Sociocultural Concepts Research Articles

Alaska's community development quota program: A complex institution affecting rural communities in disparate ways

The Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) program created six regional CDQ groups, each of which were given fisheries quota to manage on behalf of qualifying rural Alaskan communities. Since its inception in the 1990s, the program has created dozens of jobs and millions of dollars' worth of revenue and is widely considered an example of successful community development. However, in mixed economies like those of the rural Alaskan villages covered by the CDQ program, economic metrics often fail to capture changes in non-economic factors of critical importance to residents. To address this lacuna, we examined how CDQ has influenced community well-being in four communities associated with four different CDQ groups. Interviews and focus groups in these communities indicated that CDQ's influence on well-being varied greatly. In some communities, CDQ increased local autonomy and, hence, well-being. In other communities, residents felt disenfranchised; control of their resources rested in urban board rooms to which they struggled to gain access. These findings indicate that power dynamics built into the design of the CDQ program have important ramifications for community well-being and that future development programs in fisheries management could benefit from better understandings of socio-cultural concepts such as well-being, in both program design and assessment stages.

Caring for solidarity? The intimate politics of grandmother childcare and neoliberal conservatism in urban Turkey

AbstractThe number of grandmothers who provide regular care for their grandchildren and do housework for their daughters or daughters-in-law is increasing in Turkey. While perpetuating traditional gender roles for themselves as a surrogate daughter, wife, or daughter-in-law, these women nonetheless enable younger women to distance themselves from obligatory care work at home. The sociocultural concepts of kinship ties, economic need, or love for grandchildren do not fully explain why grandmothers assume the role of caregiver for their grandchildren. Drawing on interviews with 25 grandmothers from middle-class families in urban Turkey, this article shows, first, that these women’s gendered subjectivity is formed by both habitual and intentional actions that defying the oppression and resistance duality within patriarchal Turkish society. Second, in dialogue with the scholarship on the “classic patriarchal bargain”1and feminist analyses of neoliberal social policy, the article suggests that these grandmothers’ inarticulate desire to live in solidarity with the younger generation of women may be turned into a government instrument in the context of Turkey’s increasingly family-centered neoliberal social policy environment.

REFRAMING IDENTITIES IN THE MOVE: A TALE OF EMPOWERMENT, AGENCY AND AUTONOMY

ABSTRACT Transnational movements raised by globalization to a status of normality, let alone to absolute necessity, have reshaped the world and social practices (VERTOVEC, 2007; WEI & HUA, 2013). As a social practice, language dimension acquires a renewed importance in the way people use and consume languages functioning as an agent in the exercise of social and political power. Language ideologies, whether individual or socioculturally constructed, may be a source of empowerment or, conversely, disempowerment, forging asymmetries in the way people consume languages. Thus, the pursuit of autonomy in language learning with the combination of its technical, psychological, sociocultural and political dimensions constitutes a space for (inter)personal emancipation and social transformation. Our theoretical framework emphasizes the collective aspects of learner autonomy, based on the sociocultural autonomy concept (OXFORD, 2003). Drawing on Bakhtin's (1929/2006;1981) and Vygotsky's (1991) contributions used as groundwork for research in learner autonomy and in consonance with ideas of fluid and hybrid identities (HALL, 1992; BAUMAN, 2005; MOITA LOPES, 2006), this paper discusses agency, empowerment and identity through sociocultural autonomy development in multicultural environments. This chapter, then, is an attempt to show issues of empowerment, autonomy and agency being processed across real-life social language practices. Its findings and results come from two research projects conducted by the authors in two different contexts but related to the same research interest. Both projects aimed to analyze language learning autonomy, agency and empowerment in the continuous process of learners (re)constructing their identities, while learning a second language. Data generation was based on interviews with two speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and learners of English as an additional language, while taking part in exchange programs for international mobility - one of them in the U.S and another one in Australia. Results show that both participants seem to reframe their multiple identities, so that they can adapt and readapt themselves to the new communities of practice (COP), in which they have emerged. Factors like agency, empowerment and sociocultural autonomy seem to be essential and decisive in this process of reframing identities.

Medieval mad science: Depicting scientists in HBO’s Game of Thrones

With its medieval-styled sword and sorcery, Game of Thrones hardly presents a narrative world where we would expect to find science or scientists. Yet science plays a prominent role in the high-fantasy narrative and at the centre of this is Qyburn, a scientist figure worth detailed consideration. Using the perennial sociocultural concept of the mad scientist as the starting point, this article examines how the morally complex world of Game of Thrones presents science as dangerous yet essential to the boundary breaking necessary for the creation of new medical and technical knowledge.

Learning and professional acculturation through work: Examining the clinical learning environment through the sociocultural lens

Purpose: We examined studies of the clinical learning environment from the fields of sociology and organizational culture to (i) offer insight into how workplace culture has informed research on postgraduate trainee learning and professional development; (ii) highlight limitations of the literature; and (iii) suggest practical ways to apply sociocultural concepts to challenges in the learning environment.Materials and methods: Concepts were explored by participants at a consensus conference in October 2018.Results: We identified three enduring foci for research using a sociocultural lens: the hidden curriculum, exploration of medical errors, and the impact of time pressures on the relational nature of clinical education. Limitations included the lower value attributed to informal learning and a pejorative valuation of the hidden curriculum; and disconnect between practices in clinical settings and the priorities of the larger organization.Conclusions: Research on the learning environment using a sociocultural lens suggest workplace goals, norms and practices determined which learners engage in learning-relevant activities, to what extent, and the degree of guidance provided, with these factors creating “tacit” curricula that may support or compete with formal learning goals. We close with guidance on how sociocultural constructs could inform research to improve the learning environment.

Lesson study and teachers’ beliefs

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show, from a theoretical perspective, how lesson study (LS) can initiate processes that have an effect on most fundamental teachers’ (and teacher–students’) personal beliefs which are the basis of a teacher’ interactions. On the basis of research referring to educational beliefs and good practice, the paper’s approach is to bring underlying beliefs into relation to Pierre Bourdieu’s sociocultural concept of the habitus. Awareness of these unconscious fundamentals is a requirement for improvement. Developing a professional habitus will allow inappropriate beliefs to be changed by informed knowledge. LS can support that.Design/methodology/approachThis is a theoretical paper aiming at illustrating the potential of LS to initiate learning and reflection among teachers, and challenge and ultimately affect deep ranging beliefs. Guided by the idea that beliefs are not only a random collection acquired in a biography, the paper applies the Bourdieuian idea of habitus and field, suggesting habitus as the origin and source of beliefs and, therefore, ultimately of classroom practice. The paper defines LS as a tool in teacher education that has the potential to make teachers change inappropriate concepts by reflecting on their habitus and develop a more professional habitus.FindingsResearch agrees that teachers’ decisions and actions are strongly rooted in their unconscious beliefs, which have accumulated during their biographies, especially during their own school days whereas informed knowledge is neglected. The Bourdieuian theory of habitus is a heuristic concept that provides an integrative social perspective on beliefs as both a part and a result of a teacher’s habitus. Reflection on practice and teacher cooperation is essential for teacher learning. LS is an ideal setting providing these essentials, and the paper finds that the negative effects of habitus-rooted unconscious beliefs and practices can be affected by developing awareness through LS.Originality/valueThis paper aims at bringing together Bourdieu’s sociocultural theory of habitus and field, and LS. Inappropriate beliefs guiding practice can hinder informed knowledge on education to be integrated. An analysis of the habitus as the foundation of beliefs can create awareness of the effects resulting from biographical and social sources in both pre- and in-service teacher training. Rather than changing single beliefs, developing a professional habitus allows to integrate informed knowledge and affect a lasting change. The Bourdieuian approach opens up a new perspective of the capacity of LS and makes a relevant contribution in developing a professional habitus.

З історії футурологічних соціокультурних та політичних концепцій міжнародних відносин

З історії футурологічних соціокультурних та політичних концепцій міжнародних відносин

Croatian and Russian phraseology through the lens of gender

In Croatian phraseology, until recently, there has not been a systematic research of gender elements in idioms. Gender has remained almost entirely outside the scope of research interest of Croatian phraseologists. In order to fill this gap in the linguistic study of gender, extensive research was conducted into gender-marked idioms, which is presented in this paper. The research included gender-marked idioms of the Croatian language in comparison with Russian idioms as an attempt to show how gender stereotypes appear on the phraseological level in Croatian and Russian and how the concepts of MASCULINITY and FEMININITY are formed in the two languages by using phraseological mechanisms. The results of the research have shown how gender is generally conceptualized as a socio-cultural category and how the concepts of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are created on established images and stereotypes inherent in the phraseology of these two related languages and cultures that use them. Furthermore, the research has confirmed the assumption of the dominant similarity between the conceptualization of ‘woman’ and ‘man’ in the Croatian and Russian androcentric oriented culture as reflected in phraseology and has shown insignificant differences, conditioned by specific national and cultural stereotypes and the established notions of the gender roles among individuals of both sexes.

СОЦИАЛЬНЫЕ ДЕТЕРМИНАНТЫ ВНУТРИЛИЧНОСТНОГО КОНФЛИКТА В ТРУДАХ КАРЕН ХОРНИ

Цель. Данная статья посвящена теоретическому обзору трудов Карен Хорни. В работе рассматривается проблема внутриличностного конфликта с позиций социокультурной концепции. В предложенной статье раскрывается специфика возникновения, протекания и разрешения внутренних противоречий личности, которая была выявлена К. Хорни.Метод или методология проведения работы. Главными методами предложенной работы является теоретический анализ, синтез и обобщение основных положений теории личности К. Хорни.Результаты. В качестве результатов теоретического анализа выступают выводы о факторах и механизмах возникновения внутренних конфликтов личности.Область применения результатов. Обращение к трудам Карен Хорни позволяет сформировать теоретические основы дальнейшего эмпирического исследования проблемы внутриличностного конфликта личности в современном контексте.

Benjamin’s ‘flâneur’ and serial murder: An ultra-realist literary case study of Levi Bellfield

This article seeks to develop criminological theory with the application of a literary device known as the ‘flâneur’ – an individual described as a ‘stroller’ – to serial murderer Levi Bellfield. With this application of the ‘flâneur’ to the phenomenon of serial murder, this article provides a fresh theoretical ‘lens’, and specifically sheds light on how particular serial murderers operate and evade detection in modern society. The importance of modernity to the phenomenon of serial murder is also considered utilizing Ultra-Realist theory, resulting in both a micro and macro examination into how the modern urban landscape has subsequently created an environment in which the serial killer both operates and comes to fruition. This synthesis between the application of literary devices, criminological theory and socio-cultural concepts not only raises important and previously neglected questions pertaining to serial murder, but also assists in forming the more sinister relative of the flâneur: the ‘dark flâneur’.

Political rhetoric and discursive framing of national identity in Croatia’s commemorative culture

Abstract The topic of this paper is framing of collective, national identities in commemorative speeches. It identifies abstract conceptions of Croatian national identity articulated by political elites during commemorative practices and examines what patterns are used for their linguistic expression. The questions that are posed are how Croatian nation and national identity are framed in discourse and whether constructs of national identity are formed depending on the context and on the party political affiliation of the speaker. However, the aim is also to track potential changes in elite narratives over time. The analysis is based on a corpus of commemorative speeches delivered by Croatia’s political elites on the occasion of celebration of the Croatian army victory in a military operation. The main focus is on the conceptual and linguistic analysis of the collective identities and sociocultural concepts in the staged communication during commemoration rituals.

Religious Commitment and Empathic Concern

Abstract There is very extensive literature on whether and how religiosity and empathy are related. Such research shows very different results, with some finding a positive influence while others seeing no influence. This paper presents research conducted on German youth (N=2157) regarding the question of how young people score on empathic concern and which concepts function as predictors. Therefore, different concepts on religious commitment are included, and in order to properly assess the meaning of religiosity in the social context of young people, socio-cultural concepts and socio-demographic characteristics are similarly included. The findings show that around two thirds of the respondents score positive or very positive on empathic concern, and that empathic concern correlates with both religious and socio-cultural concepts. Our regression analysis shows that among religious concepts the centrality of religiosity has the strongest influence (β=.220) and among the socio-religious concepts the students’ support for multiculturalism is the strongest factor (β=.195). Admittedly, the beta of sex is even higher, as being female shows the strongest influence on empathic concern (β=.265).

Learning to fall forward

PurposeConnected learning is a framework of learning principles that centers on fostering educational equity through leveraging social technologies and networking practices to connect students with opportunities, people and resources in communities within and beyond their classroom walls (Ito et al., 2013). The framework has been adopted and developed in K-12 education by teachers in professional development networks and introduced to some teacher education programs through these networks. Practitioners of connected learning frequently refer to the need for “courage” to develop and introduce connected learning-based practices in their classrooms. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the authors investigate “courage” through a sociocultural lens in the case studies of six educators in a teacher education course on connected learning. The study examines the social contexts and activities that fostered acts of courage during their 14-week course.FindingsThe authors found that personal reflection on freedom and equity, two ethical concepts raised by the connected learning framework, seeded acts of courage. The acts of courage appeared as small acts that built upon themselves toward a larger goal that related to the participants’ ethical ideals. Three types of social activity contexts helped to nurture these acts: seeking models of possibility, mediated reinvention and “wobbling.”Research limitations/implicationsThis study helps to uncover some of the questions that connected learning scholars and practitioners have about why courage is so central, and how to cultivate courageous acts of pedagogical change.Practical implicationsThe theoretical framework used in this study, courage from a sociocultural perspective, may serve to help scholars and teacher educators to shape their research and program designs.Social implicationsThis study offers insights into patterns of networked teacher-led educational change and the social contexts that support school-level impacts of out-of-school professional networking.Originality/valueUsing a sociocultural conception of courage to investigate connected learning in teacher education, this study demonstrates how equity and freedom, central values in the connected learning framework, serve as key concepts driving teachers’ risk-taking, innovation and change.

PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTION OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION BEING A PART OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIO-CULTURAL SPACE: ON THE WAY TO INCLUSIVE CULTURE

The relevance of the presented research is conditioned by the need to comprehend modern sociocultural tendencies, both global and European ones, which find a very different response in the Russian society. It’s a fact that the current changes in the gender policy of the United States and the EU countries are not only rejected by Russian scientists, but are also defined as a crisis of traditional values ​​associated with deviation from the human civilization cultural development vector. Here we note that the tendencies towards androgyny / gender erosion, stimulated by the patterns of global culture which are rapidly spreading all around the world are perceived in the same way. Nevertheless, the Russian socio-cultural development does not go beyond global processes, since the country is among those world communities, among which the attitude to social and cultural otherness is perceived as a complex but an unequivocally considered problem within the framework of humanistic morality. Thus, in Russia, first of all, it is about respecting human rights and strengthening the value of humanity, ethical rules and norms of treating people with limited health opportunities. Accordingly, speaking about changing the social attitude to other / Different people as a process of an inclusive culture emerging in Russia should proceed from the fact that people with disabilities fall into the circle of people deserving special attention from all citizens. The aim of the study is to understand various aspects of incorporating inclusive education in the Russian system of sociocultural coordinates in the context of overcoming the social discrimination and creating a subsystem of opportunities for the self-realization of all people without exception, including those with limited health opportunities. This work was carried out with the help of socio-cultural analysis, expanded by the possibilities of cultural philosophical reflection. This approach allowed not only to disclose all the problems and prospects for the formation of a system of inclusive education in modern Russia, but also to answer a number of questions related to understanding the significance of achieving unity in diversity both in the context of the formation of an inclusive culture and in the context of harmonization of social relations. The paper analyzes the trends of a special type of educational paradigm being formed in Russia. This paradigm is based on the humanistic values ​​of partnership and openness, which allows everyone, regardless of personality, to be meaningful both for himself and for the world as a whole. Various approaches to the phenomenon of inclusion as a new socio-cultural concept have been considered. The analysis of avalanche changes in the geography of Russian specialists dealing with the problems of inclusive education in the last two decades is presented. Conclusions of the research show that there is small but unique experience in Russia, the experience of including children with disabilities into a single educational space. All the studies of this topic are very kaleidoscopic today, and therefore they require a serious scientific-methodological and cultural philosophical justification. The lack of experience, of proven methods for working in an inclusive educational space, and the unwillingness of a sufficiently large number of educators to take responsibility for finding ways to solve complex problems arising in the process of work, responsibility for the results of this work with the problems of bringing these ideas of inclusion to practice have been revealed today.

Mutated Masculinities: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the New Lad and the New Man in Sons of Anarchy and Ray Donovan

There has been a recent influx of popular U.S. television dramas depicting heteronormative but emotionally conflicted male protagonists. This article examines discursive constructions of hegemonic masculinity in two of these dramas, Sons of Anarchy (2008-2014) and Ray Donovan (2013-), in terms of the socio-cultural concepts of the New Lad and the New Man. It questions whether these discursive tools are useful for analyses of contemporary, male-focalized television, or whether they need updating. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, I argue that protagonists from both programs embody mutated, destabilized versions of the New Lad and the New Man that connect to a current U.S. “crisis of masculinity.” Offering timely conceptual updates of the New Lad and the New Man (the “Family-Oriented New Lad” and the “Emotionally Inarticulate New Man”), I show that these terms remain useful, but also need revision to capture the intricate struggle between inexpressiveness and emotionality characterizing present-day U.S. dramas.

PRINCIPLES AND SOCIO-CULTURAL CONCEPTS OF BODY-VALUE EDUCATION IN PRESCHOOL AGE CHILDREN: PHYSICAL, MORAL AND AESTHETIC LEARNING

The article describes and analyzes the key laws and principles of social and cultural values of the concept of body-education of preschool children in interaction with the physical, moral and aesthetic education. It is noted that in today's conditions of development of preschool education, it is necessary to take into account the multilateral social demands and requirements, interests and needs of different groups of the population, special regularities and principles of physical and value education of children of preschool age. The purpose of this article is to determine the theoretical substantiation of the laws and principles of the socio-cultural concept of physical and value education of preschool children in cooperation with physical, moral and aesthetic education. The analysis allowed to reveal the theoretical and methodological foundations of the socio-cultural concept of physical and value education of preschool children in interaction with physical, moral and aesthetic education through the elucidation of the theoretical foundations of the laws and principles of the above system. Different thoughts are presented by both domestic and foreign scientists who were engaged in solving the problem of key regularities and principles of the sociocultural concept of physical and value education of preschool age children in interaction with physical, moral and aesthetic upbringing. It is proved that the disclosure of theoretical and methodological principles of the socio-cultural concept of physical and value education of preschool age children in interaction with physical, moral and aesthetic education requires first of all the elucidation of the theoretical foundations of the principles and principles of the system of physical and value education of preschoolers. It is suggested that the implementation of the principles of the system of physical and value education of preschool children in cooperation with physical, moral and aesthetic education yields positive results only when they are used in a harmonious combination. It is concluded that the main task of a preschool institution is to introduce an effective system of physical and value education of preschool children in conjunction with physical, moral and aesthetic education, which will promote the growth of a child's conscious, patriotically minded, spiritually developed personality. The detailed consideration of the issue of the principles and principles of the socio-cultural concept of the physical and value education of preschool children in cooperation with physical, moral and aesthetic education has become the basis for determining the criteria for the formation of the value relation of the child to his own physicality.

A translanguaging view of the linguistic system of bilinguals

AbstractTwo conceptions of the linguistic system of bilinguals are in contention. Thetranslanguagingapproach supports what we call aunitaryview, arguing that bilingualism and multilingualism, despite their importance as sociocultural concepts, have no correspondence in a dual or multiple linguistic system. In our view, the myriad lexical and structural features mastered by bilinguals occupy a cognitive terrain that is not fenced off into anything like the two areas suggested by the two socially named languages. But a strong critique of this view by Jeff MacSwan adopts the familiar position that, while allowing for some overlap, the competence of bilinguals involves language specific internal differentiation. According to this view, which we have called thedual correspondence theory, bilinguals possess two separate linguistic systems whose boundaries coincide with those of the two named languages. Several interdisciplinary considerations point to the lack of initial plausibility of the dual correspondence theory. And the main argument offered by MacSwan in defense of the theory, namely restrictions on code switching, lacks descriptive adequacy and theoretical coherence. The dual correspondence theory has had pernicious effects in educational practices. A much healthier educational climate is created by teachers who adopt the unitary view sponsored by translanguaging.

Taxonomies of psychological individual differences: biological perspectives on millennia-long challenges.

This Editorial highlights a unique focus of this theme issue on the biological perspectives in deriving psychological taxonomies coming from neurochemistry, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, genetics, psychiatry, developmental and comparative psychology-as contrasted to more common discussions of socio-cultural concepts (personality) and methods (lexical approach). It points out the importance of the distinction between temperament and personality for studies in human and animal differential psychophysiology, psychiatry and psycho-pharmacology, sport and animal practices during the past century. It also highlights the inability of common statistical methods to handle nonlinear, feedback, contingent, dynamical and multi-level relationships between psychophysiological systems of consistent psychological traits discussed in this theme issue.This article is part of the theme issue 'Diverse perspectives on diversity: multi-disciplinary approaches to taxonomies of individual differences'.

Теоретико-методологическое обоснование педагогики физической культуры (социально-культурный подход)

The traditional idea of physical culture as a separate independent area of universal human culture and an element of general education of the younger generation requires a rethinking based on the socio-cultural concept of personal development (A.G.Asmolov, L.S. Vygotsky, E.I.Isaev, V.I. Slobodchikov, etc.). In particular, this applies to the use of defi nitions and concepts of the socio-cultural concept of health forming education (Yu.V.Naumenko) in substantiating the theoretical and methodological foundations of the pedagogy of physical culture. Based on the author’s interpretation of the pedagogical essence of socio-cultural phenomena “health” and “healthy lifestyle”, a new pedagogical content of the socio-cultural phenomenon “physical culture” and its constituent components is substantiated. The object, the subject and the functions of the teachers of physical culture as a section of general pedagogy are substantiated. In accordance with the socio-cultural approach to the examination of pedagogical defi nitions and concepts, the tasks of teaching physical culture and the upbringing of physical culture and the results of this training and education are specifi ed, and also the category “individual physical culture” is introduced, which, without denying the biological, actualizes the personal and semantic component socio-cultural phenomenon “physical culture”. For the fi rst time, the necessity of using several means in education in the fi eld of physical culture (motor physical activity and the decision of life-affi rming situations) is justifi ed. Theoretical and methodological judgments, stated by the author, can serve as the basis for designing a fundamentally new socio-cultural concept of the pedagogy of physical culture, and also have a signifi cant impact on the content of education in the field of physical culture.

Nurturing Medical Professionalism in the Surgical Community

Introduction: The teaching of professionalism worldwide is changing for effectiveness. Our aim was to explore the reflection of the surgical teaching community in a Kenyan context on how professionalism can be effectively inculcated through the socio-cultural concept of activity theory.Methods: A sequential mixed-methods study was conducted among clinicians and students within the surgical community of the University of Nairobi from March to December 2014. . Individual interviews and focusgroup- discussions were conducted using grounded theory methods. A survey of the resultant views was performed through a pre-determined questionnaire which utilized a 4-point Likert scale for response ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. Factor analysis was used to analyze the responses to the survey. Internal reliability was determined by Cronbach’s α.Results: Four themes emerged from the interviews; change of values, regulation, enabling environment and formal curriculum. In the survey, the participants strongly agreed with strengthening mentorship (77.5%) and a teaching facility (74.7%) with a rewarding or recognition (69.5%). The reliability test of the items showed a Cronbach’s α of 0.827.Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the participants would like to see a different and transforming path in inculcating professionalism through changing values and enabling environment among others.Key words: Nurturing, Medical professionalism, Surgical community