Multifaceted Practice Research Articles

The phenomenon of yoga in the imagination of Turkish nursing students: "The way to place goodness in the heart"

BackgroundThe aim of the research is to shed light on the experiences of a group of nursing students enrolled in a yoga elective course who practiced yoga regularly for 14 weeks, regarding yoga and the phenomenon of doing yoga, with a qualitative approach.MethodsThis qualitative study was conducted at a public university in Izmir, Turkey. The study sample consisted of 61 students enrolled in the 1st-year yoga course at the Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences. Except for two students, 59 of them participated in the study. Participants attended a face-to-face yoga course once a week for 1.5 h over a 14-week period. Each session comprised 30 min of theoretical instruction and 60 min of practice. In data collection, an interview form containing five questions was used to understand nursing students' experiences and thoughts about practicing yoga. In addition, A4 sized papers in different colors were presented to the participants. The participants were asked to draw and/or cut a shape by choosing the paper in the color that most evokes yoga. Then they were asked to explain why they chose this color and why they drew this shape. Participants were given one hour. After the data were collected, the pictures drawn by the participants and their descriptions of their drawings were transferred to the computer and included in the analysis. Qualitative data were hand-coded by the researchers. Within in-vivo coding, code names were formed from the participants' expressions. The findings analyzed by content analysis were interpreted with the literature under the themes by presenting quotations.ResultsIt was determined that the participants used nature figures (sun, cloud, tree, sky, flower) (f = 75), people doing yoga (f = 12), and sound, light and other figures (bird sound, wave sound, candle, light bulb, traffic light, heart, eye, left key, peace, swing, India, circle, etc.) (f = 29) in the shapes they drew and cut out on A4 sized papers in different colors to describe their experiences and thoughts about practicing yoga. The participants mostly chose blue-green-yellow colors (n = 41). With qualitative question analysis, a list of codes was created from the answers given by the students to the questions for the phenomenon of “doing yoga” (number of codes = 98). After the analysis of the data, four categories were reached. The category names and frequency numbers explaining the phenomenon of practicing yoga were distributed as “symbol of health and serenity (f = 345)”, “the way to place goodness in your heart (f = 110)”, “the most effective way to meet the self (f = 93)” and “no guarantee of relaxation (f = 71)”, respectively.ConclusionsThe results indicate that yoga is perceived by nursing students as a multifaceted practice that evokes a range of emotional and physical responses. Most participants associate yoga with symbols of health, serenity, and self-awareness, often using natural elements and blue-green-yellow the colors to represent these feelings. However, there is also recognition that yoga may not guarantee relaxation for everyone, as some students reported difficulties in meditation, physical discomfort, and challenges in focusing. The study highlights the variability in how individuals experience yoga, emphasizing both its positive effects on well-being and the potential challenges in practice. These findings suggest that while yoga is widely valued for its calming and health-promoting benefits, it may not be universally effective in achieving relaxation or mindfulness.

The challenges associated with the prevention of smuggling and counterfeiting health goods in Iran

BackgroundSmuggling health goods given the importance and critical nature of health services should be undeniably addressed and controlled by all countries. This issue is especially more widespread in developing countries with more damaging consequences. This paper therefore aims to identify and analyze the challenges of preventing smuggling of health goods in Iran.MethodWithin this qualitative study, we conducted face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with 30 purposefully recruited key informants and stakeholders in the detection, prevention, and combating of health goods smuggling. Each interview was analyzed thematically, using an inductive approach to generate codes, then categorized and presented in the form of main themes and sub-themes. Maxqda 11 assisted in coding, analysis, and data management.ResultsThree main themes emerged representing the challenges of prevention of smuggling in Iran in the areas of anti-smuggling policy development, including categories of inefficient policy and plan, and failure to reach agenda; policy implementation; categorized into actors, resources and instruments, and implementation guarantee; and finally monitoring and evaluation; including, procedures and practices, and the role of surveyors.ConclusionPrevention of smuggling health goods proves to be a highly complex, challenging, and multi-faceted practice. Therefore, strengthening policy-making, regulatory frameworks, and facilitation functions about smuggling, counterfeiting, and corruption should be promoted in parallel.

LEGAL POSITIONS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF UKRAINE REGARDING THE CONSTITUTIONAL DUTIES OF A PERSON AND A CITIZEN

The article analyzes the properties of the constitutional duties of a person and a citizen in the light of the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. After all, in order to renew the understanding of the legal nature, content orientation and social significance of the constitutional duties of a person and a citizen, it is necessary to analyze the understanding of this important category of jurisprudence through the prism of the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. The latter, due to their specific and meaningful content, as well as the authority of the body that formulates them, can be considered as original sources of the constitutional law of Ukraine. A careful analysis of the multifaceted practice of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine allowed to identify and analyze the basic legal positions, which in turn, supplementing and developing the achievements of the constitutional and legal doctrine of Ukraine from a practical point of view, indicate such properties of constitutional duties. First of all, all constitutional duties, regarding which the body of constitutional jurisdiction has formulated legal positions, are directly or indirectly related to ensuring the national security of Ukraine as a complex socio-legal category. Secondly, legal positions confirm the fact that constitutional duties are socially significant due to their special purpose and role in the life processes of society and the state. Thirdly, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in its formulated legal positions emphasizes that the implementation of constitutional duties requires adequate guarantees from the state. Fourthly, in addition to the formalized guarantees, the body of constitutional jurisdiction indicated that the implementation of some constitutional duties requires public support and respect for the persons who implement them. Fifth, constitutional duties, giving rise to a wide variety of legal relations, are able to influence the relevant subjects and change, strengthen or fundamentally transform their legal status. Sixth, in some decisions, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine formulates legal positions that confirm the respective potential possibilities of constitutional obligations regarding their implementation in extraordinary situations, including those that require the introduction of a special period. And, finally, seventhly, the body of constitutional jurisdiction pointed out that the proper implementation of constitutional duties is aimed at neutralizing the factors that cause the need to introduce a special period.

Reading-Aloud as Complex Art, not Simple Activity: A Cautionary Tale, Part II

This article explores the nuanced art of reading aloud, positioning it as a complex, multifaceted practice rather than a mere activity. Drawing on a personal vignette involving a read-aloud session gone awry, the author, a literacy educator with a deep affinity for picturebooks and reading-aloud strategies, delves into the curricular and instructional implications of reading aloud. The discussion extends into a comprehensive review of literature across five major categories, including the significance of picturebooks and their role in engaging diverse readers like emergent bilingual students and special needs students. Through reflective analysis, the author shares insights on selecting picturebooks, employing effective read-aloud strategies, and the overall impact of reading aloud on children’s literacy development. Concluding with practical tips for educators and caregivers, the article underscores reading aloud as a sophisticated art that enriches the educational experience, advocating for its thoughtful integration into literacy instruction.

Reconceptualising diversity management from a paradox lens

PurposeSince the 1980's, diversity management (DM) has been regarded as a relevant scholarly and practical endeavour laden with different and often contrasting rationales and conceptualisations. In this regard, the current literature on DM largely differentiates between two overarching approaches – the instrumental and the critical approach with varying conceptualisations and underlying understandings of DM. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how a paradox lens can be utilised to bridge existing understandings of diversity management.Design/methodology/approachThe authors aim to discuss the current state of DM literature and reconceptualise DM from a paradox lens.FindingsThe authors argue that the use of a paradox lens on DM allows for challenges to be brought forward instead of ignored or hidden away by illuminating and actively acknowledging both the liberating but also the challenging and oftentimes constraining experiences for the actors involved. Thus, a Paradox lens offers space for embracing and utilising paradoxes when working with diversity.Originality/valueDiversity management is no new concept in the field of human resource management and several scholars argue that the longstanding divide between the instrumental and critical approach remains problematic and limiting for the practice of DM. Hence, the value of reconceptualising DM from a paradox lens lies in bridging the two approaches in order to give way to viewing DM as a nuanced, dynamic and multifaceted practice that can accommodate complexity and contradictions in new and potentially beneficial manners.

The securitisation of international economic law and ‘global security’: an analysis of the EU law approach through the prism of the Common Commercial Policy

The so-called ‘securitisation’ of international economic law is largely premised and enacted on grounds of defensive security exceptions, whereby governments invoke their national security interests to depart from their international economic obligations. This article aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on the compatibility of such security-driven unilateral measures with international law and within the current system of global governance, by exploring whether legal patterns tackling essential security interests under international economic law may reach beyond State-centred national security interests to also encompass concerns arising from global security threats (such as environmental security). In doing so, this article focuses on the relevant approaches taken by the European Union (EU), particularly in the operation of the EU Common Commercial Policy (CCP) under Article 207 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The EU enjoys broad exclusive competence in framing and implementing its trade and investment policy under the CCP, both in terms of its internal regulation and external action. In this context, security considerations are bound to arise. This article explores a series of relevant legal instruments originating from or concluded by the EU, and analyses how these incorporate security considerations and the EU’s understanding of the concept of security thereunder. After considering security under EU primary law, the article reviews the position taken by the EU as a bilateral treaty player, by reference to the Trade and Comprehensive Agreement with the United Kingdom, and as a member of the World Trade Organization, notably on the interpretation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade security exceptions clause. It also looks into EU internal action on foreign direct investment screening, export control and foreign subsidies regulations, as well as the EU’s proposed ‘anti-coercion mechanism’ and its ‘global human rights sanction regime’. The analysis of the EU’s multifaceted practice shows that while global security concerns may increasingly underlie obligations to cooperate and coordination clauses, existent security-related legal patterns in bilateral and multilateral treaty practice remain ‘national security’-centred; and despite the increasing ‘enlargement’ of the scope of national security to encompass additional non-military threats, the vast array of global security threats and vulnerabilities are hardly covered by this expansion.

The Multi-Faceted Practice of Architectural Sustainability Found in the Regional Architecture of Vorarlberg, Austria

The biggest and increasingly more urgent challenge of the twenty-first century has become how a more sustainable level of development can be achieved. In order to bring about a better sustainable approach to ‘development’ it is necessary to address various different challenges of economy and society simultaneously. By examining the various aspects of sustainability found in the contemporary regional architecture of Vorarlberg, Austria, this paper attempts to highlight a more holistic and multi-faceted practice of architectural sustainability. The literature review on the definition of sustainable architecture and the architectural culture of Vorarlberg will be followed by the characteristic examination of four case studies. The common characteristics found from the evaluation were matched with some of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Goals to illustrate the multi-layered and connected nature of the sustainability qualities. The results of the research is indicative of a more holistic notion of architectural sustainability that is beyond energy-oriented and the functional efficiency of a building. Rather, it would mean the sustainability of a region, as a whole, when it encompasses the continuation of heritage, the way of living as well as how a building should be responding to the environment throughout its life-cycle.

The Relevance of Philosophy of Socrates to Modern Philosophy of Research

This study determined the components of the philosophies of Socrates, explained the meaning and importance of the components and the relationships between them and analyzed the relevance of philosophies of Socrates to modern philosophies of research. The study was carried out through literature search on philosophies of Socrates. The components of Socrates philosophy are determined as: Questioning and Critical Thinking. Problems bring about Questions, Critical Thinking handles the questions to give birth to Solutions that solve the Problems or better still, that give way to expanded knowledge. Findings also include the importance of questioning as it helps in rethinking and challenging existing theories, helps in building confidence in areas of study, gives motivation to learn more on our areas of research i.e. broadens the mind, also enhances creativity in that it allows thinking from different angles to arrive at something novel, helps with the zeal to know more especially in the area of study and encourages positive change. More findings include the benefits of critical thinking as it encourages inquisitiveness, brings about creativity, promotes problem solving ability, a multi-faceted practice, and a skill for life. It is recommended that questioning and critical thinking be put to practice in research philosophy as contained in the Onion model research methodology propounded by Saunders et al (2019).

ECE as an educative and multifaceted practice for growth: to assess and evaluate teaching and learning by documenting children’s actions and re-actions

ABSTRACT Preschool teachers in Sweden are expected to document children’s learning and assess their learning outcomes, for the purpose of long-term evaluation and to develop the educational preschool practice. Previous research shows that the tools for documenting individual learning are particularly focusing on children’s cognitive knowledge, while the tools for evaluating the preschool practice are developed for standardized assessment and teachers’ self-reflection. The purpose of this study is to present and illustrate an action-based tool that (i) facilitates documentation and assessment of children’s multifaceted learning and (ii) combine and interweave individual learning with situated teaching approaches and evaluation of the preschool practice at institutional level. The action-based methodological framework takes a starting point in John Dewey’s pragmatism, transactions and functions of education including qualification, socialization and person-formation. Two analytical approaches; Practical Epistemology Analysis (PEA) and Epistemological Move Analysis (EMA) are used to clarify and illustrate individual, social and institutional dimensions of learning from four sequences of one preschool activity including four children and one teacher talking about a fairy tale. We argue that this tool for assessment and evaluation facilitates action-based reflection and discussion about relations between children’s individual learning and institutional norms and values.

Virtual reality-based 3-dimensional localization of stereotactic EEG (SEEG) depth electrodes and related brain anatomy in pediatric epilepsy surgery.

The increasing use of stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) in the USA and the need for three-dimensional (3D) appreciation of complex spatial relationships between implanted stereotactic EEG depth electrodes and surrounding brain and cerebral vasculature are a challenge to clinicians who are used to two-dimensional (2D) appreciation of cortical anatomy having been traditionally trained on 2D radiologic imaging. Virtual reality and its 3D renderings have grown increasingly common in the multifaceted practice of neurosurgery. However, there exists a paucity in the literature regarding this emerging technology in its utilization of epilepsy surgery. An IRB-approved, single-center retrospective study identifying all SEEG pediatric patients in which virtual reality was applied was observed. Of the 46 patients identified who underwent an SEEG procedure, 43.5% (20/46) had a 3D rendering (3DR) of their SEEG depth electrodes. All 3DRs were used during patient-family education and discussion among the Epilepsy multidisciplinary team meetings, while 35% (7/20) were used during neuronavigation in surgery. Three successful representative cases of its application were presented. Our institution's experience regarding virtual reality in the 3D representation of SEEG depth electrodes and the application to pre-surgical planning, patient-family education, multidisciplinary communication, and intraoperative neuronavigation demonstrate its applicability in comprehensive epilepsy patient care.

Overcoming Automaticity Through Meditation

ObjectivesMeditation practice has recently moved into applied research to improve cognitive functions. However, it is a multifaceted practice, with focused attention meditation relying on a sharp focus, and open monitoring meditation relying on a diffuse awareness. This study aims to assess the effects of differential alterations of cognition following distinct meditative training and focuses on practitioners’ tendency to fall victim to erroneous automaticity in responding when faced with cognitive conflict.MethodsSeventy-three individuals were randomly assigned to one of three intervention groups (internally focused attention meditation, externally focused attention meditation, open monitoring meditation) or a wait list control group. The meditation groups were trained over the course of 4 weeks and eight sessions. Changes in proneness to erroneous automatic responding were tested using two cognitive performance tasks that induce learned or instructed automaticity (Dot Pattern Expectancy paradigm, NEXT-paradigm).ResultsOverall, meditation training generally improved overcoming learned automaticity (rs = .26–.36, ps = .002–.031) but not instructed automaticity compared to the control condition. Furthermore, data suggest open monitoring outperformed focused attention in overcoming learned automaticity in one task (rs = .31–.56, ps ≤ .001–.009).ConclusionsOur results provide evidence for meditative training to facilitate practitioners’ ability to select the most appropriate course of action against overlearned habits in light of the peculiarities of their current situation. Open monitoring meditation is a particularly promising avenue for reducing one’s liability to erroneous habits.

Differential Effects of Ethical Education, Physical Hatha Yoga, and Mantra Meditation on Well-Being and Stress in Healthy Participants-An Experimental Single-Case Study.

Traditionally, yoga is a multicomponent practice consisting of postures, breathing techniques, meditation, mantras, and ethics. To date, only a few studies have tried to dismantle the effects of each of these components and their combinations. To fill this gap, we examined the incremental effects of ethical education and physical Hatha yoga on mantra meditation using a single-case multiple-baseline design. This study was part of a project evaluating the new mind–body program Meditation-Based Lifestyle Modification. Fifty-seven healthy participants with no regular yoga or meditation practice were randomly assigned to three baselines (7, 14, and 21 days) and four conditions using a random number generator. The conditions were mantra meditation alone (MA), meditation plus physical yoga (MY), meditation plus ethical education (ME), and meditation plus yoga and ethical education (MYE). All the interventions lasted for 8 weeks and were run consecutively according to baseline length. During the baseline and treatment phases, participants received daily questionnaires measuring their well-being (WHO-5 Well-Being Index), stress (Perceived Stress Scale), and subjective experiences. Forty-two participants completed the treatment and were entered in the analyses. We analyzed our data using visual inspection, effect size estimation (Tau-U), and multilevel modeling. Almost all participants showed a longitudinal increase in well-being. Regarding between-group differences, participants who received ethical education exhibited the largest increases in well-being (Tau-U = 0.30/0.23 for ME/MYE), followed by participants in the MY condition (Tau-U = 0.12). Conversely, participants in the MA condition showed no change (Tau-U = 0.07). There was a tendency for the combined treatments to decrease stress. This tendency was strongest in the MY condition (Tau-U = –0.40) and reversed in the MA condition (Tau-U = 0.17). These results emphasize the incremental and differential effects of practicing meditation in combination with other practices from the eight-fold yoga path. This approach is valuable for better understanding the multifaceted practice of yoga.Clinical Trial Registration:www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT04252976.

Performing/Watching Artificial Intelligence On Stage

In the last two decades, we have observed the experimenting with Artificial Intelligence algorithms as a tool for performances. From the early tests, mostly carried out in the Universities’ Labs, to the first public performances, the practice has produced several evidence, enough to consider the implications, both from the point of view of the design and of the reception. Computer scientists have used performance and drama to test the potential of AI. Artists have used AI as a new criticism to both presence and disembodiment. As robots became relevant in our society, they walked their first steps on stage; Artificial Agents have been dialoguing with actors; some algorithms have managed the interaction among participants in the interactive performances. Therefore, we can foresee a new multifaceted practice in theatre, and this may further develop the notion of live event. Yet, the analysis of this practice isn’t relevant only for the creators but may open new consideration from the point of view of the audience experience. The notion of the “here and now” that instantiated the aesthetic of performance as relation between performer and spectator, might be reconsidered in the light of the artificial agency of the algorithm. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; algorithm; artificial agents; intermediality; drama; audience

Enacting affirmative ethics in education: A materialist/posthumanist framing

The aim of this article is to explore the worth of a materialist/posthumanist approach to ethics, specifically affirmative ethics (Braidotti, 2018, 2019a), within the field of education. I work empirical material that ‘does’ this ethics in classrooms and draw on Deleuze’s (1988) ethically guided materialism as taken up by Braidotti (2019b), to gain purchase on it. Defined as a relational matter of human and non-human powers of acting in pursuit of affirmative values, affirmative ethics focuses up relations, forces and affects. It poses considerable challenges to a normalised construction of ethics as located solely within a constituted human subject with moral intentionality as its core. Affirmative ethics presents empirically as an emergent property of relational assemblages of human and more than human elements that bring ethical subjectivity into effect. Pedagogy and curriculum perform a constitutive role in these assemblages, as does pedagogic affect, showing how this ethics can be activated. A materialist affirmative ethics makes for a multi-faceted and generative practice of ethics. Oriented to collectivity and with relationality ‘built-in’, it has the potential to play a significant role in the reconstitution of individualised subjectivity which neoliberal modes of governance continue to advance in education.

A mixed method analysis of differential reasons for condom use and non-use among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men

We sought to examine how condom use was differentially reasoned by gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with other men (GBM) in Ontario, Canada. Data were derived from a community-based study of GBM who completed an anonymous online questionnaire in 2014. Participants qualitatively described reasons a condom was used or not at their most recent anal sex event. Qualitative responses were thematically coded non-exclusively and associations with event-level and individual-level factors were determined quantitatively using manual backward stepwise multivariable logistic regression. Among 1,830 participants, 1,460 (79.8%) reported a recent anal sex event, during which 884 (60.6%) used condoms. Reasons for condom use included protection/safety (82.4%), norms (30.5%), and combination prevention (6.2%). Reasons for non-use were intentional (43.1%), trust (27.6%), unintentional (25.7%), and other strategies (19.6%). Event-level substance use was associated with all non-use reasons: e.g., more likely to be unintentional, less likely to be trust. Condom non-use with online-met partners was associated with more intentional and unintentional reasons and less trust reasons. Non-white and bisexual GBM were less likely to explain condom use as a norm. Participant-partner HIV status was an important predictor across most condom use and non-use reasons: e.g., sero-different partnerships were more likely to reason condom use as combination prevention and condom non-use as trust, unknown status partnerships were more likely to reason non-use as unintentional. Condom use among GBM is a multi-faceted practice, especially with increasing antiretroviral-based HIV prevention. Future interventions must adapt to changing GBM (sub-)cultures with targeted, differentiated, culturally-appropriate, and sustained interventions.

What is the impact of the Rashomon approach in primary care education?: An educational case report of implementing dialogue and improvisation into medical education

BackgroundThe excessive sub-divided or concrete pre-determined objectives found in the technological approach in contemporary medical education curricula may hinder the students’ spontaneous learning about diverse needs and values in care. However, medical professionals must learn the diversity for care or a variety of social factors of the patients influencing decision making in daily practice.MethodsWe introduced a new method of curriculum development called the Rashomon approach. For testing the Rashomon approach, educational activities to teach the diversity in primary care were developed in four modules: 1) explication of the competency without specifying sub-objectives; 2) dialogue among multiple professional students; 3) visits and interviews of the patients; 4) dialogue with teachers’ improvisation. The students’ outcomes and responses were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed.ResultsA total of 135 medical students joined this study in 2017. The descriptive data suggested that the key concepts of diversity in primary care were fully recognized and that the pre-determined general goals were achieved. Scores on the understanding of social factors in medicine, respect for other professionals, professional identity, and satisfaction with the course were very high.ConclusionInstead of the technological approach, the Rashomon approach, in which only a general goal guides educational activities was used in this research. Improvisation and dialogue fit the approach and were potentially effective activities to learn the multifaceted practice of medicine. In an era of competency-based education, the Rashomon approach could be a very useful framework in primary care education.

Roland Barthes : pour une écologie de l'écriture

Roland Barthes: For an Ecology of Writing Abstract Even if the theoretical prestige of the notion of ecology is recent, an ecological writing has already been racticed, without receiving this name, by Roland Barthes. On several occasions, progressively after Writing Degree zero (1953), Roland Barthes envisaged writing as a multifaceted practice, the most suitable for overturning the only order worth to be revolutionized, the symbolic order. We will take a fresh look at Barthes' writing as a theoretical concept in the early 1950s, along a shift that takes the term first to the name of a technique. Finally, in the mid-1970s, writing comes to be defined by Barthes as a practice that ignores the dichotomy between matter or body and mind or idea, and which arrives, in a spiral return movement, at an inclusive conception that recovers both the concept and the practice. This is where writing meets, in Barthes' work, the act that Latour calls "greening" and which he defines above all as a new relationship between facts and values. In the light of the latest research in "Barthesian studies" we would like to show that the future of "theory", if it is ecology today, lies in the practice and ecological commitment of writing, as a mediator of meaning, a tool of "charitable fiction", at the confines of spirit and matter.

A Fuzzy TOPSIS Approach to Ranking the Effectiveness of Corrective Feedback Strategies: Monolingual Persian Versus Bilingual Turkmen EFL Learners

Corrective feedback (CF) as a multifaceted practice needs to be explored from different perspectives. Achieving relative consensus among language teachers and experts in a particular context on the most effective CF strategy for monolingual and bilingual language learners appears to be understudied. As such, a fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) model was applied to accommodate varied and conflicting opinions in ranking the effect of three corrective feedback strategies including mid-focused oral metalinguistic CF, written metalinguistic CF, and oral/written metalinguistic CF. To this end, 79 monolingual Persians and 79 bilingual Turkmens aged between 13 and 18 from two language institutes in Golestan Province of Iran participated in the study comprising three experimental and one control group each. The experimental groups were provided with CF strategies on their most recurrent grammatical errors detected through pretests while the control groups received none. The results of the fuzzy TOPSIS approach ranked oral/written metalinguistic CF and oral metalinguistic CF as the best strategies for monolingual Persians and bilingual Turkmens respectively. The fuzzy TOPSIS approach provided experts with the opportunity to include their opinions on the weight of criteria and the impact of CF strategies towards enhancing the experts’ agreement on the issue. It was shown that a single CF strategy might not be appropriate for all EFL learners in different contexts. The approach also provided a framework for soliciting wider participation of the experts when conditions favor the application of multi-criteria decision-making methods, or speedier assessments are required.

Roland Barthes : pour une écologie de l'écriture

Even if the theoretical prestige of the notion of ecology is recent, an ecological writing has already been racticed, without receiving this name, by Roland Barthes. On several occasions, progressively after Writing Degree zero (1953), Roland Barthes envisaged writing as a multifaceted practice, the most suitable for overturning the only order worth to be revolutionized, the symbolic order. We will take a fresh look at Barthes' writing as a theoretical concept in the early 1950s, along a shift that takes the term first to the name of a technique. Finally, in the mid-1970s, writing comes to be defined by Barthes as a practice that ignores the dichotomy between matter or body and mind or idea, and which arrives, in a spiral return movement, at an inclusive conception that recovers both the concept and the practice. This is where writing meets, in Barthes' work, the act that Latour calls "greening" and which he defines above all as a new relationship between facts and values. In the light of the latest research in "Barthesian studies" we would like to show that the future of "theory", if it is ecology today, lies in the practice and ecological commitment of writing, as a mediator of meaning, a tool of "charitable fiction", at the confines of spirit and matter.

Literacy Teacher Educators Creating Space for Children’s Literature

This paper reports on a qualitative research study that examined how 10 literacy teacher educators (LTEs) utilized children’s literature to invite teacher trainees to critically engage with social issues, challenge their assumptions about literacy, and begin to develop the knowledge and dispositions to work alongside diverse learners (e.g., culturally, linguistically, socio-economically). The LTEs recognized that teacher trainees often entered their literacy courses with restricted conceptions of literacy and deficit assumptions about children from economically marginalized and/or culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Within their courses, the LTEs positioned literacy as a multifaceted social practice, wherein access to a variety of representational resources facilitates the active construction of knowledge and identities. The LTEs modeled instructional strategies and designed assignments that encouraged teacher trainees to use children’s literature as a means to connect with issues relevant to the lives of young learners within contemporary classrooms. This research will be of interest to LTEs who endeavor to use children’s literature as a springboard to support teacher trainees to develop a self-reflective stance and a critical cultural consciousness.