Navigating Grounded Theory:A critical and reflective response to the challenges of using grounded theory in an education PhD

This paper offers a critical reflection upon the use of a grounded theory approach within a doctoral study. As well as providing an outline of grounded theory, it begins by noting the existence of some powerful critiques of a grounded theory approach, in particular around the key concepts of ‘theory’, ‘discovery’ and ‘ground’. It is argued that, in some cases, grounded theory struggles to counter these challenges, especially in its ‘purist’ forms. However, with reference to research carried out as part of a PhD study of sharing education in Northern Ireland which employed a grounded theory approach, a case is made for an open and critical grounded theory based upon three principles: pragmatism; research as practice; and reflexivity. It is concluded that a reasonable case can be made for grounded theory where: grounded theory researchers maintain a balance between belonging to and critique of the grounded theory community; where there is an emphasis upon theorizing rather than the discovery of theory; and where the strengths of grounded theory as 'practice' and 'craft' are maximised.

Factors influencing success of clinical genome sequencing across a broad spectrum of disorders

To assess factors influencing the success of whole-genome sequencing for mainstream clinical diagnosis, we sequenced 217 individuals from 156 independent cases or families across a broad spectrum of disorders in whom previous screening had identified no pathogenic variants. We quantified the number of candidate variants identified using different strategies for variant calling, filtering, annotation and prioritization. We found that jointly calling variants across samples, filtering against both local and external databases, deploying multiple annotation tools and using familial transmission above biological plausibility contributed to accuracy. Overall, we identified disease-causing variants in 21% of cases, with the proportion increasing to 34% (23/68) for mendelian disorders and 57% (8/14) in family trios. We also discovered 32 potentially clinically actionable variants in 18 genes unrelated to the referral disorder, although only 4 were ultimately considered reportable. Our results demonstrate the value of genome sequencing for routine clinical diagnosis but also highlight many outstanding challenges.

‘Reading Aran knitting: stitches, text andinterpretation’

The densely textured surfaces of Aran knitting seem to invite interpretation. They have been ‘read’ as identity documents, family trees, references to natural and spiritual phenomena, or even maps. This paper traces the search for meaning in Aran knitting, examining how these stitch patterns have been ‘read’ in the contexts of tourism, fine art and fashion. As Jo Turney (2013:55) argues, the idea of knitted textiles as communicative media in non-literate societies ‘consigns the garments to a preindustrial era of more rural and simple times’, situating them in an imagined state of ‘stasis’. Thus the ways in which Aran stitches are ‘read’ sometimes obscure the processes through which they are ‘written’, whether in terms of individual authorship and creativity, or in terms of their manufacture. Regardless of the historical veracity of claims that particular Aran stitch patterns index features of the social, natural or spiritual worlds, analysing the ways they have been ‘read’ in the context of comparable textile traditions, other crafts which have taken on ‘heritage’ souvenir status, and Irish national identity, reveals how Aran knitting has performed broader communicative functions (see Sonja Andrew 2008), which continue to be subverted and elaborated by fine artists, and translated into couture and mass market fashion products.

Gatekeepers to the profession: recruitment to initial teacher education in the United Kingdom

We develop a framing for research on the relationship between context, process and outcomes in recruitment to the teaching profession. We do this through a ‘home international’ comparison of policies, outcomes and recruitment processes in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There is plenty of movement between these countries in the graduate labour market, but the contexts for teacher supply and demand vary in terms of: (i) scale, (ii) excess supply or demand, (iii) reliance of policy on market forces or bureaucracy and (iv) beliefs of policymakers about whether teaching is a craft or a profession. Recent changes in England and Wales have highlighted the importance of recruitment to initial teacher education (ITE as a policy issue whilst also creating further points of comparison which are useful for research. We draw on trends in data on recruitment to teaching and in-depth interviews with gatekeepers to the profession in each country.

Unsettling modernity: Shifting values and changing housing styles in the Kathmandu Valley

Abstract

Culture has always been important for the character of the cities, as have the civic and public institutions that sustain a lifestyle and provide an identity. Substantial evidence of the unique historical, urban civilisation remains within the traditional settlements in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal; manifested in houses, palaces, temples, rest houses, open spaces, festivals, rituals, customs and cultural institutions. Indigenous knowledge and practices prescribed the arrangement of houses, roads and urban spaces giving the city a distinctive physical form, character and a unique oriental nativeness. In technical sense, these societies did not have written rules for guiding development. In recent decades, the urban culture of the city has been changing with the forces of urbanisation and globalisation and the demand for new buildings and spaces. New residential design is increasingly dominated by distinctive patterns of Western suburban ideal comprising detached or semi-detached homes and high rise tower blocks. This architectural iconoclasm can be construed as a rather crude response to the indigenous culture and built form. The paper attempts to dismantle the current tension between traditional and contemporary ‘culture’ (and hence society) and housing (or built form) in the Kathmandu Valley by engaging in a discussion that cuts across space, time and meaning of architecture as we know it.

Seasons, Family and Nation in American Horror Story

Arguably, the title of American Horror Story sets out an agenda for the program: this is not just a horror story, but it is a particularly American one. This chapter examines the way that the program uses seasonal celebrations as a way of expressing that national identity, with special emphasis on the importance of family to those celebrations. The particular seasonal celebrations focused on are those of Halloween and Christmas, each of which has associations with the supernatural. However, the use of the supernatural at those seasons is one which is particularly associated with the US, presenting Halloween as a time of supernatural incursion and horror, and of disruption to society and the normal order of things, while Christmas is presented more as a time of unity for the family. Where the supernatural emerges in American Christmas television, it is typically as a force to encourage togetherness and reconciliation, rather than as a dark reminder of the past. While these interpretations of these festivals have been broadcast abroad by American cultural products, not least American television, they have different associations and implications elsewhere, as will be shown. So the particular uses of these festivals is part of what marks American Horror Story out as American, as is the way that the program's narratives have been structured to fit in with US television scheduling. This chapter, then, argues that the structures of the narratives combines with their use of the festivals of Halloween and Christmas in order to enhance the sense of this series as a particularly American horror story.

Marcas portuguesas: uma metodologia para a afirmação e avaliação dos seus impactos

O processo de criação de marcas – branding – decorre da intervenção de um diversificado número de especialistas de áreas científicas distintas como são: a da comunicação, da publicidade, do marketing e das relações públicas. O designer, apesar de ser um dos mais significantes actores no processo de construção da marca é, geralmente, relegado para o plano de fazedor das coisas esteticamente úteis. As razões deste facto podem ser encontradas neste estereótipo que constrange o entendimento sobre a vocação do designer, desvalorizando- se o seu papel de conceptualizador e não respeitando os seus argumentos. A flexibilidade do seu pensar analítico, criativo e sistémico associado à acção direccionada para a mudança leva à consideração de que o Designer é um agente multifacetado e, numa equipa, é um membro agregador de diversas sensibilidades. A síntese que opera através do desenho permite ao designer colocar-se numa posição de dinamização e, porventura, de liderança de carácter identitário. Tendo em conta o exposto o designer necessita de metodologias de apoio ao seu desempenho que lhe permitam realizar o trabalho para o qual está vocacionado. Enquadrado pela lógica sistémica da comunicação institucional, essas metodologias potenciam a observação, análise e avaliação da marca, uma vez que está focalizada na recolha das orientações dos destinatários da marca – cidadãos e consumidores. Conhecer como percepcionam a marca, qual a relação que mantêm com ela e como reagem à forma como a marca comunica é o desafio da metodologia criada. Deste modo, o designer poderá contribuir para a desconstrução dos estereótipos referidos, reforçar a sua posição no mercado de trabalho e afirmar a sua diferença face aos especialistas das áreas complementares com quem intervém. A tese que se apresenta tem por finalidade elaborar uma metodologia para a afirmação e avaliação dos impactos da marca, no sentido de conhecer as orientações de quem melhor sabe lidar com a marca - o público-alvo. E, integrar toda a informação no processo decisão que o designer protagoniza.

Trilhos na floresta: imersões criativas no âmbito do design social

O Design Social assume-se cada vez mais como ferramenta de fortalecimento social e como uma arma na luta contra a fealdade do mundo, o inútil, o disfuncional e outros aspectos da desumanização. Mas não basta só produzir produtos para as pessoas, é preciso produzir com as pessoas. Após uma intervenção institucional da Universidade de Aveiro, em parceria com a Vista Alegre, sobre responsabilidade social corporativa e uma análise do caso paradigmático da Fiskers Village, desenhámos um modelo orientador para o Design Social e definimos directivas para intervir junto da comunidade local da Serra dʼArga, em Portugal: (1) o design como método de acção (2) do local para o global, (3) que identifica, partilha e intervém (4) com a comunidade, (5) em modo sistémico e com base no ciclo de vida, (6) visando construir para a integração máxima nos ciclos da natureza. Estas directivas serviram de pano de fundo à nossa intervenção e deram origem a uma oficina que pretendeu associar design, craft e natureza. Aí foram criados produtos e serviços sustentáveis que ligam produtores e consumidores ao território, sugerem uma outra forma de ocupação do tempo, e, finalmente, ajudam a comunidade a repensar a sua vida social e a sua relação com a floresta.

Crafting Modern Design in Italy, from Post-War to Postmodernism

The years between 1945 and the early 1980s are the most celebrated in Italy’s design history. From the rhetoric of reconstruction to the postmodern provocations of the Memphis design collective, Italy’s architects played a vital role in shaping the country’s encounter with post-war modernity. Yet as often as this story has been told, it is incomplete. Craft was vital to the realisation of post-war Italian design, and an area of intense creativity in its own right, and yet has been marginalised and excluded in design historiography.

Teacher education in the United Kingdom post devolution: convergences and divergences

This paper examines the roles of research in teacher education across the four nations of the United Kingdom. Both devolution and on-going reviews of teacher education are facilitating a greater degree of cross-national divergence. England is becoming a distinct outlier, in which the locus for teacher education is moving increasingly away from Higher Education Institutions and towards an ever-growing number of school-based providers. While the idea of teaching as a research-based profession is increasingly evident in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, it seems that England, at least in respect of the political rhetoric, recent reforms and explicit definitions, is fixed on a contrastingly divergent trajectory towards the idea of teaching as a craft-based occupation, with a concomitant emphasis on a (re)turn to the practical. It is recommended that research is urgently needed to plot these divergences and to examine their consequences for teacher education, educational research and professionalism.

Emerging Technologies

This book, written when Walker was Visiting Professor at the Technical University Munich in 2011, describes his research on the effects of digital technology on architectural design and construction, and on the development of ‘digital craft’. The primary example given is The Swarm, a digitally designed and manufactured pavilion, produced with students while Walker was at TU Munich. It now stands outside the Bayerischen Architektenkammer (Bavarian Chamber of Architects) in Munich. Through such research-by-design, Walker asks larger questions: what can designers craft without a master craftsman’s skills, and how can craft skills be recovered through digital fabrication? Another example in the book is the Swoosh Pavilion, one of two public-space-scale architectural pavilion prototypes Walker developed between 2008 and 2009 at the Architectural Association (AA), using applied digital modelling and CNC techniques to investigate methods of teaching and testing digital processes through making. Swoosh (2008) and a second AA pavilion, Driftwood (2009), were discussed by Walker and Martin Self, his co-investigator, in ‘Fractal, bad hair, Swoosh and Driftwood pavilions of Intermediate Unit 2, 2006–2009’, published in the AD reader, Manufacturing the Bespoke (2012), which includes essays by well-known critics and designers such as Mathias Kohler and Michael Stacey. Both AA pavilions were sponsored by FinnForest Merk, Arup, HOK and Building Design Magazine, and were seen by large international audiences in Bedford Square, London during the 2008–9 ‘AA Projects Review’ shows. The book Making Pavilions (Walker and Self, AA Agenda No. 9, Architectural Association Press, 2011) also discusses their work over seven years of teaching at the Architectural Association. At the same time, Walker collaborated on a series of Serpentine pavilions, commissioned annually by the Serpentine Gallery, London, co-designing these experimental structures with internationally renowned architects Daniel Libeskind, Oscar Niemeyer, Toyo Ito and Alvaro Siza.

Fabric formwork – prototype to typology

When developmental vernacular practice is telescoped into industrial activity, the role played by construction workers in the honing of a craft is rapidly bypassed. An almost political act is required to maintain the contribution that the hand makes to the uniformity of result that is demanded by the standard classification of typologies of building and technique. Research into fabric formwork techniques conducted by Alan Chandler utilises the flexibility of the concrete mould to explore the meaning of the making ‘process’ and the workers’ role in relation to the formal ‘result’. Chandler’s ‘Wall One’ exemplifies the exploratory prototype and its potential for variety and the trace of the hand in making. The shift to a mass production typology involved in realising the 325,000 square-metre Heatherwick studio project in Shanghai, presented the problem of how to orchestrate the fabric into a fully industrialised process. Part of the research then became how to make the shift from play to profit - and can anything of craft survive the transition into the international development marketplace? Through managing the inherent variety available to the fabric itself, a fabric based formwork solution for realising a building at the scale of a landscape offered the Chinese form work maker the opportunity to be present within the results of a fully industrialised process – a ghost in the machine.

Chromatic Aberration

Chromatic Aberration is a film installation which explores the early technologies of colour filmmaking drawn from the archives of George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. Featuring vibrant close-ups of eyes from fledgling archival experiments in colour film, Chromatic Aberration turns the cinematic lens in on itself: from the prosthetic recording eye of the camera, to an evocation of the abstract inner screen of one's eyelids. Early 1920s colour film footage - mainly tests shots featuring members of George Eastman's family as well as Hollywood stars of the time - is shot in such a way so as to reveal the inherent chromatic fringing, distortion and misalignment. Using specialist equipment at the BFI National Archive, London, the footage is reworked through the use of extreme close-up and magnification, honing in on the eyes. The installation evokes an imagined abstract colour world, a flickering eyelid trapped in a mechanical peephole. Exhibitions: Solo exhibition as film installation at Tyneside Cinema (Newcastle, Oct-Nov 2014); Solo exhibition at George Eastman Museum (Rochester, New York, Jan-April 2015), including a second work on display. Film festivals nominations for competitions: Winner of Best Vanguard Film Competition in Lima Independiente International Film Festival (Peru). Nominations: Filmadrid festival (Spain); Curtas Vila do Conde film festival (Portugal); Festival du Nouveau Cinema (Canada); Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czech Republic ); International Film Festival Bratislava (Slovenia). Additional screenings at International Rotterdam Film Festival (Netherlands); European Media Art Festival (Germany); BFI London Film Festival (UK); Mini-retrospective screening at DIM CINEMA, The Cinematheque (Vancouver May 2015). Reviews and interviews in Artforum, The Wire Magazine, After Image, Studio International. Public lectures: with Prof. Sarah Street at Tyneside Cinema (Nov 2014); Royal Academy visiting public lecture (Nov 2014); ‘The Laughter of Things’ symposium, International Film Festival Rotterdam and Piet Zwart Institute (Jan 2015); George Eastman Museum and Rochester University (April 2015). Acquired by the George Eastman Museum for their collection.

Between the Bullet and the Hole

Between the Bullet and the Hole is a film centred on the elusive and complex effects of war on women's role in ballistic research and early computing. The film features new and archival high-speed bullet photography, schlieren and electric spark imagery, bullet sound wave imagery, forensic ballistic photography, slide rulers, punch cards, computer diagrams, and a soundtrack by Scanner. Like a frantic animation storyboard, it explores the flickering space between the frames, testing the perceptual mechanics of visual interpolation, the possibility of reading or deciphering the gap between before and after. Interpolation - the main task of the women studying ballistics in WW2 - is the construction or guessing of missing data using only two known data points. The film tries to unpack this gap, open it up to interrogation. It questions how we read, interpolate or construct the gaps between bullet and hole, perpetrator and victim, presence and absence. The project involves exchanges with specialists in this area such as the Cranfield University Forensics department, London-based Forensic Firearms consultancy, the Imperial War Museum, the ENIAC programmers project, the Smithsonian Institute, and Forensic Scientists at Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office (USA). Exhibitions: Solo exhibition at Dallas Contemporary (Texas, Jan-Mar 2016), including newly commissioned lenticular prints and a dual slide projector installation; Group exhibition the Sydney Biennale (Sydney, Mar-June 2016); UK premiere and solo retrospective screening at Whitechapel Gallery (London); forthcoming solo exhibition at Iliya Fridman Gallery (NY, Oct-Dec 2016); Film festivals and screenings: International Film Festival Rotterdam (Jan 2016); Whitechapel Gallery (London Feb 2016); Cornerhouse/Home (Manchester Nov 2016); Public lectures: Whitechapel Gallery with prof. David Alan Grier and Morgan Quaintance; Carriageworks (Sydney) Prof. Douglas Khan; Monash University (Melbourne); Gertrude Space (Melbourne). Reviews and interviews: Artforum, Studio International, Mousse Magazine.