Understanding heritage: multiple meanings and values.

This research aims to explore the ways in which people understand and value heritage through a focus on the lay rather than the expert view. This focus was considered important in order to move beyond the emphasis on expert knowledge within heritage discourses and in turn, privilege lay understandings of heritage. This study adds to current knowledge by offering an in-depth understanding of the non-expert view of heritage and the multiple meanings and values that heritage represents within this context. The rationale for this research is based on the increasingly important role heritage plays within the wider visitor economy and the recognised interrelationships between heritage and tourism. In order to develop long-term, meaningful relationships with current and potential heritage audiences, there is a need to appreciate the ways in which people engage with heritage in a much broader sense and to understand the meanings and relevance that heritage may represent within this context. In order to meet the aim of this research, an inductive qualitative methodology was designed which prioritises the emic or insider perspective of heritage. To further enhance the inductive nature of this study, the primary research took place away from a pre-defined „heritage’ context in order to allow the participants themselves to define and shape heritage as they understand and value it. Eight focus groups were carried out with forty-seven members of the public and the data was analysed through a thematic framework. Nine themes and related sub-themes were constructed to represent the lay understandings, meanings and values of heritage. The social nature of the focus group method, along with the interaction it fosters between participants, led to a range of insights about the relevance of heritage. The majority of heritage research to date has taken place within a pre-defined heritage context, which inevitably limits the scope for accessing and understanding the views of those who do not typically engage with heritage in this way. Therefore, this study further contributes by incorporating the views of those who do not typically fall within heritage user or visitor categories. By exploring the views of the so called non-user or non-visitor of heritage the barriers that prevent engagement with „heritage‟ and „heritage tourism‟ as it is defined and presented by the industry are identified. The implications of this study relate to the need for more engaging and personally relevant heritage narratives that build from an understanding of the meanings and values that shape engagement with heritage beyond a personal level. Heritage practitioners and academics need to embrace lay understandings of heritage within their activities and seek to empower current and potential audiences to critically engage with and actively interpret meanings from the heritage they present

Levels and Variations of Violation in Rape.

This chapter investigates the variations in crime scene behaviour revealed in a sample of victim statements in cases of stranger sexual assault. Building on previous findings by Canter and Heritage (1990), and Canter (1994), it was hypothesised that there existed a scale of differing levels of violation by the offender. This scale, based upon actions in the offence, ranged from personal violation, through to physical violation and finally, at the most extreme level, sexual violation. Offences could also be differentiated at the personal and physical levels in terms of hostile, controlling, stealing or involving thematic emphases to the criminal’s actions. To test these hypotheses, crime scene data from the first detected offences of 112 British rapists were analysed using a multi-dimensional scaling procedure to explore the relationships amongst crime scene actions. The results provided empirical support for the four action themes as different expressions of various intensities of violation. The implications that these findings have for the investigation of stranger sexual assault and treatment of victims are discussed

Action Research : the first steps to start up a pilot experiment in heritage education

Peer-reviewedLes relacions entre els museus i les escoles canvien amb l'ús d'internet. Volem analitzar com aquestes noves relacions tenen lloc a una escala nacional. És important analitzar aquestes noves relacions possibles, que són producte de canvis socials i tecnològics, ja que permeten noves interaccions i participació, al mateix temps que demanen canvis en les formes d'organització, la gestió de recursos web i els models d'ensenyament i aprenentatge. Concretament, les xarxes d'aprenentatge poden establir una nova forma de relació entre els museus i les escoles, i els recursos educatius en línia amb contingut sobre patrimoni cultural poden oferir oportunitats d'aprenentatge i recursos de coneixement més enllà dels límits de l'ensenyament formal. Tanmateix, calen projectes experimentals per a efectuar proves i veure com aquests tipus de pràctiques d'ensenyament i aprenentatge funcionaran en un context social i cultural concret. Així, doncs, la recerca activa pot contribuir al desenvolupament d'una experiència d'aprenentatge, basat en la reflexió i l'acció. L'objectiu d'aquesta experimentació és obtenir un model de treball i millors pràctiques per a aprendre i ensenyar en xarxes d'aprenentatge formades per gestors, professors i estudiants de patrimoni en què els membres produeixin i utilitzin recursos educatius en línia amb contingut de patrimoni cultural. Els resultats d'aquest projecte empíric seran comprovats amb resultats de la primera part metodològica de la tesi doctoral per a obtenir un model que es pugui exportar a altres contextos.Las relaciones entre los museos y las escuelas cambian con el uso de internet. Queremos analizar cómo estas nuevas relaciones tienen lugar a una escala nacional. Es importante analizar estas posibles nuevas relaciones, que son producto de cambios sociales y tecnológicos, ya que permiten nuevas interacciones y participación, a la vez que requieren cambios en las formas de organización, la gestión de recursos web y los modelos de enseñanza y aprendizaje. Concretamente, las redes de aprendizaje pueden establecer una nueva forma de relación entre los museos y las escuelas, y los recursos educativos en línea con contenido de patrimonio cultural pueden ofrecer oportunidades de aprendizaje y recursos de conocimiento más allá de los límites de la enseñanza formal. No obstante, existe una necesidad de proyectos experimentales para realizar pruebas para ver cómo estos tipos de prácticas de enseñanza y aprendizaje funcionarán en un contexto social y cultural concreto. Así pues, la investigación-acción puede contribuir al desarrollo de una experiencia de aprendizaje, basado en la reflexión y las acciones. El objetivo de esta experimentación es obtener un modelo de trabajo y mejores prácticas para el aprendizaje y la enseñanza en redes de aprendizaje formadas por gestores, profesores y estudiantes del patrimonio en las que los miembros produzcan y utilicen recursos en línea con contenido de patrimonio cultural. Los resultados de este proyecto de investigación empírico serán comparados con los resultados de la primera parte metodológica de la tesis doctoral para obtener un modelo que pueda ser exportado a otros contextos.The relationships between museums and schools are changing through the use of internet. We want to analyse how these new relationships occur at a national level. It is important to analyse these possible new relationships, which are the product of social and technological changes. They allow for new interactions and participation whilst requiring changes in the forms of organisation, web resource management, and teaching and learning models. Specifically, learning networks can establish a new form of relationship between museums and schools and educational online resources with cultural heritage content can offer learning opportunities and knowledge resources beyond the boundaries of formal education. However, there is a need for experimental projects to test the evidence and to see how these kinds of teaching and learning practices will work within a concrete social and cultural context. Thus, Action Research can contribute to the development of a learning experience, based on reflection and actions. The aim of this experimentation is to obtain a working model and best practices for learning and teaching in learning networks shaped by heritage managers, teachers and students where the members produce and use educational online resources with cultural heritage content. The results of this empirical research project will be compared with results from the first methodological part of the PhD thesis to obtain a model that can be exported to other contexts

Love at the cultural crossroads: Intimacy and commitment in Chinese Canadian relationships

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2010 Wiley-BlackwellThe role of culture in romantic relationships has largely been investigated by examining variation between groups, rather than within groups. This study took a within-group approach to examine the influence of Canadian and Chinese cultural identification on gender role egalitarianism, intimacy, and commitment in 60 Chinese Canadian dating couples. Results revealed that men's identification with mainstream Canadian culture was associated with their own and with their partner's greater intimacy, at least in part because of their greater egalitarianism. Conversely, women's identification with mainstream Canadian culture was associated with their partners' lower intimacy. Finally, women's identification with Chinese heritage culture was associated with their greater commitment, and some evidence suggested that this was because of their greater gender role traditionalism

Tourists' Perceptions of Heritage Tourism Development in Danish-osu, Ghana

His paper examines the tourist perceptions at Danish, Osu-Ghana within the dark tourism or slavery heritage contexts. Using Cohen's (1979) typology of tourist experience, we differentiate between tourist knowledge of a heritage site relative to socio-demographic indices

Metadata enrichment for digital heritage: users as co-creators

This paper espouses the concept of metadata enrichment through an expert and user-focused approach to metadata creation and management. To this end, it is argued the Web 2.0 paradigm enables users to be proactive metadata creators. As Shirky (2008, p.47) argues Web 2.0’s social tools enable “action by loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and outside the profit motive”. Lagoze (2010, p. 37) advises, “the participatory nature of Web 2.0 should not be dismissed as just a popular phenomenon [or fad]”. Carletti (2016) proposes a participatory digital cultural heritage approach where Web 2.0 approaches such as crowdsourcing can be sued to enrich digital cultural objects. It is argued that “heritage crowdsourcing, community-centred projects or other forms of public participation”. On the other hand, the new collaborative approaches of Web 2.0 neither negate nor replace contemporary standards-based metadata approaches. Hence, this paper proposes a mixed metadata approach where user created metadata augments expert-created metadata and vice versa. The metadata creation process no longer remains to be the sole prerogative of the metadata expert. The Web 2.0 collaborative environment would now allow users to participate in both adding and re-using metadata. The case of expert-created (standards-based, top-down) and user-generated metadata (socially-constructed, bottom-up) approach to metadata are complementary rather than mutually-exclusive. The two approaches are often mistakenly considered as dichotomies, albeit incorrectly (Gruber, 2007; Wright, 2007) . This paper espouses the importance of enriching digital information objects with descriptions pertaining the about-ness of information objects. Such richness and diversity of description, it is argued, could chiefly be achieved by involving users in the metadata creation process. This paper presents the importance of the paradigm of metadata enriching and metadata filtering for the cultural heritage domain. Metadata enriching states that a priori metadata that is instantiated and granularly structured by metadata experts is continually enriched through socially-constructed (post-hoc) metadata, whereby users are pro-actively engaged in co-creating metadata. The principle also states that metadata that is enriched is also contextually and semantically linked and openly accessible. In addition, metadata filtering states that metadata resulting from implementing the principle of enriching should be displayed for users in line with their needs and convenience. In both enriching and filtering, users should be considered as prosumers, resulting in what is called collective metadata intelligence

Tourist attraction? Or reverence – The Royal New Zealand Air Force Museum. A case study of the tensions between intent and presentation

The military museum has in the last quarter of the 20th Century undergone a transformation in Western societies. The military museum has become less concerned with remembrance and more concerned with education and analysis. In New Zealand the armed services operate three museums; the Army, Air Force and Navy Museums. The following article is a case study based upon an interview undertaken with the Director of the Royal New Zealand Air Force Museum. This case study highlights the tensions a military museum Director may encounter in undertaking their duties, and satisfying their diverse stakeholders. For the Director of the RNZAF museum, a conflict has arisen between the needs to offer critical analysis of historical actions (in an educative context); to provide a tourist destination (as a primary means of funding) and to ensure a site of remembrance for those affected by the events portrayed

Damage function for historic paper. Part I: Fitness for use

Background In heritage science literature and in preventive conservation practice, damage functions are used to model material behaviour and specifically damage (unacceptable change), as a result of the presence of a stressor over time. For such functions to be of use in the context of collection management, it is important to define a range of parameters, such as who the stakeholders are (e.g. the public, curators, researchers), the mode of use (e.g. display, storage, manual handling), the long-term planning horizon (i.e. when in the future it is deemed acceptable for an item to become damaged or unfit for use), and what the threshold of damage is, i.e. extent of physical change assessed as damage. Results In this paper, we explore the threshold of fitness for use for archival and library paper documents used for display or reading in the context of access in reading rooms by the general public. Change is considered in the context of discolouration and mechanical deterioration such as tears and missing pieces: forms of physical deterioration that accumulate with time in libraries and archives. We also explore whether the threshold fitness for use is defined differently for objects perceived to be of different value, and for different modes of use. The data were collected in a series of fitness-for-use workshops carried out with readers/visitors in heritage institutions using principles of Design of Experiments. Conclusions The results show that when no particular value is pre-assigned to an archival or library document, missing pieces influenced readers/visitors’ subjective judgements of fitness-for-use to a greater extent than did discolouration and tears (which had little or no influence). This finding was most apparent in the display context in comparison to the reading room context. The finding also best applied when readers/visitors were not given a value scenario (in comparison to when they were asked to think about the document having personal or historic value). It can be estimated that, in general, items become unfit when text is evidently missing. However, if the visitor/reader is prompted to think of a document in terms of its historic value, then change in a document has little impact on fitness for use

Religion and religious education : comparing and contrasting pupils’ and teachers’ views in an English school

This publication builds on and develops the English findings of the qualitative study of European teenagers’ perspectives on religion and religious education (Knauth et al. 2008), part of ‘Religion in Education: A contribution to dialogue or a factor of conflict in transforming societies of European countries?’ (REDCo) project. It uses data gathered from 27 pupils, aged 15-16, from a school in a multicultural Northern town in England and compares those findings with data gathered from ten teachers in the humanities faculty of the same school, collected during research for the Warwick REDCo Community of Practice. Comparisons are drawn between the teachers’ and their pupils’ attitudes and values using the same structure as the European study: personal views and experiences of religion, the social dimension of religion, and religious education in school. The discussion offers an analysis of the similarities and differences in worldviews and beliefs which emerged. These include religious commitment/observance differences between the mainly Muslim-heritage pupils and their mainly non-practising Christian-heritage teachers. The research should inform the ways in which the statutory duties to promote community cohesion and equalities can be implemented in schools. It should also facilitate intercultural and interreligious understanding between teachers and the pupils from different ethnic and religious backgrounds