The Hybrid Practitioner

The practice of architecture manifests in myriad forms and engagements. Overcoming false divides, this volume frames the fertile relationship between the cultural and scholarly production of academia and the process of designing and building in the material world. It proposes the concept of the hybrid practitioner, who bridges the gap between academia and practice by considering how different aspects of architectural practice, theory, and history intersect, opening up a fascinating array of possibilities for an active engagement with the present. The book explores different, interrelated roles for practicing architects and researchers, from the reproductive activities of teaching, consulting and publishing, through the reflective activities of drawing and writing, to the practice of building. The notion of the hybrid practitioner will appeal strongly to students, teachers and architectural practitioners as part of a multifaceted professional environment. By connecting academic interests with those of the professional realm, The Hybrid Practitioner addresses a wider readership embracing landscape design, art theory and aesthetics, European history, and the history and sociology of professions.

Pedagogical and Personal Experiences Motivating Indigenous Students to Pursue Medical Studies

When it comes to accessibility to healthcare and medical education, inequalities prevail within ethnically diverse populations, especially among Indigenous Peoples. The main objective of this qualitative study was to explore how Indigenous female medical students’ motivations played a role in their pursuit of a medical career. We use the Self-Determination theory to frame this study and conduct individual open-ended interviews with four female Indigenous students’ regarding their motivational sources for applying to medical school. We provide an illustrative scenario for each identified motivational source through a thematic analysis. Results revealed two main sources of motivations: (Jones et al., Acad Med, 2019, 94 (4), 512–519) pedagogical experiences (i.e., contextual factors at school, academic interests, and opportunities) and (Sloof et al., Med Educ, 2021, 55 (5), 653) personal experiences (i.e., family support and influence, and future career prospects). Indigenous students’ personal experiences were more prevalent and described autonomous forms of motivations, whereas sources of motivation that were pedagogically oriented reflected more controlled forms of motivations. Different types of motivations can be useful, but not sufficient for the tipping point when the time comes for medical school applications. Learning about specialized Indigenous streams for admissions played the most influential role in students’ decision-making to pursue medical studies. Promoting the visibility of the Indigenous stream coupled with the identification of different forms of motivation could be informative when outlining evidence-based recommendations with the aim of improving inequalities within the health professions.

Incongruent Impressions: Teacher, Parent, and Student Perceptions of Two Black Boys’ School Experiences

For many Black boys, poor academic performance and high rates of school discipline are often related to biases in how they are perceived and treated at school. These biases oftentimes misalign with how Black boys view themselves and how family members perceive them at home. Few studies examine how different stakeholders’ perceptions of Black boys manifest and shape the middle school experience. The current study employed an embedded case study design, using data from eight semi-structured interviews to explore incongruence among student, teacher, and parent perceptions of two middle school Black boys’ academic and social experiences. Findings showed greater congruence between the boys’ experiences and their parents’ perceptions of them compared to their teachers’ perceptions of them. Of note were teachers’ inaccurate reports of the boys’ career aspirations and academic interests and abilities. Implications of these patterns and their impact on Black boys’ experiences in school are discussed.

Disruptive Innovation: Beyond Media Convergence in Content Production

The inception of television in the late 1930s marked the beginning of a global phenomenon, where until now it continues to have a major impact on advertising, news, radio, film, and the world. Television and other traditional media inevitably enter periods of transformation, thanks to the digital evolution in information and communication technology. The advent of the Internet-based technologies has created a perfect storm that pushes the emergence of new media. For television or other traditional media to remain relevant, media convergence becomes one of the solutions. This process absolutely affects the content production as the method and format used for traditional media are no longer suitable. To better understand the situation and determine other solutions, the term disruptive innovation highlighted through a series of industrial revolutions is adopted. The latter is a concept that has gained considerable currency among practitioners. Using the literature research method, this study reviews the findings in the media that result from disruptive innovation and address the inevitable convergence in content production. It then summarizes the literature into three areas: 1.) the aspects of the traditional media and new media; 2.) the concept and context of disruptive innovation, media convergence, and content production; and 3.) the relationship between disruptive innovation and media convergence in content production. Simultaneously, it presents the advantages and disadvantages of the discussed topic and finally highlights the limitations that serve as a platform for potential innovations and further guided and explorative research in the future while invigorating academic interests.

Felix Semenovich Voroysky: The 90-th anniversary

The article is dedicated to the 90-th anniversary of Felix S. Voroysky, Candidate of Science in Engineering, Professor, pedagogue, naval officer, retired captain II rank, and an outstanding expert in library and information automation (1931–2008). His life stages, including his service in the navy, jobs in research institutes, information organizations and libraries, participation in library consortia and their projects of corporate e-catalogs and e-libraries, as well as his pedagogical activities, are discussed. The whole spectrum of his academic interests is reflected in 272 publications with many of them still popular after the years gone and are read when training library specialists in structure and technologies of library and information processes. Felix S. Voroysky served on the organizing committees of the largest professional international forums “Crimea” and “LIBCOM” also chairing the section “Automated and corporate library systems and technologies”.

Linguists and language workers

In this paper, I address two connected topics: firstly, the relationships between linguists working in academia and language professionals, such as communication managers and consultants, in other sectors; and secondly, how a strong emphasis on knowledge exchange and impact in British higher education policy has led to increased collaboration between academic and non-academic language workers, but also to a realignment of traditional academic values with the interests of practitioners. The investigation is partly based on published reflections – mostly by linguists – on collaborating with (language) professionals in other sectors, and partly on insights from 13 interviews with language workers in consulting, communications and campaigning. The interviews are manually analysed for thematic categories and, where relevant, for pragmatic meanings in the context of the interview situation and conversational interaction. Findings suggest conflicts around registers and timescales, along with concerns over data and the relevance of academic interests. Crucially, language professionals show little concern about collaborating with academics, leading to an imbalance in interests. I supplement the evidence with personal observations on the opportunities and obstacles that are present when straddling academic and non-academic work, as well as with a discussion of how a unidirectional realignment of values changes the nature of academic work.

Itineraries of an Anthropologist Studies in Honour of Massimo Raveri

This volume is a Festschrift in honour of Massimo Raveri, Honorary Professor of Japanese Religions at the Department of Asian and North-African Studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. This wide-ranging collection features essays that pay homage to his extensive academic interests and his interdisciplinary approach to the study of classical and contemporary Japanese religions. It is a tribute by friends and colleagues wishing to express their esteem and affection towards a scholar who, over the course of his long career, has shared many research experiences with them, in a spirit of unfailing support and collaboration.

Educating People for Good

As one of the important ways to promote charity culture, philanthropy education is gaining increasing attention. This mixed-method study compared students' learning outcomes before and after participating in a "Charity Knowledge Program" course. The study explored the effectiveness of the general education of philanthropy by analyzing quantitative survey data and qualitative data of students' responses to open-ended questions. The findings showed that the "Charity Knowledge Program" significantly increased average scores of students' social need awareness and academic interests; however, it had no significant effects on the scores of students' social responsibility commitment and future philanthropic activity intentions.

Teaching Literature/Studying Literature in Literary Pedagogy and Literary Theory

Literary studies, in its two sides: teaching literature and studying literature, have suffered from a split in the profession between literary pedagogy and literary theories. A survey of the experience of some famous scholars who have tackled this issue in their writings is conducted to pinpoint the neglect in the part of people specialized in literary studies of the practical side of their work. Two points of convergence between literary pedagogy and literary theory are discussed. The first one presented two cases in which literary pedagogy was highly influenced by the ideas of two major shifts in critical theory: the formalist tendency of New Criticism and the reader-oriented tendency of the reader response approach. The second one discussed the efforts of the American educationalist and theorist Louise Rosenblatt in providing a theory of reading literary works in the light of what takes place in literature classrooms. The conclusions derived from this discussion lead to recommendations concerning the importance of making teaching of literature one of the academic interests and student preparation in departments of literature.