analysis of presidential debates, and the presentation style of Michelle Obama. Part 3 is focused on STEM research, including concepts and contradictions in the debate over STEM initiatives, expertise and evidence in science presentations in the C-SPAN Archives, and the framing of technology issues in a C-SPAN television series, The Communicators. Part 4 presents innovative research using C-SPAN and new computer technology. Two scholars take different technical approaches to evaluate polarization and communication using audio levels and video images. Finally, in Part 5, David Caputo presents ideas on the value of massive open online courses (MOOCs) using C-SPAN and reflects on the use of C-SPAN for citizen education in what he terms the “postdigital world.” Additionally, Patrice Buzzanell contributes a reflective essay on the future directions of research using the C-SPAN Archives based on the essays in this volume

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

Mythscapes: Violent Spaces in Postmodern Literature and Culture

This project focuses on British and American speculative novels written between the 1960s and the 2000s that position the reader to critique the contemporary world. Depictions of violent, fictional spaces, or what I call mythscapes, are playing an influential role in literary, political, religious, and even scientific discourses. The mythscape can initiate introspection on real issues by suggesting possible alternatives, conjecturing about potential consequences, and posing compelling comparisons. I define mythscape as an imagined space that features: a setting that is nonrealistic and radically different from, yet implicitly contrastive with, material reality; a rhetorical stance, which is inevitably grounded in the author\u27s historical and cultural moment; and the depiction of violent acts which are designed to shock and disturb while engaging the sympathetic emotions of the reader. Such imagined spaces could be fertile ground for rhetorical manipulation: consider, for example, individuals who have moderated their behavior due to imagined fears of the afterlife. Determining the argumentative designs and possible social impacts of such imagined spaces is the primary goal of my analysis