Epistemic Configurations Research Articles

Partial Meanings that a Teacher Mobilizes for Learning Limits at the School Level

Objective: The objective of this study is to analyze the partial meanings of the function limit object in a variable that a teacher mobilizes when teaching the Calculus unit at the school level. Theoretical Framework: For the analysis of the partial meanings of the mathematical object, the epistemic configurations proposed by the OntoSemiotic Approach to Mathematical Cognition and Instruction (OSA) were used. Method: The study is qualitative in nature and its methodological design is an instrumental-descriptive case study.. To carry out the analysis of the meanings mobilized by the teacher, a semi-structured interview, teaching material, field notes from class observation and the notes of two students of the course were used. Results and Discussion: The results obtained revealed that the teacher preferentially mobilizes the last two epistemic configurations of the mathematical object and to a limited extent some primary objects of other configurations. Research Implications: The research provides a reflection for the pedagogical practices of teachers regarding the epistemic richness of the mathematical object, mainly to Chilean teachers, who must teach said object promoting all its partial meanings according to the requirements of the Chilean school curriculum. Originality/Value: The research lies in the importance of the pedagogical practices that teachers should consider when teaching said object, in particular, the mathematical richness of the partial meanings of the object.

The Epistemic Codification of Satiric Indictment and the Decrying Gender Grotesque in Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s 491 Days and the Zimbabwean Maverick Movie Neria

Language, law, and literatures have at times discernibly and theatrically attempted the development of satire in academic discourses. They have raised a poignant question on the articulation of gender in society. Critical discourses have valorised the epistemic exegesis on how language is transfigured and re-interpreted to spur the dramaturgy and trajectory of gender through autobiography, biography, fiction, and movies. This article crystallises the societal perception of how satire has been used to ridicule and make distinctions by invoking scorn and pity on both men and women in society. The article probes the sensitivity of contemporary male obsessions with phallic power under an apartheid government. It dovetails through the existing epistemic configurations exhibited to recuperate women in revoking the phallocentric codifications in Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s epoch-making autobiography, 491 Days (1969). With the symbolic, ironic, iconic, and satiric prison number of “1322/69,” Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s anti-apartheid autobiography re-invokes the male imperative devices built up for years against vulnerable Black females and weak Black males in the apartheid South African regime. Similarly, the same epistemic vein and codification are obsessively projected by possessed and aggressive phallic patriarchs in the Zimbabwean film Neria (1992). The article relies on the theory of Nawal El Saadawi, which proposes confrontation on the questions of female polarisation, women’s objectification, and the quest for resistance against legally recognised social exegesis. This includes the application of coercive force and the rejection of satiric linguistic indictments against women and the weak as exemplified in the autobiographic and filmic works from South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Rural teachers’ meanings about teaching of decimal metric system

This article describes and identifies the personal meanings that the multigrade schoolteacher has in the teaching of the decimal metric system, through the facets of didactic mathematical knowledge. In various investigations supported by this theory, the need to apply the notion of facets or didactic suitability as an instructional process in which teachers are knowledgeable and competent in an academic setting, has been visualized. In this sense, the research is framed in teachers of different areas of knowledge that guide mathematics in which ten teachers participated. The data collection is based on the analysis of a diagnostic test and a semi-structured interview. Finally, as one of the relevant results of the research, three epistemic configurations are obtained from the personal meanings identified in the teachers interviewed.

Leftover liquids and the moisture of mourning: the oozes of Ocean Vuong’s oeuvre

Abstract This article tracks the moisture that spills across Ocean Vuong’s poetry and prose. Whereas the oceanic serves as the spectacular site across which Vietnamese refugees are rescued and rehabilitated through the scripts of US humanitarianism, moisture – as an ambient material and process – coagulates a queer, minor mode of refugee mourning and melancholia in the ongoing aftermath of the War in Vietnam. Pooling together these leftover liquids – sweat, mud, blood, amniotic fluid, semen, and urine – this study considers how the literary and chemical properties of humidity can alter extant epistemic configurations of war: not as an exceptional event, but instead as an everyday surround that continues to be weathered.

The Principle of Global Axiology: ’’The Shepherd’s Rod’’ for the Whole Human Name

We want peace and not war is the calling of the whole world. It is our daily calling. How do we pedagogues of all levels respond to the call of immortality? This is the Ion Druță’s calling to which we align by thinking and acting in the context of our being, directly of the being of the whole world, the Principle of Global Axiology - "The shepherd’s rod" of the whole human race. It is appropriate to emphasize the achievements of the creation of the entire human race in cultural, economic and social diversity. This is the case of our everyday occupation in which, in the format of set theory, the accents of complementary meaning the theory of multiple graces / TGM (L. Botezatu) - the theory of multiple intelligences / TIM (H. Gardner) guarantees its philosophical-centric positioning. It is the fact that the Paideia art reaches the peaks of the first signs of the markers in accessing "to be here". It is the day-to-day operation of "being beyond", vocally engaged in the work of responsibility for value resignation. Know how to choose the most efficient epistemic configurations; to order them and subject them to the laws of the mechanics of action by connecting the PAG/ Principle of Global Axiology from the TMSC/ Theory and Special Methodologu of Creativity (vis-à-vis the specific concerns of the embraced field) to the TMGC/ Theory and General Methodoogy of Creativity means to diligently replace yourself on the scale of meritological practices; return to essence - ascension through Spirituality into the Great Spirituality.

Epistemic Configurations and Holistic Meaning of Binomial Distribution

The competencies that today’s citizen must possess have led to a transformation of the teaching of probability, which has been repositioned on the school curriculum from an algorithmic view to a practical one based on the understanding of the concepts and their application in daily life. In this task, the understanding of the binomial distribution is essential as it allows the analysis of discrete data, the modeling of random situations, and the learning of other notions. However, weaknesses are identified in teachers and students with respect to the binomial distribution attributed to the lack of knowledge of its origin and meaning throughout history. For this reason, our work consists of the identification of its partial meanings and essential components as well as its relationships from a historical epistemological study and its analysis, based on the notions of the Ontosemiotic Approach (OSA) to Mathematical Knowledge and Instruction and the specialized literature on statistics and probability. As a result of our work, we present a reconstruction of the holistic meaning of the binomial distribution from the elements that compose it, which are essential for didactic purposes such as the identification and resolution of learning conflicts, the design or evaluation criteria, and teacher education.

De-democratization and the Politics of Knowledge: Unpacking the Cultural Marxism Narrative

AbstractThe politics of knowledge matter to the current wave of de-democratization in Europe. Building on Walby’s social complexity theory, this article highlights the dynamics between epistemic configurations and contemporary politics. Focusing on academic institutions, and taking gender studies as an illustration, this article shows that actors opposing (social) sciences and academia not only aim to dismantle existing institutions of knowledge production but also promote a new politics of truth. In this, the Cultural Marxism master frame operates as a diagnosis and a prognosis frame, providing the base for attacks on academia and for a strategy of profound transformation of the realm of knowledge in Europe.

The epistemics of advice-giving sequences: Epistemic primacy and subordination in advice rejection

Although advice is routinely offered in ordinary conversation, commentators and analysts have treated it as a special or delicate type of action, noticing a number of challenges associated with both providing and receiving it. In this article, I first describe the most basic social-sequential context for giving advice and explicate how the formulations speakers use to offer advice are adapted to the distinct epistemic configurations (and other characteristics) that characterize that context. Drawing on Jefferson and Lee’s (1992) observations regarding ‘troubles tellings’, I argue that speakers typically offer advice when a co-participant reports an insoluble trouble or problem to one who (may or claims to) possess special knowledge about the domain of trouble. I show how this epistemic configuration constitutes a ‘home environment’ for advice-giving (i.e. a place where advice may be relevantly offered) and discuss how speakers vary the design of their advice (e.g. using different grammatical forms) to adapt to the sequential environments that entail different epistemic configurations. Finally, I consider how alternative, contrasting responses to advice manage (e.g. by ratifying or challenging) the epistemic framework set in motion by advice-giving.

Epistemic Complexity of the Mathematical Object “Integral”

The literature in mathematics education identifies a traditional formal mechanistic-type paradigm in Integral Calculus teaching which is focused on the content to be taught but not on how to teach it. Resorting to the history of the genesis of knowledge makes it possible to identify variables in the mathematical content of the curriculum that have a positive influence on the appropriation of the notions and procedures of calculus, enabling a particularised way of teaching. Objective: The objective of this research was to characterise the anthology of the integral seen from the epistemic complexity that composes it based on historiography. Design: The modelling of epistemic complexity for the definite integral was considered, based on the theoretical construct “epistemic configuration”. Analysis and results: Formalising this complexity revealed logical keys and epistemological elements in the process of the theoretical constitution that reflected epistemological ruptures which, in the organisation of the information, gave rise to three periods for the integral. The characterisation of this complexity and the connection of its components were used to design a process of teaching the integral that was applied to three groups of university students. The implementation showed that a paradigm shift in the teaching process is possible, allowing students to develop mathematical competencies.

Análisis ontosemiótico del proceso de instrucción en aplicaciones de la derivada con el estudiantado de Ingeniería Agroforestal

Esta investigación ha analizado desde un enfoque ontológico y semiótico un proceso de instrucción en las aplicaciones de la derivada, permitiendo una evaluación del proceso tanto cuantitativamente como cualitativo, además permitió al docente ver las dificultades que se presenta en la resolución de los problemas matemáticos, teniendo en cuenta los elementos propios de las configuraciones epistémica. Así mismo para realizar la investigación se aplicaron los métodos cuantitativos y cualitativos que permitió comprender mejor la situación, haciendo un análisis y evaluación de la instrucción matemática. En la investigación participaron 28 estudiantes entre hombres y mujeres, Se aplicaron los siguientes instrumentos de recolección de la información: escala de actitud hacia las matemáticas; instrucción matemática sobre las aplicaciones de las derivadas en el contexto de la ingeniería agroforestal; observaciones indirectas; prueba inicial y la prueba final. De acuerdo a lo antes mencionado se logró evidenciar que los estudiantes tienen actitudes positivas hacia las matemáticas, sin embargo presentan obstáculos cognitivos básicos para la compresión y resolución de los problemas aplicando las derivadas. De igual manera se evidenció a través del estadístico no paramétrico que existe estadísticamente diferencia entre las medianas entre las pruebas, por tanto, el proceso de instrucción mejora la comprensión y rendimiento académico del estudiantado.

Incongruencia epistémica, partículas intensificadoras y elaboración de la información

This paper explores a discourse pattern found in responses to assertions. The pattern includes a particle that stresses agreement (e.g., Sp. claro, por supuesto, evidentemente) followed by a segment where the second speaker elaborates on the information provided by the first. It is argued that, in the contexts analysed here, these particles index epistemic incongruence: although the second speaker shows agreement with the semantic content proposed by the first, the content is known or even obvious for the second speaker and the assertion is therefore, in a sense, problematic. Drawing from this analysis, a distinction is proposed between two levels within the general category of (dis)agreement: one level relates to content and the other relates to the assumptions about the epistemic configuration that are carried in an assertive speech act itself.

Epistemic (a)Symmetries and Mitigation in the Description of Conversational Markers: The Case of Spanish ¿No?

This paper explores the relationship between epistemic (a)symmetries and mitigation in three different genres (conversation, interview and monologue) through the study of a specific form: the Spanish discourse maker ?no? To do so, an analysis combining qualitative and quantitative methods has been carried out. The main results show how the differences in the distribution of the absolute values of ?no? and its mitigating values across genres may be caused by the type of sequences that compose each genre. As for mitigation and knowledge, five different knowledge configurations have been established. Their distribution shows how mitigation seems to favour specific epistemic configurations, whereas non-mitigating data seem to be clustered around other epistemic figures. Taking into account epistemic configurations has also enabled discovery of two different types of mitigation to protect the speaker’s face.

Exploring Students’ Understanding of Integration by Parts: A Combined Use of APOS and OSA

Our goal in this paper is to study students’ understanding of integration by parts based on two theories, APOS and OSA. We make an epistemic configuration (EC) of primary objects that a student activate for solving tasks in relation to the integration by parts, and then we design a genetic decomposition (GD) of mental constructions that he/she might need to learn the integration by parts. We then describe the EC and GD in terms of the levels of development of Schema (i.e., intra, inter and trans). Three tasks in a semi-structured interview were used to explore twenty three first-year students’ understanding of integration by parts and classify their schemas. Results showed that students had difficulties in integration by parts, especially in using this technique to obtain a simpler integral than the one they started with. Using APOS and OSA gave us a clear insight about students’ difficulties and helped us to better describe students’ understanding of integration by parts.

Indexing epistemic incongruence: uy as a formal sign of disagreement in agreement sequences in Spanish

This study explores epistemic incongruence in Spanish by focusing on the particle uy in Iberian Spanish. It is claimed that this interjection has a basic change-of-state meaning and that it is commonly used to stress disagreement. Despite its general association to disagreement, the particle can be used in agreeing responses, where it also treats the previous turn as problematic. In this sequential environment, however, it is not the content of the previous turn but rather the underlying assumptions (the basic epistemic configuration of an assertion-answer adjacency pair) that are challenged by the second speaker. The evidence for this analysis comes from the sequential context. Typically, in agreeing uy-responses, speakers upgrade the statement offered in first position and provide evidence of previous epistemic access. It is argued that, in these contexts, uy is used to index epistemic incongruence.

Configuración epistémica de la pedagogía. Tendencias que han proliferado en la historia de la educación

En este artículo se hace una revisión temática reflexiva que permite analizar la génesis, evolución, y configuración epistémica de la pedagogía, valorando las principales tendencias que han proliferado en la historia de la educación. Se identifican cinco tendencias u orientaciones epistemológicas: la pedagogía como ciencia de la educación, la pedagogía como una de las ciencias de la educación, la pedagogía como saber pedagógico, la pedagogía como arte de enseñar (didáctica), y la pedagogía como reflexión sobre la educación. Se considera a la pedagogía como la constelación universal del saber pedagógico configurado por la comunidad académica internacional. Sin embargo, aún está vigente el controversial debate sobre la pedagogía y las ciencias de la educación. No hay consenso en la comunidad académica internacional sobre la configuración epistémica de la pedagogía. Las concepciones y criterios dependen de las particularidades de esta ciencia o disciplina en cada país. En Colombia la pedagogía es un saber pedagógico o una reflexión sobre la educación, en Cuba la pedagogía es considerada la ciencia que estudia la educación, en Estados Unidos se habla de la Ciencia de la Educación, en singular, pero no se utiliza la noción de pedagogía con la connotación de ciencia de la educación. Asimismo, en Francia se habla de las Ciencias de la Educación, en plural, y en Alemania la Pedagogía es entendida como la Ciencia de la Educación. Se concluye que la pedagogía no debe ser considerada un campo, sino una configuración conceptual comprensiva.
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 Contextualización: Idioma Maya Tzútujil 
 Contextualizador: Salvador Quiacaín Rocch’e. 
 Ministerio de Educación de Guatemala
 
 RULUTZ’UXIIK
 Joo’ ruwach rucholiik tz’atoon ja nimaq taq na’ooj rixiin ja runa’ojiltijoneem: Nab’eey. Ja na’b’altijoneem jaari runa’ojiil ja tijoneem. Ruuk’aab’. Ja na’b’altijoneem jun chi re na’ojiil rixiin ja rijoneem. Roox. Ja nab’altijoneem jaari na’ooj rixiin ojtaqineem. Ruukaaj. Ja na’b’altijoneem jaari ja sak’ajiil rixiin ja k’utuneem. Roo’. Ja na’b’altijoneem jaari ja ch’ab’ooj rixiin ja ojtaqineem.
 
 Xchob’otaji chi ja na’b’altijoneem jaari ja jun wi’aaj rixiin ja na’ooj rixiin na’b’altijob’al nuuk’aan kumaal ja ruwinaqiil ninaq taq tijoneem chi paan ja ruwach’uleew. Xar waari, k’a k’o na rutzijoxiik ja na’b’altijoneem ruk’iin ja etamab’aliil rixiin ojtaqineem. Ma k’o ta k’amori’iil kuk’iin ja ruwinaqiil ja ninaq taq tijoneem chi paan ja ruwach’uleew, chi riij runuk’iik ja runa’ojiiltijoneem ja na’b’altijoneem.
 K’iy ja na’ojiil, xar waari k’ooli ja rujalab’en rii’ chi rujun junaal ja rixiin awa etamab’aliil ri’, chi paan ja tinaamit eje’e. Ja kolonb’iya, ja na’b’altijoneem jaari’ jar ojtaq na’b’altijoneem owi jun ch’ob’ooj chi riij ja ojtaqineem, jar Estat’os Unidos ntzijox riij ruwach chi jar Etamab’aliil rixiin ja tijoneem, pa rujunaal, xar waari ma ti kooji ja tziij na’ab’atijoneem ruk’iin ja etamab’aliil.
 Keeri Prancia, ntzijoxi jar etamab’aliil rixiin jar ojtaqineem, pa ruk’iyaal, ja k’ar Alemaya ja na’b’altijoneem ch’otajnaq, chi jaari ja ejetamab’al rixiin ja ojtaqineem. Xch’ob’ataji chi ja na’b’altijoneem ma jun nimalaj etamab’aliil ta, jun nuk’uneem ja qas q’alaaj riij ruwach chik. 
 Taq tziij nk’atziini: na’b’altijonee; ojtaqineem; ejtamb’allil rixiin ja ojtaqineem; ojtaq rixiin na’b’altinoneem, k’utuneem. Ruuwuuj ruk’asalemaal ojtaqineem pa Latino’ametika.

Nomads and settlers in the research-technology regime: The case of transmission electron microscopy

This article presents historical evidence for the rise of a new type of research-technology community that deviates in several respects from the social and epistemic configurations of work that Terry Shinn described in his seminal writings on the origins of the research-technology regime. The more recent type of settlers is distinguished from a nomadic type, prevalent in Shinn’s work. It is argued that, despite many configurational differences, both types constitute functional equivalents for producing and disseminating generic instrumentation. An important difference, however, is the prolonged life expectancy of settler communities, resulting in long-term upgrading cycles. On the basis of a case study on transmission electron microscopy in Germany, the article investigates social and epistemic conditions facilitating the emergence and permanent institutionalization of a settler community. It seems that material resistances, hindering nomadic research practices, as well as support from scientific/industrial elites have great impact on the formation of settler communities.

Re‐specifying geographical quantification: problems of order in street interviews

This paper deals with quantitative geography, adopting the perspective of ethnomethodology. Rather than deliver another definition or critique of quantitative geography, it examines activities through which quantification is locally produced and accomplished as phenomena that can be accounted for as a form of scientific and geographical order. It begins by discussing how geography has examined quantification as a problem of how data move between the field of investigation and a so‐called centre of calculation, thereby overlooking the many practices that contribute to its epistemic configuration. To empirically document instances of quantification as a locally organised accomplishment, it then turns to video‐recorded street interviews that were carried out in the course of a European research project on the sense of well‐being felt by users of urban open spaces. Analysis of interview conduct reveals that the adequacy and relevancy of the questionnaire is not given per se, but is produced in the encounter between the interviewer and the passer‐by respondent.

Resisting and accepting: Farmers' hybrid epistemologies in the GMO controversy in Chile

There is a growing interest in understanding how different actors involved in debates regarding GMOs produce, justify and mobilize evidence in the face of the ‘unknown unknowns’ put forward by this technology. Moreover, and in line with the STS literature on the role of non-expert knowledge and concerned groups in the shaping of GMO regulations, there is an ever-increasing interest in understanding how non-scientific actors – for example anti-GMO or groups or non-industrial farmers – create and legitimize an ‘evidential culture’.In this paper we analyze the case of the emergent controversy over GMOs in Chile. Expanding on the concept of civic epistemology and based on in-depth interviews and document analyses, we specifically examine how a key sector in the debate – medium and small farmers – frames its evidences regarding GMOs, what type of trials they mobilize, and which political strategies are fleshed out.Our preliminary findings suggest a very particular epistemic configuration, one that we call hybrid epistemology: a mix epistemology in which free-market claims are entwined with state intervention demands, consensual political strategies are mixed with perceptions of strong power inequalities, and science-based rationalities are entangled with experiential and intuition-based knowledge.Finally, the paper opens a question about the epistemological impacts of the Chilean neoliberal experiment on the positions of farmers regarding GMOs.

The epistemic configuration of Hume’s economic thought

Eugene Rotwein wrote in his ‘Introduction’ to David Hume Writings on Economics that works on Hume’s economics have been primarily ‘internal’ studies. Beyond exploring Hume’s insights for understanding economic phenomena, they have investigated either the relations between his philosophical thought and his economic analysis or emphasised their psychological and historical elements. The perspective in this paper is ‘external’, dealing with Hume’s economic thought according to Michel Foucault’s approach to history. Foucault sees the ‘interiority’ of thought as a doubling of what is outside of thought. It is in this sense that Foucault investigates Hume’s context according to the concept of ‘episteme’, defining this as a set of relations that determines the ways of thinking. Foucault located Hume within the ‘classical episteme’ and I explore here his characterisation of that moment in order to understand the historical conditions of possibility of Hume’s economic thinking

From witnessing to recording – material objects and the epistemic configuration of science classes

Drawing on concepts developed in actor-network theory and postphenomenology this article shows how material objects in the science classroom become part of epistemic configurations and thus co-shape science education. An ethnographic study on epistemic objects in science education is the basis for the analysis of two of these objects: experimental arrangements and the blackboard. While experimental arrangements configure students as witnesses of the fascinating otherness of material objects, the blackboard enacts students as recorders of semiotic representations. In the interplay of these socio-material enactments scientific knowledge receives its authority in the classroom. The perspective adopted in this article highlights the bodily and sensory dimension of material objects and thus helps to understand how human–technology relations are established.