Ideational Constructs Research Articles

Enhancing computational thinking in early childhood education through ScratchJr integration

A plethora of programming platforms purports to teach preschool-aged children computational thinking (CT) and coding skills. However, the empirical evidence to support their effectiveness is still in its early stages. A three-week didactic intervention using ScratchJr was conducted to investigate its effectiveness in fostering CT and rudimentary coding skills in a cohort of preschool children (N = 34, aged 4–6 years). While the initial performance mean of the control group (M = 7.07, SD = 2.58) exhibits a statistically significant elevation t (22.64 = 2.23, p = 0.036) vis-à-vis the experimental group (M = 5.35, SD = 1.58), t (22.64) = 2.23, p = 0.0 the terminal performance means of both groups converge closely. However, meticulous data analysis unveils a statistically notable enhancement among preschool participants exposed to the educational intervention involving ScratchJr. Notably, both instructional modalities appear commensurate in nurturing elementary computational tenets, namely modularity and control structures. The experimental cohort outperforms the control group with statistical significance in comprehending potent ideational constructs encompassing representation, algorithms, and hardware/software interplay. Conversely, the control group performs better in grasping the debugging concept than their experimental counterparts. The outcomes lend substantive credence to the efficacy of the distinct programming milieu offered by ScratchJr, underscoring its effectiveness in cultivating CT and coding proficiencies within the preschool demographic.

Abc de Castro Alves, by Jorge Amado: Song of freedom, hinterland and literary project

Jorge Amado's Abc de Castro Alves narrates the life of the Bahian poet and builds him as a character, aiming at the exaltation of an engaged Brazilian literature. Thus, we seek to understand how Alves is woven as a literary element, his relationship with Jorge Amado's literary/political project and the idea of sertão as a libertarian field. To this end, the methodology used was qualitative and bibliographic, listing Rossi (2009), Pontes (2017) and Figueiredo (1998). This research is justified by the sharing of the dialog between Jorge Amado and the poetic work of Castro Alves who, although they are subjects of different times, are guided by the ideational construct of freedom.

Building a policy space via mainstreaming ICT in European education: The European Digital Education Area (re)visited

AbstractThis article examines the ideational construction and definition of the European Digital Education Area (EDEA) as a policy space and mechanism for the mainstreaming of digital technologies in Europe's education and training systems. It revisits the foundational pillars on which it is premised, proposed in a previous iteration of the concept: formal legislation, mainstreaming of digital education actions and interlinked networks of practice. Employing a mixed methods approach, involving discourse analysis of key policy documents enacted over the past two decades, an online survey of ICT project coordinators under the Lifelong Learning Programme, and interviews with policy officers at the European Commission, the study reinforces the structure and utility of the EDEA for ICT diffusion in education. It argues for its formal acknowledgment as a political priority and key policy area enforceable through instruments similar to those existing under the Bologna Process for a coherent, concerted and strategic approach to digital education at EU level.

CARGOISM AND SCIENTIFIC JUSTIFICATION IN THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE

AbstractThis article compares justifications of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) presented by scientists with ideational constructs associated with cargo cults in Melanesia. In focusing on similarities between cargoism and SETI, I argue that, understood in terms of cultural practice, aspects of the science of SETI have significant similarities to the religious elements that characterize cargoism. Through a focus on the construction of meanings, I consider how SETI and cargoism use similar signification systems to communicate meaning related to local social contexts and I draw a parallel with the religious and meaning structure of cargoism to show that SETI and cargoism employ similar strategies to justify beliefs. As a result, in some ways SETI represents a scientific framework that inhabits cultural and epistemological space that overlaps with religious space.

Three Faces of the Indo-Pacific: Understanding the “Indo-Pacific” from an IR Theory Perspective

This paper examines the three faces of the Indo-Pacific from an IR theory perspective. It suggests that the realist face of the Indo-Pacific is a “balancing strategy” against China. The liberal face of the Indo-Pacific aims to form a new “institutional setting” that facilitates cooperation among states across the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. According to constructivism, the Indo-Pacific offers an “ideational construct” for promoting value-oriented and norm-based diplomacy in the region. This paper argues that these three faces of the Indo-Pacific concept are theoretically problematic and practically flawed. There are two ways of institutionalizing the Indo-Pacific, though. One is exclusive institutionalization with China as an outside target, which follows the realist logic of making China a common threat in the region. The success of this approach mainly depends on how China behaves in the future. The other is the inclusive approach of institutionalizing the Indo-Pacific by embracing China and other states into a new Indo-Pacific institution. It will not be easy, but the endeavor of the inclusive institutionalization of the Indo-Pacific will produce positive externalities of peace and stability to the region.

The Constrained Institutionalization of Diverging Islamist Strategies: The Jihadis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Salafis between Two Aborted Egyptian Revolutions

This research analyses the comparative institutionalization of the strategies of three major components of the Egyptian Islamist social movement family: the jihadis, the Muslim Brotherhood and the salafis. It uses historical institutionalism to amend rational choice paradigms and to investigate the constraints and opportunities posed by these actors’ past trajectories on their subsequent strategic choices. This article argues that 1981 and 2011 were two critical junctures that have shaped these actors’ ideational and organizational construction through path-dependent causal mechanisms regulating their mobilization and socialization processes. It contends that these mechanisms have shaped these groups’ evolution and mediated the institutionalization of their strategies.

Leading from Behind – American Exceptionalism and President Obama’s Post-American Vision of Hegemony

This article explores the discursive performance and political significance of ‘American exceptionalism’ under President Obama. Moving beyond a critical examination of geopolitical identity, it investigates how representations of exceptionalism, understood as ideational construct of uniqueness and superiority, are linked to practices of US foreign and security policy that confirm, but also contest, established notions of American leadership in world politics. A particular focus lies on the 2012 presidential campaign, and how diverging ‘exceptionalist’ visions between Obama and Mitt Romney testified to competing ideas for American primacy and cooperative engagement. The article will further examine the cases of ‘leading from behind’ in Libya, American non-intervention against Assad in Syria, and US reactions to current crises concerning Ukraine and ISIS. The contextualisation of these episodes in contemporary, geopolitical discourse reveals how the practice of US foreign and security policy under Obama is shaped by a conflicted and paradoxical vision of post-American hegemony.

Real Existing Regionalism: The Region between Talk, Territory and Technology

AbstractIn this essay, we propose the notion of real existing ‘lived’ regionalism as a rejoinder to the normative and ideological debates around new regionalism. Regional forms have shown little convergence in this age of globalized regionalization. Instead of an ideational construct or set of predictable practices, we argue that regionalism is a contested product of discourses (talk), territorial relationships (territory) and technologies (material and of power). The concept of real existing regionalism confronts the tensions between the discursive constructions and normative interventions characterizing much current regionalist debate and the territorial politics and technologies reflecting, generating and directing new state spatial strategic choices. The essay demonstrates the utility of the real existing regionalism framework through an analysis of the greenbelt, transport planning and post‐ suburbanization in Southern Ontario. We argue that regulatory institutions capture the Toronto region in a mix of rhetorical and technological change that complies with neither preconceived notions of regionalization nor the pessimism of total regional dysfunctionality. Rather, the lived experience of regionalization illuminates the emergent assemblages, multiplicity of everyday flows and ongoing multiscalar negotiations of diverse communities that produce the real existing region.

Varieties of Neoliberalism in the Anglo-American World

Constructing Neoliberalism: Economic Transformation in Anglo-American Democracies. By Jonathan Swarts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. 293 pp., $70 hardback (ISBN-13: 978-1-4426-4646-9). The global financial crisis opened up an incredible amount of intellectual space to write about neoliberalism and to actually see those writings come out in print—in fact, it created a real hunger for explanations about what went wrong with the world. Such an opportunity, however, has meant that it can often be difficult, as an author, to be heard above the baying of other critics, let alone hope to influence debates about what exactly neoliberalism is, how it is manifested, who is driving it, and so on. While Constructing Neoliberalism does not offer a new understanding of neoliberalism per se—nor does it necessarily seek to do so (pp. 3–4)—it does represent a useful contribution to current academic debates through a close examination of the neoliberal transformations of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Consequently, it is worth reading by anyone interested in a detailed analysis of the transformations of these countries. It would be difficult to do justice to current debates on neoliberalism here, considering the space available. Suffice to say, Swarts’ book fits into existing work on the importance of ideas, discourses, and epistemological communities in our understanding of neoliberalism, although not from a Foucauldian perspective. He is very much concerned with “the social construction of political and economic change,” emphasizing that neoliberalism is “an ideational and discursive construction—what I shall call a ‘political-economic imaginary’” (p. 5). He explicitly draws on constructivist literature to make his case, meaning that Constructing Neoliberalism draws on and follows Mark Blyth's (2002) Great Transformations in its focus on “neoliberal” ideas and their constitutive influence (p. 12). Yet, …

“Straighten Up Yu Argument”: Language as Shibboleth of Jamaican Masculinity

Some man a play number twoNuff man a oil and Vaseline fi trueI and I nuh inna none a dat, it won't do-Terror Fabulous, Number 2 (1994)the Jamaican scholar Clinton hutton has referred to the gayification/gyalification of Jamaica: the increasing visibility of homosexuality in general, homosexual in particular, and a metrosexual aesthetic.1 This article explores the reactions of a group of young Jamaican to this trend. It will show that these resisted these transgressive masculinities through linguistic performances: language manipulation that included lexical avoidance and modification. This word play became a shibboleth of authentic Jamaican masculinity: those who adhered to the rules were real and those who did not were fish (homosexuals).Understanding masculinity(ies)There are various masculinities operating in patriarchal society at any one time: what R.W. Connell calls hegemonic masculinity, as well as other subordinated masculinities formed through the interplay of such variables as ethnicity and class, which are measured, surveilled and hierarchised against the hegemonic ideal.2 While hegemonic may not be normal, in that most may not practise it, it is normative^ the ideal ideational construct^ Homophobia is at the nucleus of hegemonic masculinity: homosexuals are the diametric opposite of'real and therefore effeminate, and boundaries must be policed to prohibit entry. Men are therefore aware that in order to prove their they must prove their heterosexuality.Keith Nurse states that the need to police the boundaries of hegemonic becomes more and more important,* due to what Rhoda Reddock terms in the gender order.6 In the Caribbean (and elsewhere), these changes include the increasing economic and decision-making power of women demonstrated by their superior educational performance and growing displacement of in employment. In addition, Nurse argues that the objectification of men's bodies and the emergence of a new consumer ethic that incorporates men have feminised the man by subjecting him to the erotic gaze.7 Further, the rise of activism around homosexual/alternative sexuality issues has gone some way to de-marginalising subordinate masculinities. Not surprisingly, a backlash has occurred, which Nurse says is manifested in elite male discourse.In Jamaica, the key elements of hegemonic are promiscuous heterosexual behaviour, domestic freedom, financial provision for children and mother, dominance, aggression and overt homophobia in word and action - what Barry Chevannes calls anti-homosexual heterosexuality.8 Donna Hope argues that homophobia is not just the rejection of the homosexual, but in fact a radical and extreme manifestation of Jamaican masculine paranoia of the feminine, where male homosexuals are deemed gender traitors.9 Chevannes states that fear of being branded a 'batty man' drives boys to heterosexual sex at an early age.10 Homophobia is an integral component of the perverse masculinity that Noel Cowell argues cuts across all masculinities in Jamaica, whether hegemonic or subordinated;11 as do exaggerated rimais12 which must be engaged in as proof of masculinity, since know that inadequate performances lead to questioning of their sexuality.1* Patricia Anderson has pointed out that while the importance of being loving fathers is implicated in Jamaican men's identity, this characteristic tends to be attenuated by socioeconomic status, so that hyper-masculinity is more pronounced in poorer communities, hHomophobia's virulence and effect on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) Jamaicans have been documented.1* Research on homophobia in Jamaica has suggested that it is tied not only to Jamaican masculinity, but to Jamaican cultural identity more generally. These studies have linked it to both official and popular culture, and to the strong religiosity in the country, although some have pointed to the nuanced nature of its expression. …

Building Cooperation between theBRICSand Leading Industrialized States

This article examines relations between theBRICSand leading industrialized states. It starts by analyzing the former's mutual relations, focusing on how the ideational construct presented byJimO'Neill in his “BRIChypothesis” became formalized as a leader‐level diplomatic group at a summit inYekaterinburg,Russia, in 2009. I evaluate how theBRICShave influenced international issues and whether “cooperation” or “conflict” characterizes their relations with key industrialized states, concluding that there has been greater multilateral cooperation since 2008, especially through international forums such as theG20. TheBRICSpartnership is one ofunequals, significant for international economic relations primarily due toChina. This has had important consequences as theChinese government has prioritized economic cooperation with leading industrialized states. Influential countries can continue to benefit by enhancing multilateral ties in what are often nonzero–sum situations.

Translating Europe's security culture

Recent studies have placed the focus on the so-called ideational construction of a multi-level European security apparatus, in which both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) play significant roles as the two main security organizations in Europe. In particular, many authors have attempted to explain how NATO and the EU can complement or want to complement each other within the European security framework, forming what is known as a European security culture. This article intends to make three contributions to this debate. First, it aims to conceptualize and operationalize security culture as a translation process. Second, it attempts to consolidate the European security culture debate within a reflexivist, discursive approach to the study of security. Finally, it highlights the importance of (smaller) member states in the consolidation (and understanding) of this security culture by focusing on the Portuguese example.

Prestige in world politics: History, theory, expression

Prestige recurs through history, in all societies and as a direct, incidental or implicit theme in social and natural sciences. However, aside from relatively few exceptions the academic attention it has attracted as an influence in politics has been sporadic or tangential rather than large scale and intensive. This article argues that: prestige is an enduring and protean feature of political behaviour, compatible with and a potential confluence for diverse approaches and interpretations; if not overlooking it, International Relations tends to treat prestige as subordinate to material and strategic goals, or as an ideational construct for which instrumental aspects are extraneous; prestige resides in the background of many analyses, neither repudiated nor explored; prestige is distinct but not isolated from power: material, social or imagined; and empirical bases to support these claims can be drawn on from almost every age and culture.

Ici Comme La-Bas:European thought and the ideational construction of national identity in nineteenth- century Brazil

El siguiente artículo examina las influencias de propuestas intelectuales europeas en la formulación de proyectos socio-políticos en el Brasil del siglo XIX. El análisis se centra en publicaciones de inspiración romática de la mitad del siglo, asi como en las proposiciones positivistas de las últimas décadas del periodo. Mientras intelectuales de Brasil miraban a Europa como fuente principal de sus propuestas artísticas, el campo intelectual nacional todavía estaba muy poco desarollado y las élites locales creían que el futuro del país dependía de su liderazgo en la construcción de una identidad nacional autónoma.

A Discourse Analysis of Ethnic Conflict and Peace in the Editorials of English Newspapers A Case Study of Sri Lanka

Discourse constitutes power in constructing ideational, textual and interpersonal constructs which are ideological. It can transmit and even legitimize power in society. In the post-war development scenario, the editorials of Sri Lankan national newspapers should develop constructive discourse on politics and development to make a positive impact on legislative changes. This paper reveals subtle representation of ethno nationalism in the editorials in the Sri Lankan English newspapers. The study focuses on whether the media has been a part of the problem or a part of the solution to the Sri Lankan conflict. Since newspaper and editorial discourses are the constructions of journalists and editors of the elites, community biased ideologies are traceable in the linguistic expressions which are often ‘revealed in mild forms’. This case study uses Social Constructionist approach (qualitative), mainly discourse analysis, which aims at the shared meanings and on how they are produced on ethnic conflict and peace by investigating the themes, structures and strategies of an editorial of a national newspapers to arrive at its linguistically embedded ideological and attitudinal positions. Sri Lanka Journal of Advanced Social Studies Vol. 1 - No. 2 - Page 45-68 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/sljass.v1i2.4856

Model Communities and Respectable Residents? Home and Housing in a Low-income Residential Estate in the Western Cape, South Africa

Recent work on the post-apartheid city has paid little attention to how people grapple with new opportunities for urban living. This article explores the ways in which housing provision precipitated complex moral reasoning and social reorganisation among impoverished residents of a Cape Town shantytown as they attempted to actualise their ideals of respectability. These ideals overlapped with those of the state and planners associated with the housing project, but also differed in significant respects. For residents, ordentlikheid (decency, respectability) is concerned with appearances and with cementing reciprocal relationships, while for bureaucrats, respectability is an individual characteristic, fostered and manifested via education, responsibility and appearances. Tracing out the relationship between material conditions and ideational constructs, this article argues that, at certain moments, ongoing processes crystallise discursive forms and material practices in ways that draw attention to the grounds of their making and simultaneously make clear their unfinished nature.

Nationalist Idealisation and the State

Walker Connor has argued that the conflation of nation and state leads to muddled thinking about both concepts. While his advisory is well-taken, the decoupling of nation and state can be taken too far, for nation and state are intimately conjoined in the modern era. There are important ideational constructs embedded in the practices and principles of modern state governance that condition the ideology of state-oriented nationalists. This idealisation of community is less marked among nationalist activists whose concerns are primarily cultural rather than political. The differences are illustrated through the words and actions of individuals and organisations involved in the nationalist movements of Quebec and Brittany.

Defending the “Realm”

Kim Richard Nossal is professor and head, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. Research for this essay was made possible through a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: grant 410-2001-1075, Culture strategique et grande strategie au Canada, 1870-2000.FOR MANY IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM, security is about efforts to protect the political community against the possibility of predations by others. In other words, it seeks the maintenance of the community's territorial integrity and the protection and advancement of the interests of citizens. In most cases, the focus of national defence is relentlessly fixed on the state and its citizens alone. Indeed, most understandings of defence employ the elementary binary inside/outside division that underwrites most understandings of contemporary world politics.(1) In this view, those inside the state are the proper focus of efforts to provide citizens with security and well-being. By contrast, those outside the state are unambiguously defined as the Other and thus beyond the definition of altruism, to be assisted and defended only if it is in the state's interests to do so. Of course, this relentless pursuit of self-interest, defined purely in terms of the state and its citizens, is a core assumption of most theorizing about international relations, particularly realism and its many strands.(2)In the Canadian context, however, defence policy--at least as it has been pursued by Canadian policy-makers over the last century and a half--actually makes little sense if it is examined using such standard assumptions. It is not that those individuals who have comprised or governed the Canadian polity since 1867 have been any less self-centred, selfish and ungenerous towards outsiders in world politics. Rather, Canadian defence policy can only be understood when it is conceived as a policy designed to defend something more than just Canadian territorial integrity and the security and well-being of Canadians.But to be able to frame an analysis of Canadian defence, we need an ideational construct that goes beyond the restrictive definition of the sovereign state that is imposed on us by most strands of contemporary international relations theorizing. Instead, we need a concept that more closely reflects the way in which Canadians and their governors have conceptualized strategic culture,(3) in other words, what--and who--is to be defended and made secure. In this essay, I propose a different way to capture the broadened conceptualization of the focus of Canadian that Canadians and their governors have used in their defence policy. In particular, I will argue that Canadians have conceived of their grand strategy as seeking to defend a broader definition of political community than just Canada--they have sought to defend a broader realm, and it is only when Canadian security policy is seen as having been framed within this broader definition that it makes sense.I recognize that is a word that long ago passed from common usage, perhaps not surprisingly given its intimate connection to a form of governance that has long been discarded in most places in the world. For the commonest meaning of realm is the jurisdiction of a monarch, reflecting its etymological origins from the Old French reaume, derived from the Latin regimen, rule. While it has evolved a related meaning--a sphere or domain--it is still most commonly used in reference to the monarchy, sometimes with a hint of irony.However, my choice of a term that is deeply rooted in 19th century government is purposeful. While recognizing the word's linkage to a monarchical past, I use realm in this essay with an eye to both its meanings: a realm connotes a sphere or domain that is both a political space and an ideational construct of political identity and community that goes beyond the state as it is usually defined in international relations. …