COVID: A Case Study: Re-inventing a Textile Conservation Career

Claudia Iannuccilli, a BS and MS graduate of the TMD Department, is a textile and costume conservator. She was employed as a conservator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for almost three decades. When the pandemic arrived, the Museum closed and staff were furloughed. After the Museum offered a generous retirement package, Claudia accepted it and started her own business, Studio of Textile Arts. She offers textile conservation services as well as exhibition preparation

Brilliance Beliefs, Not Mindsets, Explain Inverse Gender Gaps in Psychology and Philosophy

Understanding academic gender gaps is difficult because gender-imbalanced fields differ across many features, limiting researchers’ ability to systematically study candidate causes. In the present preregistered research, we isolate two potential explanations—brilliance beliefs and fixed versus growth intelligence mindsets—by comparing two fields that have inverse gender gaps and historic and topical overlap: philosophy and psychology. Many more men than women study philosophy and vice versa in psychology, with disparities emerging during undergraduate studies. No prior work has examined the contributions of both self-perceptions of brilliance and fixed versus growth mindsets on choice of major among undergraduate students. We assessed field-specific brilliance beliefs, brilliance beliefs about self, and mindsets, cross-sectionally in 467 undergraduates enrolled in philosophy and psychology classes at universities in the United States and Canada via both in-person and online questionnaires. We found support for the brilliance beliefs about the self, but not mindset, explanation. Brilliance beliefs about oneself predicted women’s but not men’s choice of major. Women who believed they were less brilliant were more likely to study psychology (perceived to require low brilliance) over philosophy (perceived to require high brilliance). Findings further indicated that fixed versus growth mindsets did not differ by gender and were not associated with major. Together, these results suggest that internalized essentialist beliefs about the gendered nature of brilliance are uniquely important to understanding why men and women pursue training in different academic fields

What Determines Feelings of Belonging and Majoring in an Academic Field? Isolating Factors by Comparing Psychology and Philosophy

Feelings of belonging are integral in people’s choice of what career to pursue. Women and men are disproportionately represented across careers, starting with academic training. The present research focuses on two fields that are similar in their history and subject matter but feature inverse gender gaps—psychology (more women than men) and philosophy (more men than women)—to investigate how theorized explanations for academic gender gaps contribute to feelings of belonging. Specifically, we simultaneously model the relative contribution of theoretically relevant individual differences (empathizing, systematizing, and intellectual combativeness) as well as life goals (prioritization of family, money, and status) to feelings of belonging and majoring in psychology or philosophy. We find that men report higher intellectual combativeness than women, and intellectual combativeness predicts feelings of belonging and majoring in philosophy over psychology. Although systematizing and empathizing are predictive of belonging and, in turn, majoring in psychology and philosophy, respectively, when other factors are taken into account, women and men do not differ in empathizing and systematizing. Women, more than men, report prioritizing having a family, wealth, and status in choosing a career, and these directly or indirectly feed into feelings of belonging and majoring in psychology, in contrast to prior theory. Together, these findings suggest that students’ perceptions of their own combativeness and the extent to which they desire money and status play essential roles in women’s feeling they belong in psychology and men’s feeling they belong in philosophy

E-learning

Indice\ud Potenzialita' dell'e-learning. Le tappe dell'evoluzione. La tecnologia di e-learning: i contenitori. Criticita'. Linee guida per il futuro. Il settore dell'e-learning: dati quantitativi. L'e-learning e le aziende. Attori ed attivita' nel processo di e-learning: i business models. Il ruolo, i vantaggi e le determinanti della formula lobal e-learning services provider