Informal Dialogue Research Articles

How to improve smallholder market access: Evaluation of Mercados Campesinos in Colombia

This paper presents an analysis of the results obtained in the project called “Mercados Campesinos” carried out in the central region of Colombia between 2004 and 2015. This analysis was performed to evaluate the impacts of this short food value chain experience and its influence on economic, social and political dimensions of smallholders’ market access.The analysis included two complementary research methods: quantitative and qualitative approaches. These methods were stated to identify the benefits accrued to participants usingthree different methodologies: i) t-test analysis; ii) an impact evaluation known as difference-in-difference and iii) multilevel regressions. On the other hand, qualitative analysis was based on semi-structured interviews and informal dialogues to investigate the perceptions of a selected group of beneficiaries regarding how project goals have been achieved. The results showed that one of the most influential elements in smallholders’market access has been the role of peasant organizations, associations and local farmer committees. These administrative structures greatly affected the economic efficiency, political participation and, to a lesser extent, commercial improvements. Project outcomes have been extremely influenced by participants’ expectations of improvements in wellbeing, life quality, production rates, and income. The project was not able to reach a good level of financial sustainability; however, it provided peasants with well-designed tools to self-coordinate their actions. Proof of that is that farmers started to organize themselves autonomously to exert pressure at municipal and local levels.

Sharing Wisdom: Benefits and Boundaries of Interreligious Learning by Alon Goshen-Gottstein, and: Learning to Live Together: Case Studies in Interfaith Diversity by Tom Wilson and Riaz Ravat, and: The Other Peace Process: Interreligious Dialogue, a View from Jerusalem by Ronald Kronish

Reviewed by: Sharing Wisdom: Benefits and Boundaries of Interreligious Learning by Alon Goshen-Gottstein, and: Learning to Live Together: Case Studies in Interfaith Diversity by Tom Wilson and Riaz Ravat, and: The Other Peace Process: Interreligious Dialogue, a View from Jerusalem by Ronald Kronish Eugene J. Fisher Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Sharing Wisdom: Benefits and Boundaries of Interreligious Learning. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017. Pp. 118. $60.00. Tom Wilson and Riaz Ravat, Learning to Live Together: Case Studies in Interfaith Diversity. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2017. Pp. 176. $23.00, paper. Ronald Kronish, The Other Peace Process: Interreligious Dialogue, a View from Jerusalem. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2017. Pp. 179. $30.00, paper. The books by Wilson/Ravat and Goshen-Gottstein both deal with interreligious relations among the world's great religions, while Kronish centers on Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations in Israel. Wilson and Ravat narrate the programs of the St. Philip's Centre in Leicester, England, ranging from formal and informal dialogues to joint educational efforts and working together to meet the social and other needs of the community as a whole. Leicester, which dates back to Roman times, is a religiously and ethnically diverse community, almost half of which is non-Christian. It contains Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, and various other, smaller religious communities, whose beliefs and practices are each briefly described. The Leicester Model of social integration is summarized as achieving the goal of "Living Well Together," a goal not only of interaction between and among differing religious communities but within them as well. A number of case studies illustrate the efforts of the St. Philip's Centre, with varying results, to bring people together in order to celebrate their differences and develop common programs for the greater good of all. Goshen-Gottstein brings together papers presented at a meeting of the Elijah Board of World Religious Leaders that was hosted by the Dalai Lama and Bhai Sabib Bhai Mohinder Singh in Amritsar, India, on the theme of sharing wisdom within and among the world's religions. Six scholars, each speaking for his or her own religion, present the understanding of wisdom in their own traditions and how they can relate to and understand the meaning of wisdom in [End Page 141] the other traditions, which include Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism. The editor sums up the six presentations with an insightful presentation of what they have in common and where this might lead for future interreligious dialogues and cooperation. Again, readers will delight in brief and meaningful introductions to and analyses of the world's religions and become better prepared for dialogues in which they might participate in the future. These two books provide illuminating and challenging reading. They deepen understanding and challenge readers to act to take the next step and organize or participate in dialogues and joint action programs in their own communities. Read together, they offer practical advice and scholarly thought and are highly recommended. Kronish is the recently retired Founding Director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel, which he led for a quarter of a century. His book details his personal involvement in what is one of the most significant interreligious dialogues in the world, the relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Israel and the surrounding areas, as well as relations with the small Christian minority and its contacts with the larger Christian communities around the world. The difference between the dialogues and programs described by Kronish and those of the other two books reviewed here is that, as the author states repeatedly, the dialogues in the Middle East can have—and in many cases do have—a positive influence on the ongoing, crucial, and difficult peace process between Israel and Palestine. Lives are quite literally at stake. While not political in nature, these religious "peacebuilding" dialogues can help bring about better understanding of the needs of the "other" communities and help indirectly the peacemaking efforts of diplomats and political leaders of their respective communities. Kronish begins with a brief autobiography, narrating how he became a "humanistic/progressive/liberal/Zionist" rabbi and how and why he and his wife made aliyah, moving "up" to live in Israel...

DESENVOLVIMENTO E IMPLANTAÇÃO DE PROPOSTAS PARA A FORMALIZAÇÃO DE PROCESSOS DE MANUFATURA DE UMA EMPRESA FABRICANTE DE DUTOS INDUSTRIAIS EM NOVA IGUAÇU/RJ

This study takes place in a small scale company, which manufactures industrial ducts for HVAC systems, and is located in the town of Nova Iguaçu, Rio de Janeiro State. This company has experienced variability problems in its final products, many of which are related to the absence of standardization and formalization of its processes for manufacturing management, and production planning and control (PPC). In methodological terms, a participatory research is conducted, which includes the systematic observation and informal dialogue with collaborators and managers, aiming to identify opportunities to fine-tune the processes. The designing of processes, as well as the analysis and proposal of new processes, is handled through the Bizagi software. As for the results, following the proposals of new processes, their implementation and validation within the company researched, the study, through the measurement of corporate indicators, showed that the formalization of processes was a relevant practice towards the improvement of operational performance of the company, and presents itself as a possible inspiration for small manufacturing companies that experience similar problems.

The value of learning talk: applying a novel dialogue scoring method to inform interaction design in an open-ended, embodied museum exhibit

Museum researchers have long acknowledged the importance of dialogue in informal learning, particularly for open-ended exploratory exhibits. Novel interaction techniques like full-body interaction are appealing for these exploratory exhibits, but designers have not had a metric for determining how their designs are supporting productive learning talk. Moreover, with the incorporation of digital technologies into museums, researchers and designers now have the opportunity for in situ A/B testing of multiple exhibit designs not previously possible with traditionally constructed exhibits, which once installed were difficult and expensive to iterate. Here we present a method called Scoring Qualitative Informal Learning Dialogue (SQuILD) for quantifying idiosyncratic social learning talk, in order to conduct in situ testing of group learning at interactive exhibits. We demonstrate how the method was applied to a 2 × 2 experiment varying the means of control (full-body vs. handheld tablet controller) and the distribution of control (single-user-input vs. multi-user-input) of an interactive data map exhibit. Though pilot testing in the lab predicted that full-body and multi-input designs would best support learning talk, analysis of dialogue from 119 groups’ interactions revealed surprising nuances in the affordances of each. Implications for embodied interaction design are discussed.

Business engagement in violence prevention and peace-building: the case of Kenya

Kenyan business was important in mitigating episodes of election violence in 2007–2008 and 2013. This article finds that this role was motivated by the ethical and moral commitments of key business leaders to further peace in times of violence; and by interests in preventing future economic loss. However, by adopting a lens that situates business roles in violence prevention and peace-building within Kenya’s conflict systems and political economy, the article finds a paradox: this lens confirms the Kenyan ‘success story’ with respect to specific violent episodes; but it also reveals a much more limited role for business in transforming the underlying sources of conflict; especially when these are congruent with key business fundamentals connected to land ownership, property rights, export-oriented production or services, or a ‘limited’ access order. Overall, the article highlights that business should leverage its comparative advantages within broader multi-stakeholder coalitions, especially in terms of its ability to influence political leaders, entry-points for informal dialogue to diffuse crises and capital to support peace-building initiatives.

STRATEGI KOMUNIKASI TOKOH MASYARAKAT HINDU-ISLAM DALAM MENANGGULANGI POTENSI KONFLIK (Studi di Desa Kusamba dan Desa Kampung Kusamba Kecamatan Dawan Kabupaten Klungkung)

<p><em>The villagers of Kusamba and Kampung Kusamba are social reality that cannot be separated and they interact with each other. Behind the robust spirit of multiculturalism and social harmony that are built continually, it does not mean that there does not appear conflict potential. Since conflict can reduce and even ruin the inter-village relation, a lot of strategies emerge. The objective of this research is to explore three scope of problems: (1) analysis of the inter-village conflict potential; (2) communication strategies of Hindu-Muslim leaders; and (3) the supporting and inhibiting factors of the communication strategy.</em></p><p><em>This research takes place in Kusamba and Kampung Kusamba village. This research is also sort of qualitative descriptive research, which uses purposive sampling to determine the informant. Some relevant theories that serve as guidelines in this research include the theory of symbolic interactionism and the theory of face negotiation. Data collection methods employed in this research are moderate participation observation technique, in-depth interview, and documentation science. Meanwhile, this research utilizes modern ethnographic approach as a data analysis method.</em></p><p><em>The obtained results show that: (1) </em><em>The inter-village conflict potential stems from the social problems of youth which often give rise to friction, and sometimes misusing of the community sentiments to carry out a plan of attack will give rise to far greater conflicts. Besides, conflict potential also stems from socio-economic problems faced by migrant populations. (2) Hindu-Muslim leaders overcome the conflict potential through interpersonal communication strategies such as informal dialogue, group communication strategies, negotiation and mediation, as well as traditional communication strategies using local traditions and cultural performance which is strengthened by the value of local wisdom heritage for example matilesang raga, mulat sarira, nawang lek, and manyama braya. (3) The supporting factors of the communication strategy are the credibility of the leaders, mutual understanding, and the infrastructure factors, while the inhibiting factors are the difference of the framework of thinking, cultural differences, and negative prejudices.</em></p><p><em> </em></p>

A cross-university initiative to enhance SOTL through a students as partners approach

This case study evaluates a new initiative to establish a cross-disciplinary forum focusing on enhancing learning, teaching and the student experience. All staff and students are welcome to participate and participants set the agenda themselves. The intention is to have open and informal dialogue and to work in partnership towards setting up collective participatory action-research projects. This is modelled on the Teaching and Learning Academy at Western Washington University (Werder and Otis, 2010). An important aim was to create a space to give voice for those - the so-called ‘hard to reach’- who do not get such opportunities in traditional structures. There have been many challenges to creating a sustainable and successful working model, not least such barriers as communications, creating time and opportunity and working against current dominant cultures. Nonetheless, staff and students, including many international students, have participated and found legitimacy to discuss their own priorities.

Deciding on the European Semester: the European Council, the Council and the enduring asymmetry between economic and social policy issues

ABSTRACTThis contribution investigates the asymmetrical relationship between economic and social aspects under the European Semester by looking at the roles of the European Council and the Council between 2010 and 2016. Drawing on the theories of deliberative and new intergovernmentalism, this asymmetry is associated with an uneven evolution of the co-ordination infrastructure, notably the varying degree to which key policy issues are subject to informal policy dialogue. Not only are finance ministers better placed to conduct policy dialogue, they also control the European Semester policy priorities more effectively than their colleagues in the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO). Finance ministers also are more closely linked to discussions at the highest political level, the European Council. Social affairs committees and the Commission managed to gain a greater role at the expert level and to integrate more social issues into policy recommendations. Yet, these successes are not matched by higher level political endorsement.

Cultural Explanations for Academic Underachievement of Ethnic Minority Students at Secondary Level in Vietnam

Ethnic minorities in Vietnam face more disadvantages in accessing infrastructure, financial services, healthcare, and modern technology. In education, their children also have lower educational achievements as well as higher dropout and class repeating rates in comparison with their majority peers. This paper explores the reasons for educational underachievement of ethnic minority students at the secondary level in Lam Dong Province, Vietnam, through an investigation of factors related to the cultural aspects including cultural values, norms, beliefs, and practices towards education. It, furthermore, looks for the explanations of the gaps between the educational achievement of ethnic minority and majority children. The study was conducted in Lam Dong Province, Vietnam, through qualitative approaches with in-depth interviews, discussions observations and informal dialogues in 2010. Additional fieldwork was done in 2015 to provide a more comprehensive understanding and a fuller description of the issue. The findings show that ethnic minority students do not have sufficiently conducive conditions for high educational performance. They undergo the misconceptions and stereotyping from their majority peers for their physical and cultural differences. Furthermore, students do not have positive attitudes towards their learning and lack educational purposes. They hardly believe that education can be of any value or relevant to their future success. Ethnic minority students also lack sufficient encouragement from their parents and are encouraged to drop out of school to help their families in farming or to get married early. The findings confirm that cultural factors do have some impacts on the academic achievement of ethnic minority students.

Lessons learned using a values-engaged approach to attend to culture, diversity, and equity in a STEM program evaluation

Evaluation must attend meaningfully and respectfully to issues of culture, race, diversity, power, and equity. This attention is especially critical within the evaluation of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational programming, which has an explicit agenda of broadening participation. The purpose of this article is to report lessons learned from the implementation of a values-engaged, educative (Greene et al., 2006) evaluation within a multi-year STEM education program setting. This meta-evaluation employed a case study design using data from evaluator weekly systematic reflections, review of evaluation and program artifacts, stakeholder interviews, and peer review and assessment. The main findings from this study are (a) explicit attention to culture, diversity, and equity was initially challenged by organizational culture and under-developed evaluator–stakeholder professional relationship and (b) evidence of successful engagement of culture, diversity, and equity emerged in formal evaluation criteria and documents, and informal dialogue and discussion with stakeholders. The paper concludes with lessons learned and implications for practice.

Campus Feminisms

Drawing from a long history of feminist writing grounded in personal reflection and informal dialogue between feminist thinkers, Cobb and Godden-Rasul present an email-based conversation with Jess Lishak, the outgoing Women’s Officer at the University of Manchester Students’ Union (2014–2016). The conversation draws on Cobb and Godden-Rasul’s experience as feminist academics engaged in critical institutional practice through such initiatives as editing the Inherently Human blog, organising the Inspirational Women of Law exhibition, and participating in university working groups on campus-based harassment and violence. In asking Lishak to reflect on her journey to feminism and her experiences of activism, the conversation ranges over such issues as personal influences and experiences, strategies for securing institutional support, encouraging student engagement with feminism, and campaigning tactics. The conversation developed out of a “Campus Feminisms” event in March 2016, which explored the rise of exciting new grassroots single-issue campaigns and political mobilisations by students in higher education, and was organised by Cobb and Godden-Rasul at Newcastle University, UK. Undergraduate and postgraduate students shared their personal struggles and achievements in bringing feminist ideas and campaigns to their university campuses. Lucy Morgan, the Gender Equality Officer at Newcastle University Students’ Union, offered inspiring reflections on her efforts to reinvigorate the ‘F’ word, in the face of simultaneous student apathy and backlash. Many of these campus-based mobilisations have demanded better institutional responses to sexual violence against women. At around the same time, Cobb was beginning a new role as the co-chair of the University of Manchester’s first Task & Finish Group on Sexual Violence and Harassment on Campus. This followed Universities UK’s decision to create a taskforce to consider options for improving institutional responses to student safety. In the process, Cobb crossed paths with Lishak, who had been appointed a member of the UUK Taskforce in light of her path-breaking students’ union work addressing violence against women. Since Lishak was an exemplar of this new feminist wave in higher education, one that was still inadequately understood by feminist academics despite often working side-by-side within the same institutions, the authors embarked on this conversation in order to better understand the relationship between academic and student feminist activism on campus. As Lishak makes clear in her own reflections, there is nothing inevitable about the synergies between these movements, but there is potentially a great deal that could be achieved through their closer engagement.

Institutionalisation of the Relations between the EC and the ASEAN: Analysing an Origin of the EU-Asia Relationship, 1967–1975

AbstractIt seems that the current relationship between the European Union (EU) and Asia is at a turning point. During the Cold War era, the status gap between the European Community [(EC), formerly European Economic Community (EEC)] and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was quite large. In fact, the EC was considered a highly institutionalised and developed region, while ASEAN was considered an association of developing countries; however, in the post-Cold War era, the status of Asia compared to that of Europe has significantly risen. The establishment of the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) in 1996 among heads of states as “equal partners” is a striking example. In addition, ASEAN will have a community in place by the end of 2015, while Europe has struggled from its sovereign debt crisis to such an extent that it has shown its eagerness to learn even from Asian countries. Finally, the EU is now expected to play a role as a “soft power” ally with ASEAN. Based on multiple archives (French, German, and EC archives), this article retraces the course of EC/EU-ASEAN relations from the origins of ASEAN until the establishment of the Joint Study Group (JSG) of 1975, considered as a formal institutionalisation of EC–ASEAN relations, although informal dialogue between the EC and ASEAN began in 1972. This article aims to clarify why and how this formal institutionalisation occurred. In June 1975, the regional organisations established the JSG between the European Commission and the ASEAN member states. The JSG can be interpreted as a precursor to the EEC-ASEAN co-operation agreement signed in 1980, in that this event is in certain times considered as a “turning point.” EC/EU-ASEAN relations have been widely discussed. The existing research derives mainly from political scientists. Most early research has stressed ASEAN as a “stepping stone” to the “Asia-Pacific” region; in other words, an economic valuation of ASEAN is offered as the reason why the EC deepened its relationship with ASEAN. Later studies have underlined ASEAN’s value as a reliable partner to break an impasse in the North-South negotiations; however, existing literature ignores a strategic aspect. This article establishes the decisive strategic reason for the EC to have chosen a formal relation with ASEAN: to establish a substantial presence in a region where US presence declined after the Vietnam War. This viewpoint is especially supported by Sir Christopher Soames, British Vice-President of the European Commission and commissioner for external relations. Focusing on this strategic aspect and based on the method of diplomatic history, this article also tries to analyse the impact of international contexts such as the Asian Cold War and North-South affairs on the EC’s decision-making process.

Analysing Dutch Science Cafés to better understand the science-society relationship

Science cafés offer a place for information and discussion for all who are interested in science and its broader implications for society. In this paper, science cafés are explored as a means of informal science dialogue in order to gain more understanding of the science-society relationship. Perspectives of visitors, organisers and moderators of science cafés were analysed. Findings show that science cafés stimulate discussion and engagement via informal learning processes. Visitors come to broaden their knowledge in an informal ambiance. Organisers and moderators hope to enhance understanding of science and confidence of people to participate in debates.

Audio-Visual Speaker Diarization Based on Spatiotemporal Bayesian Fusion.

Speaker diarization consists of assigning speech signals to people engaged in a dialogue. An audio-visual spatiotemporal diarization model is proposed. The model is well suited for challenging scenarios that consist of several participants engaged in multi-party interaction while they move around and turn their heads towards the other participants rather than facing the cameras and the microphones. Multiple-person visual tracking is combined with multiple speech-source localization in order to tackle the speech-to-person association problem. The latter is solved within a novel audio-visual fusion method on the following grounds: binaural spectral features are first extracted from a microphone pair, then a supervised audio-visual alignment technique maps these features onto an image, and finally a semi-supervised clustering method assigns binaural spectral features to visible persons. The main advantage of this method over previous work is that it processes in a principled way speech signals uttered simultaneously by multiple persons. The diarization itself is cast into a latent-variable temporal graphical model that infers speaker identities and speech turns, based on the output of an audio-visual association process, executed at each time slice, and on the dynamics of the diarization variable itself. The proposed formulation yields an efficient exact inference procedure. A novel dataset, that contains audio-visual training data as well as a number of scenarios involving several participants engaged in formal and informal dialogue, is introduced. The proposed method is thoroughly tested and benchmarked with respect to several state-of-the art diarization algorithms.

The Year's Work in Tolkien Studies 2014

The Year's Work in Tolkien Studies 2014 David Bratman (bio), Edith L. Crowe (bio), Jason Fisher (bio), John Wm. Houghton (bio), John Magoun (bio), and Robin Anne Reid Introduction [David Bratman] Ecocriticism and philosophy were the growth fields in Tolkien studies for 2014. Studies of nature and the environment as depicted in Tolkien's work had appeared before—Ents, Elves, and Eriador by Mathew Dickerson and Jonathan Evans (2006) and The Ecological Augury in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien by Liam Campbell (2011) were the major contributions to this topic—but this was the year the flowers bloomed. Besides an entire collection of papers in Hither Shore 11 (2014, though not released until 2015), the yearbook of the Deutsche Tolkien Gesellschaft, under the title "Nature and Landscape in Tolkien," there were enough other books and papers on the subject to warrant a separate section in this survey, and subsequent years' work has suggested this practice should continue, at least for the immediate future. Ecocriticism is not just defined by topic, but is a discipline with its own language and procedures; whether these match scholarly standards in older disciplines is a matter of some dispute, but, in any case, the work is here. Philosophy is also a topic that has appeared in Tolkien studies before, and indeed one of the interesting features of the anthology Tolkien and Philosophy (Zurich: Walking Tree, 2014) is the presence in the introduction by editors Roberto Arduini and Claudio A. Testi (9–20) of a lengthy chart of 62 earlier studies on the topic in Tolkien going back as far as 1956, including several books. Nevertheless, this book, and the presence of the chart within it, mark a deliberate scholarly invocation of the topic in a way that, Arduini and Testi claim, had not previously been practiced. The book, the proceedings of a conference held in Italy in 2010, is a short collection of two papers and two informal dialogues exchanging ideas. The latter make this an unusually free-wheeling book. Appropriately, then, the philosophy collection is split up in this survey between Literary Theory and Religious/Ethical studies. Several disparate pieces of Tolkien's own work appeared in 2014: his long-awaited prose translation of Beowulf, together with lecture notes and some creative reworkings of the tale; some "Fragments on [End Page 211] Elvish Reincarnation" from the late period of his legendarium, in a book from France; his translation of the Book of Jonah, as a journal article; and some rare and previously unpublished poems in the commentary to a new edition of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond. Besides interesting and important monographs and collections in biographical, source, and literary theory studies, discussed under those headers, three important anthologies on Tolkien appeared in 2014. Largest, and perhaps most significant, of these, is A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Stuart D. Lee (Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2014), a volume in the Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture. As an attempt to cover all of Tolkien studies within a single compass, it invites comparison with The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion & Guide by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond (2006) and the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia edited by Michael D. C. Drout (2006), but whereas these are both encyclopedic, the Lee volume is much more a collection of criticism, despite its conscientiously broad coverage. As a collection whose contents are deliberately welded together, it is covered here as a unit under General Works. Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014) is a festschrift whose honoree is so weighty in Tolkien studies that it required five editors to compile: John Wm. Houghton, Janet Brennan Croft, Nancy Martsch, John D. Rateliff, and Robin Anne Reid. It is cited in this survey as "Houghton et al." Besides numerous papers inspired by and taking off from Shippey's work on Tolkien in philology, medieval studies, and other areas, the volume includes six brief memoirs and tributes to Shippey by John R. Holmes, David Bratman, E. L. Risden, Todd Jensen, Jessica Yates, and John Wm. Houghton...

How to Utilize Blogs for Residency Education.

Blogs are the most commonly utilized social media tool, having outpaced wikis, Twitter, and Facebook.1 Any residency program can utilize a blog to facilitate functions of residency training, including education, administration, and scholarly activities. However, technological barriers may prevent widespread adoption of this platform among graduate medical education programs. In this Rip Out, we guide readers through the basic considerations and steps to help them locate, and participate in, medical education blogs as well as to create their own blog.Web-based tools are increasingly utilized in medical education based on their advantages in overcoming physical and geographical barriers, providing searchable content, and allowing for interactivity.1 These media tools not only provide a venue for rapid dissemination of educational information, but also set the stage for the content creator and learner to easily interact.2A blog is a website that supports informal and conversational dialogue on a variety of topics. Within a residency program, blogs as data exchange can fulfill many of the administrative requirements for a program, such as scheduling rotations, storing contact information, and providing up-to-date information on program events. Residents can post content on a blog for other residents to review, which provides a modern version of “morning report” or “morning rounds.” For asynchronous learning, posts from weekly conferences and other learning experiences can provide residents who were not present access to the material.A blog can facilitate intraprogram collaboration and idea dissemination; residents share their experiences on rotations, discuss pertinent cases, and provide updates on their residency journeys. Faculty can monitor and respond using the blog's comments section to further promote engagement, discussion, and peer-to-peer education. High-quality blogs can promote one's program beyond a home institution and advance resident and faculty careers as an accepted form of scholarly activity.3,4

Negotiating the Dominant Discourses of Explicit Instruction and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in the Far North Queensland Context:A Teacher’s Journey

This study took place on a remote Torres Strait (TS) island in Far North Queensland (FNQ). It focused on my teaching journey in a grade 6/7 classroom. Through an Action Research (AR) methodology the study documents my efforts to navigate and respond to two teaching models – Explicit Instruction (EI) and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP), both of which inform policy statements in the region. As well, this study highlights the tensions that arose as a result of navigating this space. Using a reflective journal, informal student dialogue sessions, yarning circles, student work samples and teacher observations, I endeavoured to adjust my practice to determine how best to meet my learners’ needs, preferences and learning styles. Through on-going critical reflective practice, data collection and analysis my teaching practice underwent transformation. In addition to the critical reflective practice of my own teaching, I frequently engaged with other work colleagues, the aim of which was to both improve and transform my teaching to better serve the needs of my learners, for my overriding intention throughout this journey was not to simply accept, without question, what I was being mandated to teach, but rather to question by truly listening and responding to my students’ voices (Hattie, 2012). The findings of this study strongly suggest that practitioners cannot blindly forge ahead with the EI model, but rather this model must be adjusted if practitioners are to truly consider their students from a culturally responsive viewpoint.

Shakespeare for literacy: critical pedagogy in workplace learning

This research investigates learners’ responses to the use of literature as a means of literacy learning in level 2 Functional Skills in English. Data were gathered by way of observation, questionnaire and informal dialogue with learners. Teaching and learning was underpinned by the philosophy of critical pedagogy and was therefore learner-centric. The report concludes that recognition of reading for pleasure, and the inclusion of literature in the Functional Skills in English curriculum, is an effective way to foster learner engagement with literacy learning in the workplace.

Effects of Photography-Based Public Art on the School Environment

This article analyzes how public art commissions provide opportunities for informal dialogue and alternative forms of inquiry within the secondary school environment in Europe and North America. Through case studies of site-specific works produced between 1995 and 2012, I examine how permanent photography installations question and reinforce educational authority, encourage critical thinking, and raise social consciousness among secondary school students. Techniques used by Susan Bowen, Rita Marhaug, Dennis Adams, and Frank Video include murals, montage, backlit display, and object-integration. The diversity of the works profiled, which alternately invite and avoid student participation, as well as references to local history, demonstrates that no single formula yields works that provoke, encourage, and inspire students. Using different means, these artists reflect the values of their host communities, enabling educational facilities to feel less institutional. Beyond placemaking, school-based public art can incite viewers to question how images are made both within and beyond the art education classroom, strengthening emotional and cultural literacy. In bringing the past alive, public art also breathes new life into the school environment.

A historical institutionalist view on merging LULUCF and REDD+ in a post-2020 climate agreement

In the context of the UNFCCC negotiation process on a global climate agreement, policy makers are looking for approaches on how to significantly raise the mitigation ambition of all relevant sectors, including the land use sector. Aside of the formal negotiations some Parties to the UNFCCC have started an informal dialogue and discuss how to merge the fragmented accounting rules for mitigation relevant land use activities, in particular those concerning forest-sector emissions. Stressing that ‘history matters’, we use a historical institutionalist perspective to assess the institutional pathways of the different accounting rules for developed and developing countries, their mutual relationship, and in how far they are supportive or counterproductive for this endeavour. Our empirical analysis shows that Parties tend to use any modification phase in the negotiation process to water down already achieved agreements, and that negotiating modalities after targets have been agreed is not conducive either. In the efforts of specifying the Paris agreement, merging existing rules into a common accounting framework is likely to further compromise the exisiting weak rules and modalities, and potentially what negotiators consider as ‘environmental integrity’. With this, a formal negotiation of common rules for the accounting of the land use sector may yield an outcome below what has been achieved since the negotiations on a post-2020 agreement started in 2005. We conclude that politically acceptable approaches for the land use sector that also contribute to the overall objective of raising ambition should avoid reopening already agreed decisions on rules and modalities.