COMPARE Forum: The idea of North-South and South-South collaboration

The idea of having a Compare Forum focusing on the above title was first discussed with one of the Editors of Compare during a PhD defence in Oslo in 2011. The PhD dissertation itself was linked to a larger project in which researchers from the North (Norway) and the South (South Africa) had been collaborating in educational research for over 10 years. Despite the fact that North-South collaboration is not a new issue on the agenda (King 1985) it is still a timely topic to explore, particularly given the recent growth and moves towards North-South-South collaboration or even South-South Cooperation in Education and Development (Chisholm and Steiner-Khamsi 2009). Thus, any discussion of research collaboration, whether North-South or South-South, is seen as an ideal topic for comparative education, particularly when exploring why there should be collaboration at all and if so what are some of the challenges. While it may be argued that the difference between North-South and South-South collaboration may simply be a question of geography, King (1985) reminds us that collaboration is not necessarily between equals and that collaboration at times ‘appears to be a process initiated in the North, and in which the South participates, as a counterpart’ (184). Ultimately, the differences go beyond simple geographic location to issues of funding and power, something that each of the contributions will touch upon in their own way. While cooperation may mean working with someone, it does suggest that one partner provides information or resources to the other, while collaboration suggests a more equal partnership in which researchers work alongside each other. For the majority of our contributors, we use collaboration as opposed to cooperation, although the literature is not always so clear on this distinction.Web of Scienc

Investigation of Swedish cases reveals an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis at a Norwegian hotel with possible links to in-house water systems

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In March 2007, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health was notified of Swedish individuals diagnosed with cryptosporidiosis after staying at a Norwegian hotel. In Norway, cryptosporidiosis is not reportable, and human infections are rarely diagnosed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A questionnaire on illness and exposure history was e-mailed to seven organised groups who had visited the hotel in March. Cases were defined as persons with diarrhoea for more than two days or laboratory-confirmed cryptosporidiosis during or within two weeks of the hotel visit. The risk factor analysis was restricted to two groups with the highest attack rates (AR) and same hotel stay period. Local food safety authorities conducted environmental investigations.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In total, 25 diarrhoeal cases (10 laboratory-confirmed) were identified among 89 respondents. Although environmental samples were negative, epidemiological data suggest an association with in-house water consumption. In one group, the AR was higher amongst consumers of water from hotel dispenser (relative risk [RR] = 3.0; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.9–9.8), tap water (RR = 2.3; CI: 0.9–5.8), and lower amongst commercial bottled water drinkers (RR = 0.6; CI: 0.4–1.0). Consumption of ice cubes was a risk-factor (RR = 7.1; CI: 1.1–45.7) in the two groups combined.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This outbreak would probably have remained undetected without the alert from Swedish health authorities, illustrating the difficulties in outbreak detection due to low health care seeking behaviour for diarrhoea and limited parasite diagnostics in Norway. Awareness of cryptosporidiosis should be raised amongst Norwegian medical personnel to improve case and outbreak detection, and possible risks related to in-house water systems should be assessed.</p

The challenge to professionals of using social media: teachers in England negotiating personal-professional identities

Social media are a group of technologies such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn which offer people chances to interact with one another in new ways. Teachers, like other members of society, do not all use social media. Some avoid, some experiment with and others embrace social media enthusiastically. As a means of communication available to everyone in modern society, social media is challenging teachers, as other professionals in society, to decide whether to engage with these tools and, if so, on what basis – as an individual (personally), or as a teacher (professionally). Although teachers are guided by schools and codes of practice, teachers as individuals are left to decide whether and how to explore social media for either their own or their students' learning. This paper analyses evidence from interviews with 12 teachers from England about their use of social media as to the challenges they experience in relation to using the media as professional teachers.. Teachers are in society’s spotlight in terms of examples of inappropriate use of social media but also under peer pressure to connect. This paper explores their agency in responding. The paper focuses on how teachers deal with tensions between their personal and professional use of social media. These tensions are not always perceived as negative and some teachers' accounts revealed a unity in their identities when using social media. The paper reflects on the implications of such teachers' identities in relation to the future of social media use in education

Teachers' Perceived Professional Space and their Agency

Item does not contain fulltextIn order to increase student performance, governments stress the importance of standardization for teaching which is seen as a threat to teachers' professionalism. In this small-scale study we investigated the way teachers use their professional space in these changing circumstances. We studied eighteen cases of secondary education teachers in-depth, using observations, interviews, and storylines. Our analyses revealed two types of trajectories which can be characterized by bounded and contested agency. In both trajectories the importance of personal factors and environmental factors were acknowledged. Insights into the relation between perceived space and agency can promote our understanding of teacher professionalism.15 december 20169 p

Ethical considerations in engaging young people in European obesity prevention research:The CO-CREATE experience

Engaging youth in obesity prevention research and policy action is essential to develop strategies that are relevant and sensitive to their needs. Research with young people requires critical reflection to safeguard their rights, dignity, and well-being. The CO-CREATE project used various methods to engage approximately 300 European youth aged 15–19 years in the development of policies to prevent adolescent obesity. This paper discusses ethical considerations made in the project pertaining to the youth's voluntary participation, their protection from obesity stigma, respect for their time, data privacy and confidentiality, power balance, and equality of opportunity to participate in the research. We describe measures implemented to prevent or limit the emergence of ethical challenges in our interaction with youth and discuss their relevance based on our experience with implementation. While some challenges seemingly were prevented, others arose related to the youth's voluntary participation, time burdens on them, and the sustainability of participation under the Covid-19 pandemic. Concrete and ongoing ethical guidance may be useful in projects aiming to interact and build collaborative relationships with youth for long periods of time.</p

Negotiating policy ideas:Participatory action research projects across five European countries

IntroductionBetween 2019 and 2021, 199 adolescents collaborated with adults in 15 participatory action research projects, called Youth Alliances, to contribute to system-directed obesity prevention in five EU countries. We investigated if and how these Youth Alliances included diverse youth, enhanced engagement, generated policy proposals and changed problem perception.TheoryWe assessed the Youth Alliances from a micro-sociological perspective of negotiated order and attended to what we call third order effects: that participatory action provides time and space to renegotiate meaning.MethodologyWe used a case-comparative interpretive framework to attend to complexity. Based on collaborative and comparatively triangulated observations, documents and contextual data, we studied adaptations to Youth Alliances due to contextual demands and local contingencies in micro-interactions.ResultsYouth Alliances led to the involvement of adolescents from diverse backgrounds who participated meaningfully in a form of partnership, generated a wide variety of policy proposals, and learned about obesogenic systems, policies and participation in the process.Discussion and conclusionA focus on meaning-making and interaction reveals how one participation approach can have multiple and even contradictory outcomes depending on non-linear, emergent and contingent local interactions. Some of the outcomes represent well-known second order effects (e.g., changing power relations). But we also point to what we call third order effects: specific activities generated time and space for social interactions in which novel meaning could arise and consolidate

Negotiating policy ideas: Participatory action research projects across five European countries

EuropaIntroduction - Between 2019 and 2021, 199 adolescents collaborated with adults in 15 participatory action research projects, called Youth Alliances, to contribute to system-directed obesity prevention in five EU countries. We investigated if and how these Youth Alliances included diverse youth, enhanced engagement, generated policy proposals and changed problem perception. Theory We assessed the Youth Alliances from a micro-sociological perspective of negotiated order and attended to what we call third order effects: that participatory action provides time and space to renegotiate meaning. Methodology We used a case-comparative interpretive framework to attend to complexity. Based on collaborative and comparatively triangulated observations, documents and contextual data, we studied adaptations to Youth Alliances due to contextual demands and local contingencies in micro-interactions. Results Youth Alliances led to the involvement of adolescents from diverse backgrounds who participated meaningfully in a form of partnership, generated a wide variety of policy proposals, and learned about obesogenic systems, policies and participation in the process. Discussion and conclusion A focus on meaning-making and interaction reveals how one participation approach can have multiple and even contradictory outcomes depending on non-linear, emergent and contingent local interactions. Some of the outcomes represent well-known second order effects (e.g., changing power relations). But we also point to what we call third order effects: specific activities generated time and space for social interactions in which novel meaning could arise and consolidate.This work has been supported by: The ‘‘Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth’’ (CO-CREATE) project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 774210 (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/774210).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Agency-centred coupling — a better way to manage an educational organization?

Teachers at the present time face continuous changes in their work and organizational practices. However, we lack empirical evidence as to what this implies for teachers and their work. This paper describes how two Finnish educational organizations restrict or enable teachers’ professional agency, in terms of how the teachers influence the conditions and contents of their work. The paper further addresses how agency is related to: (i) organizational and educational transformations, (ii) teachers’ professional development and identity negotiations and (iii) teachers’ commitment to the educational organization and well-being at work. This paper provides the comparative research evidence on both the strengths and weaknesses of different management practices of different educational organizations, identified here as a loosely coupled organization and a tightly coupled organization. It seems that strong agency supports teachers’ diverse learning, the practice of their professional orientations and also their well-being and commitment. Conversely, all these are threatened by teachers’ weak agency. However, teachers’ strong agency as individuals also appears to act as a brake on organizational transformation and collective learning. Based on our findings, we suggest novel future directions for the management of educational organizations and for the leadership of teachers’ work in terms of agency-centred coupling practices.peerReviewe