Formal Spaces Research Articles

“You close the door, wipe your sadness and put on a smiling face”: a qualitative study of the emotional labour of healthcare professionals providing palliative care in nursing homes in France

BackgroundPalliative care provided to frail and dying older persons in nursing homes results in intense emotions for residents and their relatives as well as for healthcare professionals. In France, scant attention has been given to how nursing home professionals manage their emotions when providing palliative care. This study analysed the emotional demands of providing palliative care in the nursing home context, the emotional strategies used by healthcare professionals to navigate such demands, and how these demands affect their emotional wellbeing.MethodsThis qualitative study used a multiple case study approach. We purposively selected nine nursing homes from three geographical provinces in France with diverse ownership statuses (public, private, associative). Individual interviews and focus group discussions were held with 93 healthcare professionals from various occupational groups employed in the participating nursing homes. Data was collected from April 2021 to September 2022 and was analysed using thematic content analysis.ResultsData revealed that providing palliative care to dying residents within the nursing home context results in intertwined rewarding and exhausting emotional experiences for healthcare professionals. Professionals have to utilize multifaceted emotional strategies to navigate these experiences, including suppressing and modifying emotions and distancing themselves emotionally from residents to protect themselves from emotional suffering. Participants noted a lack of formal space to express emotions. Unrecognized emotional labour undermines the wellbeing of healthcare professionals in nursing homes, whereas acknowledging emotions enhances satisfaction and gives enhanced meaning to their crucial role in resident care.ConclusionAcknowledging emotional labour as an inevitable component of providing palliative care in nursing homes is critical to supporting healthcare professional wellbeing, resilience, and retention, which may ultimately improve the quality of care for dying residents. Ensuring quality care and supporting the emotional wellbeing of nursing home professionals requires an organisational culture that considers emotional expression a collective strength-building resource rather than an individual responsibility, in hopes of shaping a new culture that fully acknowledges their humanity alongside their professional skills.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT04708002; National registration: ID-RCB number: 2020-A01832-37, Registration date: 2020-12-03.

Using the lens of liminality to understand important steps in creating conditions for networked learning in work-integrated learning

In this paper university teachers' and professionals’ work in the BUFFL project, a networked work-integrated lifelong learning project with flexible online course modules. The project involved a meeting space between academia and industry bank organizations or insurance companies in Sweden. Previous research in the project reported that four important steps are important for a successful establishment of a networked community of practice and networked learning. In this paper, the concept of liminality, or a liminal space, is used to explore work-integrated learning. The short paper concludes that there is a balance to strike between the risks and possibilities of liminality in learning in practice. From the different perspectives of liminality, a balance is needed when academia and industry meet. While both academia and industry bring their formal spaces and structures, this meeting can be said to create a liminal space that provides a free and uncertain place of possibilities where learning and transformation take place.

“They just forget about the students”: Growing resilient urban farmers with a research practice partnership

A sustainable transdisciplinary research network was established through a research practice partnership (RPP) between an urban farm, faculty and staff from a Historically Black College (HBC), and researchers at a medium-sized private university. We investigate student-worker resilience at this urban farm situated on the HBC campus, drawing on literature that explores tensions between informal learning environments and formal spaces, equitable food systems and farming systems, as well as the resilience of farm work, and which is grounded critical food systems education theory. Utilizing a participatory design approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews and deductively analyzed the data. The research questions guiding this paper are: (1) What topics of discussion are most important to the student-workers and staff working on an urban farm, (2) How do student-workers and college staff members perceive and experience resilience on an urban farm? We found that what participants on an urban farm discuss, relating to their experiences, include (1) how participants were eager to engage with the local community, (2) how participants demonstrated resilience while working on the urban farm, (3) how power dynamics played a pivotal role informing the direction of the urban farm, (4) how participants consider community access to healthy foods an important mission for the farm, (5) how the college acted as a power wielding entity, perpetuating its privilege over the farmers and the farm operations. These findings have the potential to enable community organizing spaces to promote resilience for their volunteers and workers, and for urban farms top partner with their community to promote the mission of increasing access to healthy and affordable food options.

Problematika Angkringan Tradisional (AT) di Yogyakarta: Pembacaan Kondisi Empiris Angkringan Tradisional (AT) Menggunakan Konsep Modernitas dan Gentrifikasi

Angkringan has become a cultural symbol, urban feature and social space for the people of Yogyakarta and its surroundings. However, deculturalization and modernity have been considered to be the main challenges for the existence of traditional angkringan (TA) in the city of Yogyakarta. This research aims to explain the potential problems faced by traditional angkringan in the midst of the urban modernity process that is occurring and its relationship with institutional attitudes towards modernity. This research was conducted around the university area of Gadjah Mada University and Yogyakarta State University. Data collection methods were carried out through field observations, informal interviews, and literature review data. The results of this research show that development with the concept of modernity which is interpreted in a limited way, the shift from informal spaces to formal spaces, business competition, technological developments and social changes have more or less influenced the existence of traditional angkringan. Apart from that, modernity can be said to have shifted the role, function and physicality of traditional angkringan from public spaces

Playing the ‘pibe chorro’ game: masculine skills and legitimate peripheral participation in street culture

ABSTRACT In this article, I analyse the street learning that a group of boys in a poor neighbourhood in Argentina produce when they play at being ‘pibes chorros’. Through the observation of interviews, photos and audio recordings made in the neighbourhood since 2010, I show how these games are occasions for boys to learn to pretend they know how to steal and to recreate a masculine image of toughness in order to cope with both street life and local working life. In this way, street culture, which in other studies is often seen as a constraint on available educational opportunities, in this article is a central place for learning by legitimate peripheral participation to occur (Lave and Wenger [1991]. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). The masculine acquisitions and skills of street play allow these boys greater preparation and participation social for life in highly formal spaces such as oil, the police and the local state.

A Place of Interaction and Learning at Design College

This research paper investigates the significance and design elements of interactive spaces within educational contexts, with a focus on design colleges. Through a comprehensive exploration of various case studies, including the School of Arts and Sciences at Ahmedabad University and the Centre for Environment Planning & Technology, the paper examines the role of formal and informal interactive spaces in fostering collaboration, creativity, and community engagement. Key factors affecting the success of these spaces, such as compatibility with user needs, achieving balance between social interaction and isolation, transparency, contact with nature, and design elements influencing interactive environments, are analysed. The findings highlight the importance of thoughtful design and planning in creating dynamic learning environments that support diverse modes of interaction and enhance the overall educational experience. Key Words: Architecture, Design colleges, Formal space, Homebase, Informal space, Interactive spaces

“This Wall Does More for Mental Health than the Uni Does”: Theorising Toilet Graffiti as Safe House for Students

AbstractDespite sometimes being considered unworthy of scholarly attention, the study of toilet graffiti, also known as latrinalia, has nevertheless garnered increasing interest among researchers. Graffiti writing still suffers from the stigma of being associated with transgression, vandalism, and a deviant subculture. However, findings from this study show that writing on the restroom wall can facilitate a unique form of communication among the writers. Drawing from semiotic linguistic landscaping and serendipity as methodological inspiration, this research explores data collected from a women's restroom at a UK university over a ten-month period. It examines how restroom users utilized the graffiti-covered wall as a safe house and a repository for their anxieties and concerns. The findings illustrate a palpable emotional connection to this specific wall, where writers seek and offer advice, share personal struggles, and provide mutual support to the extent that they see it as contributing more to their mental health than the university does. Through an analysis of the conversational threads present in the graffiti, this study underscores the potential for examining latrinalia within educational institutions to gain valuable and meaningful insights into the student body. The main implication is for educators to consider innovative, non-traditional ways of reaching out to students outside of the formal spaces of learning such as classrooms and libraries. This study, therefore, encourages us to reconsider toilet graffiti as potentially offering an additional or supplementary communication platform for individuals who might otherwise lack the confidence to express themselves openly through traditional means of soliciting feedback.

Enacted spaces of peer learning: tracing practices of relationality among international students in higher education

ABSTRACT This article attends to practices of peer learning among international students on and around an Australian university campus. Informed by posthuman theories, we frame peer learning as a relational process that is entangled with objects, bodies, technologies, spaces and materialities. Our analysis pays attention to the vitality of various spaces and the pedagogic practices they call forth. In doing so, it differs from educational theorising that treats space as a passive backdrop to learning, as well as that which focuses strictly on formal spaces of education, such as the classroom. Our focus on affirmative practices among international students also differs from deficit approaches which suggests international students need to interact with domestic students to fit in to ‘host’ cultures abroad. Drawing on interview material generated in 2021, we show how enacted spaces of peer learning are formed as international students seek and settle into accommodation, as well through their everyday practices on and around campus. The main argument is that enacted spaces of peer learning generate critical knowledge and relationships among international students that make studying abroad productive and meaningful. Harnessing and nurturing such practices will be vital for creating a more inclusive and caring educational landscape.

Peran Perempuan Dalam Penyelesaian Konflik Dusun Ory Pada Negeri Pelauw dengan Negeri Kariu Kabupaten Maluku Tengah

resolving the conflict berween Ory Hamlet, Pelauw State and Kariu State. This research was carried oud in Ory Hamlet, Pelauw State and Kariu State. Primary data collection techniques were carried out through interviews with a number of informant who were considered to be involved in the process of resolving the conflict between Ory Hamlet, Pelauw State and Kariu State.The results of this research show that so far in conflicts, women and children have only been considered victims, even though the informal effoots made by women have also made a positive contribution to the peacemaking process. However, in formal spaces, women’s involvement I very minimal, because they are not in strategic positions in the leadersip structure.

Realising Ukraine’s military potential in the Space Domain

Whilst conventional assistance (such as artillery, tanks, fighter jets etc) has been widely discussed, the most indispensable asset has gone largely unrecognised even whilst it shapes all of Ukraine’s operations. From the essential communications role of Starlink to the ‘space-powered targeting information and processes underpinning Ukraine’s strike capabilities, space is the decisive supporting element. During the current war, the leverage provided by the west’s decisively superiorspace capabilities has proved to be vital in allowing Ukraine to resist an ostensibly more powerful force. However, both the need for and potential of Ukraine’s own sovereign space power is evident. Ukraine has the history and resources to be a leading space power in Europe and worldwide.In order to further this aim, once there is the conceptual space to do so, Ukraine must begin the process of renewing and developing a National Space Strategy. This should be followed by, or be concurrent to the development of formal space doctrine. There are many excellent examples of national space strategies which provide much food for thought. These ae resources from which to draw. Ukraine like all countries has a unique set of resources and experiences which must be reflected in such strategy and doctrine. The process of drafting this guidance itself promotes thinking and planning and the product can and must be a guide to all military officers as to what the space domain can offer. It can also promote and drive essential co-operation.

PARENTS' PERCEPTIONS ABOUT IMPROVING STUDENT'S BEHAVIOR THROUGH PARTICIPATION IN NON-FORMAL ACTIVITIES. A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

Social competence is the ability to effectively manage social interactions and refers to the behavior of getting along well with others, being able to form and maintain close relationships, and responding adaptively to the social environment. Given the complexity of social interactions, social competence is the product of a wide range of cognitive skills, affective processes, behavioral skills, social awareness, and personal and cultural values related to interpersonal relationships. In the present research, we want to highlight the relational side of social skills, and in this sense, we developed a program of non-formal activities, wanting to highlight whether the behavior of the participant's registers changes from the parents' perspective. Thus, we developed a questionnaire for parents, made up of 14 items, structured into two categories: items aimed at the child's activity (activities carried out by the student outside of class hours, his schedule, areas of interest, group of friends), and the second part items designed to collect data about the parent's perception of non-formal activities, his consent to allow the child to participate in non-formal activities in the formal space, and the willingness to get involved in the design, organization and conduct of these activities). The subjects of the present experiment are primary school students, two classes of students, a total of 53 students forming the experimental sample and two classes forming the control sample, forming 49 students. As a result of the students' participation in the program of non-formal activities organized and carried out in the formal space, we observe an improvement in the behavior of the children who are part of the experimental sample, behavior perceived by their parents.

The Influence of Student Participation on Non-formal Educational Activities on their School Performance

Students' participation in structured non-formal education activities, organized in educational units, is an important element because it contributes to the development of their personality, and helps students to form positive skills towards learning, acquire skills, and problem-solving strategies. According to Feldman & Matjasko (2007), non-formal education activities have positive effects on students through better school performance; lower dropout rate; better psychological state, increased self-esteem, less worries about the future; reduced feeling of social isolation; and low level of delinquent behaviors. The present study aims to analyze whether the development of a program of non-formal educational activities, designed, organized, and carried out by teaching staff in close collaboration with other educational partners such as parents, and NGOs, contributes to increasing the school performance of students from primary. The value of the Pearson correlation index confirms that in the case of students who participate in non-formal activities in the formal space, the school performances, and qualifications in the subjects MEM, M, CLR, and LLR, are superior to those who do not participate in these activities.

Equivariant formality of the isotropy action on (ℤ2 ⊕ ℤ2)-symmetric spaces

Compact symmetric spaces are probably one of the most prominent class of formal spaces, i.e. of spaces where the rational homotopy type is a formal consequence of the rational cohomology algebra. As a generalization, it is even known that their isotropy action is equivariantly formal. In this paper, we show that [Formula: see text]-symmetric spaces are equivariantly formal and formal in the sense of Sullivan, in particular. Moreover, we give a short alternative proof of equivariant formality in the case of symmetric spaces with our new approach.

La influencia de las instituciones en los consejos locales de salud

ObjectiveTo analyze the influences of the institutions in the operation of the Local Health councils. Designqualitative, descriptive and exploratory study. Study setting02 Primary Health Care services of a municipality in the inland of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Participantstwenty-four members of the Local Health Councils and 4 key informants. MethodsSupported by the theoretical methodological framework of Institutional Analysis. Data were produced through 28 semi-structured interviews, observation and participation in the activities of the councils and recording in the research diary. Data were organized and analyzed by the process of transcription, transposition and reconstitution. ResultsThe institutions act in the territories represented by social actors who occupy positions and functions within the Primary Health Care services, evidencing the perpetuation of hierarchization with valorization of the speeches of professionals and managers to the detriment of patients and predominance of bureaucratized meetings. The social actors reproduce the ideals of the collective to which they belong in these spaces. ConclusionsThe health management teams do not recognize the different forces that act in the health territory, however, these forces interfere in the activities performed and in health care. The groups act both in formal spaces through official representatives who meet and discuss issues in collegiate meetings and in informal spaces, and constitute forces in dispute in the health territory.

Informal Game Play in the Classroom: Utilisation and Integration of the Metalanguage of Games

This paper discusses a case study of a 28 children in a middle years (11-15 year old) classroom and the use of the "third space" between the classroom and the home as an area of play for consolidation of both the learning at school and the informal learning of the games played at home. The research aims to look at whether the third space could be a vehicle to enable participants who have identified themselves as competent in the gaming world to link those learning strategies to classroom learning and therefore transfer that success to the classroom. The research took place at an International Baccalaureate school in Perth, Western Australia and utilises the third space as a gaming server and Discord chatrooms. Data was collected from the servers, questionnaires, researcher observations, game walkthrough videos and through interviews with the participants. Being an International Baccalaureate school the children take part in a “cognitive curriculum” which is part of the metacognitive learning of the International Baccalaureate. The participants were applying these strategies to their reflections on their action within the server and these reflections then informed their further participation within the “informal” game. In this way it could be theorised that children who were skilled “shapeshifters” could be at an advantage both communicating within the collaborative group work and moving between the informal and formal spaces. The analysis of the data focuses on the ways in which the students unpacked, utilised and discussed the formal classroom learning whilst participating in the Java Minecraft server game space. The metalanguage of learning and building competence in digital games informally through play outside of the school appears to link well to the metalanguage of the International Baccalaureate curriculum. The paper investigates whether linking children’s understanding and use of the gaming metalanguage to the International Baccalaureate metalanguage enables children to traverse the metalanguage of the classroom more successfully. The analysis of the data is utilised threefold in this presentation to: Identify that there is a linkage between gaming language and International Baccalaureate curriculum elements make these links apparent and show how they would apply in the classroom.

‘I found comfort in Spanglish:’ translanguaging and the linguistic experiences of bilingual teacher candidates in rural California

A new bilingual/plurilingual education renaissance in California was ushered in with the passage of state Proposition 58 in 2016. Program planners, however, have struggled to meet the need for bilingual/plurilingual teachers within a linguistic context ravaged by two decades of restrictive policies. This restrictionism has resulted in an entire generation of would-be bilingual teacher candidates growing up without formal academic support for bilingualism and biliteracy in their k-12 education. Although plurilingualism has been stymied in formal spaces, emerging research on translanguaging indicates that ‘bilinguals’ by definition creatively language within their various social and political milieu such that syntheses or hybrid forms of language emerge that reflect their full linguistic repertoire. This study examines the linguistic experiences of those who have overcome the odds to pursue their bilingual teacher certification. Through analysis of participant case studies of Latinx candidates studying for their bilingual teacher certification in California’s southern San Joaquín Valley, we find translanguaging to be a critical tool of identity expression, interethnic solidarity, and plurilingual/bilingual sustenance within a decidedly conservative and subtractive sociocultural and sociolinguistic context. We discuss the implications of these findings for the centering of translanguaging in bilingual teacher education and the cultivation of future bilingual/plurilingual educators in California.

From Floorplan to Navigation Concepts: Automatic Generation of Text-based Games

Abstract. Text-based games are environments in which defining the world, the representation of the world to the player (hereafter, agent) and agent interactions with the environment are all through text. Text-based games expose abstract, executable representations of indoor spaces through verbally referenced concepts. Yet, the ability of text-based games to represent indoor environments of real-world complexity is currently limited due to insufficient support for complex space decomposition and space interaction concepts. This paper suggests a procedure to automate the mapping of real-world geometric floorplan information into text-based game environment concepts, using the Microsoft TextWorld game platform as a case. To capture the complexities of indoor spaces, we enrich existing TextWorld concepts supported by theoretical navigation concepts.We first decompose indoor spaces using skeletonization, and then identify formal space concepts and their relationships. We further enhance the spectrum of supported agent interactions with an extended grammar, including egocentric navigation instructions. We demonstrate and discuss these new capabilities in an evacuation scenario. Our implementation extends the capabilities of TextWorld to provide a research testbed for spatial research, including symbolic spatial modelling, interaction with indoor spaces, and agent-based machine learning and language processing tasks.

TVET SI: Towards Sustainable Vocational Education and Training: Thinking beyond the formal

Mainstream vocational education and training (VET) has been complicit in unsustainable practices due to its longstanding relationship with productivism, extractivism and colonialism. However, it is beginning to address the need to balance its dominant focus on skills for employability with a growing awareness of the imperative to promote environmental sustainability, in terms of skills for sustainable production. There is also a sense that vocational institutions must also be sustainable in the wider sense of viability, durability, etc. While these positive steps are welcome, careful analysis is needed regarding how far recent initiatives are limited both by institutional capacities and wider disenabling environments, and how far they are meaningful steps towards sustainable VET for just transitions. Moreover, the current debate is also limited in its overwhelming focus on formal spaces of learning and work. Yet, most vocational learning and work sits outside this formal realm. We contribute to this debate by exploring four case studies of complex skills ecosystems with varying levels of (in)formality taken from both rural and urban settings in Uganda and South Africa. We consider how the dynamics of each ecosystem generate complex mixes of sustainability and employability concerns. We suggest that, in cases like the more formalised ones presented here, there is a possibility to look at the development of centres of skills formation excellence grounded in sector and place but that this also requires thinking about bigger challenges of just transitions. More radically, by highlighting the contexts of less formalised skills ecosystems in two other cases, we point towards new ways of thinking about supporting such ecosystems’ work on sustainable livelihoods in ways that enhance their durability. Although context always matters, we suggest that our arguments are pertinent beyond the countries or region of this research and have international salience.
 Keywords: vocational education and training, Africa, green skills, sustainable development, skills for sustainability

TVET SI: Towards Sustainable Vocational Education and Training: Thinking beyond the formal

Mainstream vocational education and training (VET) has been complicit in unsustainable practices due to its longstanding relationship with productivism, extractivism and colonialism. However, it is beginning to address the need to balance its dominant focus on skills for employability with a growing awareness of the imperative to promote environmental sustainability, in terms of skills for sustainable production. There is also a sense that vocational institutions must also be sustainable in the wider sense of viability, durability, etc. While these positive steps are welcome, careful analysis is needed regarding how far recent initiatives are limited both by institutional capacities and wider disenabling environments, and how far they are meaningful steps towards sustainable VET for just transitions. Moreover, the current debate is also limited in its overwhelming focus on formal spaces of learning and work. Yet, most vocational learning and work sits outside this formal realm. We contribute to this debate by exploring four case studies of complex skills ecosystems with varying levels of (in)formality taken from both rural and urban settings in Uganda and South Africa. We consider how the dynamics of each ecosystem generate complex mixes of sustainability and employability concerns. We suggest that, in cases like the more formalised ones presented here, there is a possibility to look at the development of centres of skills formation excellence grounded in sector and place but that this also requires thinking about bigger challenges of just transitions. More radically, by highlighting the contexts of less formalised skills ecosystems in two other cases, we point towards new ways of thinking about supporting such ecosystems’ work on sustainable livelihoods in ways that enhance their durability. Although context always matters, we suggest that our arguments are pertinent beyond the countries or region of this research and have international salience.
 Keywords: vocational education and training, Africa, green skills, sustainable development, skills for sustainability

Friends, peers and safeguarding

Friends, peers and safeguarding