Young Adults and Active Citizenship Towards Social Inclusion through Adult Education

This open access book sheds light on a range of complex interdependencies between adult education, young adults in vulnerable situations and active citizenship. Adult education has been increasingly recognized as a means to engage and re-engage young adults and facilitate their life chances and social inclusion thus contributing to an active citizenship within their societal contexts. This collection of chapters dealing with issues of social inclusion of young people represents the first book to explicitly approach the complex interdependencies between adult education, young adults in vulnerable situations and active citizenship from the European perspective. Social exclusion, disengagement and disaffection of young adults have been among the most significant concerns faced by EU member states over the last decade. It has been increasingly recognised by a range of stakeholders that there is a growing number of young people suffering from the various effects of the unstable social, economic and political situations affecting Europe and its neighbouring countries. Young adults who experience different degrees of vulnerability are especially at risk of being excluded and marginalised. Engaging young adults through adult education has been strongly related to addressing the specific needs and requirements that would facilitate their participation in social, economic and civic/political life in their country contexts. Fostering the active citizenship of young people, both directly and indirectly, is an area where many AE programmes overlap, and this has become a core approach to integration. This book considers social, economic and political dimensions of active citizenship, encompassing the development of social competences and social capital, civic and political participation and the skills related to the economy and labour market. The cross-national consideration of the notions of vulnerability, inclusion and active citizenship underpins the complexity of translating these concepts into the national contexts of adult education programmes

Maskuliinisuudet, status ja valta juniorijääkiekkojoukkueessa

Tiivistelmä. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan maskuliinisuutta, statusta ja valtaa erään pohjoissuomalaisen juniorijääkiekkojoukkueen kontekstissa. Tutkimusmetodeina käytimme osallistuvaa havainnointia, kyselylomakkeita ja puolistrukturoituja haastatteluja. Tämä tutkimus on laadullinen, kriittisen miestutkimuksen tutkimusperinteeseen asemoituva tutkimus. Aineiston analyysimenetelmänä käytämme diskurssianalyysiä. Tutkimuksemme sijoittuu vahvasti myös etnografisen tutkimuksen perinteeseen. Ensimmäinen tutkimuskysymyksemme: ”Minkä tyyppinen maskuliinisuus asettuu hegemoniseen asemaan tutkimassamme juniorijääkiekkojoukkueessa?” tarkastelee tutkimassamme jääkiekkojoukkueessa vallitsevaa hegemonista maskuliinisuutta. Tämän tutkimuskysymyksen avulla pyrimme kartoittamaan sitä, minkä tyyppisten statusresurssien avulla yksilöt asemoituvat hegemonisen maskuliinisuuden diskurssiin tutkimassamme yhteisössä. Tämän tutkimuksen yhteydessä hegemonisen maskuliinisuuden diskurssiin asemoituneet yksilöt käyttivät yhteisössä myös valtaa. Käsittelemme siten myös erilaisten statusresurssien lisäksi hegemonisen maskuliinisuuden diskurssiin asemoituneiden yksilöiden käyttämää valtaa. Aineistomme perusteella fyysisyys nousi hegemonisen maskuliinisuuden diskurssiin asemoituvien yksilöiden merkittävimmäksi yksittäiseksi statusresurssiksi. Muita korkeaan statukseen merkittävästi vaikuttaneita statusresursseja olivat muun muassa sosiaalisuus, huumori ja välittäminen. Joukkueen hegemonisen maskuliinisuuden diskurssiin asemoituvien yksilöiden edustama hegemoninen valta-asema perustui tämän tutkimuksen yhteydessä reiluuteen ja muut huomioon ottamiseen eli niin sanottuun ”rakentavaan valtaan”. Toinen tutkimuskysymyksemme: ”Miten pojat, jotka asemoituvat erilaisiin maskuliinisuusdiskursseihin, suhteutuvat toisiinsa vallan ja statuksen näkökulmasta?” tarkastelee joukkueessa ilmenevien erilaisten maskuliinisuuden konstruktioiden suhteutumista toisiinsa vallan ja statuksen näkökulmasta. Olemme määritelleet aineistomme perusteella kolme erillistä joukkueessa ilmenevää maskuliinisuuden konstruktiota: banaalit tasapainoilijat, kovikset ja rauhalliset myötäilijät. Tarkastelemme näiden ryhmien välisiä valtasuhteita vallan erilaisten ulottuvuuksien näkökulmasta. Erilaisten maskuliinisuuden konstruktioiden välisiä statussuhteita joukkueessa määrittelemme statusulottuvuuksien (respektipainotteinen/kaverisuosio) näkökulmasta. Aineistomme perusteella banaalit tasapainoilijat asettuivat maskuliinisuuden konstruktiona parhaiten joukkueen sisäisen hegemonisen maskuliinisuuden diskurssiin. Tämä ryhmä käytti valtaa muihin maskuliinisuuksiin nähden. Statusulottuvuuksien näkökulmasta banaalit tasapainoilijat toimivat kaverisuosioon perustuvan statusulottuvuuden viitekehyksessä. Kovikset käyttivät ”pelkovaltaan” perustuvaa valtaansa rauhallisiin myötäilijöihin nähden ja heidän statusulottuvuutensa oli ”respektipainotteista”. Kaikkein vähiten valtaa yhteisössä oli rauhallisilla myötäilijöillä, joilla ei juurikaan ollut valtaa yhteisössä. Tämän ryhmän status oli muihin maskuliinisuuden konstruktioihin verrattuna kaikkein heikoin.Masculinities, status and power in a junior ice hockey team. Abstract. This study examines masculinity, status and power in the context of Finnish junior ice hockey team. Ethnographic material collected during one year includes observation, questionnaires and interview data. This study is qualitative and influenced by a tradition of critical studies on men and masculinities. Discourse analysis is used as a method of analysis of the research data. The first research question is: “what kind of masculinity has reached a position of hegemonic masculinity in the junior ice hockey team under investigation?” We examined what kind of status resources a person needs and uses, while trying to locate oneself into the discourse of hegemonic masculinity. The study reveals that the individuals who located themselves into the discourse of hegemonic masculinity also used power in their reference group. Hence, we also consider power in the framework of hegemonic masculinity. Among the individuals who were located into the discourse of hegemonic masculinity, corporality was the most valuable status resource in their reference group. Other important status resources were humor, social relationships and caring. Hegemonic power in this reference group was used by representatives of hegemonic masculinity and it was based on fairness and friendship. This kind of form of power is called “fair power”. Our second research question examines: “how do boys, who are located into different masculinity discourses, relate to each other in the perspective of power and status?” We aimed to examine how the different constructions of masculinities were related to each other in the perspective of power and status. On the basis of analysis of the data, we have determined three different constructions of masculinities, which arose in the junior ice hockey team. These constructions are: toughies, silent sympathizers and banal balancers. We examined power relations between these groups from the perspective of different dimensions of power, as well as status relations of different constructions of masculinities from the perspective of status dimensions (peer likeability/respect). According to our data, the banal balancers as a construction of masculinity was settled most explicitly in the hegemonic masculinity discourse in this particular ice hockey team. This group used power towards other masculinities. In the perspective of status dimensions, the banal balancers acted in the framework of status dimension that was based on peer likeability. Toughies used power that based on “fear power” towards silent sympathizers and their status dimension was based on respect. Silent sympathizers had least power in this reference group. The status of silent sympathizers was the weakest compared to the other constructions of masculinities

Fractionating auditory priors : A neural dissociation between active and passive experience of musical sounds

Learning, attention and action play a crucial role in determining how stimulus predictions are formed, stored, and updated. Years-long experience with the specific repertoires of sounds of one or more musical styles is what characterizes professional musicians. Here we contrasted active experience with sounds, namely long-lasting motor practice, theoretical study and engaged listening to the acoustic features characterizing a musical style of choice in professional musicians with mainly passive experience of sounds in laypersons. We hypothesized that long-term active experience of sounds would influence the neural predictions of the stylistic features in professional musicians in a distinct way from the mainly passive experience of sounds in laypersons. Participants with different musical backgrounds were recruited: professional jazz and classical musicians, amateur musicians and non-musicians. They were presented with a musical multi-feature paradigm eliciting mismatch negativity (MMN), a prediction error signal to changes in six sound features for only 12 minutes of electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings. We observed a generally larger MMN amplitudes-indicative of stronger automatic neural signals to violated priors-in jazz musicians (but not in classical musicians) as compared to non-musicians and amateurs. The specific MMN enhancements were found for spectral features (timbre, pitch, slide) and sound intensity. In participants who were not musicians, the higher preference for jazz music was associated with reduced MMN to pitch slide (a feature common in jazz music style). Our results suggest that long-lasting, active experience of a musical style is associated with accurate neural priors for the sound features of the preferred style, in contrast to passive listening.Peer reviewe

Statistical analysis of human boy movement and group interactions in response to music

Quantification of time series that relate to physiological data is challenging for empirical music research. Up to now, most studies have focused on time-dependent responses of individual subjects in controlled environments. However, little is known about time-dependent responses of between-subject interactions in an ecological context. This paper provides new findings on the statistical analysis of group synchronicity in response to musical stimuli. Different statistical techniques were applied to time-dependent data obtained from an experiment on embodied listening in individual and group settings. Analysis of inter group synchronicity are described. Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) and Cross Correlation Function (CCF) were found to be valid methods to estimate group coherence of the resulting movements. It was found that synchronicity of movements between individuals (human human interactions) increases significantly in the social context. Moreover, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) revealed that the type of music is the predominant factor in both the individual and the social context

Spectral dependence of birch and pine pollen optical properties using a synergy of lidar instruments

Active remote sensors equipped with the capability to detect polarization, a shape-relevant parameter, are essential to aerosol particle identification in the vertical domain. Most commonly, the linear particle depolarization ratio has been available at the shorter wavelengths of 355 and/or 532 nm. Recently, linear particle depolarization ratios at longer wavelengths (910, 1064, and 1565 nm) have emerged in lidar aerosol research. In this study, a synergy of three lidars, namely a PollyXT lidar, a Vaisala CL61 ceilometer, and a HALO Photonics StreamLine Pro Doppler lidar, as well as in situ aerosol and pollen observations have been utilized to investigate the spectral dependence of birch and pine pollen particles. We found that, regardless of the pollen type, the linear particle depolarization ratio was subject to the amount of pollen and its relative contribution to the aerosol mixture in the air. More specifically, during birch pollination, characteristic linear particle depolarization ratios of 5 ± 2 % (355 nm), 28 ± 6 % (532 nm), 23 ± 6 % (910 nm), and 33 ± 4 % (1565 nm) were retrieved at the pollen layer. Regarding the pine-dominant period, characteristic linear particle depolarization ratios of 6 ± 2 %, 43 ± 11 %, 22 ± 6 %, and 26 ± 3 % were determined at wavelengths of 355, 532, 910, and 1565 nm, respectively. For birch, the linear particle depolarization ratio at 1565 nm was the highest, followed by the 532 and 910 nm wavelengths, respectively. A sharp decrease at 355 nm was evident for birch pollen. For pine pollen, a maximum at the 532 nm wavelength was observed. There was no significant change in the linear particle depolarization ratio at 910 nm for the pollen types considered in this study. Given the low concentration of pollen in the air, the inclusion of the longer wavelengths (910 and 1565 nm) for the detection of birch and pine can be beneficial due to their sensitivity to trace large aerosol particles.</p

Syncopation and the Score

The first and second authors were supported by an EPSRC DTA (www.epsrc.ac.uk) studentship

Viperin mRNA is a novel target for the human RNase MRP/RNase P endoribonuclease

RNase MRP is a conserved endoribonuclease, in humans consisting of a 267-nucleotide RNA associated with 7–10 proteins. Mutations in its RNA component lead to several autosomal recessive skeletal dysplasias, including cartilage-hair hypoplasia (CHH). Because the known substrates of mammalian RNase MRP, pre-ribosomal RNA, and RNA involved in mitochondrial DNA replication are not likely involved in CHH, we analyzed the effects of RNase MRP (and the structurally related RNase P) depletion on mRNAs using DNA microarrays. We confirmed the upregulation of the interferon-inducible viperin mRNA by RNAi experiments and this appeared to be independent of the interferon response. We detected two cleavage sites for RNase MRP/RNase P in the coding sequence of viperin mRNA. This is the first study providing direct evidence for the cleavage of a mRNA by RNase MRP/RNase P in human cells. Implications for the involvement in the pathophysiology of CHH are discussed

A computational study on outliers in world music

The comparative analysis of world music cultures has been the focus of several ethnomusicological studies in the last century. With the advances of Music Information Retrieval and the increased accessibility of sound archives, large-scale analysis of world music with computational tools is today feasible. We investigate music similarity in a corpus of 8200 recordings of folk and traditional music from 137 countries around the world. In particular, we aim to identify music recordings that are most distinct compared to the rest of our corpus. We refer to these recordings as ‘outliers’. We use signal processing tools to extract music information from audio recordings, data mining to quantify similarity and detect outliers, and spatial statistics to account for geographical correlation. Our findings suggest that Botswana is the country with the most distinct recordings in the corpus and China is the country with the most distinct recordings when considering spatial correlation. Our analysis includes a comparison of musical attributes and styles that contribute to the ‘uniqueness’ of the music of each country

Cognitive and affective judgements of syncopated musical themes

This study investigated cognitive and emotional effects of syncopation, a feature of musical rhythm that produces expectancy violations in the listener by emphasising weak temporal locations and de-emphasising strong locations in metric structure. Stimuli consisting of pairs of unsyncopated and syncopated musical phrases were rated by 35 musicians for perceived complexity, enjoyment, happiness, arousal, and tension. Overall, syncopated patterns were more enjoyed, and rated as happier, than unsyncopated patterns, while differences in perceived tension were unreliable. Complexity and arousal ratings were asymmetric by serial order, increasing when patterns moved from unsyncopated to syncopated, but not significantly changing when order was reversed. These results suggest that syncopation influences emotional valence (positively), and that while syncopated rhythms are objectively more complex than unsyncopated rhythms, this difference is more salient when complexity increases than when it decreases. It is proposed that composers and improvisers may exploit this asymmetry in perceived complexity by favoring formal structures that progress from rhythmically simple to complex, as can be observed in the initial sections of musical forms such as theme and variations