Qualitative doctoral research in educational settings: reflecting on meaningful encounters

In qualitative doctoral research the methodological approach, and the research design are extremely important when ensuring the rigorousness of the work. This is particularly significant for all researchers, and even more for doctoral students who are still developing their research and analytical skills. This paper aims to support doctoral students in their research journey by highlighting some of the tensions involved in conducting qualitative research by unpicking the experiences of two doctoral students to learn from the concerns, questions and reflections on the use of qualitative methodology in their doctoral research projects. The findings reveal challenges and insights with regards to reflection, educational research and the developing identity of being a researcher. The paper discusses these reflections to support and guide doctoral students as early career researchers when planning and conducting qualitative research in educational settings

The Impact of Special Units in Mainstream Primary Schools: The case of Cyprus

Το άρθρο περιγράφει έρευνα που μελετά τις επιπτώσεις των ειδικών μονάδων στην ένταξη παιδιών με αναπηρίες, μέσα από μια μελέτη περίπτωσης σε ένα γενικό δημοτικό σχολείο. Διενεργήθηκε κριτική ανάλυση της υπάρχουσας νομοθεσίας για ένταξη, παρατήρηση τεσσάρων παιδιών με αναπηρίες στις ειδικές μονάδες και γενικές τάξεις, και συνεντεύξεις με τη διευθύντρια, ειδικές, γενικές δασκάλες και συνοδούς. Η ανάλυση των αποτελεσμάτων έδειξε διαφορές ανάμεσα στις απόψεις των συμμετεχόντων για την ενιαία εκπαίδευση και υπάρχουσα νομοθεσία, που παρόλα αυτά συμφωνούσαν στην ευθύνη της ειδικής μονάδας ως διαμεσολαβητής της ένταξης παιδιών με αναπηρίες. Διαφάνηκε επίσης ο σημαντικός ρόλος των γενικών δασκάλων στην επιτυχία της ένταξης, μέσα από τις μεθόδους διδασκαλίας και επιρροή τους στη συμπεριφορά παιδιών χωρίς αναπηρία. Τα αποτελέσματα εισηγούνται ότι η χωρική μετακίνηση παιδιών με αναπηρίες από τη γενική τάξη στις ειδικές μονάδες έχει σοβαρές επιπτώσεις στην εκπαιδευτική και κοινωνική τους ανάπτυξη

A view from Europe’s borderland: As Europe vows stricter border controls, what’s at stake at the border?

Six months is a long time in politics and this includes humanitarian politics in Europe. ‘Refugees welcome here’ (#Refugeeswelcomehere) was a catchphrase reflecting widespread sentiments and political will in Europe last summer and early autumn – a warm welcome to the first waves of arrivals from war-torn zones

Where is diversity in PSB? Can the BBC carry BAME viewers and producers with it?

LSE’s Myria Georgiou looks at the implications of recently released Ofcom research for the BBC and its diversity goals. Dr Georgiou developed the Council of Europe/EU sponsored self-monitoring tool for diversity inclusiveness in the media MEDIANE BOX with Mediane Manager, Reynald Blion

Women’s Constructions of Women: On Entering the Front Door

Despite the vast volume of scholarly work on Mediterranean and the Near East the region, issues of marginalisation, discrimination, racism, and ethnic-gender groups as well as the implications of these within the context of various wider forces and structures are only lately receiving any attention at all and this paper is part of an effort to explore and expose them. The aim of this paper is to explore this otherwise forgotten area through the example of Cypriot women and their interpretations of internal ‘Others’ in Cyprus. It is thus an attempt to analyze the discourses and images adopted by women in Cyprus surrounding ‘Otherhood.’ Ultimately, the paper represents an effort to use ethnographic fieldwork and empirical data in order to explore and raise questions about women’s experiences and attitudes in Cyprus, since the androcentric cosmology common to Mediterranean societies has been largely ignored

Making an urban human? The digital order and its curious human-centrism

This article’s point of departure is the observed retreat of techno-centric conceptions of optimal cities and their replacement by a curious human-centrism in media, corporate, and policy discursive constructions of cities. This human-centrism hides an emerging urban order: the digital order. The digital order is realised through discourses and practices that promote controlled cities, not through coercion and visible policing, but instead through a technologized promise of seemingly progressive values. The multiple and contradictory claims to urban humans revealed in the digital order, the article concludes, demand renewed attention to the human – a critical humanist perspective to cities and technology

Solidarity at the time of COVID-19: an(other) digital revolution?

As the world faces a pandemic on a scale not seen for generations, with much of Western Europe, the US and Asia in various degrees of ‘lockdown’ to slow the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, LSE Professor Myria Georgiou discusses the new digital networks emerging focused on solidarity, and their implications and limitations

‘ErbB activation and heterodimerisation is responsible for resistance upon PI3K-mTOR inhibition in metastatic prostate cancer’

My hypothesis is that resistance to PI3K-AKT-mTOR targeting in metastatic prostate cancer involves ErbB activation and heterodimerisation. Better description of the mechanisms implicated will allow the identification of appropriate predictive biomarkers. Current clinical trials are investigating the use of PI3K-AKT-mTOR inhibitors in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). 50-70% of metastatic CRPC patients have genomic aberrations of the PI3K pathway, mainly involving loss of PTEN, an important negative regulator of the PI3K-AKT pathway. Upregulation of HER3 was previously suggested to be an important resistance mechanism. Within the context of this project I have applied biophysical techniques to quantify protein-protein interactions i.e fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) which is the gold-standard technique for measuring Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET). This is an established technology in our laboratory and was used to evaluate HER3 heterodimerisation in prostate cancer cells and mouse xenograft tissue, alongside biochemical methods to demonstrate changes in ErbB expression in response to PI3K-AKT-mTOR inhibition. In addition, I optimised this technology for use in cell line and patientderived exosomes. Different ErbB subtypes are upregulated in vitro as part of a potential resistance mechanism in response to PI3K-mTOR inhibition, depending on the cell line PTEN status. Concomitant upregulation of either AR or PSMA is also observed. In PTEN WT prostate cancer cells, the upregulation of PSMA is demonstrated to be HER2 dependent and can be inhibited by lapatinib. The clinical implications of my results propose the use of PI3K-AKT-mTOR inhibitors in the metastatic hormone-sensitive setting as well. In addition, tissue and/or exosomal ErbB heterodimerisation, together with the use of clinically available PSMA imaging probes, might prove an additional biomarker in resistance detection and subgroup classification. Some initial PSMA PET imaging analyses upon PI3K-mTOR inhibition in vivo will be presented. Finally, this might allow the design of prospective clinical trials using PSMA-targeted therapies

Gamers versus zombies? Visual mediation of the citizen/non-citizen encounter in Europe’s ‘refugee crisis’

This article identifies the visual representation of Europe’s “refugee crisis” in the media as a key dimension of the communicative architecture of the crisis and its aftermath. Effectively, it argues, the powerful, even iconic, imagery that the media produced and shared during the 2015 “crisis” affirmed ideological frames of incompatible difference, perpetually dividing European citizens and refugees. The article focuses on some of the fundamental elements of the 2015 crisis’s visual grammar to demonstrate how they have (re-)produced popular fears of strangeness and the need for containment and control of foreign bodies. This visual grammar, we argue, imitated and procreated recognizable representations of popular culture to exaggerate newcomers’ strangeness and incompatible difference from the national subject. On the one hand, many news media simulated zombies’ threatening strangeness in images of refugee massification; on the other, many news media images reaffirmed the decisive power of the national subject over refugees’ fate, not unlike the video game player who unilaterally controls a game and takes action when confronted by zombies. This grammar, we argue, symbolically predetermines encounters between citizens and refugees, by emphasizing their incompatible difference and newcomers’ strangeness

Eltern von Kindern mit Zerebralparese : ein Einblick in Erfahrungen und Lebensqualität

Darstellung des Themas: Die Diagnose Zerebralparese ist die häufigste körperliche Behinderung im frühen Kindesalter. Diese Behinderung hat einen Einfluss auf die Eltern und deren Lebensqualität. Ziel: Das Ziel der Bachelorarbeit ist es, die Erfahrungen von Eltern mit einem Kind mit Zerebralparese aufzuzeigen und welche Bereiche der Lebensqualität davon beeinflusst werden. Die Fragestellung lautet wie folgt: Welche Erfahrungen machen Eltern mit einem Kind mit Zerebralparese und was hat dies für einen Einfluss auf ihre Lebensqualität? Methode: Anhand einer systematischen Literaturrecherche in verschiedenen Datenbanken werden vier Hauptstudien zur Beantwortung der Fragestellung ausgewählt. Diese Hauptstudien werden analysiert und kritisch gewürdigt. Die Ergebnisse werden im Modell der Lebensqualität von Felce & Perry (1995) zugeordnet. Relevante Ergebnisse: Es werden verschiedene Erfahrungen der Eltern aufgezeigt. Die Lebensqualität kann dadurch in allen Bereichen beeinflusst sein. Mangelnde Informationen und Unterstützung, wenig Zeit und viel Stress, sowie Arbeit werden am häufigsten benannt. Schlussfolgerung: Diese Bachelorarbeit zeigt auf, dass die Diagnose Zerebralparese auch einen Einfluss auf die Eltern hat. Deshalb ist es wichtig, dass Eltern den Zugang zu Ergotherapie bekommen, um ihre Lebensqualität zu erhalten oder zu steigern