Nietzsche or Aristotle: The implications for social psychology

YesIn this article, I argue that there is a divide in social psychology between a mainstream paradigm for investigating the flow of power in a largely competitive social life (such as social cognition, social identity theory, and discourse analysis) and a fringe paradigm for investigating the experience of flourishing in conditions of social learning (such as ‘the community of practice metaphor’, ‘dialogical theory’, ‘phenomenological analysis’). Assumptions of power and flourishing demand different conceptions of the self and the social world (e.g. a strategic subject or motivated tactician in a social group versus a reflective learner/artist in a community of practice). The first goal of this article is to reveal the assumptions that lead to this new classification. The second goal is to draw dotted lines to the blind-spots within these paradigms that each reveals. These blind spots are: 1) internal goods could be useful to consider for the power paradigm and external goods for the flourishing paradigm; 2) communicative rationality is underplayed within the power paradigm; while instrumental rationality is underplayed for the flourishing paradigm; 3) judgements and skill are underplayed in the power paradigm; self-interested motivations are underplayed in the flourishing paradigm

Nietzsche or Aristotle: The implications for social psychology

YesIn this article, I argue that there is a divide in social psychology between a mainstream paradigm for investigating the flow of power in a largely competitive social life (such as social cognition, social identity theory, and discourse analysis) and a fringe paradigm for investigating the experience of flourishing in conditions of social learning (such as ‘the community of practice metaphor’, ‘dialogical theory’, ‘phenomenological analysis’). Assumptions of power and flourishing demand different conceptions of the self and the social world (e.g. a strategic subject or motivated tactician in a social group versus a reflective learner/artist in a community of practice). The first goal of this article is to reveal the assumptions that lead to this new classification. The second goal is to draw dotted lines to the blind-spots within these paradigms that each reveals. These blind spots are: 1) internal goods could be useful to consider for the power paradigm and external goods for the flourishing paradigm; 2) communicative rationality is underplayed within the power paradigm; while instrumental rationality is underplayed for the flourishing paradigm; 3) judgements and skill are underplayed in the power paradigm; self-interested motivations are underplayed in the flourishing paradigm

Mathematics teacher change in a collaborative environment: to what extent and how

This article reports on a study into how collaborative contexts influence the professional development of an early-career primary teacher, Julia. We describe the process of change by which Julia manages to make her planning to teach mathematics more flexible so as to adapt to student difficulties, and we analyse the role that joint reflection plays in promoting this change. In order to understand the how of this influence, we carried out an analysis of the interactions within the group from Julia’s point of view, following a dialogical approach to discourse. We believe that it is in and through the interactions that Julia constructs her interpretation of the opinions, critiques and suggestions expressed. This interpretation conditions the extent of her involvement and moulds the influence of the context on her professional development. The presence of skilled collaborators (Day, 1993) proved decisive in promoting this development

Exploring language as the “in-between”

Assuming a performative notion of language, this contribution addresses how language functions as a symbolic means and asks for its function for the dialogical self. In accordance with a non-individualistic notion, individuals are related to each other within and by virtue of an in-between. This in-between is called “spacetime of language”: a dynamic evolving across time, perceived as linguistic forms with their chronotopology and the positionings of the performers (self as-whom to other as-whom). With respect to the linguistic forms, the specificity of language functioning is described by Bühler’s term of displacement. The effect of displacement is to generate sharedness by inducing a movement the partners follow, going beyond their actual, sensitive contact. Symbolic displacement, expanding Bühler’s notion, is particularly interesting with regard to the dialogical self: it permits the social construction of several perspectives on self, other, and reality—positions and voices informing the self’s performances

Histological type and grade of breast cancer tumors by parity, age at birth, and time since birth: a register-based study in Norway

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Some studies have indicated that reproductive factors affect the risk of histological types of breast cancer differently. The long-term protective effect of a childbirth is preceded by a short-term adverse effect. Few studies have examined whether tumors diagnosed shortly after birth have specific histological characteristics.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In the present register-based study, comprising information for 22,867 Norwegian breast cancer cases (20-74 years), we examined whether histological type (9 categories) and grade of tumor (2 combined categories) differed by parity or age at first birth. Associations with time since birth were evaluated among 9709 women diagnosed before age 50 years. Chi-square tests were applied for comparing proportions, whereas odds ratios (each histological type vs. ductal, or grade 3-4 vs. grade 1-2) were estimated in polytomous and binary logistic regression analyses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ductal tumors, the most common histological type, accounted for 81.4% of all cases, followed by lobular tumors (6.3%) and unspecified carcinomas (5.5%). Other subtypes accounted for 0.4%-1.5% of the cases each. For all histological types, the proportions differed significantly by age at diagnoses. The proportion of mucinous and tubular tumors decreased with increasing parity, whereas Paget disease and medullary tumors were most common in women of high parity. An increasing trend with increasing age at first birth was most pronounced for lobular tumors and unspecified carcinomas; an association in the opposite direction was seen in relation to medullary and tubular tumors. In age-adjusted analyses, only the proportions of unspecified carcinomas and lobular tumors decreased significantly with increasing time since first and last birth. However, ductal tumors, and malignant sarcomas, mainly phyllodes tumors, seemed to occur at higher frequency in women diagnosed <2 years after first childbirth. The proportions of medullary tumors and Paget disease were particularly high among women diagnosed 2-5 years after last birth. The high proportion of poorly differentiated tumors in women with a recent childbirth was partly explained by young age.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results support previous observations that reproductive factors affect the risk of histological types of breast cancer differently. Sarcomas, medullary tumors, and possible also Paget disease, may be particularly susceptible to pregnancy-related exposure.</p

Implementing a new mathematics curriculum in England: district Research Lesson Study as a driver for student learning, teacher learning and professional dialogue.

Against a backdrop of a transformation in teacher professional development and learning and state school organisation in England this century, this chapter describes a project which harnessed six cycles of Research Lesson Study at school and district level over two years to tailor the implementation of a new statutory curriculum in England to address the professional development needs of teachers and classroom learning needs of London students. It also reports the findings of research carried out during the project into how these teachers learned and developed this new curricular expertise and practice- knowledge through lesson study dialogues that supported student learning. It concludes by proposing future directions for teacher professional learning research and practice