Developing Transnational Literacies

"The paper positions education and learning in the context of Gilles Deleuze's ethico-political philosophy oriented to becoming-other amidst experiences and events. Deleuze's unorthodox affective epistemology is inseparable from ethics in terms of real-life consequences at the level of practice. The paper presents the critical and clinical analysis of experiential events as texts comprising a mode of the informal pedagogy in terms of creating new concepts, meanings, and values for experience. The logic of sense foregrounds ethical evaluations of experience with regard to multiple directions we might take in novel situations, which disrupt common sense with problems that do not yet yield answers as univocal and unidirectional solutions. The paper conceptualizes a model of the new ethics of integration as a follow-up to the ethics of care in education informed by the relational self-other dynamics and moral interdependence."

"This article explores how human interactions with networked technologies enable and constrain the emergence of social structures that nourish public knowledge and experience. By adapting Anthony Giddens' (1984) Structuration Theory and extending its perspective to technology (W. J. Orlikowski, 2000 ), the study endeavors to examine the manner in which engagement with networked technologies by people outside mainstream news organizations reproduces structures that neutralize the power of media institutions to construct social reality, as well as the manner in which their actions simultaneously produce new social structures (N. Couldry, 2000 ). The study is grounded in analysis of the online activities of members of Machsom Watch-a women's organization that monitors the human rights of Palestinians at checkpoints set up by the Israeli army."

"Brazilian education activist Paulo Freire ( 1970 12. Freire , P. 1970 . Pedagogy of the oppressed , New York , NY : Continuum . View all references ) argues that to create social change, oppressed people must have critical consciousness about their conditions, and that this consciousness is developed through dialogue. He theorizes that dialogue allows for reflection and unity building, tools needed to transform society. When considering racial oppression in K-12 schools, racial minority teachers have an often-untapped insight and power to transform classrooms and schools (Kohli, 2009 21. Kohli , R. 2009 . Critical race reflections: Valuing the experiences of teachers of color in teacher education . Race, Ethnicity and Education , 12 ( 2 ) : 235 - 251 . [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Web of Science ®] View all references ). Connected through a commonality of racial oppression, it is important for teachers of color to engage in cross-racial dialogues about manifestations of racial injustice in K-12 schools and to develop strategies for change. Utilizing Freire's conceptual lens and a critical race theory (CRT) framework, this article highlights critical race dialogue about the educational experiences and observations of 12 black, Latina, and Asian American women enrolled in a teacher education program. Through cross-racial discussions, the women were able to broaden their multicultural understanding of racial oppression as well as strategize solidarity building among diverse students in urban classrooms. This study demonstrates knowledge and insights of teachers of color and highlights the importance of interracial dialogue in school contexts."

"Intergroup dialogue is designed to foster commitment to action. This article analyzes papers written by students in 52 intergroup dialogue courses (N = 739) to test a theoretical model of how intergroup dialogue is expected to encourage frequency of acting to educate others and to collaborate with others. The theoretical model posits that dialogue pedagogy fosters distinctive communication processes, which influence psychological processes that, in turn, relate to action (Nagda, 2006 21. Nagda , B. A. 2006 . Breaking barriers, crossing boundaries, building bridges: Communication processes in intergroup dialogues . Journal of Social Issues , 62 : 553 - 576 . [CrossRef] , [Web of Science ®] View all references ; Sorensen, Nagda, Gurin, & Maxwell, 2009 31. Sorensen , N. , Nagda , B. A. , Gurin , P. and Maxwell , K. 2009 . Taking a "hands on" approach to diversity in higher education: A critical-dialogic model for effective intergroup interaction . Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy , 9 ( 1 ) : 3 - 35 . [CrossRef] View all references ). Statistical analyses of the number of references to each of these concepts that were coded in the students' papers provide substantial support for the model. Dialogue pedagogy, communication processes, and psychological processes all influenced how much students wrote about action, and the influence of these concepts conforms to the theoretical model. Results also show that educating others was written about more by students in race/ethnicity dialogues than in gender dialogues, at least partially because students in race/ethnicity dialogues also wrote more about the communication processes and psychological processes that specifically related to educating others."

"Developing an agenda for the social study of ignorance, this paper introduces the sociology of strategic unknowns: the investigation of the multifaceted ways that ignorance can be harnessed as a resource, enabling knowledge to be deflected, obscured, concealed or magnified in a way that increases the scope of what remains unintelligible. In contrast to theoretical preoccupations that underlie the study of knowledge accumulation, a focus on the importance of strategic unknowns resists the tendency to value knowledge over ignorance or to assume that the procurement of more knowledge is linked in an automatic or a linear fashion to the attainment of more social or political power. Refining and challenging the assumption that modern liberal societies inevitably thrive on the accumulation of information about the public personas, private psyches, consumer habits or political proclivities of citizens, the papers in the special issue explore how the cultivation of strategic unknowns remains a resource - perhaps the greatest resource - for those in a position of power and those subject to it."

"Comparative research in multilingual urban primary schools indicates that the pedagogical and political goals of schooling may operate at cross-purposes. Classroom observations and teacher interview-discussions were conducted in classes for immigrant children in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where the language of instruction is French, and in classes in Pretoria, Gauteng Province, South Africa, where children from many different language backgrounds are taught in English. Two main themes emerged: (1) pedagogically, effective teacher-learner communication can break down when teachers are unaware of the roles that language and culture play in second language classrooms; (2) politically, efforts to assimilate learners into new socio-cultural/political contexts sometimes take precedence over sound pedagogical practice, such as drawing on the linguistic and cultural repertoire that learners bring to the classroom. This ongoing qualitative research underlines the importance of preparing pre-service and in-service teachers for the linguistic and cultural diversity they are bound to encounter in their classrooms, and of deepening their understanding of the influence of such diversity on the teaching-learning process."

"This article focuses on the administration of disciplinary exclusion (expulsion) from school. It identifies a number of social boundaries between people that negatively affect students subject to permanent exclusion, to the extent that they can be seen as constituting incidents of institutional racism. For example, the high statistical currency of the English language and the lack of adequate translation facilities are shown to constitute social boundaries between people that undermine the participation of parents in school exclusion and inclusion processes. Age assessments for immigrant and refugee children are also seen to affect institutional responses to individual cases of permanent exclusion from school. Assumptions about what excluded students 'need' are found to sometimes be made on the basis of reductive skin‐colour labels, and a disconnect is discovered between the discourses that school and family are socially authorised to adopt in discussing students at risk of exclusion. It is recommended that institutional racism in schooling is acknowledged and acted upon by both policy makers and practitioners."

"In assessing the various forms of welfare capitalism, normative political philosophy typically draws on two major philosophical traditions - republicanism and liberalism, invoking either equality and the public good or, alternatively, individual autonomy as normative criteria for evaluation. Drawing, instead, on Critical Theory as a tradition of social philosophy, I advance a proposal for assessment of the types of welfare capitalism conducted as 'immanent critique' of the key structural dynamics of contemporary capitalism. Normative criteria thus emerge within a diachronic dimension of social transformation, which in turn grounds the comparison among synchronic types of capitalism. This ultimately enables a research agenda for the operationalisation of a normative analysis of capitalism within which social justice is gauged by the degree of voluntary employment flexibility - a key factor in the distribution of life-chances in the early twenty-first century."

"This paper illustrates a storytelling-based application for an anthropomorphic guide to a historical site, presented through a mobile device. We discuss the requirements posed by the communication context and the idea of approaching the problem through storytelling. Then we describe the application that merges the basic structure of storytelling with the requirements coming from the communication of the specific knowledge about the historical site, the user interaction issues concerning the target audience and the technological issues posed by the mobile device. Finally, we address the evaluation issues and we discuss the results with respect to storytelling."

"A frequent weakness of communicative approaches to foreign language teaching is a neglect of the intercultural dimension. Cultural knowledge is often treated as an addendum which focuses on learning facts about the target country. This article explores whether task-based language teaching (TBLT) can successfully address the intercultural dimension. Using findings that emerge from a series of one-to-one interviews, this article explores practitioners' current understandings of cultural knowledge, and how these understandings influence their practices. It identifies strengths and weaknesses and considers the steps that may be necessary if TBLT is to be a more successful mediator of the intercultural dimension."

"This study explores the implications of Canada's official bilingual status on young immigrant adults who are presently studying at the undergraduate level at university. More precisely, I examine how these young adults have experienced and judge French as a second official language (FSOL) learning in 'English-dominant' regions of Canada. Through a questionnaire and interviews, the participants reveal that they invest in FSOL with the goal of adding French to their multilingual repertoire that includes English primarily in hopes of future economic gain. Examining the data through the lens of investment, I posit that access to FSOL as an investment and conversion of the investment into economic gain is mitigated by unequal positions of power that highlight Canada's emphasis on official language bilingualism to the practical exclusion of multilingualism. I suggest that means to change unequal practices may lie in the bi-directionality of relations between education and society and propose that rather than having language education in Canada reflect the official discourse, that education be used as a means to influence the discourse and practice thereof to be more inclusive of all languages."

"A critical concern in preparing teachers for urban schools is helping them make sense of race, identity and racism in schools. Teacher education programs struggle with how to address these issues in classes of primarily White students. Through a document analysis, the present study highlights how teacher educators can use narrative - particularly autobiographies - to help understand the racial and cultural consciousness of White teachers. Narrative construction provides a method to highlight how White teachers understand their identities and how Whiteness functions in society. Places of resistance, and stories yet untold, are also explored as a teacher educator looks to refine her own practice."

"This article examines changes in curriculum policy in secondary education in England. It is concerned with recent curriculum policy and reform, and the proliferation of non-government actors in curriculum policy creation. It examines the emergence of a loose alliance of third sector organisations and their involvement in a series of alternative 'curriculum experiments'. The third sector curriculum policy network revolves around a policy vision of decentralisation constituted by public-private partnership, media-friendliness, social enterprise and an 'open source' or network-based organisational logic. It assembles a policy ideal of 'centrifugal schooling' which links together ideas about 'networked governance' with 'flexible' learning and 'entrepreneurial' curricula. The article traces and discusses some of the inter-organisational relations, materials and discourses of the third sector network of alternative curriculum policy developments, and provides a case study of a prototypical third sector curriculum programme. It examines the organisational relations and practices by which the project was produced and the conditions leading to its failure."

"Research capacity building has become a prominent theme in higher education institutions in China and across the world. However, Chinese Teaching English as a Foreign Language academics' research output has been quite limited. In order to build their research capacity, it is necessary to understand their perceptions about research. This case study presents the perceptions about research of six Chinese Teaching English as a Foreign Language academics in a context of growing institutional demands for research. One-on-one interviews of 35-60 minutes' duration were conducted with these academics from an institution in north China. Thematic analysis of the transcribed interviews indicated that the Chinese Teaching English as a Foreign Language academics held positive perceptions about the teaching-research nexus. However, the value of research to them seemed to be limited to teaching and career advancement. They also expressed varied concerns about the institutional research requirements. The findings suggested several implications for the institution's administrators to further enhance academics' research capacity building."

"The German Greens achieved a record result in the federal elections of 2009. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, it is argued that this excellent result was not an isolated phenomenon but is in line with a long-term growth of Green electoral support that has a strong generational basis. A 'feminisation' and 'greying' of Green voters is also apparent. Despite the party's effort to emphasise economic and social issues in its campaigning, the chief factors explaining Green voting remain environmental concern and opposition to nuclear energy."

"The National Rescue Chilan Cypress Forests Campaign between 1998 and 2000 was one of Taiwan's most high-profile environmental movements. The campaign began as a concerted effort to put a stop to the operations implemented by the Veterans Affairs Commission, the managing authority of the old-growth forests in Chilan. The environmental activists then went on to demand a new national park in the area, which was approved by the central government in 2000. Focusing on the ways in which activists articulated the rationale for their protest against a seemingly technical issue, this discussion centres on the discursive themes in the activists' narration of relevant events and environmental history of endemic cypress forests. Drawing on Luhmann's thinking, it argues that an assessment of such discourses should take into consideration the protest/issue distinction specific to modern social movements."

"Through the example of a Danish reform of educational plans in early childhood education, this paper analyses the emergence of a new pedagogical desire related to administrative educational reforms promoting accountability, visibility and documentation. Two arguments are made: first, it is argued that the changes in administrative practices during the last decade constitute a transformation, but also a reproduction of relations between knowledge and governing that goes back to the big expansion of the welfare state. Second, it is argued that these relations between knowledge and governing are not restricted to the administrative practices, but are part of education and its humanistic legacy as well. As such, the administrative demand of documentation becomes possible and recognisable through its reproductive elements. Elements that are constituted in a transformative conjunction in which the 'professional nursery teacher' is produced as a reflective daily researcher, who outlives her pedagogical desire as an analytical care for the optimisation of the 'learning child'."

"Indigenous scholars have debated the impact that researchers and the act of researching have on Native and Indigenous people and communities. Although literature on this subject has grown, little has been written explicitly laying out the doing of research with these communities. The authors seek to articulate their doing by drawing upon the essential research principles and standards set by scholars. The authors seek to examine their work as education researchers in three different international contexts-Kenya, Cambodia, and "Indian country" in the United States-highlighting research practice shaped by context, relationship, and discourse emergent in their investigations of schooling, language revitalization, and scientific knowledge access. The authors reflect, analyze, and summarize their actions of decolonizing research that were present or particularly challenging cross-culturally, in each context. Examples of common action in the projects include relinquishing control, reenvisioning knowledge, cultivating relationships, and purposeful representation of communities. Finally, the authors connect their actions to the principles and standards set by scholars and discuss lessons learned."

"This paper examines claims made about the role of 'expert knowledge' in analysing the language of individuals seeking asylum in the UK. I treat policy as a type of power and seek to understand how this policy uses the language of science to further the British government's stated interest to provide 'secure borders' and a 'safe haven' for refugees. I look at how the Home Office defines, shapes and implements the policy, and at how the policy has influenced judicial decisions. In short I unmask UKBA's claim that it relies upon expert, scientific knowledge to assess asylum claims."

"This article contends that the effectiveness of Postcolonial Studies in the Brazilian Academy is inseparable from an understanding of the singularity of Portuguese colonization in Brazil, responsible for the ethnic and cultural formation of the country and for many of the forms taken by its social and economic development, from colonial and monarchic days to the present. Since postcolonial criticism illuminates and is illuminated by the cultural production of the past and present, in the comparison and confrontation of the different colonial systems and their aftermath, Postcolonial Studies may substantially contribute to the research on identity and other crucial issues-in the Brazilian case, notably the problematic of the so-called minority discourses, native cultures and the Afro-descendant legacy vis-à-vis the European heritage."