Science and Technology Studies: Exploring the Knowledge Base

Science and Technology Studies (STS) is one of a number of new research fields to emerge over the last four or five decades. This paper attempts to identify its core academic contributions using the references that are most cited by the authors of chapters in a number of authoritative ‘handbooks’. The study then analyses the impact of these contributions by exploring the research fields, journals, and geographical location of the researchers that have cited these core contributions in their own work. Together, these two analyses reveal the various phases in the development of STS and the various aspects of convergence and divergence of the field as the quantitative studies of science and technology gradually separated from the main body of STS. The paper ends with some conclusions about the evolution of STS such as the role of ‘institution builders’ in developing new research fields and the structures required to hold them together.science studies, STS, knowledge base, handbooks, core contributions

PERSPECTIVES ON TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

This thesis examines the policy perspectives related to technology transfer and the resulting implications on scientific research. The study seeks to answer whether domestic and international laws and policies support a developmental perspective towards scientific research and technology transfer. The study finds that while university policies, government policies as well as international treaties aim to achieve the adoption of a “developmental” model for technology transfer, the commercialization of resources or research through interaction with multinational companies does not necessarily lead to better access, products, revenue or increased innovation. On the contrary, it is argued that the “developmental” model makes room for an exploitative one, giving rise to problems in a variety of research situations from academic patenting to biopiracy. This thesis supports an open access model to attain the policy objectives o f greater use o f research, as well as furthering the goal o f “knowledge-sharing.

The Impact of Family Satisfaction, Racial Identity and Perceived Ethnic Discrimination on African-American College Students\u27 Vulnerability to Stereotype Threat

Problem Stereotype threat is something that has plagued the African-American community for decades. However, there is no direct research on the protective factors that could mitigate or exacerbate the effects of stereotype threat on African-Americans. The present study is intended to focus on the relationship between family satisfaction, racial identity, perceived ethnic discrimination and African-American college students’ vulnerability to stereotype threat. Method This study used the Family Satisfaction Scale (FSS), The Black Racial Identity Attitude Scale (BRIAS), The Perceived Ethnic Discrimination Questionnaire (PEDQ) and the Stereotype Confirmation Concern Scale (SCCS) to explore the relationships between the four variables. A structural equation model was developed to examine the theoretical model to the empirical model developed from collected data. Four hundred and twenty African-American college students in the United States general population were used for this study. Results The original structural equation model suggested a poor fit with the collected data. The revised model eliminated some pathways and included additional paths based on theory found in the literature. The revised model showed an excellent fit with the data. There were significant relationships between perceived ethnic discrimination (PED), family satisfaction (FS) and stereotype threat. Black racial identity (BRI) was not correlated to stereotype threat in the final model but had a significant relationship with PED. The adjusted model accounted for 78% of variance for Stereotype threat. Conclusions The respecified model, based on the hypothesized theoretical model, was supported by findings from this study. The contribution of PED, BRI and FS were validated through statistical significance. The findings indicate that PED and FS have a direct relationship with African-American college students’ vulnerability to stereotype threat. While BRI has an indirect relationship with stereotype threat through PED. These findings have implications for the field of counseling psychology, education, and society’s understanding of protective factors that can impact and mitigate the vulnerability to stereotype threat in the African-American community

Managing the self: a grounded theory study of the identity development of 14-19 year old same-sex attracted teenagers in British Schools and Colleges

The process of Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual (LGB) identity formation is a complex one. There are many barriers in place which, implicitly or otherwise, seek to control and regulate same-sex attraction. An essential part of LGB identity formation is the process of disclosure to others, which can elicit a variety of reactions, from instant rejection to intense camaraderie. An examination of the ways in which LGB teenagers manage the visibility of their sexual identities, in the face of heterosexual control and regulation, will have profound implications for the work of those professionals who work with these young people. Using a Constructivist Grounded Theory approach (Charmaz 2005, 2006), this study examines the experiences of 14-19 year old LGB teenagers concerning self-discovery, disclosure to others, coping with negative pressures and school responses to LGB visibility. Students, teachers and school managers were asked about the promotion of heterosexual and LGB-friendly assumptions and values in a school context. Thirty-five LGB young people were asked about how these assumptions had affected their lives. Some participants seemed able to manage anti-LGB pressures much better than others and, in order to determine why, participants were asked to identify the social, verbal and non-verbal strategies they have adopted in order to manage their LGB visibility in the face of these pressures. The emergent theory is entitled ‘A Constructivist model of LGB youth identity development’. By focusing on self-presentation and the management of homonegative pressures, this study highlights the need for a greater awareness of the ways in which LGB teenagers cope with social stigmatisation and manage disclosure in order to gauge the likely reactions from others. By developing an awareness of LGB visibility management, it will be possible for those who work with young LGB teenagers to circumvent some of the adverse interpersonal and psychological effects of homonegative stigmatisation

The Value of Quality: Capital, Class, and Quality Assessment in the Re-making of Higher Education in the United State, the United Kingdom, and Ontario

This dissertation examines the utility of quality assessment (QA) in higher education as a means of measuring and improving qualitative excellence. It also tracks the emergence and development of QA in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ontario. I find that QA neither measures nor helps to produce anything that could meaningfully be described as being of high “quality”. Rather, QA is effective in helping to reproduce commercially oriented but hardly ground-breaking research and a more “flexploitable” labour force. The precursors to contemporary forms of QA first appeared in United States during the early part of the 20th century. To serve the interests of a burgeoning capitalism, corporate America organized independently and under the aegis of the American state to develop and control a national system of higher education. To that end, the captains of industry developed an extensive program of measurement and evaluation as a basis to rationalize funding for university teaching and research. Over time, that system of measurement and assessment developed into what today appears as a massive network of procedures and metrics that aid in the reproduction of a stratified system of higher education that efficiently puts out the kinds of knowledge and workers that can in turn aid in the reproduction of neoliberal capitalism. Since 1980, successive governments in both the United Kingdom and Ontario have developed systems of QA in the hope of reproducing the kinds of results achieved in America. QA has been seen as a way to install a price-type signaling system, and thereby a market, in what are subsidized and public systems of higher education. In other words, systems of QA were developed to evaluate the exchange-value of new knowledge and graduates within the context of neoliberal capitalism. Accordingly, QA makes it possible for firms and the state to rationalize funding in a manner that disciplines those within and around the university – increasingly by consent - to produce a particular form of value, namely that which can help corporations to secure larger profits, irrespective of the social, political, economic, or ecological consequences

Welcome to the knowledge factory? A study of working class experience, identity and learning in Irish Higher Education

This is a study of working class students’experience in Irish Higher Education. It is based on eighty one in-depth interviews with fifty one students of all ages between 2007 and 2012 gathered longitudinally in three different institutions of Higher Education in the Republic of Ireland. Using in-depth biographical interviews and grounded methods, within a critical and egalitarian theoretical framework, the main aim of the research is to offer a ‘thick’ account of working class students’ experience and, in particular, to document how they view and value education. The thesis analyses access and widening participation in Irish HE from the perspective of the interviewees. It documents that tertiary education is very highly valued and examines why this is the case through the participants’ life and learning stories. The research also explores the impact institutional differentiation is having on access and participation. The data also offer insight into the type of learning processes that are occuring in contemporary HE and elaborates a theory of reflexive learning through the interviews. This is framed within a critical synthesis of the work of Engestrom and Mezirow and a critique of the ‘reproduction and resistance’ debate as well as drawing on recent sociological work on the role of education in the making of contemporary biographies. The participants’ biographical accounts offer insight into working class experience inside and outside the walls of the university and the research suggests that shared experiences in community, family and work gives rise to distinct patterns of class (dis)identification. Based on the data and wideranging desk research-especially the work of Axel Honneth, Diane Reay, Henri Lefebvre, Andrew Sayer and Pierre Bourdieu- the thesis outlines a conceptual framework for analysing class inequality based on ownership, authority and legitimate cultural capital within a theory of social space. Furthermore, the biographical accounts of education and society gathered for the inquiry indicate that the politics of respect and recognition are crucial to understanding contemporary working class experience. A key argument of the thesis is that class analysis, social science and educational scholarship needs to develop a more sophisticated set of theoretical tools for exploring the normative nature of social practice and in particular the affective, embodied experience of class inequality inside and outside education

Leadership styles of successful tribal college presidents

Mentions Joseph Mc Donald and Salish Kootenai College and also James Shanley and Fort Peck Community College