Historical Dialogue and Memory in Organisational Transition: the case of the Police in Northern Ireland

During Northern Ireland’s transition towards peace the role of the police as an actor in the conflict has been a key point of contention. As such, the reform of policing has been central to conflict transformation. Within this process, the role of dialogue about what policing had been and could be in the future has been vital. Such institutional post violence change processes have been hugely significant in illustrating both organisational resistance to change and the need for transitions to be powerfully manoeuvred through complex, political, organisational and cultural processes (Buchanan and Badham 1999; Pettigrew 2012). The radical and reforming nature of policing transition (Murphy 2013) has been both organisationally challenging (requiring significant transformational leadership, resourcing and external engagement from wider civic society) and politically unusual. Indeed, in a society emerging from violence the NI police are the only public sector organisation to have engaged structurally and culturally in understanding the point at which their core roles intersected with the ‘management’ of the conflict in NI generally. This paper presents an analysis of the role of historical dialogue in organisational change process, using the RUC / PSNI case. It proposes that historical dialogue is not just an external, societal process but also an internal organisational process and as such, has implications for managing institutional change in societies emerging from conflict. In doing so, it builds theoretical links between literature on conflict transformation and that on organisational memory and empirically explores messaging internal to the RUC before and during the four main periods of organisational change (Murphy 2013), with dialogue aimed at an external audience. It offers an analysis of how historical dialogue itself impacts on and is impacted by the organisational realities of change itself.

Historical Dialogue and Memory in Policing Change: the Case of the Police in Northern Ireland

This paper explores the complex relationship between organisational change and historical dialogue in transitional societies. Using the policing reform process in Northern Ireland as an example, the paper does three things: the first is to explore the ways in which policing changes were understood within the policing organisation and ‘community’ itself. The second is to make use of a processual approach, privileging the interactions of context, process and time within the analysis. Thirdly, it considers this perspective through the relatively new lens of ‘historical dialogue’: understood here as a conversation and an oscillation between the past, present and future through reflections on individual and collective memory. Through this analysis, we consider how members’ understandings of a difficult past (and their roles in it) facilitated and/or impeded the organisations change process. Drawing on a range of interviews with previous and current members of the organisation, this paper sheds new light on how institutions deal with and understand the past as they experience organisational change within the a wider societal transition from conflict to non-violence.

Truth at 24 frames a second? A working dialogue between a film-maker and a historical consultant about the making of The Enigma of Frank Ryan

We employ a practice-based methodology based on a ‘live’ film project to explore the different ways that film-makers and historians narrate the past. Through a case-study of the production and exhibition of a drama-documentary feature-film, The Enigma of Frank Ryan, on which both authors (film-maker Bell and historian McGarry) worked respectively as director and historical consultant, we explore a range of critical issues arising from our collaboration. Through a dialogue between a director and a historian, a model of good practice between historians and film-makers emerges.

Las lenguas de signos en la educación bilingüe: un enfoque plurilingüe e intercultural

El hecho bilingüe en las personas sordas siempre ha sido una capacidad manifiesta que permitía que el habla -con el grado de perfección que fuera-, la lectura labial y la lectoescritura, sirvieran de instrumentos para que las personas sordas se relacionaran con sus semejantes oyentes y formaran parte de la sociedad. Para los dominios más íntimos y personales, la mayoría de las personas sordas han utilizado, y lo siguen haciendo, las lenguas de signos.

Pathways to teacher education for intercultural communicative competence: teachers’ perceptions

Intercultural and plurilingual encounters have become increasingly frequent due to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) developments, mobility (real/ virtual) and migration. To face the challenges inherent in such encounters, the development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is crucial. ICC development may start in the home but should also be a commitment in school curricula, in particular in language classrooms. To facilitate this, language teachers require training in order to integrate the intercultural dimension into their professional practice. In such a context, we implemented a training programme entitled The Intercultural Teacher with an experimental group of language teachers from secondary schools in the Aveiro district (Portugal). In this article, we describe teachers’ social perceptions of ICC and explore the following questions: (a) what does ICC mean for language teachers?; and (b) what are teachers’ views on the development of ICC? The findings of this analysis enabled us, firstly, to design a heuristic model of ICC, based on teachers’ views and perceptions. We were then able to identify some pathways for developing ICC through teacher education, which were validated by teachers themselves.

Interação intercultural telecolaborativa em português língua não materna

No âmbito do tema Multimédia em Educação, optámos por analisar uma sequência pedagógica em Português Língua Não Materna, contextualizada em interações interculturais telecolaborativas, mediadas pela plataforma Adobe Connect Pro. Para o efeito, foram transcritas as gravações dessas interações, submetidas a análise de conteúdo com o software de abordagem qualitativa webQDA, tendo em conta as seguintes dimensões: (i) dimensão operacional das literacias digitais online; (ii) atitude perante as tecnologias online; (iii) negociação de sentido, (iii) enunciados não relacionados com o projeto; (iv) atividades reflexivas sobre a língua por parte dos aprendentes; (v) enunciados dos participantes falantes nativos em interação com os aprendentes. Após a análise e discussão de resultados, é possível afirmar que a realização de interações interculturais telecolaborativas contribui para a reformulação de conhecimentos (Lankshear e Knobel, 2006) em termos de: competência tecnológica e literacia online; perceção de como as limitações técnicas podem condicionar a realização de um projeto; tomada de consciência do desenvolvimento (e vantagens) de uma atitude 2.0; aprofundamento da competência na língua-alvo e do conhecimento de realidades culturais através da comunicação com falantes nativos. Ainda assim, reconhecemos a pertinência e urgência do desenvolvimento de um trabalho com acuidade na área da formação intercultural telecolaborativa quer no âmbito da formação de professores (inicial e contínua) quer com os alunos durante as aulas de língua.

Conversation entre didacticiens et enseignants. Quelques pistes pour éviter le dialogue de sourds

Résumé : Cet article présente les résultats d'une recherche doctorale portant, entre autres, sur les fondements épistémologiques des enseignants d'histoire et leurs représentations sociales du métier. Le noyau de la représentation sociale de l'histoire et de son enseignement, qui compte trois éléments fondamentaux (la nature du savoir historique, la finalité de l'enseignement de l'histoire et le mode d'apprentissage de l'histoire), est présenté et mis en dialogue avec les discours en didactique de l'histoire. Nous avançons l'idée que, malgré des positions épistémologiques forts éloignées, le dialogue entre spécialistes universitaires de l'enseignement de l'histoire et enseignants d'histoire au secondaire est toujours possible. Pour ce faire, la prise en compte des contenus et de l'argumentation qui soutiennent les représentations sociales des enseignants est nécessaire. De même, ceux-ci doivent s'initier au mode de production des savoirs historiques et à leur appropriation par les élèves.

Marketing social : estratégia de promoção da inclusão social e da educação intercultural

Relatório de estágio de mestrado, Ciências da Educação (Educação Intercultural), Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Educação, 2011

Resistir na escola... desafios à transformação

Dissertação de mestrado, Ciências da Educação (Especialização em Educação Intercultural), Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Educação, 2014

Os Valores sociais no plano intercultural da tradução

Na actividade tradutiva, situamo-nos num plano intercultural que cruza culturas diferenciadas, inerentes às línguas de partida e de chegada. De facto, ao traduzirmos um texto, defrontamo-nos sempre com um universo valorativo a que importa aceder, de modo a que o tradutor possa chegar a uma equivalência semântica e ideológica. É o que sucede, com especial relevância, no âmbito da tradução de textos literários, económicos e, até mesmo, científicos e técnicos. Por tal motivo, a análise dos valores presentes no discurso, que permite determinar a orientação ideológica aí inscrita, revela-se particularmente útil no plano intercultural da tradução. A sua determinação poderá ser feita, é certo, em função de vários enquadramentos mas, na nossa opinião, é a perspectiva de Oswald Ducrot, constituinte de uma Pragmática integrada na Semântica, que melhor se adequa à análise discursiva de acordo com estes objectivos. Trata-se assim de adoptar uma concepção teórica que permita abranger as duas componentes: por um lado, determinar o sentido, vector fundamental, no caso da tradução, entendido como orientação argumentativa inscrita nas estruturas linguísticas, por outro, através dos princípios de argumentação convocados, coincidentes com o recorte ideológico, aceder aos valores presentes no universo discursivo.

Intercultural awareness through. Digital storytelling

In today’s globalized world, communication students need to be capable of efficiently communicating across the globe. At ISCAP, part of the 3rd year syllabus in Translation and New Technologies course is focused on culture and the need to be culturally knowledgeable. We argue the approach to incorporate cultural aspects in HE needs to be studentcentered, in order to encompass not only intercultural awareness, but also the 21st century skills students need to be successful and competent citizens. Additionally, as studies have shown, the manipulation of digital tools fosters greater student involvement in learning activities. We have adopted Digital Storytelling - multimodal storytelling technique - to promote a personal, student-centered reflection on intercultural communication. We intend to present student and teacher perspectives on this learning experience and assess its relevance in HE contexts, based on the content analysis of student expressed perspectives on this activity as well as a multimodal analysis of the digital stories created. A preliminary analysis of our case study has demonstrated that Digital Storytelling potentiates two complimentary types of reflection: on the one hand, students felt the need to reflect on their own intercultural knowledge, create and adapt their finding in the form of a story; on the other hand, viewing others’ stories they have raised questions and demonstrated points of view otherwise ignored.