Methodological Inspiration Research Articles

Cancer Mortality and Deprivation: Comparison Among the Performances of the European Deprivation Index, the Italian Deprivation Index and Local Socio-Health Deprivation Indices

Comparison of different indices in evaluating the association between socio-economic (SE) inequalities and disease is important to select the most efficient indicators for intervention policies. Therefore, SE indices of different methodological inspiration were compared to analyse the effects of deprivation on cancer mortality by cause at local levels. Four indices, two drawn from the European Deprivation Index (EDI) for Italy and two from the Italian Deprivation Index (IDI), were computed for Umbria region and Genoa city by two different techniques (classification by quintiles vs. by normalization). A fifth one, the Socio-Health Deprivation Index (SHDI), was calculated and normalised specifically for the studied populations. ANOVA with F-test (p < 0.05) measured the statistical significance of cancer deaths by socio-economic status defined by the different methods. Colorectal, lung, prostate, breast and hematologic cancers were analysed by gender using the above indices. Results obtained from EDI and SHDI reproduced associations between SE and cancer mortality reported in scientific literature better than IDI (e.g., the linear negative trends emerging for breast and prostate). This is probably due to their computing procedure (bottom-up selection of the index variables). Most of differences derived from the clustering choice. In fact, the normalisation improved the performances of both the EDI and the IDI. Normalised EDI and the SHDI better identified the needs of populations in socio-health intervention fields. Nevertheless, for a deeper comprehension of association between deprivation and disease distribution by strata of age and gender, the contemporary use of all the indices is advisable.

Almeida Salles em O Estado de S. Paulo

O tema geral é o trajeto de Francisco Luiz de Almeida Salles em O Estado de S. Paulo, do qual foi redator encarregado pela crítica de cinema entre 1950 e 1961. Busca-se definir as continuidades de sua escrita, incluindo formas, temas, postulados da crítica diária, bem como a opção teórica por um realismo ambivalente. Para tanto, toma-se por inspiração metodológica o mapeamento de seu “ato crítico” (Antônio Cândido), elucidando-se que seu principal campo de manobra será o biográfico/autoral, examinado como local de empenho das relações entre o racional e o sensível.

A brincadeira narrativa como eixo do trabalho docente: inspirações a partir de Vivian Paley

O artigo tem como ponto de partida o livro “The boy who would be a helicopter” (1991), da educadora estadunidense Vivian Gussin Paley, cujo foco é a importância das histórias, da imaginação e da brincadeira de faz de conta nas vidas das crianças, especialmente no contexto da educação infantil. O objetivo do trabalho é refletir sobre possíveis contribuições dessa obra para a prática docente em instituições de Educação Infantil, bem como inspirações metodológicas para quem trabalha com crianças de forma mais geral. Uma vez que o livro de Paley, apesar de reconhecido como um clássico pedagógico contemporâneo e muito celebrado em outros contextos, é pouco conhecido no Brasil, o artigo busca aproximá-lo da discussão educacional em nosso país, estabelecendo um diálogo entre suas principais ideias e as de autoras brasileiras que compartilham preocupações similares, como Freire, Kishimoto e Warschauer. Foi realizada uma análise de conteúdo e uma discussão teórica a partir das categorias “observação e registro”, e “brincadeira narrativa”. Fazem parte do texto traduções para o português de passagens do livro original em inglês, produzidas no contexto da pesquisa de pós-graduação em que o artigo se baseia. Como conclusão, seguindo a inspiração da obra de Vivian Paley, o estudo reforça o quanto a criação autoral de histórias e a brincadeira de faz de conta fundamentam aprendizagens significativas, tanto para crianças quanto para os adultos que convivem com elas ou que estudam a infância.

“O homem que é propenso a cometer um crime”: O paradigma indiciário e o racismo de Estado no cientificismo policial do século XIX

The following article examines the persistence of an evidential paradigm as a degree of analysis for understanding the practical relationship established over the course of the nineteenth century between strands of knowledge, their technologies, and the police. To do so, it describes a series of technologies such as photography, biometrics, and anthropometrics, which were adopted by police practice and by criminology, which was of positivist inspiration in the period. It considers just how knowledge, technologies, and the variations their adoption acquire in the police practices of producing and managing the truth of crime and the criminal individual can shed light on the correlation between the essentialization of the criminal and what Foucault, throughout In Defense of Society (1976), referred to as ‘state racism’. The research is based on a perspective that emphasizes the practical relationship between knowledge, technologies, truth production, and institutional powers, and makes indiscriminate use of primary sources such as Galton, Bertillon, Vernois, and Lombroso, taking methodological inspiration from the lines of analysis mainly provided by Michel Foucault on the disciplinary social formations and their transition to biopolitics.

Lithuanian spoken corpora and studies of first language acquisition: a view from outside

The paper provides an overview of Lithuanian spontaneous speech corpora and certain studies of the acquisition of Lithuanian as a first language. The author focuses mainly on those resources and papers that are published in English and thus can be used by non-Lithuanian speaking researchers as methodological and/or theoretical inspiration for further studies on different languages. Among the spoken corpora discussed in the paper are: the speech corpus Liepa, Sakytinės kalbos įrašų bazė, the Corpus of Spoken Lithuanian. The author pays special attention to the latter as it is closely connected to the development of the Lithuanian corpus of child and child-directed speech. The studies of the acquisition of Lithuanian as a first language are overviewed in the second part of the paper. The majority of studies on corpus data (including those conducted within international cross-linguistic projects) describe the acquisition of grammar by native speakers of Lithuanian. In the most recent research, there is a shift towards new aspects of first language acquisition (including phonology and morphophonology) and new methods (experiments becoming more and more popular).

Influence of CEO Characteristics on Accounting Information Disclosure Quality—Based on the Mediating Effect of Capital Structure

ABSTRACTTaking the A-share listed companies of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2012–2017 as a sample and capital structure as a moderator variable, this paper uses a mediating effect model to investigate the mechanism of influence of CEO characteristics on accounting information disclosure quality (IDQ). According to our findings, female CEOs and CEO’s educational level negatively influence IDQ, while CEO’s wage level and the separation between CEO and chairman positively influence IDQ. CEO’s educational level positively influences the capital structure; CEO’s wage level and the separation between CEO and chairman negatively influence the capital structure, while female CEOs have a non-significant influence on it. Further investigation reveals that, in the mechanism of influence of female CEOs on IDQ, and the influence of CEO’s educational level on IDQ, capital structure exerts no mediating effect; and that, in the mechanisms of influence of CEO’s wage level, and the separation between CEO and chairman on IDQ, capital structure exerts a partial mediating effect. On this basis, this paper offers methodological inspiration and theoretical support to perfect the governance of Chinese listed companies and regulate their market behaviors.

Assembling a thermal rhythmanalysis: Energetic flows, heat stress and polyrhythmic interactions in the context of climate change

Rhythmanalysis, as developed by Lefebvre and Regulier, has provided theoretical and methodological inspiration for a growing diversity of work in geography. We focus on the energetic liveliness and agency of rhythm to engage with heat as an energetic form and heat stress as a threat to bodily health that is becoming intensified with climate change. We deploy the analytical vocabulary of rhythmanalysis to conceptualize and empirically trace how heterogeneous, polyrhythmic interactions play out in space and time as energetic-thermal flows are variously exchanged, accumulated and dispersed within and around human bodies. At the empirical site of an ‘open-cut’ mine in northern Australia, where labour is physically intense, intrinsically hazardous and thermally at the threshold of embodied capacities to function, we develop a distinctive interdisciplinary analysis of rhythms of the thermal environment; rhythmic patterns in the choreography of labour and production; and corporeal rhythms in working bodies. Combining thermal physiology, ethnography and environmental monitoring methods to reveal these interacting rhythms, we identify how polyrhythmic thermal entanglements produce and shape the management of heat stress, and their significance for movements between ‘eurhythmic’ and ‘ arrhythmic ’ conditions. The case study pushes these terms to their limits, so we propose 'dysrhythmic' as a new adjective for the rhythmanalytic lexicon that enables greater analytical traction on the components of polyrhythmic assemblages. Beyond the specific problem of managing heat stress, we argue there is much insight to be gained from bringing rhythmanalysis into geographical engagements with the temporalities of adaptation in a changing global climate.

Natureza da filosofia e formação da subjetividade: proposta teórico-metodológica para o ensino de filosofia

O presente artigo examina a natureza da filosofia e discute a utilização de uma metodologia apropriada para o ensino de Filosofia, em nível do Ensino Médio. Objetivou-se, investigar o caráter específico do ensino de Filosofia e a sua articulação com o desenvolvimento da reflexão crítica, criativa e instauradora de novas realidades, tendo como referência a sensibilização, problematização, investigação e conceituação. Realizou-se uma pesquisa bibliográfica, a partir da proposta teórico-metodológica de Gallo, para o ensino de filosofia. Não basta a existência da disciplina no currículo das escolas e a necessidade do exercício do filosofar, mas é preciso pensar no método que possibilite a formação da subjetividade e a produção novos conceitos e conteúdos e que mobilize a construção de novos saberes e fazeres. Concluiu-se que uma inspiração metodológica, para o ensino de filosofia, deverá ter em conta a realidade de cada instituição, bem como a habilidade de cada professor para refazer e adaptar a proposta por meio de um trabalho constante de construção da própria Filosofia, que estimula o pensamento ético-crítico.

Towards a Discourse Approach to Critical Lexicography

Abstract Ideology and power, the vital concerns of critical lexicography, are aspects of a dictionary that a lexicographer and a discerning dictionary user have to encounter in any serious lexicographical enterprise (Kachru 1995); however, critical lexicography as a theme did not receive much attention until Kachru and Kahane (1995). This term later appeared in Hornscheidt (2011) and Moon (2014). However, to date there has not been any systematic theoretical exemplification of what critical lexicography is and how critical lexicographical research is done. Additionally, the scope and function of critical lexicography is relatively limited when we consider the global context, since it fails to take into account theoretical and methodological inspirations from other disciplines such as Critical Discourse Studies and/or Postcolonial Studies, which would make it more theoretically robust and analytically explanatory. With this gap in mind, this paper proposes a discourse approach to Critical Lexicography, termed Critical Lexicographical Discourse Studies (CLDS), as a response to the call for lexicographers’ ‘social accountability’. Specifically, the article puts forward a definition of CLDS and its key concepts, denotes its ontological, epistemological and methodological orientations, delineates its principles, proposes a tentative analytic framework and demonstrates a simplified case study. The article argues that a discourse approach to critical lexicography opens up space to understand different meaning-making practices and contestation in lexicography. In doing so, this article contributes to the development of international (English) lexicography and the language(s) it represents.

Sailors, Tailors, Cooks, and Crooks: On Loanwords and Neglected Lives in Indian Ocean Ports

A renewed interested in Indian Ocean studies has underlined possibilities of the transnational. This study highlights lexical borrowing as an analytical tool to deepen our understanding of cultural exchanges between Indian Ocean ports during the long nineteenth century, comparing loanwords from several Asian and African languages and demonstrating how doing so can re-establish severed links between communities. In this comparative analysis, four research avenues come to the fore as specifically useful to explore the dynamics of non-elite contact in this part of the world: (1) nautical jargon, (2) textile terms, (3) culinary terms, and (4) slang associated with society’s lower strata. These domains give prominence to a spectrum of cultural brokers frequently overlooked in the wider literature. It is demonstrated through concrete examples that an analysis of lexical borrowing can add depth and substance to existing scholarship on interethnic contact in the Indian Ocean, providing methodological inspiration to examine lesser studied connections. This study reveals no unified linguistic landscape, but several key individual connections between the ports of the Indian Ocean frequented by Persian, Hindustani, and Malay-speaking communities.

Um “ofício de cartógrafo mestiço”: a proposta metodológica de Jesús Martín-Barbero como base para um estudo de caso da telenovela mexicana Rubi

Tomando por base as propostas teóricas e metodológicas de Jesús Martín-Barbero, em seus livros Ofício de cartógrafo - Travessias latino-americanas da comunicação na cultura e Dos meios às mediações: comunicação, cultura e hegemonia, o presente artigo busca discutir a cartografia como inspiração metodológica para se analisar objetos televisivos e suas narrativas na contemporaneidade. A partir desse aporte, pretende-se ilustrar o mapa das mediações a partir das telenovelas mexicanas reprisadas pelo Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão (SBT), com ênfase na produção Rubi, exibida pela quarta vez em 2017. Os itinerários desse estudo se guiam pelas complexas relações entre comunicação, cultura e política, que ocupam um lugar central no mapa das mediações, principalmente no eixo diacrônico entre matrizes culturais e formatos industriais. Dessa forma, inspirada pelos estudos culturais e com uma perspectiva interdisciplinar, a investigação proposta se desenvolve considerando as complexidades da cultura popular segundo a concepção de Stuart Hall e os processos de mediação que a mesma proporciona, exemplificada em alguns produtos midiáticos.

Professor Halina Janaszek-Ivaničková as an Advocate of Modern Comparative Studies During Hopeless, Hard and Critical Times

Scientific work of Professor Halina Janaszek-Ivaničková (1931–2016) can be placed in three postwar periods of Poland’s history, albeit her scientific and organizational work with regard to comparative studies was carried out on a few continents. Her scientific programme, methodological inspirations and message in each of those periods were aimed against regime limitations, but simultaneously pointed to a positive programme suggesting what can be done and what is right. Initially her programme could be placed with positivistic message and Bakhtin methodology (studies on Stefan Żeromski and Karol Čapek), only for the first lady of Polish comparative studies to become after a breakthrough Revolutions of 1989 a promotor of postmodernism in Poland and other Slavic countries (“From modernism to postmodernism”, 1996). Later she pointed to a “change of paradigm” and foresaw the decline of postmodern formation (“New face of postmodernism”, 2002).With a sharp mind she anticipated a radical “turn to the right” which we are now witnessing. In her last years she was working on a monography on Warsaw Uprising (1 August – 3 October 1944) during which her father, colonel Jan Wacław Janaszek, a soldier of antifascism Home Army, died.

A contribuição do educador Jan Amos Comenius para a Primeira infância

O educador Jan Amos Comenius foi um dos importantes pensadores que ajudaram a modificar esta imagem de infncia dirigindo-lhe um olhar dedicado. Opondo-se a prticas educacionais presentes em seu tempo, mas seguindo o pensamento metdico da cincia moderna, props uma Didtica que tinha por objetivo central formar o bom cristo, ter f verdadeira em Deus, praticar aes virtuosas e preparar-se para uma outra vida, estendendo esse objetivo a todos: os pobres, ricos, deficientes e mulheres. Este trabalho reconstri as caractersticas do olhar comeniano para a primeira infncia, na tentativa de observar as modificaes em seu pensamento a respeito desta etapa da vida em trs de suas obras. Como exemplo dessas modificaes, apontamos aqui a diviso da primeira infncia em quatro etapas na obra Didtica Magna, e em seis etapas na Pampaedia, obra escrita cerca de vinte anos depois. Como o primeiro o texto de maior circulao no Brasil entre os pesquisadores da Histria da Educao e da Didtica, essa fase da primavera para Comenius tende a ser compreendida sem o aprofundamento necessrio oriundo da anlise das mudanas do pensamento do autor ao longo da vida. O dilogo entre estes dois textos confrontado com uma terceira obra, intermediria, que foi recentemente traduzida para o portugus (2011), a Escola da Infncia. Por perceber importantes diferenas entre as idades, Comenius fez propostas originais para a lide pedaggica, ao destacar a necessidade de uma ateno s crianas entre zero a seis anos, muito maior do que aquela que lhe pode dar um professor com uma grande turma de crianas. Alm disso, mostrou que cada idade nesse perodo requer um cuidado especfico que deve ser oferecido pela famlia para preparar adequadamente as crianas antes de mand-las para a escola. Para analisar as trs obras comeninanas citadas, este trabalho parte de uma inspirao metodolgica na obra do historiador italiano Carlo Ginzburg (1989, 2001, 2006).

W stronę origines de la Pologne contemporaine – poszukiwania metodologiczne Stefana Kieniewicza w latach 1946–1948

This article deals with Stefan Kieniewicz’s theoretical reflection on history in the years 1946–1948. A distinguished student of the history of the lands of partitioned Poland, Kieniewicz played his part in the elaboration of the Marxist interpretation of this period of Polish history. In the period under consideration, scholars still enjoyed a significant amount of freedom in the pursuit of their studies, including in terms of the search for methodological inspirations. The author’s attention is specifically drawn to Kieniewicz’s discussioin of the strenghts and weaknesses of the traditional model of historical research (the one based on the doctrine of individualistic historicism) on one hand and what was then regarded as new approaches to historical studies, inspired by Marxism and sociology, on the other. The author also attempts to show the extent to which these new inspirations informed Kieniewicz’s concept of ‘integral history’ and his program of the social history of partitioned Poland.

Excavating ghosts: Urban exploration as graffiti archaeology

Based on several years of near-nightly excursions into London’s disused, non-public, forgotten, subterranean and infrastructural spaces, this article considers the significance of discovering years - or even decades - old surviving traces of graffiti (‘ghosts’, in graffiti parlance) in situ. The article also draws on extensive ethnographic research into London’s graffiti subculture, as well as in-depth semi-structured interviews with several generations of graffiti writers. The article proceeds in four parts. The first part reflects on three sources of methodological inspiration: unauthorised urban exploration and documentation; more-or-less formal archaeological studies of graffiti; and ‘ghost ethnography’, an emergent methodological orientation which places an emphasis on absence and the interpretation of material and atmospheric traces. The second part of the article considers recent theoretical work associated with the ‘spectral turn’. Here, ghosts and haunting provide useful conceptual metaphors for thinking about lingering material and atmospheric traces of the past. The third part of the article offers some methodological caveats and reflections. The fourth and final part of the article seeks to connect theory and method, and asks what significance can be drawn from unauthorised encounters with graffiti ‘ghosts’.

The Gnomic Space: Authorial Ethos between Voices in Michael Cunningham’s By Nightfall

Drawing from recent studies on authorial attachment by Dawson (2013) and Korthals Altes (2014), the article revises the notions of narrative authority and gnomic statements. I claim that authorial concerns, instead of manifesting themselves in imposing intrusions, may take the form of agential indecision, reflecting the ultimate imbalance between lived experience and its artistic framing. As a narrative emblem of this relativist stance toward knowledge and authority, I deal with focalizers who assume authorial postures in their present-tense internal discourse and by doing so juxtapose existentialist immediacy of experience with artistic maneuvering. The ultimate locus for authorial ethos without authoritativeness is found in the gnomic statement that is framed by free indirect discourse and ambivalent pronominal reference. My main test case is Michael Cunningham’s novel By Nightfall (2010), but I also discuss its intertextual networking with Madame Bovary, Death in Venice, and Disgrace. In its keen attention to gnomic statements, Cohn’s canonical analysis of Death in Venice serves as a methodological inspiration. I suggest that By Nightfall offers an unconventional reading of Mann’s novella by drawing an analogy between the protagonists of these two novels: the self-deprecation and aesthetic perfectionism of Cunningham’s protagonist preoccupies the very narrative discourse that nevertheless refers to him in the third-person, suggesting that also Aschenbach may have more narrative control over his downfall than Cohn is ready to allow him. My cross-fertilizing analyses, moving between canonized readings and contemporary examples, demonstrate a relativist stance toward gnomic truths, a stance finding its expression in the narrative double exposure of the figural and the authorial.

From essence to Lebenswelt as a method in phenomenological psychopathology

Abstract The use of different phenomenological philosophies as a methodological inspiration in psychopathology certainly leads to methodological implications that must be taken into account. Karl Jaspers, who was inspired by Husserl's transcendental phenomenology, sought the essence so as to reach the generality of the lived psychopathology, thereby giving birth to general psychopathology. This paper advocates for the ambiguous phenomenological method, inspired by Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of ambiguity, as a means to describe the lived psychopathology as Lebenswelt at the intersection of singular and universal in the reversibility of the chiasm. By leaving aside the essence and turning to the Lebenswelt, the ambiguous phenomenological method assumes that the lived pathology is produced in the intersection between the world and man, with culture as a constitutive dimension.

Mixed Methods Research: A Comprehensive Approach for Study into the New Zealand Voluntary Carbon Market

Mixed methods research designs have been growing in popularity in the accounting literature (Brown & Brignall, 2007; Kakkuri-Knuuttila, Lukka, & Kuorikoski, 2008b; Lee, 1991; Modell, 2005, 2010; Vaivio & Siren, 2010). Accounting draws theoretical and methodological inspiration from multiple disciplines (mathematics, economics, sociology, organizational studies, behavioral science, etc.) to investigate complex organizational transactions. Brown and Brignall (2007) suggest that this multi-disciplinary characteristic makes accounting studies ideal candidates for multi-method research designs. Following this reasoning, climate change accounting and other alternative accounting research which incorporate an additional multi-disciplinary dimension are supremely suited to the use of mixed methods. Researchers in these fields have responded accordingly: "The social and environmental and critical accounting research communities are known to embrace methodological pluralism and inter-disciplinary perspectives on accounting" (Milne & Grubnic, 2011, p. 950). However, the use and usefulness of mixed methods has been the subject of academic debate (Ahrens, 2008; Bryman, 2007; Kakkuri-Knuuttila, Lukka, & Kuorikoski, 2008a; Parker, 2012). Primary criticisms stem from a presumed incommensurability between quantitative and qualitative approaches due to an underlying philosophical gap. Quantitative and qualitative studies are commonly equated with positivism and interpretivism respectively; these approaches are said to hold fundamentally distinct underlying assumptions and agendas. Attempting to bring together evidence from these different perspectives is thus viewed by some as an impossible pursuit (see Teddlie & Yu (2007) and Santiago-Brown, Jerram, Metcalfe, & Collins (2014) for exceptions). Academic researchers are often clustered into disparate camps and publish in separate journals promoting their preferred paradigm. Since accounting has traditionally favored quantitative positivist research, Parker (2012, p. 61) warns of the "romance of objectivising qualitative research" to validate findings. Though qualitative research can and should stand on its own merits, integrating different methods can be beneficial. As Kakkuri-Knuuttila et al. (2008b) demonstrate, in practice divergent paradigms can co-exist and co-operate; straddling the subjective/objective divide is possible. Mixed methods can involve multiple researchers, data sets, methodologies, and/or theories. (1) The term usually implies integration of quantitative and qualitative dimensions (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, & Turner, 2007). Application of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies can yield assessable statistical results as well as in-depth contextually grounded understanding of underlying processes and relationships. The components must be mutually illuminating to ensure that "the end product is more than the sum of the individual quantitative and qualitative parts" (Bryman, 2007). Thus, integration is essential. Without it, the research design becomes simply a collection of methods that might "talk past" each other (Brown & Brignall, 2007). In her editorial "Mixed Methods and Wicked Problems," Mertens (2015) highlights the merit of mixed methods in pursuing solutions to complex problems such as climate change. As the author explains, wicked problems like climate change "involve multiple interacting systems, are replete with social and institutional uncertainties, and for which only imperfect knowledge about their nature and solutions exist" (p. 3). Indeed, climate change has the potential to significantly alter the world as we know it in terms of both the environment and the way in which societies operate. In response, and in a variety of ways, organisations are taking notice and taking action (e.g., Besio & Pronzini, 2014; Birchall, 2014; Galbreath, Charles, & Klass, 2014; Lee, 2012), including engaging in the voluntary carbon market (VCM). …

What counts as theory, today? A post-philosophical framework for socio-legal empirical research

While legal researchers’ skepticism about much of what is on offer under the name of theory is well grounded, there are nevertheless theoretical resources that can very much benefit empirical researchers. Neither legal philosophy nor grand European sociology of law are particularly helpful, and in many respects these traditions constitute obstacles to concrete analyses of legal processes. But fortunately, today, there are other sources of theoretical and methodological inspiration. Here I present a small part of my own recent contribution to the project of revising ‘theory’ in a way that is more helpful to legal and empirical researchers than traditional philosophy and sociology.

Innovation, Innovativeness And Gender - Approaching Innovative Gender

Abstract This paper deals with the attempt to search for the sources of creativity in the broad sense in solving problems. These creative solutions become innovations. The ability to develop innovation depends on the multi-dimensional predispositions to solve problems – those found in people, inspired by the market, organised or spontaneous, as well as facilitated or hampered by the state. Yet, the aforementioned factors should be supplemented with one more – gender. In the chapter attention is paid to the multi-dimensional differences stemming from gender, which should be perceived as a positive element, because they are the source of synergy resulting from collaboration among research or business teams in the process of innovation. The chapter introduces the concept of ‘innovative gender’ and its institutional framework. The methodological inspiration is the model known in the literature as the Innovation Genome, the conceptualization of which constitutes a major part of the study.