Spaces for Solidarity and Individualism in Educational Contexts

Foreword For children and youth, as citizens in a society, being a part of educational systems means being involved in a community. Through participation in educational systems, there is important learning about the self and others, both for individual development and social solidarity. Individual development and social solidarity are interrelated. These are important values in education at all levels. Individuals are social beings and are necessarily interdependent on others. Nevertheless, individualism and social solidarity are values that sometimes can diverge and come into conflict. These values can be defined and interpreted in various ways. In a time of neo-liberalism, for example, where individual choices and rights are put at the forefront of the societal and educational discourses in many countries it is relevant to raise questions on how issues of solidarity and individualism are interpreted and negotiated in education. What kind of shape and definitions do these concepts take when schools and preschools live under the intense pressures for the accountability of educational outcomes(Biesta, 2009)? Under what conditions can values, such as solidarity and individualism, co-exist and develop in multicultural and globalized societies, without one dominating the other...

Libraries as co-working spaces : understanding user motivations and perceived barriers to social learning

This paper aims to inform design strategies for smart space technology to enhance libraries as environments for co-working and informal social learning. The focus is on understanding user motivations, behaviour, and activities in the library when there is no programmed agenda. The study analyses gathered data over five months of ethnographic research at ‘The Edge’ – a bookless library space at the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, that is explicitly dedicated to co-working, social learning, peer collaboration, and creativity around digital culture and technology. The results present five personas that embody people’s main usage patterns as well as motivations, attitudes, and perceived barriers to social learning. It appears that most users work individually or within pre-organised groups, but usually do not make new connections with co-present, unacquainted users. Based on the personas, four hybrid design dimensions are suggested to improve the library as a social interface for shared learning encounters across physical and digital spaces. The findings in this paper offer actionable knowledge for managers, decision makers, and designers of technology-enhanced library spaces and similar collaboration and co-working spaces.

The classic white formal shirt : a powerful emblem of social change

The classic white formal shirt is a widely and readily familiar object with considerable historical cultural significance to diverse social groups, and is therefore deserving of iconic status. For more than two hundred years, this singular item of apparel has been able to define and represent status, wealth, gender shifts and fashion norms. This garment, which has historically been relinquished to undergarment status, deserves an escalation of standing. The classic white formal shirt, for both men and women, can be used as a mirror to map considerable social change and the diversity of influence can be traced through many examples, including: Beau Brummell’s dandy status with his legendry white shirting; the Gibson Girl with her decorated white shirt style blouse defining ideals of female beauty; IBM business employees in the 1920s marketing trustworthiness through the uniformity of white shirts; the fictional advertising creation of the Arrow Collar Man, with his rigid white shirt, promoting American masculine ideals; and the iconic 1980s Hugo Boss style crisp white dress shirt symbolising power. The origins of the influence of the white shirt can be best traced in the Victorian era where it was an important symbol of wealth and class distinction and a powerful emblem of sobriety and uniformity for men. The pure white colour fulfilled masculine ideals of resolute austerity and the shirt, through its constancy, epitomised conformity and dependability. For women, the white cloth of the ‘shirt-waist’ from this period was also linked to ideals of cleanliness and purity and was seen as an iconic symbol of the new independent working class woman. This paper will propose that the classic white formal shirt, for both men and women, has been a powerful marker of social shifts in Western society and this underrated item of apparel, with limited scholarly writing, is worthy of iconic status. The discussion will trace the historical development of both the men’s and women’s white shirt, each with their own unique history, and in doing so highlight the considerable historical cultural significance associated with the white formal shirt. Discussed first will be the men’s white formal shirt.

Sunlight and other determinants of circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in black and white participants in a nationwide U.S. study

Circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), a marker for vitamin D status, is associated with bone health and possibly cancers and other diseases; yet, the determinants of 25(OH)D status, particularly ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure, are poorly understood. Determinants of 25(OH)D were analyzed in a subcohort of 1,500 participants of the US Radiologic Technologists (USRT) Study that included whites (n 842), blacks (n 646), and people of other races/ethnicities (n 12). Participants were recruited monthly (20082009) across age, sex, race, and ambient UVR level groups. Questionnaires addressing UVR and other exposures were generally completed within 9 days of blood collection. The relation between potential determinants and 25(OH)D levels was examined through regression analysis in a random two-thirds sample and validated in the remaining one third. In the regression model for the full study population, age, race, body mass index, some seasons, hours outdoors being physically active, and vitamin D supplement use were associated with 25(OH)D levels. In whites, generally, the same factors were explanatory. In blacks, only age and vitamin D supplement use predicted 25(OH)D concentrations. In the full population, determinants accounted for 25 of circulating 25(OH)D variability, with similar correlations for subgroups. Despite detailed data on UVR and other factors near the time of blood collection, the ability to explain 25(OH)D was modest.

Benefiting white noise in developing feedforward active noise control systems

In many applications of active noise control (ANC), an online secondary path modelling method using a white noise as a training signal is required to ensure convergence of the system. The modelling accuracy and the convergence rate increase when a white noise with larger variance is used, however larger the variance increases the residual noise, which decreases performance of the system. The proposed algorithm uses the advantages of the white noise with larger variance to model the secondary path, but the injection is stopped at the optimum point to increase performance of the system. In this approach, instead of continuous injection of the white noise, a sudden change in secondary path during the operation makes the algorithm to reactivate injection of the white noise to adjust the secondary path estimation. Comparative simulation results shown in this paper indicate effectiveness of the proposed method.

Building contemporary urban spaces of knowledge and innovation : Lessons from Australian practice

In the era of global knowledge economy, urban regions that are seeking to increase their competitive edge, become destinations for talent and investment, and provide prosperity and quality of life to their inhabitants have little chance achieving their development goals without forming effective knowledge-based urban development strategies. This paper aims to shed light on the planning and development of the knowledge-based urban development phenomenon with respect to the construction of knowledge community precincts aimed at building contemporary urban spaces of knowledge and innovation. Following to a thorough review of the literature on knowledge-based urban development, the paper undertakes policy and best practice analyses to learn from the internationally renowned Australian knowledge community precincts, from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, to better understand the dynamics of knowledge community precinct development practices. The paper provides a discussion on the study findings and recommendations for successfully establishing contemporary urban spaces of knowledge and innovation.

Book Review [White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race, by MW Hughey]

Dr Kathy A. Mills provides a critical synthesis and review of the new book by Matthew W. Hughey entitle: White Bound: Nationalists, Antiractists, and the Shared Meanings of Race, published by Standford University Press in 2012. A sample of Dr Mills' review reads: "The author positions race squarely at the center to challenge the shared assumptions of white supremacist logic on both sides of the debate. The clever thesis blurs the boundaries between “good whites” and “bad whites”, rendering the white reader intellectually stimulated, but existentially unchanged – White Bound – as the author ponders: “Perhaps we have met the enemy, and he [it] is us” (p.193)...The unanswered question that remains is: How do we resist the various “shades” of white supremacy to pursue counter-hegemonic practices?"

Australian TV news : New forms, functions, and futures

Australian TV News: New Forms, Functions, and Futures examines the changing relationships between television, politics and popular culture. Drawing extensively on qualitative audience research and industry interviews, this book demonstrates that while ‘infotainment’ and satirical programmes may not follow the journalism orthodoxy (or, in some cases, reject it outright), they nevertheless play an important role in the way everyday Australians understand what is happening in the world. This therefore throws into question some longstanding assumptions about what form TV news should take, the functions it ought to serve, and the future prospects of the fourth estate.

Prolegomenon to the study of the concepts of maturity and maturity model : from Black Horse to White Knight?

This paper takes its root in a trivial observation: management approaches are unable to provide relevant guidelines to cope with uncertainty, and trust of our modern worlds. Thus, managers are looking for reducing uncertainty through information’s supported decision-making, sustained by ex-ante rationalization. They strive to achieve best possible solution, stability, predictability, and control of “future”. Hence, they turn to a plethora of “prescriptive panaceas”, and “management fads” to bring simple solutions through best practices. However, these solutions are ineffective. They address only one part of a system (e.g. an organization) instead of the whole. They miss the interactions and interdependencies with other parts leading to “suboptimization”. Further classical cause-effects investigations and researches are not very helpful to this regard. Where do we go from there? In this conversation, we want to challenge the assumptions supporting the traditional management approaches and shed some lights on the problem of management discourse fad using the concept of maturity and maturity models in the context of temporary organizations as support for reflexion. Global economy is characterized by use and development of standards and compliance to standards as a practice is said to enable better decision-making by managers in uncertainty, control complexity, and higher performance. Amongst the plethora of standards, organizational maturity and maturity models hold a specific place due to general belief in organizational performance as dependent variable of (business) processes continuous improvement, grounded on a kind of evolutionary metaphor. Our intention is neither to offer a new “evidence based management fad” for practitioners, nor to suggest research gap to scholars. Rather, we want to open an assumption-challenging conversation with regards to main stream approaches (neo-classical economics and organization theory), turning “our eyes away from the blinding light of eternal certitude towards the refracted world of turbid finitude” (Long, 2002, p. 44) generating what Bernstein has named “Cartesian Anxiety” (Bernstein, 1983, p. 18), and revisit the conceptualization of maturity and maturity models. We rely on conventions theory and a systemic-discursive perspective. These two lenses have both information & communication and self-producing systems as common threads. Furthermore the narrative approach is well suited to explore complex way of thinking about organizational phenomena as complex systems. This approach is relevant with our object of curiosity, i.e. the concept of maturity and maturity models, as maturity models (as standards) are discourses and systems of regulations. The main contribution of this conversation is that we suggest moving from a neo-classical “theory of the game” aiming at making the complex world simpler in playing the game, to a “theory of the rules of the game”, aiming at influencing and challenging the rules of the game constitutive of maturity models – conventions, governing systems – making compatible individual calculation and social context, and possible the coordination of relationships and cooperation between agents with or potentially divergent interests and values. A second contribution is the reconceptualization of maturity as structural coupling between conventions, rather than as an independent variable leading to organizational performance.

The journey of becoming involved : the experience of participation in urban spaces by children with diverse mobility

Despite considerable discussion regarding the virtues of participation in urban spaces, the urban experience of children with disabilities has been largely ignored. This intensive study reported on the everyday experience of urban participation on the part of children with conditions such as cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, and juvenile arthritis, contributing new insights into their experience of journeys central to becoming involved in settings such as schools, neighbourhoods and shopping centres. The study identified problems in body – space – context relationships as points of intervention in our urban settings that promise to make a significant difference to their everyday journeys.

The embodied hybrid space : designing social and digital interventions to facilitate connected learning in coworking spaces

This thesis developed and evaluated strategies for social and ubiquitous computing designs that can enhance connected learning and networking opportunities for users in coworking spaces. Based on a social and a technical design intervention deployed at the State Library of Queensland, the research findings illustrate the potential of combining social, spatial and digital affordances in order to nourish peer-to-peer learning, creativity, inspiration, and innovation. The study proposes a hybrid notion of placemaking as a new way of thinking about the design of coworking and interactive learning spaces.

Stitching at the boundaries : Vietnamese garment industry workers in transnational spaces

This paper explores the interfaces between the transnational politics of labour and the experiences of Vietnamese women garment workers both in Vietnam and as migrants to other countries. As the global industries have come to organise much of the contemporary economic system, so too have they crossed national boundaries in search of cheap labour. At the same time enclaves of migrant disadvantage within the multi-ethnic nation-states of the developed world have also provided workers for the manufacture of clothing. In the case of Australia, these workers are mostly home-based and not in factories. In this paper I explore Vietnamese women's different incorporations into the garment industry in various locations – in Australia, in Vietnam, and in American Samoa. In so doing, I provide an analysis of the links between gender, global power relations and the contradictory space of transnational exchange.

The null allele of GSTM1 does not affect susceptibility to solar keratoses in the Australian white population

Solar keratoses (SKs) are induced by exposure to UV radiation and are capable of undergoing transformation to squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).1 The two main factors influencing the occurrence of SK are the sensitivity of the skin to sunlight and the total duration of solar exposure. These factors are responsible for the high incidence of SK in Australia. Although the influence of genetic factors is not defined, there is evidence that the gene encoding the enzyme, glutathione S-transferase, may be implicated in cancer predisposition and therefore SK. Glutathione S-transferase Mu-1 (GSTM1) is an isoenzyme involved in the detoxification of carcinogens. The GSTM1 protein is completely absent in approximately 50% of white persons. This absence is caused by a homozygous gene deletion on chromosome 1p resulting in a null genotype.2 Katoh3 showed that the frequency of the GSTM1 null genotype was significantly higher in 85 patients with urothelial cancer (61.2%; p < 0.05), suggesting that the null genotype may increase cancer susceptibility. This finding was supported by Lafuente et al.4 who found evidence that persons who lack the GSTM1 gene have approximately twice the chance of experiencing malignant melanoma. Further research in the United Kingdom found that patients with two or more skin tumors of different types, basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and SCC, had a significantly higher frequency of GSTM1 null genotypes than controls (71%; p = 0.033). However the GSTM1 genotype in patients with only SCC was not excessive in this population.5 Persons residing in northern Australia have the highest incidence of nonmelanoma skin cancer (SCC and BCC) in the world6 and receive far greater solar exposure than persons residing in the United Kingdom. It is possible that the GSTM1 null genotype may affect susceptibility to SK, which may act as SCC precursors, in Australians exposed to these high levels of solar radiation.

Reimagining learning spaces : A research report for the Queensland Council for Social Science Innovation

The purpose of the Reimagining Learning Spaces project was to conduct an empirical study that would result in findings to inform the design and use of physical school facilities and examine the ways in which these constructions influence pedagogy. The study focused on newly-established school libraries in Queensland, many of which had been established with funding from the Federal Government’s Building the Education Revolution economic stimulus program. To explore the field, the study sought multiple perspectives that included those of school students as well as teacher-librarians and other key school staff, addressing the following focus question: - How does the physical environment of school libraries influence pedagogic practices and learning outcomes? Further research questions that guided the inquiry included: - What are the implications for teacher-librarians when transitioning into a new library learning space? - How do members of the school community (principals, teachers, teacher-librarians and students) experience the creation of a new school library learning space? - How do school students imagine the design and use of engaging library learning spaces? An extensive review explored Australian and international literature based on the research questions, focused on the following major areas: • School library renewal: trends in reimagining the place of libraries in virtual and real space • School libraries as learning spaces: the expanded role of school libraries in whole-school pedagogical support. • The role of teacher-librarians in new times • Built environments and the implications for learning • Learners and learning in newly established spaces • Learning space design: perspectives, research and principles • Pedagogical principles and voices of experience • Transitions to newly created learning spaces Approach Using an innovative qualitative research design, Reimagining Learning Spaces investigated learner and teacher perspectives across three intersecting domains exploring: - Imagined spaces: learners’ imaginative concepts of learning within engaging learning environments; - Emerging spaces: experiences of teacher-librarians in the transition into new spaces for learning, and - Established spaces: learners’ and teachers’ perceptions of ways in which the physical environment influences and shapes pedagogy. Seven schools that had recently benefitted from the BER program became the research sites at which data were collected from teacher-librarians, teachers, school leaders and students. With this range of participants, an appropriately diverse set of data collection tools was developed, including video interviews, drawings, and focus groups. Evocative narrative case studies (Simons 2009) were developed from the data, representing the voices of users of learning spaces. Key findings The study’s findings are presented in this report and complemented by an array of visual materials on the project web site http:// The report includes: • a set of seven cases studies that reveal nuanced experiences of designing and creating school libraries, based on the narrative of key stakeholders (teacher-librarians, teachers, students and principals) • thematic discussion of student imaginings of their ideal school library, based on drawings and narrative of students at the seven case study schools • critical analysis of the case study and student imaginings, focusing on implications for (re)designing school learning spaces and pedagogy, and responding to the study’s overarching research question - .17 recommendations to support: designing, transitioning and reimagining pedagogy; leadership; and policy development

Public spaces/public disgraces : crowds and the state in contemporary Vietnam

This article argues that a semantic shift in the crowd in Vietnam over the last decade has allowed public space to become a site through which transgressive ideologies and desires may have an outlet. At a time of accelerating social change, the state has effectively delimited public criticism yet a fragile but assertive form of Vietnamese democratic practice has arisen in public space, at the margins of official society, in sites previously equated with state control. Official state functions attract only small audiences, and rather than celebrating the dominance of the party, reveal the disengagement of the populace in the party's activities. Where crowds were always a component of state (stage)-managed events, now public spaces are attracting large numbers of people for supposedly non-political activities which may become transgressive acts condemned by the regime. In support of the notion that crowding is an opening up of the possibility of more subversive political actions, the paper presents an analysis of recent crowd formations and the state's reaction to them. The analysis reveals the modalities through which popular culture has provided the public with the means to transcend the constraints of official, authorized, and legitimate codes of behaviour in public space. Changes in the use of public space, it is argued, map the sets of relations between the public and the state, making these transforming relationships visible, although fraught with contradictions and anomalies.