Using graphic novels to teach economics content to high school students with extensive support needs.

The purpose of social studies instruction in school is to facilitate the growth of competent citizens (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2013). Despite the recognized benefit of social studies instruction, emphasis on this subject has decreased over time, and has ultimately been termed a “dispensable subject” (Fitchett & Haefner, 2010). Social studies is an even more marginalized subject area for students with disabilities (Zakas et al., 2013). Expanding the research in this area is not only necessary to improving social studies academic content acquisition but is also likely to facilitate greater independence for students post-school – and by extension, improve their quality of life (White et al., 2018). Graphic novels are a popular independent reading choice for both children and adults; however, only recently have graphic novels started appearing as instructional materials in classrooms. Students gravitating to GNs for independent reading prompted the beginning of their use in the mainstream English language arts (ELA) classroom (Barter-Storm & Wik, 2020). The purpose of this study was to investigate any potential differences in student outcomes (i.e., social studies content acquisition and student engagement) when using graphic novels (GN) or traditional adapted informational text (TAIT) to teach economics concepts to high school students with ESN. Another purpose of this study was to understand both classroom teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the use of graphic novels to teach social studies content. While this study did not demonstrate clear and consistent separation of the two conditions, there were points at which GNs appear to be associated with higher engagement and content acquisition. Another finding of this study, although not addressed as a specific research question, was that text preference appeared to predict both engagement and content acquisition

Sharing economy, competition and regulation: the case of Uber in the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union

This article deals with the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the Uber cases, highlighting some implications of those judgments in the fields of competition and regulation. Uber is widely referred to as the paramount example of sharing economy. With this background, there has been intense debate on the need for a new regulatory framework and on the avenues left open by competition law. Although not addressing said issues directly, by considering Uber a carriage company, and not merely an electronic platform, the Court of Justice has contributed to “thicken the plot” on both these fronts.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sharing economy, competition and regulation: the case of Uber in the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union

This article deals with the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the Uber cases, highlighting some implications of those judgments in the fields of competition and regulation. Uber is widely referred to as the paramount example of sharing economy. With this background, there has been intense debate on the need for a new regulatory framework and on the avenues left open by competition law. Although not addressing said issues directly, by considering Uber a carriage company, and not merely an electronic platform, the Court of Justice has contributed to “thicken the plot” on both these fronts

Towards an “embedment” approach to social entrepreneurship: Insights on class, “movementality” and resource mobilization from Tamera ecovillage, Portugal

This article is part of a case study-based project analyzing the contextual factors and processes that prevent the development of decommodified realms of production and exchange from being co-opted by the dynamics of reproduction of capitalism.1 Tamera, an ecovillage founded in 1995 in the municipality of Odemira, southwestern Alentejo, Portugal,has the goal of becoming a replicable model for sustainable post-capitalist human settlements. In a pamphlet produced for visitors in the summer of 2015, Tamera describes itself as practicing solidarity economy. The basis for such claim is that, since its foundation in 1995, it has been gradually building a decommodified realm of economic activity, based on community building, the reconstruction of the commons and the weaving of sustainable synergies between humans and nature. This article questions Tamera’s self-identification as a solidarity economy initiative. It argues that it represents instead an example of what I hereby define as the “embedment’” approach to social entrepreneurship, in which humannature synergies and social and cultural capital are central assets in the development of a strategy of social and economic sustainability.info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

Illicit economies: customary illegality, moral economies and circulation

This paper is concerned with how to think the illicit and illegal as part of economies. Economic geography has only recently begun to address this challenge but in limited ways. The paper shows the difficulties with those approaches, chief among which is a reassertion of the legal/illegal binary of products and actors that is contested by the more open term illicit economies. We draw on work in cultural economy to move economic geography beyond this impasse by seeing economy as practice. The paper develops a conceptual account of illicit economies connecting moral economy and the opacities produced by logistically complex global trade to highlight the importance of customary illegality in doing business. Customary illegality is the tolerance or practice of illicit activities by largely legal economic actors rather than just a focus on illegal goods or criminal actors. Illicitness is thus shown to be neither a property of goods nor of particular economic actors, but rather a transient quality often linked to circulation. The argument is illustrated empirically through three examples drawn from the food sector. The conclusion makes suggestions for future research that are empirical, methodological and conceptual

Passageways of cooperation: mutual help in post-socialist Tanzania

African Studies Center Working Paper No. 267This paper will examine the patterns and discourses of sharing and cooperation as well as broader moralities and freedoms that are reproduced in Kuria mutual help groups. It is based on 32 months of ethnographic field research in Tarime and Serengeti districts of Mara region that investigated local patterns of cooperation and the emerging modes of personhood within the novel associational environments.2 The study argues that the systemic dynamic of Kuria cooperative groups should not be sought in the additive accumulation of material wealth or undisputed reproduction of social solidarity, but rather in historically defined processes of extending one’s self through social ties of interdependence. Such relational dynamics of informality also illuminate the emerging public spaces and socialities in globalizing Tanzanian communities. The paper is structured to provide an overview of different forms of Kuria cooperation in historical as well as contemporary perspectives, and situate these in a broader framework of culturally relevant exchanges and moralities. The first part of the study discusses the social organization of Kuria mutual help, analyzing its connections with descent and age organization and other variables relevant for its mobilization. It explores transformations in local mutual help forms and discusses the dynamics of contemporary Kuria work and savings groups that proliferate in commercializing local communities. Tendencies toward greater formalization of work reciprocities and the emergence of new categories of peers are explored. The evolution of Kuria mutual help is placed in the context of comparative ethnographic evidence of recent transformations of collective work in Africa. The second part of the study examines the construction of Kuria persons through public collective activities, situating these within the transformed materiality of socially significant exchanges and transfers. Socially relevant forms of savings and accumulation that affect mutuality and their historical transformations are explored. Changes in gendered savings and work profiles are also discussed. The study also examines novel forms of cooperation in community peacekeeping, revealing Kuria vigilantism as another important associational area of the local informality