A film director’s challenge : To manage – to manage? – The creative process in a film project

The aim of this text is to discuss how it is possible to manage the art creating process in a film project, where the circumstances are often turbulent. In normative project management literature one proceeds from the idea that a project is realised in a stable world from a clear goal. In a film project there is often a need to change your plans, to improvise both in front of the camera as well as behind the camera. In the theoretical cinematic literature the responsibility for the final film text is more and more being viewed as a product of not only the director, but of the whole team’s work. Consequently, the narrative of leadership/management in a film team can be viewed from a relational perspective where the director and those s/he interacts with, are responsible for the action, relations and social situations they construe jointly in the process of filmmaking. The organization of a film project is a temporary one. The members of a team are seldom the same from one production to another, as well as the creative process always being unique. According to process thinking, organizing can be seen as the ongoing creative activity where we structure and stabilize the chaotic, moving reality. As concerns a film project, the process of becoming of the filmic expression; careful plans, on the one hand, and improvisation and flexibility in action, on the other hand, are a precondition for its realisation. The director when setting a linguistic formulation to what is to be done, can be considered as a practical author.

Saatana peilissä – 1990-luvun suomalainen saatananpalvontadiskurssi osana folklorea ja kollektiivista mielikuvamaailmaa

Tutkielman aihe on saatananpalvontadiskurssi 1990-luvun Suomessa, sen yhteydet folkloreen ja kollektiiviseen mielikuvamaailmaan (popular imagination), sekä sen rakentuminen ja leviäminen kansanomaisten asiantuntijoiden ja median avulla. Tutkielman ydinkysymykset ovat: mitä evankelikaaliseen aineistoon perustuva saatananpalvontadiskurssi sisältää, miten sitä on rakennettu ja levitetty ja miksi näin on tehty? Tutkimusaineistona ovat Pat Pullingin kirja Noidankehässä (1993), Marja-Liisa Huhdan Saatana kutsuu minua -videokasetti (1994), Riku Rinteen kirjat Syvyyden kuilusta (1994), Pimeys väistyy (1996), Varo Vihollinen! Jumalan pyörremyrsky on tulossa (1999), Keijo Ahorinnan kirja Saatananpalvonnan monet kasvot (1997), sekä lehtiartikkeleita 1990-luvulta. Tutkimuksessa käy ilmi, että evankelikaalisten toimijoiden luomia saatananpalvontatarinoita on levitetty, pidetty ajankohtaisena ja välitetty valtavirtamediaan itseoppineiden asiantuntijoiden toimesta. Kun valtavirtamedia on legitimoinut tarinat, ovat ne palautuneet evankelikaaliseen aineistoon todentuneina. Leviämistä ovat edesauttaneet evankelikaalisen aineiston ja median esittämien tarinoiden synnyttämät huhut, joiden johdosta saatananpalvontadiskurssi on alkanut elää kollektiivisessa mielikuvamaailmassa. Voidakseen levitä ja pysyä ajankohtaisina, tarinoiden tulee sisältää riittävän yksinkertaisia ja voimakkaita aineksia. Saatananpalvontadiskurssissa nämä vaatimukset toteutuvat erityisen selvästi. Saatananpalvoja on hahmona vahvasti kansanperinteen mukainen.

Assessment of student engagement among junior high school students and associations with self-esteem, burnout, and academic achievement

The aim of the study was to investigate the structure of affective and cognitive engagement using the Student Engagement Instrument (SEI; Appleton, Christenson, Kim, & Reschly, 2006) and to examine the associations to behavioral engagement, as well as student-reported self-esteem, burnout, and academic achievement among Finnish junior high school students. The analyses were carried out in the main sample of 2,485 students, as well as in an independent sample of 821 students. The results showed that the original five-factor structure of the SEI construed along three affective and two cognitive engagement factors fit the current data relatively well. Affective and cognitive student engagement correlated positively with an independent measure of behavioral engagement. Furthermore, affective and cognitive engagement were positively associated with student-reported self-esteem and academic achievement, and negatively with school burnout. The findings provided corroborating evidence for the psychometric properties and utilization of the SEI instrument for assessing the engagement of junior high school students. (DIPF/Orig.)

Navigating equality:religious young women's perceptions of gender and sexuality equality

Equality has become an important concept within secular-liberal societies (Perrons 2005), with white, secular Western women interpellated as quintessentially embodying this equality (Gill and Scharff 2011; McRobbie 2011; Nayak and Kehily 2008). For religious organizations, the interacting spaces of gender and sexuality constitute two of the most contested terrains in rights-giving, and many religions are seen as less progressive regarding equality vis-à-vis other social institutions (Plummer 2003; Tosh and Keenan 2003; Weeks2007). Young religious women have to articulate how they fit into the contours of secular-liberal equality norms as religious subjects. This chapter will focus on how young religious women living in the UK made sense of equality in the context of their religion, focusing on attitudes to gender equality and sexuality equality.

Intercultural Management

Globalization has increasingly brought permanent contact with people whose cultural background is different from what many would consider their ‘own’ culture. The area of intercultural management is of critical interest due to the impact of increased European and global migration, which has required health and social care leaders and managers to develop competency to respond to the diversity and changing needs of their workforce and service users. The communities within the European Union are now often characterised by significant diversity whether at cultural, social, or psychological levels. The purpose of this chapter is to enable health and social care practitioners to assume a clinical/ professional leadership role in quality intercultural management in the health and social care sector. This chapter will focus on developing health and social care practitioners’ knowledge and understanding in the area of intercultural management within contemporary health and social care organisations. It will focus on the critical application of knowledge to practice through the provision of underpinning knowledge, understanding and debates surrounding contemporary issues and practices in the areas of intercultural management. Many practitioners accessing this information may already work in the heath/social sector and this critical focus on intercultural and diversity management has the potential to improve the quality in health and social care services through the critical application to practice.