Mandarin Chinese community schooling in England: Language, culture and pupils’ identities

This qualitative ethnographic study adopts a social constructionist approach to investigate the significance of Chinese community schooling in the lives of pupils, parents and school staff. The study is important because it challenges homogenous and stereotypical constructions of Chinese language, culture, and identity evident in some previous studies, and promoted in the media. Several key findings emerged from the study. First, pupils and adults understood language learning as the main focus of Chinese community schooling, whether focused on learning Mandarin, or English for Chinese-migrant pupils. Second, pupils and adults valued the role of the school as capital in various forms (i.e., social, economic, and cultural). Third, a contrast emerged between the focus of the schools on Mandarin as dominant Chinese language and the diversity of Chinese languages spoken by pupils and adults (e.g., Hakka and Cantonese). Fourth, pupils valued the transmission of Chinese culture but, unlike the adults, they were interested in its meaning for their family histories and identities rather than in the interiorisation of values. Finally, community schooling played a positive role in pupils' lives as it encouraged them to claim the right to construct their identity as Chinese, regardless of their spoken language(s), their life trajectories, and family background. Overall, this study has shown that Chinese community schools are linguistically and culturally varied spaces where pupils and adults coconstruct concepts of Chinese language and culture that are both informed by their life trajectories and ideologically charged. Furthermore, the schools are spaces that encourage intercultural encounters and, as such, are sites for intercultural awareness and development rather than “ethnic enclaves”. The study provides valuable insights for researchers in the areas of international and intercultural Chinese language education and researching multilingually. Also, the findings offer insights for researchers, educators, policy makers, and the parents and children participating in the life of the schools to better understand the phenomenon of Chinese language community schooling

I was surprised to see you in a Chinese school’: Researching multilingually opportunities and challenges in community-based research

Researchers working in multilingual contexts must draw on their own linguistic resources when conceptualizing, planning, conducting, and reporting their studies, whether for theses or publications, or in dissemination to other stakeholders. However, these multilingual processes have received little attention in previous research. Drawing on an ethnographic study undertaken by Sara Ganassin in Chinese community language education, we investigate what opportunities and challenges a ‘researching multilingually’ perspective offers the researcher. We analyse narrative data and ethnographic observations to illustrate how the researcher drew on her multilingual resources vis-a-vis the linguistic spaces of her research context, the reflexive aspects of her multilingual positionality, and the ethical choices faced by her. From these insights, we make a theoretical and methodological case for embedding a researching multilingually approach in research that recognizes the linguistic resources of the researcher. The study has implications for building researcher capacity in multilingual research contexts, and for highlighting multilingual researcher processes that improve understanding, reporting, and representation of people from diverse linguistic and cultural horizons

Developing intercultural understanding for study abroad: Students' and teachers' perspectives on pre-departure intercultural learning

This study reports on students’ and teachers’ perspectives on a programme designed to develop Erasmus students’ intercultural understanding prior to going abroad. We aimed to understand how students and their teachers perceived pre-departure materials in promoting their awareness of key concepts related to interculturality (e.g., essentialism, stereotyping, otherising) during an intercultural education course for mobile students. Twenty pre-departure Erasmus undergraduate students from an Italian university, four teachers and one observer participated in the study. Seven hours of audio/video recordings of classroom discussions and teachers’ retrospective narratives were analysed thematically. Although students initially subverted the goals of one of the tasks, they demonstrated foundations of intercultural thinking; followed by movement from self-interest to intercultural awareness of the other; and finally, developing intercultural awareness, supported through opportunities to express emotions/feelings and discussion and application of key concepts of interculturality. Teachers’/observer’s perspectives confirmed the quality and flexibility of the materials in developing students’ intercultural awareness. The findings suggest that pre-departure materials can help students to recognise variety and complexity in self and others in intercultural encounters. But students’ primary needs for practical information should first be satisfied; interactive spaces for expressing emotion and feelings are important for understanding self and others; and scaffolding activities help students to understand intercultural concepts

Desenvolvimento de nanopartículas lipídicas sólidas para carreamento de curcumina e análise de sua atividade contra células de câncer colorretal murino CT26

Tese (Doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Nanociência e Nanobiotecnologia, 2020.A quimioterapia contra o câncer continua sendo um desafio devido aos mecanismos de resistência das células tumorais e à toxicidade dos fármacos anticâncer. Estudos clínicos sugerem que as respostas imunitárias específicas para células cancerosas podem ser responsáveis, pelo menos em parte, para o sucesso clínico dos esquemas terapêuticos que dependem de indutores de morte celular imunogênica. Neste contexto, a eficiência de agentes anticâncer que são indutores de morte celular imunogênica dependem da capacidade do sistema imunitário do hospedeiro em reconhecer os sinais desta morte e gerar uma robusta resposta imunitária contra as células cancerosas. Morte celular imunogênica é uma via proeminente para a ativação do sistema imunitário contra o câncer, podendo resultar no sucesso de terapias anticâncer em longo prazo, devido às respostas imunitárias específicas, aumentando assim a eficácia da terapia em comparação com os agentes anticâncer convencionais utilizados.Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).Cancer chemotherapy remains a challenge due to the resistance mechanisms of tumor cells and the toxicity of anticancer drugs. Clinical studies suggest that specific immune responses to cancer cells may be responsible, at least in part, for the clinical success of therapeutic regimens that depend on inducers of immunogenic cell death. In this context, the efficiency of anti-cancer agents that are immunogenic cell death inducers depends on the ability of the host's immune system to recognize the signs of this death and generate a robust immune response against cancer cells. Immunogenic cell death is a prominent pathway for the activation of the immune system against cancer and may result in the success of anti-cancer therapies in the long term due to specific immune responses, thus, increasing the effectiveness of therapy compared to conventional anti- cancer agents