Digital learning across cultures: an account of activity theory

ABSTRACT

This paper explores a teaching and learning process as it unfolds in an online offshore classroom. The paper reports on teaching and learning narratives distilled from different cultures, namely the cultures of educators and students in the context of digital learning environments. Drawing on activity theory as a conceptual framework to analyse the narrative, we employ self-study as a methodological tool for capturing the dynamism and complexities that unravel in intercultural and technology-enabled teaching activities. The framework explores the relationships, tensions and opportunities of diverse activity elements that constitute the design and delivery of digital pedagogies. In the networked intercultural system, sustaining the position of activity elements and the specific relational circuit that they institutionalise is a key task for understanding digital technologies as an influential tool for effective learning and teaching practices. We argue that seeing the digital platform from the perspective of its role in creating dynamic interrelationships in a complex activity system is one way to move beyond the cultural confines of any particular element in the system.     

Autonomy,spontaneity and creativity in research with children. A study of experience and participation,in central Italy and North West England

ABSTRACT

Research involving children, deemed to have difficulties with conventional means of communication, can perpetuate reductive forms of representation of children’s knowledges and experiences. This article focuses on the possibilities and opportunities that visual and creative methods can offer to researching with children. Children advance their views in and through spontaneous and concrete forms of participation. Autonomy in aesthetic acts is central to this methodology; to explore practices that produce and reproduce presuppositions deriving from societal attitudes affecting research with children, their agency and self-presentation. This cross-cultural study was conducted in Central Italy and North West England: children contributed their perspectives and experiences through participation in a series of creative encounters resulting in aesthetic and embodied outcomes of sociological and educational significance. The study contributes to the debate on children’s autonomy and the value and quality of participation through artistic practice. Examples from the corpus of data, which includes a series of artefacts and over 900 photographs from each geo-cultural context, are presented. The study shows that it is possible to harmonise power imbalances in spaces of creative freedom, in research and education, where children’s choices and agency are respected.     

Putting women back in their place. Reflections on slut-shaming,the case Asia Argento and Twitter in Italy

ABSTRACT

Compared to racist and ethnicist discourses, literature on sexist discourses – both off and on-line – as hate speech is relatively underinvestigated. This is partly due to the tendency to minimise accusations of sexism and to reframe misogyny as ‘acceptable’ by constructing it as a form of humour. We decided to focus on slut-shaming, one of the most virulent forms of hate speech, which has always existed but was boosted by social media, becoming a stable low-cost ingredient of today’s rape culture. We propose to consider online slut-shaming as a form of ‘technology-facilitated sexual violence’, where digital technologies are used to facilitate both virtual and face-to-face sexually based harms. According to feminist analysis of sexual violence, this would be a matter of power rather than sex: sex would be the weapon, not the motive. We have tested this research hypothesis by focusing on the Italian reception of the MeToo campaign, triggered by Asia Argento’s denunciation. More specifically, two Different Twitter corpora produced within the same five months period were examined by means of a quantitative and a qualitative methodology.     

When do stories change our minds? Narrative persuasion about social problems

Scholars in a number of disciplines have sought to assess the power of reading or viewing a personal story to modify people's beliefs. However, the research, which has been pursued under diverse programs, has produced conflicting findings. We focus on the persuasiveness of personal stories about problems that are structural (rather than individual) and whose solution requires government action. Overall, the research suggests that although personal stories can overcome people's tendency to resist new information, they often do not do so. People's preexisting beliefs, assumptions, and stereotypes affect their willingness to be absorbed by a story, to empathize with the stories' protagonists, and to endorse the message communicated by the story. We argue also for a sociological perspective on narrative persuasion, one which, unlike the mostly experimental research conducted so far, pays attention to the context in which people encounter stories and to the norms shaping people's assessment of a story as credible, relevant, and important.     

The dark side of leadership: A systematic review of creativity and innovation

It is believed that workplace creativity and innovation are fostered by positive leader behaviors and positive workplace relationships and hindered by the opposite. However, some challenge this view and argue that creativity and innovation can also be fostered when employees experience what is increasingly referred to as “the dark side of leadership”. Research in this area is sparse, contradictory, and overly confusing. We provide a comprehensive systematic review of 106 empirical studies on this topic. We review research on a broad range of constructs, including abusive supervision, authoritarian leadership, narcissistic leadership, and close monitoring. As might be expected, a larger number of the articles reviewed found a negative relationship, but there are important discrepancies and details. Our review reports the main effects, summarizes the results of the mediating and moderating variables, and highlights methodological shortcomings of the previous literature. On this basis, several recommendations are made to advance this field of research.     

Age of Onset in Pathological Gambling: Clinical,Therapeutic and Personality Correlates

We aimed to explore the association between age of onset of gambling problems and current psychopathological and clinical status, personality profile and therapeutic outcome in a sample of pathological gamblers. A total of 904 consecutive pathological gambling patients were administered several instruments about gambling behavior, psychopathology and personality. They received a 4-month cognitive-behavioral group treatment. Information of dropouts and relapses during treatment was registered. Older age of onset of gambling problems was associated with higher general psychopathology (SCL-90-R Paranoid Ideation, Psychoticism, Depression; P < 0.015). Younger age of onset was related to greater severity of pathological gambling (P < 0.015), higher novelty seeking, and lower self-directedness (P < 0.015). No statistically significant association was found between age of onset and relapse and dropouts during treatment. Age of onset of gambling problems seems to influence the clinical presentation of pathological gambling but not treatment outcome.     

Asymptotic Properties for a Class of Partially Identified Models

We propose inference procedures for partially identified population features for which the population identification region can be written as a transformation of the Aumann expectation of a properly defined set valued random variable (SVRV). An SVRV is a mapping that associates a set (rather than a real number) with each element of the sample space. Examples of population features in this class include interval‐identified scalar parameters, best linear predictors with interval outcome data, and parameters of semiparametric binary models with interval regressor data. We extend the analogy principle to SVRVs and show that the sample analog estimator of the population identification region is given by a transformation of a Minkowski average of SVRVs. Using the results of the mathematics literature on SVRVs, we show that this estimator converges in probability to the population identification region with respect to the Hausdorff distance. We then show that the Hausdorff distance and the directed Hausdorff distance between the population identification region and the estimator, when properly normalized by , converge in distribution to functions of a Gaussian process whose covariance kernel depends on parameters of the population identification region. We provide consistent bootstrap procedures to approximate these limiting distributions. Using similar arguments as those applied for vector valued random variables, we develop a methodology to test assumptions about the true identification region and its subsets. We show that these results can be used to construct a confidence collection and a directed confidence collection. Those are (respectively) collection of sets that, when specified as a null hypothesis for the true value (a subset of values) of the population identification region, cannot be rejected by our tests.     

Clustering microarray data using model-based double K-means

The microarray technology allows the measurement of expression levels of thousands of genes simultaneously. The dimension and complexity of gene expression data obtained by microarrays create challenging data analysis and management problems ranging from the analysis of images produced by microarray experiments to biological interpretation of results. Therefore, statistical and computational approaches are beginning to assume a substantial position within the molecular biology area. We consider the problem of simultaneously clustering genes and tissue samples (in general conditions) of a microarray data set. This can be useful for revealing groups of genes involved in the same molecular process as well as groups of conditions where this process takes place. The need of finding a subset of genes and tissue samples defining a homogeneous block had led to the application of double clustering techniques on gene expression data. Here, we focus on an extension of standard K-means to simultaneously cluster observations and features of a data matrix, namely double K-means introduced by Vichi (2000). We introduce this model in a probabilistic framework and discuss the advantages of using this approach. We also develop a coordinate ascent algorithm and test its performance via simulation studies and real data set. Finally, we validate the results obtained on the real data set by building resampling confidence intervals for block centroids.     

Just for fun? Alcohol and drugs in youth lifestyles: a survey

The article presents an analysis of the relationship between young people and alcohol and drug use, examining both their attitudes and behaviors. The analysis is based on statistics collected through a structured-questionnaire survey of 1071 students from the secondary schools of Rome and the Province. The first part of the article examines patterns and levels of alcohol and drug use and typical places of use. The central part is dedicated to the perceptions and opinions on alcohol and drugs, with particular regard to the dimensions of risk and sociality, and to the different roles of school and family in raising risk awareness. Sociality appears as a crucial element in young people's tendency to associate alcohol and drugs with an effect of relaxation and disinhibition that makes social relations easier. The article finally examines the relationship between young people and social norms, identifying transgressive models and habits. On the whole, the study highlights a connection between alcohol and drug use and desire of sociality, which is experienced more as a situational and ever-changing practice than as a search for close friendships.     

Family Social Networks and Recovery From Severe Mental Illness of Clubhouse Members

This study examined the contribution of family social network variables to recovery among Clubhouse members. A random sample of 118 members from one Clubhouse was recruited for this cross-sectional study. Among all respondents, greater overall family support and better relationship quality with the most supportive network member were correlated with greater levels of recovery. Clubhouse members perceived higher quantity and quality of support and more criticalness from their most supportive network members, principally family members, compared to the rest of their family members. Longitudinal studies are needed to further investigate the relationship between family support and recovery.