The social world of allotment gardens : an ethnographic account of formations of social cooperation

PhD ThesisThis thesis provides an ethnographic account of the social world of allotment gardens in the north east of England. The specific focus is upon the enduring everyday formation and enactment of informal voluntary social cooperation amongst allotment gardeners. This form of cooperation occurs without incentives and external to the formal organization of allotment gardening coordinated by public officials and allotment committees. Informal cooperation between allotment gardeners provides sociologists with an opportunity to analyse a ubiquitous social process. Gardening is often thought of as an individualized activity but, actually, allotment gardening is undertaken in a collective setting. This is a skilled practice, with gardeners working in (and with) the natural world via periods of intensely physical activity. I argue that an interweaving of the social processes of skill, valuation, and social cooperation, are pivotal to the reproduction of the social world of allotment gardens. This finding hinges upon social interactions, relations, and networks, in this distinct social world in which people from a variety of social backgrounds and gardening experiences are present. However, many new arrivals have little or no gardening skill, and enskillment in allotment gardening differs significantly to descriptions in socially situated learning literature. Central to this argument is the most valued social characteristic in allotment gardening practice: having sufficient skill, time, physical ability, and access to social cooperation, to produce the sensuous taste of allotment-grown-food via the presentation of the highly distinct aesthetic of a cultivated (weed-free) allotment garden. As such, allotment gardening in these locales is a highly distinct set of skilled practices requiring not only time and a strong healthy body, but also social skill and access to forms of social cooperation. These requirements course with intersections of the social processes of skill, valuation, and social cooperation, which bring both challenges (and delights) to allotment gardeners.Economic and Social Research Counci

Inteligência artificial na educação e ética

Este capítulo aborda as questões éticas relacionadas com a aplicação da inteligência artificial (IA) na educação, desde os primórdios da inteligência artificial na educação, na década de 1970, até ao estado atual deste domínio, incluindo a crescente sofisticação das interfaces dos sistemas e o aumento da utilização e do abuso de dados. Enquanto nos primeiros tempos a maior parte das ferramentas estava virada para o aluno, atualmente existem ferramentas que estão viradas para o professor, apoiando a sua gestão da sala de aula, e para o administrador, ajudando-o na gestão de grupos de alunos. As ferramentas orientadas para o aluno têm agora em conta os aspetos afetivos e motivacionais da aprendizagem, bem como os aspetos cognitivos. O aumento da recolha de dados e das ferramentas de analítica da aprendizagem que lhe estão associadas tem permitido o desenvolvimento de dashboards para uma gestão dinâmica e a compreensão reflexiva dos alunos, dos professores e gestores. As questões éticas quase não tinham expressão nos primeiros tempos, mas atualmente são muito importantes. As razões devem-se aos receios legítimos de que a autonomia dos alunos e professores seja comprometida, de que os dados sejam recolhidos e desviados para outros fins, e de que a IA introduza nas decisões educacionais preconceitos adicionais aumentando a desigualdade já existente, e, também, devido à reputação assustadora que, em geral, a IA possui.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The language textbook in a post-apartheid education system

Bibliography: leaves 107-141.Using the English language textbook as its focal point, this study attempts to determine the extent to which educational publishers are in a position, through their practices, to assist in the transformation of South Africa. The centrality of language to both the creation of individual consciousness and to the shaping of society inform this investigation. Regarded as integral to these processes is the premise that education is the primary terrain into which language, and its fundamentally moulding potential, is locked. Furthermore, the impact of not only the transition in south Africa, but also of the fluidity of the wider global backdrop on both language and education are acknowledged as crucial influences on all spheres of private as well as public life. In this context, the study endeavours to locate and define those elements which comprise and inform the practices of educational publishing. It attempts to demonstrate that the broader socioeconomic, political, educational and cultural processes, from which educational publishing takes its signals, severely restrain its capacity for participation in social transformation. The study concludes with some recommendations for the publishing of English language textbooks in a post-apartheid terrain, and suggests a few areas of research pertinent to such an undertaking

Artificial intelligence to support learning and development in the workplace: a literature review

Tekoälyä hyödyntävät digitaaliset ratkaisut ovat yhä keskeisemmässä roolissa oppimisen ja kehittämisen tukemisessa työpaikoilla. Tätä katsausartikkelia varten teimme systemaattisen kirjallisuushaun, jonka pohjalta selvitimme, millaista tutkimustietoa on kertynyt tekoälyn hyödyntämisestä työpaikan oppimis- ja kehittämistoiminnassa. Tarkastelimme tämänhetkisen empiirisen tutkimuksen laajuutta ja metodologisia ratkaisuja sekä analysoimme, mistä oppimisen viitekehyksistä ilmiöitä on tarkasteltu. Analyysimme osoittaa, että tutkimusta on vielä vähän ja se on hajanaista. Katsaukseen valikoitui seitsemän artikkelia, joissa esitettiin tekoälyn soveltamismahdollisuuksia työelämän erilaisissa kehittämis- ja koulutustilanteissa. Tutkimuksissa oli käytetty monenlaisia tiedonkeruun menetelmiä ja aineistoja. Tutkimuskysymyksiä ei kuitenkaan kytketty oppimisteorioihin tai aikaisempaan oppimista koskevaan tutkimuskirjallisuuteen. Esiin nousi monia oppimisen ilmiöitä erityisesti tiedonhankinnan ja osallistumisen oppimisteoreettisista näkökulmista, mutta oppimisteoriat eivät olleet tutkimusten lähtökohtana. Tämänhetkinen työelämän digitaalista oppimis- ja kehittämistoimintaa koskeva tutkimustieto tarjoaa vain hajanaisia esimerkkejä tekoälyn hyödyntämisestä. Jotta tulevaisuudessa voidaan kehittää vaikuttavia työelämäkehittämisen tekoälyratkaisuja, tarvitaan teoreettista otetta ja käyttäytymistieteellistä tutkimusta, joka kytkeytyy aikaisempaan oppimistutkimukseen, hyödyntää kertynyttä tutkimustietoa sekä lähestyy ilmiöitä moninäkökulmaisesti. Tarvitaan uutta tietoa siitä, milloin ja miten tekoälyratkaisut tukevat osaamisen ja työn kehittämistä työpaikoilla.Digital solutions that utilize artificial intelligence play an increasingly central role in workplace learning and development. For this review article, we conducted a systematic literature search to find out what research data have been accumulated on the use of artificial intelligence to support learning and competence development in the workplace. We examined the scope and methodological solutions of current empirical research and analyzed from which learning frameworks the phenomena had been examined. Based on the results, the research is still limited and fragmented. Only seven articles were selected for the review. Based on these articles, there are wide possibilities to apply artificial intelligence in various development and training situations in working life. A variety of data collection methods and materials were used in the studies. However, research questions were not linked to learning theories or previous research literature on learning. Many learning phenomena emerged that touch on workplace learning from the perspectives of knowledge acquisition and participation, but learning theories were not the starting point for the studies. Current research on digital learning and development activities in work life context provide only fragmented examples of the use of artificial intelligence. In order to develop effective artificial intelligence solutions for learning and development in a work life context, a theoretical approach and behavioral research, that is linked, and utilizes accumulated research and approaches the phenomena from a multifaceted perspective, is needed. New information is needed on when and how artificial intelligence solutions support skills and competence development in the workplace

The integration of education and training in further education and training : towards a pedagogy of mode-switching

The integration of different types and areas of knowledge and skills is being explored for the first time in the official discourse on educational reconstruction in South Africa. The reasons for this are bound up with the country's general global conditions of capital accumulation and its political and social history. The conceptually and practically integrated curricula envisaged pose some challenges that will have to be addressed. On the one hand, the culture of democracy presently being introduced in the educational arena leads to notions of learner autonomy, self-realisation, recognition of diversity, and socio-economic redress and equity. On the other hand, the present conditions of capital accumulation accentuate the market discourse of efficiency, competitiveness and tangible outcomes

Accessing and Decoding Communities of Cultural Capital

Ours is a discussion paper which addresses, chiefly, the conference themes of: ‘equity & social justice’ and ‘theory & methods’. The paper is based on long-standing professional expertise in the area of Widening Participation (WP) in Art, Design and Architecture (ADA) in Higher Education and on research interest in the traditions and conventions, both bureaucratic and linguistic, which serve the infrastructure of formal education in ADA. The first part of the paper argues for a strategic approach to WP agendas within ADA to be informed by 1) the theory and methods of Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), specifically his work on the ‘aristocracy of culture’ and the operations of ‘cultural capital’ and 2) the recent work of James Elkins (b.1955) on the conventions of contemporary art education, in particular his application of Stanley Fish’s concept of ‘interpretive communities’ to ADA. The emergent strategy is one which recognises that socio-economic class remains the predominant obstacle to achieving credible diversity of student background in creative education at HE level. As Bourdieu makes clear, the non-acquisition of the codes and behaviours of operative cultural capital creates an acute and erroneous sense of incompleteness on the part of a reflexive working class applicant to art school who inwardly registers his/her perceived difference in capital inheritance. Elkins is right, we argue, to draw our attention to the explicit and implicit sharing of bureaucratic and evaluative vocabularies within the art academy: he usefully demonstrates the ways in which such vocabularies reinforce a complacent sense of liberal tolerance while cementing interpretive positions in ADA familiar to those with an appropriate level of cultural and educational wherewithal. For the second part of our presentation we will introduce to delegates GSA’s Prato Project: an international exchange programme between GSA and Monash University. This unique project sees Scottish students from lower socio-economic backgrounds join Australian liberal arts students in Tuscany. An intensive project, it has a twofold impact – on both ‘non-acquisition’ and ‘decoding vocabularies’, following Bourdieu and Elkins – by helping to familiarise less culturally privileged students with world renowned examples of renaissance culture, and by offering them a discursive environment in which to share and decode cultural preconceptions, build confidence, and help them identify as genuine participants in local, national and international culture. Often lacking confidence in, and alienated from, the dominant culture that pervades UK art schools, the following quote is a typical example of the project’s impact: ‘I thought I was prepared for what was going to happen on the trip. I don’t think I knew exactly how much it would have contributed to the person I am today. It changed many things about me such as my confidence, independence and my hunger for learning. Since the trip I have been to Prague, Berlin, Barcelona and Riga. This is all because I now have the confidence to travel’. In sum, our paper recommends that socio-economic class, and the ‘coding’ confidence issues which ensue, be kept in the foreground when addressing equity of participation in HE ADA. For open discussion we wish to hear of colleagues’ efforts in these areas, and share good practice, with the Prato Project as touchstone, to further test the insight and potential for institutional change which these theories and methods present

A Bricolage of Critical Hermeneutics, Abductive Reasoning, and Action Research for Advancing Humanistic Values through Organization Development Practice

This is an emergent and auto-ethnographic study to find ways for the practice of organization development (OD) to recover and sustain humanism in the workplace. It begins with a literature review hermeneutically exploring the history and relevance of three modes of inquiry—hermeneutics, abductive reasoning, and action research—paratactically, which is to say, separately without overlap or reference to each other—to future OD practice. These three modes were selected from an extended literature search for non-reductive modes of inquiry that could address the range of human interests and workplace disease as I understand them. I combined my strong background reading on hermeneutics with the abductive reasoning of C. S. Peirce as two of the modes for review and also reflexively as part of my own methodology. The third mode, action research, is borrowed from the work of Kurt Lewin and his tradition in OD, known for its humanistic and democratic aims. Also included in the literature review is a report on the some of the more salient challenges and opportunities currently confronting the practice of organization development (OD) to provide a context for practical expression of my emerging discoveries. Following the literature review, I hermeneutically surfaced submerged, tacit (hidden-from-consciousness) generative connections from the confluence (flowing together) of the three modes, as they abductively emerged from within my expanding hermeneutic experience (known as a horizon) with the literature review. I then interpret the tacit relevance of that confluence through my life experience, for illuminating those OD challenges and opportunities. Finally this study integrates a sequence of critical hermeneutic and abductive processes in a participatory action research (PAR) pathway leading to plateaus of discovery and renewal through facilitation by humanistically oriented OD praxis. I conclude with five abduced interventions hypothetically drawn from personal case studies. My audience are OD practitioners inclined to develop wholistic humanism in the workplace through facilitative immersion with small groups and micro-cultures. Here they may find enlarged conceptual frames to reconceptualize OD, engage clients in transformative dialogue, and create actionable knowledge in their practice

Introduction: Ways of Machine Seeing

How do machines, and, in particular, computational technologies, change the way we see the world? This special issue brings together researchers from a wide range of disciplines to explore the entanglement of machines and their ways of seeing from new critical perspectives. This 'editorial' is for a special issue of AI & Society, which includes contributions from: María Jesús Schultz Abarca, Peter Bell, Tobias Blanke, Benjamin Bratton, Claudio Celis Bueno, Kate Crawford, Iain Emsley, Abelardo Gil-Fournier, Daniel Chávez Heras, Vladan Joler, Nicolas Malevé, Lev Manovich, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Perle Møhl, Bruno Moreschi, Fabian Offert, Trevor Paglan, Jussi Parikka, Luciana Parisi, Matteo Pasquinelli, Gabriel Pereira, Carloalberto Treccani, Rebecca Uliasz, and Manuel van der Veen