Rethinking adult education for active participatory citizenship and resistance in Europe

2019 ◽  
pp. 225-238
Author(s):  
George K. Zarifis
Keyword(s):  
Adult Education ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
European Research ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
Learning Contexts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Participatory Citizenship ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Initial Focus

Based on the preliminary results of the European research project EduMAP the chapter discusses the widely recognised yet weakened position of active participatory citizenship and its role in the current debate on the responsibility of adult education as a medium for empowerment and emancipation from prioritised neo-liberal values. The initial focus is on the various problems faced by adult education in Europe. Adult education as a means to achieve active participatory citizenship is then discussed suggesting that it is important to examine the educational implications of relevant theories and practices on citizenship. The paper concludes by suggesting that the current discussion on the challenges European societies face today, must acknowledge the need for adult education to be reformulated in ways that are enriched by diversity and the wide range of learning contexts and communicative practices that pose new challenges.

scholarly journals Active Citizenship Programmes for Unemployed Young Adults with Low Skills in Southern Europe: Participation, Outreach, and Barriers

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-35
Author(s):  
George K. Zarifis
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Adult Education ◽  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
Active Citizenship ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
European Research ◽  
Value System ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Early School ◽  
Participatory Citizenship

AbstractThe development of policies and targeted initiatives that promote or support active participatory citizenship for vulnerable young adults with low skills has largely passed unnoticed in Southern Europe in the last decade. Despite the existing lifelong learning (LLL) strategies, most countries in the area do not place active citizenship for low-skilled young adults as a priority. This chapter is based on the results of the European research project EduMAP (Horizon 2020), and focuses on participation of unemployed young adults with low skills (hence early school-leavers) in educational activities that either focus or promote active citizenship in Southern Europe (Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Italy, Spain and Portugal). More specifically the chapter explains the reasons behind low participation rates among vulnerable young adults in the region. South European countries are not yet showing any favourable conditions for increasing participation of the low-skilled unemployed young adults in such programmes. Some of the countries that were hit by economic depression in particular, face –not necessarily for the same reasons– major barriers for implementing policies to increase the number of low-skilled young adults in active citizenship oriented courses. The chapter concludes that one of the problems in promoting active citizenship through adult education activities is that the programmes delivered in the region are still not competence-based. Adult education is not high in the value system, and therefore low skilled young adults do not appear motivated to obtain such skills and competences. A key challenge therefore is to deliver a service that simultaneously meets the needs of the learners, provides sufficient responses to the needs of the local societies, and stimulates further demand.

scholarly journals Programi aktivnog građanstva za nezaposlene niskokvalifcirane mlađe odrasle osobe u južnoj Evropi: Učešće, dometi i prepreke

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1 2021) ◽  
pp. 129-151
Author(s):  
George K. Zarifis
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Adult Education ◽  
Active Citizenship ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
European Research ◽  
Participation Rates ◽  
Value System ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Early School ◽  
Participatory Citizenship

The development of policies and targeted initiatives that promote or supportactive participatory citizenship for vulnerable young adults with low skills has largely passed unnoticed in Southern Europe in the last decade. Despite the existing lifelonglearning (LLL) strategies, most countries in the area do not place active citizenship forlow-skilled young adults as a priority. This article is based on the results of the European research project EduMAP (Horizon 2020), and focuses on participation of unemployed young adults with low skills (hence early school-leavers) in educational activities that either focus or promote active citizenship in Southern Europe (Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Italy, Spain and Portugal). More specifcally the article explains the reasons behind low participation rates among vulnerable young adults in the region. South European countries are not yet showing any favourable conditions for increasing participation of the low-skilled unemployed young adults in such programmes. Some of the countries that were hit by economic depression in particular, face –not necessarily for the same reasons– major barriers for implementing policies to increase the number of low-skilled young adults in active citizenship oriented courses. The article concludes that one of the problems in promoting active citizenship through adult education activities is that the programmes delivered in the region are still not competence-based. Adult education is not high in the value system, and therefore low skilled young adults do not appear motivated to obtain such skills and competences. A key challenge therefore is to deliver a service that simultaneously meets the needs of the learners, provides sufcient responses to the needs of the local societies, and stimulates further demand.

25 years of ESCOM: Achievements and challenges

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Sloboda ◽  
Jane Ginsborg
Keyword(s):  
Music Therapy ◽  
Population Size ◽  
Computational Modelling ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Learning Preferences ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Initial Focus

This reflection on the first 25 years of ESCOM’s activities is in two parts. In the first part we analyse the country and discipline spread of contributors to its journal Musicae Scientiae and its formal membership. In the second we address the choice of “cognitive sciences of music” as the initial focus of both Society and journal by comparing the topics of early meetings and publications with those that are current now. Journal contributors and members are both concentrated in a small number of countries. When corrected for population size, the countries with the highest levels of activity are, in order: Finland, Estonia, UK, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria. This has not changed substantially over the duration of ESCOM’s existence. In contrast, there have been significant changes in the disciplinary spread of contributions, psychology becoming increasingly popular in recent years to the near exclusion of some other disciplinary approaches including ethnomusicology, computational modelling and theoretical musicology. Current topics include performance and composition, emotion, musical development, perception, music therapy and well-being, music learning, preferences, cognition, and neuropsychological approaches. An early aspiration of the Society was that the wide range of disciplines represented by the cognitive sciences of music might eventually converge, but this has proved difficult to achieve. An increasing convergence on the use of English as its normative language, however, has provided ESCOM with both new challenges and some opportunities.

The call to Hawaii: Holistic practitioners’ perspectives of their communicative practices of healing

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Geist-Martin ◽  
Catherine Becker ◽  
Summer Carnett ◽  
Katherine Slauta
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Healing Process ◽  
Holistic Health ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Interviews ◽  
Health Care Practices ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Care Practices ◽  
Holistic Health Care ◽  
Mutual Action

The big island of Hawaii has been named the healing island – a place with varied interpretations of healing, health, and a wide range of holistic health care practices. This research explores the perspectives of holistic providers about the communicative practices they believe are central to their interactions with patients. Intensive ethnographic interviews with 20 individuals revealed that they perceive their communication with clients as centered on four practices, specifically: (a) reciprocity – a mutual action or exchange in which both the practitioner and patient are equal partners in the healing process; (b) responsibility – the idea that, ultimately, people must heal themselves; (c) forgiveness – the notion that healing cannot progress if a person holds the burden of anger and pain; and (d) balance – the idea that it is possible to bring like and unlike things together in unity and harmony. The narratives revealed providers’ ontological assumptions about mind-body systems and the rationalities they seek to resist in their conversations with patients.

Consortium of European Research Libraries 2008: New Challenges

2009 ◽  
pp. 80-84
Author(s):  
Nailya F. Verbina ◽  
Andrei C. Masevich
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
International Research ◽  
Book History ◽  
Bibliographic Database ◽  
European Research ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
International Research Institute ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
History Of Culture

On the activities of one of the most significant international organizations connected with research of book history - Consortium of European Research Libraries. The creation of a bibliographic database of the printed book from 1452 to 1830, which was supposed to collect materials from libraries of Europe, was the goal of Consortium since the beginning of its foundation. The authors of the article write that today the activities of the Consortium is much broader, it turns into international research institute on the history of culture.

The Fragmented Mind

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Implicit Attitudes ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Belief State ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship

Mental fragmentation is the thesis that the mind is fragmented, or compartmentalized. Roughly, this means that an agent’s overall belief state is divided into several sub-states—fragments. These fragments need not make for a consistent and deductively closed belief system. The thesis of mental fragmentation became popular through the work of philosophers like Christopher Cherniak, David Lewis, and Robert Stalnaker in the 1980s. Recently, it has attracted great attention again. This volume is the first collection of essays devoted to the topic of mental fragmentation. It features important new contributions by leading experts in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and philosophy of language. Opening with an accessible Introduction providing a systematic overview of the current debate, the fourteen essays cover a wide range of issues: foundational issues and motivations for fragmentation, the rationality or irrationality of fragmentation, fragmentation’s role in language, the relationship between fragmentation and mental files, and the implications of fragmentation for the analysis of implicit attitudes.

Interaction Online

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Clandfield ◽  
Jill Hadfield
Keyword(s):  
Language Teaching ◽  
Online Interaction ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Valuable Resource ◽  
Instant Message ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Learning Contexts ◽  
Teaching Interaction ◽  
Wide Range

This book is for teachers interested in incorporating interaction online into their teaching. Interaction Online is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to incorporate an aspect of online interaction in their language teaching. It is relevant for use with online, blended or face-to-face courses and appropriate for a wide range of teachers and learning contexts. This handbook contains over 75 tried and tested activities, the majority of which can be carried out either synchronously or asynchronously. Activities are purposeful and foster interaction between and among learners and instructors, rather than between learner and machine, and make use of generic tools and applications, such as discussion forums, instant message services and Facebook.

scholarly journals A political ecology of transdisciplinary research

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 500
Author(s):  
Hali Healy
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Transdisciplinary Research ◽  
European Research ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Sustainability Problems ◽  
Science In Society

Transdisciplinary research (TDR) is widely regarded as a promising, and even essential, means of addressing complex sustainability problems, whilst delivering beneficial outcomes for scientists and the non-academic actors with whom they engage. Premised on the 'ecological modernisation' of Europe, regional funding for TDR under Framework Programmes such as FP7 and more recently Horizon 2020 have sought to support academic engagement with a wide range of research stakeholders through calls for transdisciplinary research  in order to better address Europe's "grand societal challenges" (EC 2013). This article, based on doctoral research, consists of an ex-post study of three European Union funded transdisciplinary projects (CREPE, EJOLT and GAP2) implemented under the Seventh Framework's (2007-2013) Science in Society program. Its focus is on how issues of power and governance permeate TDR projects, giving rise to tensions, challenges and ultimately struggles over the very meaning of official projects and their outcomes, despite the most egalitarian of intentions and underlying principles of mutual benefit. These tensions, this article argues, should be understood not merely as cultural, methodological or cognitive challenges, but as essentially political conflicts that manifest and flow across multiple scales. In light of these inherent challenges, the article argues that TDR is always conducted on a terrain of political ecology, and concludes by making recommendations for potential collaborators, as well as for European research policy makers, with the objective of enabling participants and funders alike to realise the transformative potential of this promising mode of research.<p><strong>Keywords</strong>: Political ecology of transdisciplinary research, power, governance, Science in Society, European research agenda, agro-ecology, environmental justice, fisheries          </p>

Water Diplomacy — The New Modus Operandi of EU Diplomacy? Innovative Methods in Diplomatic Practice

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Eliška Tomalová ◽  
Eliška Ullrichová
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Dimensional Approach ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Innovative Methods ◽  
Science Diplomacy ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Water Diplomacy ◽  
Scientific Expertise

Summary This article explores how EU water diplomacy can enrich the current debate on science diplomacy, primarily in the science in diplomacy category. It aims to contribute to the debate on diplomatic instruments and their innovative elements. It focuses on new practices in the field of water diplomacy, including (1) the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders in the diplomatic process from an early stage, (2) a multi-dimensional approach, and (3) multidisciplinary science-based diplomacy. More generally, the article identifies and conceptualises particular diplomatic methods, (1) the internalisation of scientific expertise, (2) cross-cutting lexical understanding across diplomatic agendas, and (3) pluri-disciplinarity, which facilitates the interconnection of science and diplomacy within a diplomatic framework. It thus addresses the commonly acknowledged challenge of interaction between scientists and diplomats and shows that analysis of diplomatic methods may bring more clarity to the peripheral or often neglected science in diplomacy category of science diplomacy.

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