Pedagogy Analysis Framework: a video-based tool for combining teacher, pupil & researcher perspectives

Background: dialogue between the teaching profession and researchers regarding pedagogical strategy is sometimes problematic. Pedagogy research may benefit from incorporating research methods that can investigate teachers’ and pupils’ interpretations. Purpose: this research expands the Pedagogy Analysis Framework (Riordan, 2020) by explaining in detail the meso-strategies (tactics) and a macro-strategy (grand strategy) used by participants in three school science lessons about chromatography. The research design builds on previous work by using full lessons and introducing pupil group verbal protocols. In addition, Pedagogy Analysis Notation is introduced to help understand and explain macro-strategic behaviours. Sample: one class of thirty 13-year-old pupils and one science teacher. Design and method: four research methods were used (lesson video analysis, teacher verbal protocols, pupil group verbal protocols and researcher group interviews). Data were video recorded (managed using NVivo). Fourteen hours of video data were analysed using Grounded Theory Methods by two educational researchers and the class teacher. The interpretivist theoretical perspective (symbolic interactionism) was underpinned by a social constructionist epistemology (hence the methodology is Straussian Grounded Theory). Appropriate criteria for evaluating the emergent grounded theory were used. Data were recorded in 2017. Results: the Pedagogy Analysis Framework uses the concepts: means (human and non-human), strategy (a spectrum from micro-strategies (actions), through meso-strategies (tactics) to macro-strategies (grand strategies)), ends (regarding the self, another person or a thing, or a group of people or things), and accidents. Types of tactics identified in these data were: inform (misinform and disinform), question, instruct, use space/time, repeat, train, assess, and interact. Pedagogy Analysis Notation is used to understand and explain ‘the stationary [sic] cupboard’ incident. Conclusion: the extended Pedagogy Analysis Framework, combined with the Pedagogy Analysis Notation, improves strategic dialogue between teachers, pupils and educational researchers. This research design facilitates comparison of interpretations of classroom pedagogy by a teacher, pupils and two researchers

Doing evolution in economic geography

Evolutionary approaches in economic geography face questions about the relationships between their concepts, theories, methods, politics, and policy implications. Amidst the growing but unsettled consensus that evolutionary approaches should employ plural methodologies, the aims here are, first, to identify some of the difficult issues confronting those working with different frameworks. The concerns comprise specifying and connecting research objects, subjects, and levels; handling agency and context; engaging and integrating the quantitative and the qualitative; comparing cases; and, considering politics, policy, and praxis. Second, the purpose is to articulate a distinctive geographical political economy approach, methods, and illustrative examples in addressing these issues. Bringing different views of evolution in economic geography into dialogue and disagreement renders methodological pluralism a means toward improved understanding and explanation rather than an end in itself. Confronting such thorny matters needs to be embedded in our research practices and supported by greater openness; more and better substantiation of our conceptual, theoretical, and empirical claims; enhanced critical reflection; and deeper engagement with politics, policy, and praxis

Pedagogy Analysis Framework: a video-based tool for combining teacher, pupil & researcher perspectives

BACKGROUND: dialogue between the teaching profession and researchers regarding pedagogical strategy is sometimes problematic. Pedagogy research may benefit from incorporating research methods that can investigate teachers’ and pupils’ interpretations. PURPOSE: this research expands the Pedagogy Analysis Framework (Riordan, 2020) by explaining in detail the meso-strategies (tactics) and a macro-strategy (grand strategy) used by participants in three school science lessons about chromatography. The research design builds on previous work by using full lessons and introducing pupil group verbal protocols. In addition, Pedagogy Analysis Notation is introduced to help understand and explain macro-strategic behaviours. SAMPLE: one class of thirty 13-year-old pupils and one science teacher. DESIGN AND METHOD: four research methods were used (lesson video analysis, teacher verbal protocols, pupil group verbal protocols and researcher group interviews). Data were video recorded (managed using NVivo). Fourteen hours of video data were analysed using Grounded Theory Methods by two educational researchers and the class teacher. The interpretivist theoretical perspective (symbolic interactionism) was underpinned by a social constructionist epistemology (hence the methodology is Straussian Grounded Theory). Appropriate criteria for evaluating the emergent grounded theory were used. Data were recorded in 2017. RESULTS: the Pedagogy Analysis Framework uses the concepts: means (human and non-human), strategy (a spectrum from micro-strategies (actions), through meso-strategies (tactics) to macro-strategies (grand strategies)), ends (regarding the self, another person or a thing, or a group of people or things), and accidents. Types of tactics identified in these data were: inform (misinform and disinform), question, instruct, use space/time, repeat, train, assess, and interact. Pedagogy Analysis Notation is used to understand and explain ‘the stationary [sic] cupboard’ incident. CONCLUSION: the extended Pedagogy Analysis Framework, combined with the Pedagogy Analysis Notation, improves strategic dialogue between teachers, pupils and educational researchers. This research design facilitates comparison of interpretations of classroom pedagogy by a teacher, pupils and two researchers

Competitive nationalism:state, class, and the forms of capital in devolved Scotland

Devolved government in Scotland actively reconstitutes the unequal conditions of social class reproduction. Recognition of state-led class reconstitution draws upon the social theory of Bourdieu. Our analysis of social class in devolved Scotland revisits theories that examine the state as a `power container'. A range of state-enabling powers regulate the legal, economic, social, and cultural containers of class relations as specific forms of what Bourdieu called economic, social, and cultural `capital'. The preconditions of class reproduction are structured in direct ways by the Scottish state as a wealth container but also, more indirectly, as a cultural container and a social container. Competitive nationalism in the devolved Scottish state enacts neoliberal policies as a class- specific worldview but, at the same time, discursively frames society as a panclass national fraternity in terms of distinctive Scottish values of welfare nationalism. Nationalism is able to express this ambiguity in symbolic ways in which the partisan language of social class cannot

Changing relationships between multinational companies and their host regions? A case study of Aberdeen and the international oil industry

There has been a revival of interest in recent years in the relationships between multinational corporations (hereafter MNCs) and the host regions in which they operate. The branch plant thesis which generally views inward investment by MNCs in a negative light - as reinforcing power relations between core and peripheral regions - has been challenged, with the suggestion that such developments can play a key role in linking up local economies to important flows of knowledge and information in a global economy. It has also been suggested that MNC branch plant activities are in practice often upgraded over time, leading to the development of important competitive advantage's for host regions. In this paper, such claims are investigated through a case study of the Aberdeen oil region in the north east of Scotland. The changing position of Aberdeen within the oil industry's corporate division of labour is evaluated in terms of the wider theoretical debate

Drosophila germ-line modulation of insulin signaling and lifespan

Ablation of germ-line precursor cells in Caenorhabditis elegans extends lifespan by activating DAF-16, a forkhead transcription factor (FOXO) repressed by insulin/insulin-like growth factor (IGF) signaling (IIS). Signals from the gonad might thus regulate whole-organism aging by modulating IIS. To date, the details of this systemic regulation of aging by the reproductive system are not understood, and it is unknown whether such effects are evolutionarily conserved. Here we report that eliminating germ cells (GCs) in Drosophila melanogaster increases lifespan and modulates insulin signaling. Long-lived germ-line-less flies show increased production of Drosophila insulin-like peptides (dilps) and hypoglycemia but simultaneously exhibit several characteristics of IIS impedance, as indicated by up-regulation of the Drosophila FOXO (dFOXO) target genes 4E-BP and l (2)efl and the insulin/IGF-binding protein IMP-L2. These results suggest that signals from the gonad regulate lifespan and modulate insulin sensitivity in the fly and that the gonadal regulation of aging is evolutionarily conserved

South Korea's automotive labour regime, Hyundai Motors’ global production network and trade‐based integration with the European Union

This article explores the interrelationship between global production networks(GPNs) and free trade agreements (FTAs) in the South Korean auto industry and its employment relations. It focuses on the production network of the Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) — the third biggest automobile manufacturer in the world — and the FTA between the EU and South Korea. This was the first of the EU’s ‘new generation’ FTAs, which among other things contained provisions designed to protect and promote labour standards. The article’s argument is twofold. First, that HMG’s production network and Korea’s political economy (of which HMG is a crucial part) limited the possibilities for the FTA’s labour provisions to take effect. Second, that the commercial provisions in this same FTA simultaneously eroded HMG’s domestic market and corporate profitability, leading to adverse consequences for auto workers in the more insecure and low-paid jobs. In making this argument, the article advances a multiscalar conceptualization of the labour regime as an analytical intermediary between GPNs and FTAs. It also provides one of the first empirical studies of the EU–South Korea FTA in terms of employment relations, drawing on 105 interviews with trade unions, employer associations, automobile companies and state officials across both parties

The anthropology of extraction: critical perspectives on the resource curse

Attempts to address the resource curse remain focussed on revenue management, seeking technical solutions to political problems over examinations of relations of power. In this paper, we provide a review of the contribution anthropological research has made over the past decade to understanding the dynamic interplay of social relations, economic interests and struggles over power at stake in the political economy of extraction. In doing so, we show how the constellation of subaltern and elite agency at work within processes of resource extraction is vital in order to confront the complexities, incompatibilities, and inequities in the exploitation of mineral resources