Using vignette methodology as a tool for exploring cultural identity positions of language brokers

This paper examines how vignette methodology can aid understanding of cultural identity. This is demonstrated through a study of child language brokers where a child is engaged in the cultural contexts of both the host culture and the home culture and must therefore negotiate new cultural identities. Participants were young people aged 15-18 years; some of whom were brokers while others were not. Drawing on notions of adequacy and inadequacy, visibility and invisibility, theoretical ideas around cultural identity theory and dialogical self theory can provide an understanding of how the young people moved through different (often conflicting) identity positions

The negotiation and co-construction of meaning and understanding within a postgraduate online learning community

There is an increasing development of courses and course components taught through teaching and learning dialogues online yet there is little secure knowledge regarding the educational quality and outcomes of these dialogues. Drawing on contemporary socio-cultural research, this paper adapts a well-established analytical framework (see Mercer, 1995) that has been developed to understand face to face educational dialogues to the new context of asynchronous electronic conferencing. The work reported is derived from an in-depth case study of a tutorial group of 11 students enrolled on a course within the Open University's MA in Open and Distance Learning. The course was taught on-line to an international cohort of students from wide-ranging academic backgrounds. The analyses of electronic conference archives presented here focus on understanding the students’ on-line collaborative work and the ways in which they constructed meaning, negotiated shared understanding and supported each other in the process of learning at a distance. The implications of the findings for educational practice are considered

Evolution of a supergene that regulates a trans-species social polymorphism

Supergenes are clusters of linked genetic loci that jointly affect the expression of complex phenotypes, such as social organization. Little is known about the origin and evolution of these intriguing genomic elements. Here we analyse whole-genome sequences of males from native populations of six fire ant species and show that variation in social organization is under the control of a novel supergene haplotype (termed Sb), which evolved by sequential incorporation of three inversions spanning half of a 'social chromosome'. Two of the inversions interrupt protein-coding genes, resulting in the increased expression of one gene and modest truncation in the primary protein structure of another. All six socially polymorphic species studied harbour the same three inversions, with the single origin of the supergene in their common ancestor inferred by phylogenomic analyses to have occurred half a million years ago. The persistence of Sb along with the ancestral SB haplotype through multiple speciation events provides a striking example of a functionally important trans-species social polymorphism presumably maintained by balancing selection. We found that while recombination between the Sb and SB haplotypes is severely restricted in all species, a low level of gene flux between the haplotypes has occurred following the appearance of the inversions, potentially mitigating the evolutionary degeneration expected at genomic regions that cannot freely recombine. These results provide a detailed picture of the structural genomic innovations involved in the formation of a supergene controlling a complex social phenotype

Molecular evolution of vertebrate sex-determining genes

Y-linked Dmy (also called dmrt1bY) in the teleost fish medaka, W-linked Dm-W in the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), and Z-linked Dmrt1 in the chicken are all sex chromosome-linked Dmrt1 homologues required for sex determination. Dmy and Dm-W both are Dmrt1 palalogues evolved through Dmrt1 duplication, while chicken Dmrt1 is a Z-linked orthologue. The eutherian sex-determining gene, Sry, evolved from an allelic gene, Sox3. Here we analyzed the exon–intron structures of the Dmrt1 homologues of several vertebrate species through information from databases and by determining the transcription initiation sites in medaka, chicken, Xenopus, and mouse. Interestingly, medaka Dmrt1 and Dmy and Xenopus Dm-W and Dmrt1 have a noncoding-type first exon, while mouse and chicken Dmrt1 do not. We next compared the 5′-flanking sequences of the Dmrt1 noncoding and coding exons 1 of several vertebrate species and found conservation of the presumptive binding sites for some transcription factors. Importantly, based on the phylogenetic trees for Dmrt1 and Sox3 homologues, it was implied that the sex-determining gene Dmy, Dm-W, and Sry have a higher substitution rate than thier prototype genes. Finally, we discuss the evolutionary relationships between vertebrate sex chromosomes and the sex-determining genes Dmy/Dm-W and Sry, which evolved by neofunctionalization of Dmrt1 and Sox3, respectively, for sex determining function. We propose a coevolution model of sex determining gene and sex chromosome, in which undifferentiated sex chromosomes easily allow replacement of a sex-determining gene with another new one, while specialized sex chromosomes are restricted a particular sex-determining gene

Interactions sociales et appropriation de stratégies par l'enfant pour résoudre un problème : quelles méthodes ?

Cette recherche s’inscrit dans une série de travaux recourant à une méthodologie alliant l’approche clinique piagétienne, expérimentale dans des situations différentes, et vygots-kienne, afin de mettre en évidence les processus par lesquels l’appropriation de stratégies par l’enfant sera possible par l’observation attentive de son histoire d’apprentissage et afin de comprendre un peu mieux les conditions de la mobilisation ultérieure de ces apprentissages. La méthode utilisée consiste à placer les enfants dans trois ou quatre contextes différents, à observer leurs interactions et leurs conduites cognitives, notamment en fonction de leur niveau d’expertise initial par rapport à une tâche donnée : une phase I de prétest, permettant d’apprécier le niveau initial de chaque enfant en interaction avec un adulte testeur, les enfants sont alors classés en «novices», «experts spontanés», une phase II de formation (selon des modalités qui varient) avec un adulte pour une partie des enfants novices qui deviendront ainsi des «experts formés», puis une phase III d’interaction entre «novice» et «expert» (soit spontané soit formé) et, enfin, une dernière phase IV «post-test», identique au pré-test.Tartas Valérie, Perret-Clermont Anne Nelly, Marro Pascale, Grossen Michèle. Interactions sociales et appropriation de stratégies par l’enfant pour résoudre un problème : quelles méthodes ?. In: Bulletin de psychologie, tome 57 n°469, 2004. Développement, fonctionnement : perspective historico-culturelle. pp. 111-115